Wolfsmes

Wolf KnifeIn the mid August, in the second yearof my First Polar Expedition, the snow and ice of winter almost upon us, Kantiuk and Iattempted to dash the sledgealong Crispin Bay, searching again for relicsof the Frankline Expedition. Now a storm blew,and we turned back, and we struggled slowlyin snow, lest we depart land and venture onto ice from which a sudden fog and thawwould abandon us to the Providenceof the sea.Near nightfall I thought I heard snarling behind us.Kantiuk told me that two wolves, lean as the bones of a wrecked ship, had followed us the last hour, and snapped their teethas if already feasting.I carried the one cartridge onlyin my rifle, since, approaching the second winter,we rationed stores.As it turned dark,we could push no further, and madecamp in a corner of ice hummocks,and the wolves stopped also, growlingjust past the limits of vision,coming closer, untill I could hearthe click of their feet on ice. Kantiuk laughedand remarked that the wolves appeared to be most hungry. I raised my rifle, prepared to shoot the first thatventured close, hopingto frighten the other.Kantiuk struck my rifle down and said againthat the wolves were hungry, and laughed.I feared that my old companionwas mad, here in the storm, among ice-hummocks, stalked by wolves. Now Kantiuk searchedin his pack, and extractedtwo knives--turnoks, the Innuits called them-- which by great labor were sharpened, on both sides, to the sharpness like the edge of a barber's razor, and approached our dogsand plunged both knivesinto the body of our youngest dogwho had limped all day.I remember that I considered turning my rifle on Kantiuk as he approached, then passed me,carrying knives red with the gore of our dog-who had yowled, moaned, and now layexpired, surroundedby curious cousins and uncles, possiblyhungry--and he trusted the kniveshandle-down in the snow.Immediately after he left the knives, the vague, grayshape of wolvesturned solid, out of the darkness and the snow, and set ravenously to licking blood from the honed steel.the double-edge of the knivesso lacerated the tongues of the starved beaststhat their own blood pouredcopiously forthto replenish the dog's blood, and they atemore furiously than before, while Kantiuk laughed,and held his sideslaughing.And I laughed also, perhaps in relief that Providence had delivered us yet again, or perhaps--under conditions of extremity,far from Connecticut--finding there creaturesacutely ridiculous, so avidto swallow their own blood. First one, and then the othercollapsed, dying, bloodless in the snow black with their own blood,and Kantiuk retrievedhis turnoks, and hacked lean meatfrom the thigh of the larger wolf, which we ategrateful, blessing the Creator, for we were hungry.Donald Hall