JOURNEY TO THE MIDNIGHT SUN
James Sheldon
LOVE CONQUERS ALL
Book 1 of 3
Chapter 19
With the bodies of the canines sent into the river, the family backtracked to the sled. Due to the steep incline of the riverbank, the sled was left unhooked and the packsaddle removed. John then went about the hairy business of taking Ellie up the bank. Rope was then used to pull the sled up via the giant’s great strength. The packsaddle and its box-packs were brought up by hand. There was no shortage of hard work. The family burned up precious energy and daylight, neither of which they could afford to lose. For faithful though they be, they were also keenly aware of nature’s indifference.
At last with everything moved to the forest trail, the humans and their animals got a much needed reprieve from the wind. John tied Ellie to a tree and only untied her after the sled and packsaddle were secured. And having untied her, he dared not leave her, for the path ahead was laden with wolf tracks and the scent of the predators had the giant in a state manageable only by an experienced horseman. So it was, he calmed and steadied her while Mia and Laureal loaded the twins. Jessie and Emma secured remaining items to the sled, and Cody stood guard with the rifle.
As the women finished up, John thought of how the winter season, usually a time of plenty for wolves, had been just the opposite. The long Indian summer meant the less-than-perfectly healthy animals, the ones that normally wore down during long winter months, had instead remained healthy and thus capable of escaping the jaws of their predators. In the knowledge of this, and having seen their desperation firsthand, it was easy for John to surmise that, come tomorrow, the wolves might be that much more desperate.
When the women had finished, John looked to Jessie, “Ellie and I will be close behind you.”
“I can lead her,” said Cody. “That way you’ll be free to man the rifle.”
“I know you can, Cody. And under normal circumstances you would but, if the wolves try to come in on us, I’m the only one that can control her.”
Sophie poked her head out from the side of the giant, “Are you sure you can control her?” her little face stricken with worry.
“Yes, I’m sure.”
“That’s what you said about the ice, and you almost got us all killed.”
John put his hands on his hips, his lips pursed tight, his eyes vexed.
Sophie pressed the issue, “We wouldn’t be in this mess if you hadn’t gone so far out on the ice.”
“Well, maybe you’re right,” acquiescing even as he addressed her like a child, “I’ll try and be more careful next time.”
Sophie’s little face contorted and, turning to her mother, she began to weep, “Mommy, I want to go home.”
As Mia came forward, Noah spoke to his sister from within the confines of their own little world, there inside the buffalo cloak, “You better not complain. You’ll get a whippin’.”
Mia spoke from below, “Sophie, we are going home. We’re going to our summer home.”
“That’s not what I mean and you know it!” weeping all the louder.
Mia pushed her hood back, “Sophie, this is no time for fussing, and you know it!”
“You’re gonna get a whippin’,” Noah cautioned.
Taking the footstool from the sled, Emma got up and looked into the hooded opening, that she may be eye to eye with the distraught child.
“Sophie, I’m afraid same as you. It’s only natural that we are afraid. Our fear can keep us alive but, it can also hurt us, and we have to know which is which. You are too young to know but I am old and have seen many things. And right now, I know it is not okay to give up and run away. Do you know why that is?”
“No,” sobbing.
“Of course you don’t and that’s okay. I would not expect you to, but you can trust me when I tell you that, in time, you will be glad we did not turn and run.”
“I just want to go home,” weeping.
“Sophie,” somewhat firmly, “there are times when we have to face our fear. I know you want to rebuild our family. You want to because you love us, and you don’t want to see us sad. And guess what? The wolves are the ones running home, not us. So, you are going to quiet down and be brave. Otherwise, the wolves will hear you fretting and crying and that will encourage them to turn around and come back on us, and I know you don’t want to be the cause of that…do you?”
Fighting back tears, Sophie shook her little head.
Gently squeezing the child’s shoulder, Emma spoke in a reassuring tone, “Everything will be okay Sophie, you’ll see. And you’ll be happy we stuck it out.” Then turning to Noah, “Little man, you take good care of your sister for me, okay?”
“I’ll take care of her,” Noah said, taking Sophie’s hand in his, just as earnest as could be, having listened to Emmy’s every word. The Matriarch then got down and put the stool back on the sled.
“Okay John…as you were saying?”
Looking dire, John used a hand signal to bring everyone to the front. Then speaking lowly so the children would not hear, “If the wolves come, I cannot guarantee that I will be able to hold Ellie. I should be able to, but, I cannot guarantee it.”
Even as he stood strong, John shook his head apologetically, “Things might not go well.”
Emma was first to speak, “I think we all understand, there’s no safe plan right now.”
