“Careen, help me.” The clueless redhead squatted down with me and we rolled him into the bag, zipping it up. I shone the torch up at the rock formation, searching for a cave entrance, a hole, anything. My heart fell when the only opening I could see was three meters off the ground.
One mournful, long note sounded off, not far away.
“We have to get him up there,” I said, pointing with my torch, tracking the seam of rock where snow had settled. It zigzagged upwards to the entrance, showing us a way up. It was only a foot and a half wide but it would have to do. Careen nodded and we started to drag him towards the base of the cliff.
Pietre wasn’t a huge man but unconscious, and not giving us any help at all, it was like he weighed three-hundred kilos. We pushed, pulled, and heaved until we’d dragged him halfway up the cliff. Resting on the ledge for a second, I thought my arms might actually twist and fall off if I tugged on them hard enough. My lungs burned from the cold, my legs strained as we tried to roll him up and over the next ledge, his whole dead weight crushing us both.
He woke up and started cursing and wriggling, his unaware antics sending him sliding down the ledge and on top of us. My heart buckled at the idea we would have to start all over again. Without thinking, I grabbed his broken leg to stop him from slipping all the way back down. I clamped down on it hard, wrapping both my arms around him while pinning my front to the rocks’ surface. My muscles pulsed, ticking involuntarily. He shrieked and then, silence. Thank God. He passed out from the pain, but then we were back to dead weight.
I don’t know how we did it. It was a blur of pain and pressure. The wolves were approaching—the air was stripping my lungs. But we got him up there. We pushed him up over the ledge and into the cave like a sack of potatoes. We watched as he rolled over a few times, deep into the cave like a loose one, and came to a stop, nestled awkwardly around a boulder. I stood at the edge, shining my torch down over the side of the rock, shaking my head in disbelief. What we just did was impossible. The rocks petered down towards the ground with barely a foot of outcropping to cling to. I’ll never understand how we did it.
Careen rolled and then arranged Pietre at the back of the cave. She laid out some food, one stunner, and filled his water bottle with fresh snow. We piled both our sleeping bags on top of him and stood to look out of the entrance. She put her arm around me and pulled me close. I turned to face her and hugged her fiercely. Her body initially stiffened but gradually relaxed.
“If we can do that, we can do anything,” I cried. Tears streamed down my face. It was so hard, more physically testing than anything I’d ever done. And the worst was yet to come. How would we survive this? Especially without Pietre.
“That’s good,” she said into my hair, her hand resting on my shoulder, “because now we have to outrun wolves.”
The new plan. Well, the only plan, was to leave Pietre in the cave and run all the way to the edge of the town. We’d left our sleeping bags with Pietre and removed anything inessential so we weren’t weighed down. We didn’t even take water bottles—we would rely on snow. Careen was going to run east a kilometer or so and kill something, hopefully something big, to distract the wolves. Then she would run back to the cave and we would set out together.
We would have to travel in daylight, which was risky, but we weren’t going to be able to camp, which meant we weren’t going to be able to sleep. Panic deserted me at this time. It should have strangled me, but I don’t know, the fact we were facing death, just pulled everything into sharp focus. We had to do it. We had no choice. We would run and we would take our chances.
Squatting in the cave waiting for Careen was agonizing. I felt ready to spring—to run. I ate what little my stomach could handle and drank some water. I stretched my legs and checked back on Pietre every now and then. When he woke up, he would be in terrible pain and I was thankful I wouldn’t be around to see his scowling face when he did open his eyes. Looking at him now, he seemed peaceful except for the bulging bruise on his temple.
I heard a rustling in the trees and snapped my head back around to its origin. Pale hands pulled through the branches, covered with snow-iced leaves. Careen.
She climbed up to the cave entrance. She explained that she’d managed to kill an elk and carve it up crudely so she could deposit bits of it around in the trees. I shuddered and then I laughed. Careen looked at me like she thought I was going crazy.
“You all right?” she asked in a tone indicating she clearly didn’t think I was.
I laughed again. “A butcher and a carpenter running for their lives in the woods… It sounds like the start of a really bad joke.”
She gave me another wondering look, like, What is going on inside that head of yours? But she didn’t say anything.
It would take the wolves some time to get all the pieces down. Careen had also marked trees heading in the opposite direction to our cave with blood. It would lead them away from Pietre’s sleeping body. I composed myself at the chilling visual. Always blood. Hopefully, this elk’s sacrifice would save us.
Careen had a little water and ate something. She leaned down and ruffled Pietre’s hair. Kissing him lightly on the cheek, she whispered something to him and then strode purposefully towards me. She may have wanted to be a butcher but everything about her screamed warrior. This was it. We had no one to rely on except each other. The sun rose, peeking through the branches, spilling blood-tinged light over the black rocks and bouncing off the snow.
I could feel them in my chest, pounding paws digging in and pushing off in unison.
“Let’s go.”
We hit the ground and broke into a frantically paced run. We had no idea what kind of head start we had or whether our diversions would work. We only knew what direction to run and that’s what we did. We put our heads down and sped across the snow as fast as we could. Careen ran behind me, knives clutched in both hands. I clasped the handheld in front of me, turning and veering, keeping the red arrow straight. It said we had fifteen kilometers to go. I wish I hadn’t known that.
Running. Running. Running.
The edges of my vision darkened like I was passing through a shadowy tunnel. Exhaustion approached me, clamping its ragged fingers around my shoulders and trying to pull me backwards. But I kept my head down and kept pushing forward.
On and on, one foot in front of the other, ignoring the buzzing in my ears and the thickness of the surrounding air. I was moving through bitter honey.
I pictured Joseph’s face in front of me. I heard Orry’s laugh and saw it dancing in the trees. I held out my hands for them but they disappeared into a wisp of smoke.
“We have to stop,” I managed to expel.
“We can’t,” Careen replied halfheartedly.
“One minute.” I put my finger up.
I quickly took a drink, leaned myself against a tree, and sunk into it. I imagined it wrapped its branches around me and lifted me to the sky. I’d be out of air but out of reach. I closed my eyes. I would just close my eyes for one minute, just rest for two seconds. My mouth cooled and my breath steadied. I would just sleep for five minutes. Greyness. Pinprick edges and haze.
Careen slapped me back into consciousness. I awoke with a start, putting my hand to my face, feeling light, scratchy icicles running off my cheeks from her snow-covered glove.
“Wake up. We are not giving up now. We’re nearly there. Look,” she said, holding the handheld that was frozen to my palm in front of my face. It read two kilometers. It was barely midday and we were almost there. I guess fear makes you fast.