Wolves

Here it is. My promised mid-month sampler, though a day late. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

“Wolves”

Cold. Jim Townsend's hands were cold. His feet were cold. His body chilled to the bone. The once raging fire had done little to change the cold he felt seeping beyond himself to his very soul.

Around him the wind howled. The overcast hung low in a dark dirty lead blanket of cloud hanging is if held in threat by a dark spirit of dread. A dull glow of light trapped between cloud and an endless blanket of snow left no shadow, no trace of the ever present danger in the cold dark night.

"Nobody knows the trouble..." Jim's muttered song faded. To lean back from the fire broke his teeth into an uncontrollable chatter, causing his body to break into endless shivers. He pulled his arms tight to his sides, careful not to disturb the brace of pistols tucked tight to his buckskins under the folds of his fur overcoat. Huddled low to the ground, low to the fire now degraded into a bed of red hot glowing embers. The temptation of sleep near smothered Jim's fear of death.  His eyes stared upon the embers longing after the heat; a warm bed. Ice from his matted beard dripped down upon his knees then froze. A wool blanket, edges flapping in the wind, was draped tight over his fur covered head.

"Cold" he chattered out loud, then waited for his confession to make a difference. It didn't. His eyes wandered over fresh white snow, the tree line beyond floated mirage like, one hundred yards distant. A dense stand of pine at his back to break the wind Jim waited.

"They're coming." the words shouted forced Jim's blanked mind alive. He knew he should not have built the fire. Driven him beyond reason by the cold.

"They're coming." his hand gingerly worked its way under his coat to an interior pocket. He worked his choppers from his hand and dipped into the pocket retrieving a pinch of pemmican. His fingers flew to his mouth. His lips wrapped up the morsel. The dried bison meat and suet struck his tongue, livened his senses and brightened his mind. His hand flashed back into his coat. Another pinch, this had a berry. The salt and bitter with the oily leathery chew distracted him from the cold. His mind set upon his dilemma.

"They're coming." as he took one last pinch. The howl of a distant wolf filled the air.

He felt his pocket. A half of fist of pemmican was all, and a sliver of portable soup. That and a small bag of rice. But he had lost his kit, and his long gun, in his last confrontation. It was a good twenty miles to the fort through drifts of ten foot and more. Jim shifted upon the log upon which he sat. he felt his infantry axe in his belt.

"If it were only wolves." Jim huffed with disdain as several more joined their companion in a midnight howl. "I never disparaged any man, injun or otherwise in my life." he howled without contrition to the wind, "God, forgive for me these heathen savages, for til my last dying breath I shall not." For a moment Jim believed a response was imminent. Then nothing.

Head bowed and eyes clenched tight Jim prayed, "God give me strength though I don't see how it will do no good."

Jim tried to recollect the number of days and nights that had passed, but he could not. His pursuers rational drifted inconceivable beyond him. 'Only a pure evil could drive such creatures.' he convinced himself, 'they are surely beyond redemption.'

Jim dropped his head and growled, as now God responded powerfully in his heart, revealing the inconceivable rational behind Jim's own motivations before the eyes of his Creator. The same Creator of those seeking his unholy demise, of  whom God would happily redeem if they would only chose.

"Is torment and disaster my only share," Jim lashed out before his God, "not only in mind and body, but to the depths of my very heart and soul. Is this all You have to reveal to me? What of my next life?" he lamented unto death.

The wolves howled in response. Their chorus sounding now from not far beyond the tree line.

"They're coming."