Shadows glittered in the moonlight. They stalked behind the man with the gun as he crunched across the snow, his breath billowing into the crisp night air. In the distance a hoot owl gave his lonely call and awaited the mountains’ answer. The man continued to walk forward in his steady gait that stumbled over nothing. Down trees and limbs passed beneath and behind him as he walked onward. Past the glittering fields beyond the pond, through the footpath in the thicket of prickers, and down into the tiny clearing to the door of a cabin no larger than a single room. The man lit no lights and no sound came from the cabin as the night passed around the mud chinked walls.
As the first rays of light peeked over the mountains of the north country a thin wisp of smoke curled out from the top of the chimney. Before the light was fully over the mountains the man appeared in the doorway and paused. The tension rolled out of his shoulders and he took a deep breath of the morning. As he let it out the beginnings of a smile appeared at the sides of his mouth, but fled as he leaned around the door jam and pulled from the depths of the cabin a battered and scratched but well-loved M1 Garand. His feet made fresh prints in the dusting of snow that had fallen overnight like a sheet across the land. The trail he cut led in the opposite direction of the way he had come the previous night. Out through towering hemlocks and into the marshy fields surrounded by the thinning hardwoods. He returned a few minutes later, unbeknownst of the time, carrying an armload of firewood his rifle slung over his shoulder. This early in the morning there was not a sound, not a movement in the endless wilderness. This was his world.
Later in the day, the man walked into the forest again, climbing over the small knoles with the deft skills of a mountain goat. Reaching the edge of a rock outcropping at the top a small peak he settled himself, leaning with his back against a tree and the rifle resting across his lap. Unmoving, he sat for hours, looking out over the landscape, soaking in the peace after 60 years of hurt. It wasn’t until the sun began its descent toward sleep that he slowly moved his head to the left through the pine scented area. Icy blue eyes locked on him and held his gaze for how long he did not know. The animal did growl nor make any motion towards the man. It appeared that both had respect for the other in their innate ability to survive the timberland of the snow covered northland. Then, as a light sprinkling of flakes began to float down from the sky the four legged creature turned his lean black body from the man and melted into the wood. It took a few minutes for him to move, but when he trudged back to the cabin in the same moonlight that he had seen a decade before when he made the same trek there was a smile on his weathered face.
That night the man continued the same pattern that he had the night before and for ten years before that. In his mind’s eye he could see the animal. Muscles rippling under the silken coat of black fur. And at the head of this beauty the icy blues eyes that looked deeper than any other, into the very heart of a man’s soul, probing for the secrets that it knew existed there. In his sleep the wolf came again, offering up a howl to the fear of the men around him. As he faded more forms took shape. Fighter planes, Mustangs, chopped and ground the air above and at certain times burned and crashed on the blackened earth. The drone of Hitler’s buzz saw cracked the air, echoing into the distance and out over the ocean. Blood erupted to the right, splattering across the beach, the red drops staining and spoiling the earth in their depraved glory. Staining and tainting the earth, souring it to the lips of mother nature. One man was hung in the barbed wire of a tank trap, spread across the beach under the hill. Mortar shells exploded all around, moving shrieking sand into every crack of the men. Very close an explosion, the roar, the nothing. A silence louder than any noise. Crushing in its beauty, and painful in its unfairness.
He awoke.
The wolf howled in the night.
A long lonely call to a wilderness unfriendly to outsiders and even residents. It raced through the crisp night air and into the fragrant fir, dancing across the snow, and slipping into the man’s ear. Stars hung low that night, offering up enough light for a run or a hunt. At 76 he did not often run. But tonight he made tracks into the soul of the wood, following the howl into the night and past the brink, circling back home. Following until the howl finally died and returned the silence of the early morning. Balancing the peace once again.
And finally he slept.
The smoke did not curl from the chimney until late that day and when bare feet were slapped to the floor they met crystalline drops of water from where snowy boots had touched down to be unlaced and removed. No matter. In a few moments the familiar grey wisps danced from the roof and rode the currents up the mountain until all that remained was a faint scent.
Again the howl came.
That day the trek was made earlier, not merely to watch the setting sun in the shortening days, but for another reason. The same rock. Uncovering it again from the night’s snow and sitting down occurred. Just as the same ball of fire fell out of the sky and gave way to the night, there was a slight, unheard movement. Man turned. Dog sat.
Underneath the blanket of confusion and surprise lay the wonder and the connection. Each understood the other and what was expected. But what was expected did not occur. They sat in peace, in communion. As the snow fell, blue eyes made contact with green and read the life of each. Though the life of the dog was only fuzzy, it struck home. From alpha to loner.
Death. At the fault of each.
The man stood to go, struggling to see even the sharpest shapes in the swirling snow. Behind him a set of eyes shown in the blackness as the dark animal sat rigged but watching. Fifty feet away, the man stopped and turned for one more look. The muzzle raised into the wind shot forth a howl of forgiveness, of understanding. The man walked away.
With sleep came the dream. Once again from the war. He was again at Normandy, struggling through the sand toward a defilade in the beach. Mangled as he was another man yelled a cry that echoed in the head of the dreamer as clear as the day it was exclaimed, “Get out of here Joe!” A whistling and then the explosion. His brother was dead again, 60 years later. Nothing could change it.
And the wolf howled.
His brother faded. The body faded and the beach faded, replaced by the same people four years before in the snow. Brothers throwing snowballs, parents dodging, and a sound that could replace the silence. Laughter.
From the door Joe emerged the next morning after stoking the fire. Sending the message. Like every other day he reached for the Garand. Today it stayed. The path ahead was clear this cold morning in the sun. Only a few inches of snow the previous night. It cleaned the bleeding of the old man’s heart, soothed and healed it to the point of contentment and happiness. The dead brother’s name was Steve.
Up the mountain and out to the rock.
“Hello, Steven.” Icy blue eyes stared back and from warm nostrils steam burst forth. Joe sat down with his back against the rock … and the wolf walked forward. Without hesitation he put his head on the man’s lap and closed those eyes. Man and dog stayed there.
Joe’s eyes eventually closed, and the breath finally left him. When it did, the blue eyes were there and Steven took his little brother home.