“Could we put Noah and Sophie on the sled?” asked Mia.
“We could, with some rearranging,” John replied. “It’d slow us down, but worse, the sled would still be attached to the giant and they might be thrown off in an attack.”
Visibly upset, Mia gazed into space, uncertain of what to say or do.
Laureal put her hand on her cousin’s shoulder, “We have to go.”
Mia only nodded.
Laureal turned her eyes to John.
John turned to Cody in knowledge that the boy, although only thirteen, had proven himself highly capable with the rifle, “Bring up the rear and stay close. And when I say close, I mean not more than a pace behind! Wolves like to approach their prey from behind, so that will be your soul focus. If you see them, say so, and we’ll continue moving as long as they keep their distance. If they get to dogging us, trying to get us in a panic, we'll keep our cool. And when they get within range, we’ll hit em with a volley of arrows.”
“Laureal and Mia,” John continued, “keep the sled upright same as always. Keep your spears within reach and your bows and quivers on your back. Emma, continue to do as you have, alternating between standing on the platform and walking behind it. Keep the dogs tethered to the back of the sled. Do not cut them loose unless you absolutely must.”
“They’re injured,” Cody put in.
“You’ll be right there with them. If either of them falter, call a halt and we’ll make room for them on the sled, somehow. But Cody, the dogs are not your concern. Your grandmother can keep an eye on them. You, are our rear guard!”
Cody only nodded, his expression telling of a mind in high gear.
As they took their positions, Jessie remained at the front with John, her face a picture of worry, “John, I should take the rear guard position.”
“No,” firmly, “we need you on point.”
“John, that’s my little boy back there.”
“Boy or not,” keeping his voice low, “he’s the best shot we got. And he’ll have Laureal and Mia backing him with arrows and spears.”
There was nothing more that could be done, save to go forward. John stepped out to look back around Ellie’s massive body, “Are we ready?”
“Yes!” Laureal replied, gently stamping her feet in the cold, her every exhale an icy cloud of steam.
At once their pace was all business, for all knew a defendable position must be reached before nightfall. And although the day had turned bright without a cloud in the sky, the sun cast tree shadows like the hands of natural clocks to warn the travelers: Long shadows meant time was short. On the bright side, the river path would not go dark as quickly as the rest of the forest, thanks to the great clearing created by the river to the west which allowed the sunlight in to lighten an otherwise dark situation.
The methodic sound of the clan’s progress made for something of a marching cadence with Ellie crushing snow beneath her mighty weight, the sled runners cutting through snow, and the humans treading like a chorus. The children were mostly silent, occasionally speaking lowly between themselves, as did the adults. The dogs kept up. The forest, being solid trees to the north, did a fair job of blocking the wind. All seemed to be going well when from up ahead, there came a bone chilling cry—
“ARH-WOOOOOOOOO!”
Jessie, despite a life lived in the wild, appeared pierced through and through.
“Keep moving,” John said quietly.
“That came from the Nith!” looking back at him.
At once the cry was answered by another, roughly the same distance ahead. Unmistakable in tone, anguish in its rawest form, unfiltered by any intellect that might dilute it with words. The second cry was answered by a third and a fourth. The wolf prince was dead. And that such grieving could come from the bosoms of beasts seemed impossible, “ARH-WOOOOOOOOO!”
Astonished, Jessie shot a look over her shoulder.
John acknowledged with a solitary nod even as he kept his focus on Ellie, lest the giant lose her cool, “Easy, girl. You're safe with me. I’ll protect you.”
The cries only elevated Ellie’s fear level. For however sorrowful they be, they came from a predator so deadly and ancient, it had its own dwelling in the very instinct of her species. The giant would have run away if only her master would let her. But he would not let her, and therefore, she did as good horses do when upset. She went towards danger in spring-loaded steps just as fast as John would allow. And that being the case, the family picked up their pace and made good time
Arriving at a fork in the trail, Jessie gestured to the path that turned away from the river. “We normally take this path,” she explained to John. “It goes around the Nith. Stays well clear of it before coming back to the river on the far side.” Then, with grim countenance she turned to the other path, an animal trail dominated by wolf tracks, “That, goes into the Nith.”
Laureal came forward at John's request and together with Jessie the two women used spears and hatchets to knock snow from low branches and, when necessary, remove them so the family might make their way into the Nith.
The wolves had fallen quiet for better or worse. And looking through an opening in the trees, John noted out loud how the wind yet swept the river but, having chased the clouds away, might soon abate. The path there began a mild upward incline while, in lowlands across the river, the sun hovered over the forest, not a summer sun, not a large orange globe but a small white orb shining like a diamond above a landscape clad in ice and snow.
