The Wolf in the Clouds

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Karen Bright pulled her hand from mine and began undressing. She removed her jacket, her sweater, a turtleneck jersey, her bra. She was crying. She moved slowly, with shaky coordination. Weeping, she bent over and unzipped her gaiters, unlaced and removed her boots, then pulled down her ski pants. When the pants were around her ankles, she slipped and fell on the floor. She finished removing her ski pants and then, without rising, pulled off her long underwear bottoms. She sat on the floor and wept quietly.

     Ralph had established his dominance; he had, in a real way, hypnotized her. She had surrendered her mind and body to him. I could feel my own self going, too, leaking out of me. It would be so easy to surrender completely. I hoped that I could at least avert the final horror of collaborating with my murderer. When the time came, I wanted to run, shouting defiantly, in the muzzle of his rifle ...

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My sleep was shallow and I awakened before the alarm was due to ring. The luminous green hands of the clock horizontally bisected the dial—a quarter to three. The ticking sounded loud in this abnormal silence.

     The propane had run out during the night and the house was very cold: when I turned on the small bedside lamp I could see my breath emerge in pale clouds of vapor. Jan was annoyed by the light; she grimaced, moaned a soft bubbly complaint, and turned over.

     The window was frosted into a white fern jungle. I held my palm against the frost until a spot melted, then leaned close and looked outside. It was a hushed and frozen night, all blacks and grays and whites, planes and angles, nature in a geometrical mood. There did not seem to be any wind now. And it had finally stopped snowing. I looked up through the tangle of cottonwood branches, but I could not see the moon or the stars. The snow seemed to possess its own illumination.

     I went into the living room and got dressed. First the suit of woolen underwear, then long cotton stockings, and over them heavy woolen stockings that came above my knees; garters, and then the wool knickers, stitched and patched and worn smooth after all the years. Now the knee-length gaiters, a loose cashmere sweater with holes in the elbows, a wool shirt, and finally my down jacket. I sat and laced my boots. They had been resoled twice and the leather uppers were cracked and scuffed, but the boots were warm and fit me like a second skin. I stood up. I was warm now, though perhaps later no amount of clothing could defeat the cold.

     My skis and the bamboo poles were leaning against the wall. The poles were made of good quality Tonkin cane; the skis were a compromise between the very light and fragile Nordic touring skis and the heavier, stronger ski-mountaineering type. They were 57 mm wide, with a hickory sole, lignostone edges, and the Silvretta Saas-Fee binding. Technically, the equipment was the property of the U.S. Forest Service. In every other way but technically, they were mine. I used them to go far back in the mountains to measure the depth and moisture content of the snow at various points in the Wolf Basin watershed. It was good winter duty. Better, anyway, than sitting at a desk in an overheated office, or giving Smokey the Bear talks to grammar school students.

     My other gear was spread out over the floor. There was my big rucksack, once a smoky gray and now stained to a mottled brown, a down sleeping bag, the little Svea stove, kettles, fuel, water bottles, food, additional clothing, odds and ends.

     I went into the kitchen and placed a pot of coffee on the electric stove. While the water was heating I went outside for some piñon logs. It was a night of cold and menace. The cold was light, dry, intense. It was so cold that it seemed the opposite, as dry ice is so cold in the hand that it burns. My teeth and lungs ached. My breath steamed. The snow was granular in this cold, like sand, and made a sound like sand being compressed underfoot. The white aspens and the darker cottonwoods were crucified against a septic sky. Nothing, not even the hoot of an owl or the howl of a dog, challenged the brittle cold silence. Something about this night stabbed into a primitive part of the mind. Fear was the natural response.

     There was a mercury thermometer above the woodpile: twenty-seven degrees below zero. We were at 8,500 feet. Roughly figuring a temperature drop of three degrees for each thousand feet of altitude, it was now around forty degrees below zero in the cirque beneath Mt. Wolf. The wind would roar and scream like jet engines up there. That wind could kill you in a couple of hours. I hoped the college kids had been lucky and found the Columbine Cabin during the storm. They were too green to survive without good shelter. I hoped they had found the cabin, and I hoped equally that Ralph Brace had not.

     I brushed snow off the woodpile. The logs were frozen solidly together in an ice-glazed mass that looked like petrified wood. They were nearly as hard, too, but with the ax and a crowbar I managed to extract three of the large split logs. The chopping sounds were dulled, absorbed by the snow and the night. My fingers were stiff and without feeling by the time I had finished.

     In the fireplace, a few orange coals still glowed beneath the powdery gray ash. I fed the coals some newspaper, a few sticks of dry kindling wood, and then the icy logs. The logs hissed and steamed. The raw ax scars took fire first, then the bark, and then the logs thawed and began burning evenly. The house was now filled with the perfumed scent of piñon and the heavier, darker smell of brewing coffee.

     I went into the kitchen and poured a cup of coffee. It was hot and strong and bitter. I lit a cigarette and sat quietly, smoking, drinking the coffee, worrying. I poured an ounce of brandy into the second cup. I was awake now and not altogether happy with that state.

     I thought about gem-clear blue water, white sand beaches so hot they burned the soles of your feet, a brutal atomic sun which filled the sky from horizon to horizon. Sun, heat, languor, some fishing, maybe a little skin diving, lots of fresh seafood, and cases and cases of Bohemia and Dos Equis beer. No snow, no tree-splitting cold. My vacation was due in ten days, and we were going to Mexico. I looked forward to complaining about the heat. Mosquitoes. Jan telling me that sweat was ruining my sport shirts. Sunburned, whining children.

