TWENTY-ONE
Reaching over, I laid some sticks on the coals. Then I lay back and waited for a little warmth to come into the cave. It was very cold, and it would be cold and still outside, a time for extreme care if a man would survive.
How long the cold would stay with us I could not guess, but we would need meat. We had given some to Gomez when he left, and seventeen people can eat a lot. Keokotah knew cold weather, for his experience was from a country far to the north. My only experience with cold had been a couple of brief forays into the north when I was a boy and some time spent in the high mountains.
No game would be moving in this cold. Bears would be hibernating, or at least sleeping in their dens. To find game I would simply have to stumble upon it. In the deep snow I had an advantage.
Several days before I had cut some willow wands from beside the stream and had kept them close to the fire to thaw out. Now I took one of these and bent it slowly and carefully into a rough circle and tied it. Then I tied rawhide strips across the circle and soon had shaped a couple of crude but very useful snowshoes of the bear-paw type. Later I would make better shoes, when there was time.
Taking them to the cave mouth I tied them on. Then taking my bow I started out, moving with care and where the going was easiest.
Every step needed to be taken with caution. An injured man in intense cold has small chance of survival. Rocks and fallen logs are apt to be slippery, so were best avoided. My chances of finding game were slight, but there was a patch of forest across the valley, several miles away, where we had not hunted. Deer would be bedded down in deep snow. My only chance was to startle one and make the kill before it could escape.
It was very still. The snow squeaked underfoot. I took my time, knowing that to perspire might mean to die. Perspiration can, when a man stops traveling, freeze into a thin film of ice next the skin. When I had gone about a mile I stopped in the shelter of three massive ponderosa pines, studying the terrain ahead and scanning the open area between the entrance to the valley and myself.
Soon I started on again, and when I reached the forest I stood still, looking all about me for places where deer might bed down. In good weather they preferred to be under some trees with a good view before them, but now they would have thought only of shelter from the wind.
Being alone I had no one to watch for the telltale white spots on nose or cheekbones that are the first signs of frostbite, so I covered my nose with my mittened hand. My face was stiff and raw from the cold. After a bit I moved deeper into the forest, stepping with care.
Several times I checked what experience told me were likely places for deer, but found nothing. After resting briefly, I started on. There were occasional bird tracks on the snow and once a flurry of tiny tracks and a few spots of blood. A weasel or a marten had caught some poor creature.
The morning slipped away and the afternoon began. Soon I must return if I were to make it before dark.
Swinging wide I skirted a patch of aspen, remembering how well many animals liked the aspen or the plants that grew in its shelter. The trees were bare of leaves and from a distance looked like a cloud lying upon the mountainside. The dry branches whispered in the slight wind. I turned toward an opening between aspen and scrub oak, and started forward.
The elk came off the ground almost under my feet, lunging erect, snow falling from it. It lowered its antlers at me but then thought the better of it and started away.
My bow came up, the arrow in place. I let fly. It was not the target I would have chosen but there was no time. The arrow caught it in the neck, close behind the ear, and sank deep. The elk stopped, quivered, then fell. I ran forward, feeling for my knife.
Yet as I stepped astride the elk it came up in one last lunge, came up under me so I was astride, and it sprang forward. One hand grabbed an antler, another plunged the knife. It glanced off a shoulder bone and almost stabbed my thigh, but the second thrust went home solidly. I need not have bothered, for the poor beast was dead. It fell under me and I sprang free. My bad leg folded under me and I went into the snow.
For a moment I just lay there. Then slowly I gathered myself, retrieved my bow and knife, and set about skinning the elk, getting the best cuts of meat before it froze solid.
By the time I had finished it was dark. I gathered the meat in the elk hide and then got back into my snowshoes, which I had removed for the skinning, and started back. Emerging from the woods I looked across the valley at what was now only a dark line of trees and mountains without division or feature.
For some time I had traveled in the forest, intent only on finding game, but how far west had I hunted? Before me was only a wide field of snow, and beyond was the blackness of forest and mountain. The caves were right across that field, but my burden was heavy, the snow was deep, and it was bitterly cold. If I missed my direction by but a few yards I might wander half the night finding my way. I might die out here in the cold. How cold it was I did not know, but it was far, far below freezing.
Bowed beneath the great load of meat I started across the wide stretch of snow, angling a little toward the east. I blew on my fingers. I took a step and then another, plodding slowly and carefully because of the crude snowshoes.
A wind stirred the snow. It blew a little, ceased, then started again. Snow picked up and blew in a brief flurry. I knew I would see no light unless someone happened to come outside, a slight chance at this hour.
I needed at least an hour to cross the open snow with the burden I had. Icy snow rattled against my clothing and nipped at my cheeks. I stopped, thrust my bow into the snow, and beat my hands against my legs to restore circulation.
Something black appeared on the snow just ahead of me. I stared, it moved—a wolf!
Where there was one there would be another, and another.
Without a doubt they had smelled the meat and the fresh blood. And these were wolves with little knowledge of man aside from Indians, and my smell would be different. I pushed on, walking straight at the wolf.
It wavered, hesitated, and then fled off a dozen yards further. Under the great burden of meat from the butchered elk I could move but slowly, ponderously. Pausing at the edge of the woods I sniffed the air. I should catch a smell of woodsmoke.
Nothing.
Should I bed down right where I was? Build my own fire and prepare to defend my meat against the wolves?
But if I did not return, Keokotah or some of the others might come out to look for me. The Natchee were unfamiliar with intense cold, and some might be lost. Turning clumsily to look behind me, I saw a wolf crouched in the snow not fifty feet away!
Gesturing with my bow, I tried to warn it away, but the lure of fresh meat was too great. The wolf ran off only a few feet and stopped.
To move at all I had to keep from under the branches, because of my towering burden. Also, I wished to avoid snagging my snowshoes on a branch or root under the snow.
Where was I? The cave might be only a few yards distant, but I had no idea where or in what direction to turn. Again I gestured at the wolf.
Wolf?
There were two of them together now, watching me. They sensed something was wrong.
The stream! If I could find the stream … it had to be close. I shifted the weight of meat. I was carrying enough for three men, but to leave it in the snow would be to leave it for the wolves, and how many times would I make such a kill? Hunched far over, I worked my way along the wall of the forest, seeking an opening.