Straight away the family came to the remains of what had once been a large concrete bridge. Centuries of floods had swept everything away except the east abutment. And looking across the river, a floodplain of shrub trees and bogs lie where the towers of the business district had stood. The towers had fallen victim to the river after Gardiner Dam failed in the first century of abandonment, followed by a thousand years of repeated floods. Very little of anything remained above the silt.
The east side of the river told a different story. There, on rolling heights above shoreline bluffs, a group of structures survived on account of their elevation and stone construction. A clutch of lonely skeletons, they were all that remained of the University of Saskatchewan’s original buildings, constructed during the gothic revival of the Victorian Era. Made of granite, marble, and limestone, they crowned the heights in the cast of medieval castles and monasteries, complete with lance shaped arches and castle-like ramparts.
Standing before the ruins, Laureal turned to John and, without words, shared her feeling in a single look. Feelings of wonderment, mixed with a tinge of fear. Never before had Laureal seen such structures up close. Never before had she seen such haunting beauty. For just there amid the evergreens, the ruins stood aglow in those brief moments when the sun’s final light has no angle but flows parallel to the earth like water, flowing under snow laden eves, illuminating marble framed doorways and windows where shadowy voids appeared all that remained of a mysterious past.
Hearing her name, Jessie looked back to see John nodding to an opening between a pair of walls. “There,” was all the horseman added. The rest was self-explanatory. The ground between the two structures lie flat like a causeway leading into the university. The passage wide enough for a party of humans with horse and sled. And so it was that they veered into the ruin.
As curiosity got the better of her, Laureal unconsciously went ahead of her mother. And having passed between adjacent walls to round a corner, she looked into an opening the size of a small sports field with a prominent wall along its north end.
“This is perfect,” said she as Jessie came alongside.
Lesser walls in various states of ruin stood here and there on the east and west peripheries. Fallen stones lie strewn about individually or in piles of rubble, not rugged but smoothed by the centuries into grassy mounds presently covered with snow. Only a few trees grew in the opening. As would be found in a glade, ample grass lay under the snow. And very importantly, the family would have both a defendable position and excellent protection from the wind.
Taking stock of the family, Emma read their faces and postures. And seeing great hope even as only a pittance of their strength remained, she called them into a prayer circle to give thanks and ask for protection.
Immediately thereafter, their weary eyes were drawn to where the gentle heights dropped to the river below. For just there amid the evergreens, a row of windows in a crumbling wall, backlit by sunset and intermixed with snow laden boughs, appeared as natural portals to a realm of heavenly light.
“The Creator has sent us a sign,” Jessie uttered. Her voice, softened by exhaustion, gave her elation a beauty all its own.
“He has heard our prayer,” Emma seconded.
Together they beheld that which, at least to them, seemed a sign from heaven. It lasted but a few fleeting moments. Then, as it faded to darkness, Emma brought her eyes about slowly, as if expecting to spy an incubus or two lurking in the shadows of the Nith.
John grinned and tiredly laughed to himself.
Laureal scowled at him, albeit only mildly.
Mia, young mother that she be, appeared relieved perhaps more than any other, “The Great Spirit has delivered us.”
The Matriarch assigned work tasks while John took basket and chisel to fetch water from the river, not for the humans but for Ellie. The giant could eat snow and in fact horses in the wild often did, but having worked all day, Ellie needed a solid shot of water. At least five gallons all at once, and she was too big to easily negotiate the snowy bluffs.
Meanwhile in camp, precautions were taken that the twins be well guarded and, with the exception of John, no one went off alone to gather firewood or spruce boughs. It took more time but the tent went up in relatively good order. The campfire grew large and, in turn, illuminated a portion of limestone wall directly behind their camp, making it glow dull orange, ever changing in hue, pulsing this way and that as if to keep a beat with the dancing flames. The wounded dogs were tended to and, having eaten well, scratched out their beds and fell asleep. The family sat together around the fire, filling their stomachs with hot food, their faces illuminated by firelight. No one spoke much except for a few words paying tribute to Chewy. And still, despite everything, they traded looks with a little something extra in their eyes. They were alive, and it was good. The giant, having satisfied her hunger as best her strength would allow, laid down to sleep. Smoke from the fire rose straight up to vanish seemingly in the ink of outer space. The Milky Way shone like a glittering brush stroke across the sky. The night air, although cold, seemed the very essence of purity in the nostrils and lungs. No guard was posted besides the dogs but, with fire well stoked, the weary travelers crawled into their tent where nothing felt so good as the earth they lay on. Within minutes, all were deep asleep.