     The fire in the other room was humming and crackling now, but the house did not seem to be getting warmer. I had heard Jan moving around in the bedroom, and now heard the door open and soon after that a soft, throaty moan. It sounded like the despairing moan of a small predator-surprised animal. I got up and went into the living room. Jan was standing in front of the fireplace, knees bent, shoulders hunched, arms hugging herself. She wore wool slacks and a bulky knit sweater. Her dark blond hair fell down past her shoulders in a silky cascade. Jan was not beautiful, but her hair sometimes made her appear so. Now red firelight moved over her hair and tinted her skin.

     You didn't have to get up, I said.

     She turned. "Oh, God, Jack, I'm so cold."

     The cold is bracing.

     I hope that isn't a pun.

     The propane ran out last night.

     Jack, I told you last week to have the tank filled.

     The fire will warm you.

     The fire will blister my front while my rear stays frozen.

     I moved closer. Heat from the fire radiated several feet into the room and was then turned back by the cold. You can always toast the other side, I said.

     I'd better look in on the kids.

     They're okay. They have plenty of blankets.

     She turned so that her back was to the fire. Are you going to bring in more wood?

     Yes.

     Just bring in enough to last until eight-thirty or nine. I'll call the gas company then.

     All right.

     Jack, really, why don't you get us transferred away from here? To where it's warm?

     Where to? Florida, Arizona? California—how about Death Valley?

     No, I'm serious.

     This is a good place, Jan.

     The Virgin Islands would be nice.

     They certainly would. And I could probably get shifted there if your father were a powerful senator or Secretary of the Interior. Anyway, there's a kind of Mau Mau thing going on down there.

     Hawaii, then.

     That's easy, I said. No one wants to work in Hawaii.

     Where is Frank? Jan asked.

     He'll be along soon.

     How long are you going to be gone?

     I don't know, Jan. A day and a half at the most. But I'll probably be home tonight.

     Is it going to be dangerous?

     No. In and out.

     What about Ralph Brace?

     I'm sure Ralph is hanging around the ski area. He's fifteen miles from the Columbine.

     How do you know that?

     Anyway, I always got along well with Ralph, and so did Frank. He wouldn't hurt us.

     Oh, Jack, for God's sake, Jack! Jan said. Mrs. Fielding always got along with Ralph, too, and she's dead.

     I know, I know. He's a mad dog.

     I didn't say that.

     "Look, Jan, I liked Ralph. Okay. It may sound weird, but I liked him yesterday morning and I like him this morning, even though he went berserk in between. Maybe tomorrow I can hate him—I don't know."

     You know what I mean, she said.

     Do you want some coffee?

     Yes. How much did it snow last night?

     About eighteen inches down here.

     And up high? Where you're going?

     Probably three, three and a half feet of new snow.

     Jack, I don't care what you say, it's dangerous. All that snow up there and this terrible cold. Not to mention darling Ralph. It's really not your job. They can't make you do it. You can refuse and no one will say anything.

     Come on.

     We went into the kitchen and Jan poured herself a mug of coffee. She said it tasted like rotten acorns. I poured the last of the brandy into her cup, and then she said it tasted like rotten acorns with turpentine. Her face was very pale, and the darkness of her eyebrows and the clean dark blue of her eyes were accentuated. She shivered. Her breasts were free under the heavy sweater. There were freckles on the backs of her hands.

     What is the temperature? she asked.

     You don't want to know.

     Jack ...

     Twenty-seven below.

     Oh, God, she said. She got up from the table and went to the stove. She greased a skillet and placed it over one of the burners. Jack. I dreamed about those young people all night.

     Yes?

     Do you think they're still alive?

     If they found the shelter.

     Well, do you think they found it?

     No.

     Then why are you going up there?

     Because we have to try.

     She sliced four strips of bacon from the slab and spread them into the skillet. Her head was lowered, and a dark gold wing of hair fell forward and obscured her face.

     But you really think they're dead.

     We have to act as if they're alive.

     You don't think they could find the cabin?

     Not in that storm. But I don't know; they might have lucked out.

     Jack, you and Frank are almost glad for this opportunity, aren't you? You're turning it into sport.

     That isn't true.

     It's an adventure.

     Jan. If you think I can get any sport out of the suffering of three—hell, four—people, then we understand each other less than I thought.

     Don't twist my meanings that way.

     Well, what is it that you mean?

     I mean—I don't know. She cleared her throat. I'm sorry. I hate to be bitchy. But everything feels wrong about this. I'm scared, Jack, really I am.

     It's confused, I said.

     Yes. Well, why don't you go out and get some more wood for me while I cook your breakfast?

     Okay. If you'll turn down the rheostat on your feminine intuition.

I went outside and the moisture froze in my nostrils. When I breathed through my mouth there was a catch in the lungs; it was like breathing ammonia or chlorine gas.

     The night had not changed: the tree branches were a confused, delicate tracery against the blackness; the snow shone palely, from within; the silence was so complete that all I heard was a ringing in my ears, like the hushed music in a seashell. I had the feeling that everything was made of brittle glass. The air, the sky, the trees, the house, myself—we were all glass and about to shatter. Cold had crystallized the world.

     Again I had to chop logs free of the woodpile. I