Ian Mackenzie Jeffers The Grey by Ian Mackenzie Jeffers Page B

meaning, as good as.  Everybody sits, quiet, watching the dark and the fire by turns.  I look at Ojeira, see him nodding, falling asleep, and Bengt looks the same.  I feel myself slipping too.
    I look up from the fire, suddenly, wondering if I’ve fallen asleep, and how long, if I have.  The fire’s down, cold’s crept into me,   from sitting too long.  I see everyone’s asleep.  How we can fall asleep when a thousand yards back, or two, wolves were on us, I don’t know.  It’s an escape, maybe.  What do you do after watching people die?  Eventually you’ll sleep again, it’ll come.
    Suddenly I feel we’ve stayed too long.  I knock my boots together in the snow to clean the treads, like that's going to matter after two steps.  I haul myself to my feet, and reach to Henrick, shake him.
    Henrick snaps awake, startled, looks around. 
    “I think we keep moving, if we can,”   I say.  Henrick nods , shakes Tlingit, who does the same, hauls up.   The others wake up, too, see we’re still here, and look unhappy.  I pick up the sticks I sharpened, nod to the sticks we haven’t sharpened yet. 
    “Let’s bring those too,” I say. 
    I pull my pack on, as the others get to their feet, except Ojeira, who’s struggling.  Henrick and I bend down to help Ojeira up, and I stop.
    The wolves have come in by the fire, standing there, staring at us.  Maybe they were here all the time we slept, staring at us, I didn’t hear them come, they’re just there.  Three, I see right away, and my heart’s pounding wondering where the others are. 
    Henrick sees me staring, looks, the others too.  They’re very close, at the edge of what’s left of the firelight, looking at us.  Nobody wants to move.  I see more, then, now I’m looking, like I should have been looking, four more, dotted between the trees, could be others.  They’re there somewhere.
    “Shit.  Shit,” Ojeira says, whispering, still on the ground, fumbling for his knife, which he’s dropped or something, he can’t find it.  He has his sticks but we all seem to want as many sharp things as we can have our hands on, not that we know what we’re going to do.  He’s the only one moving, he keeps patting around in the snow trying to find his knife and finally he finds it behind him, he was almost sitting on it, and he half gets up and falls back down with it, point up, holding all his sticks up too.
    “If they come at us, we fight them,” I say, staring at the wolves in front.  “If any of them gets on one of us, we gang on that one, OK?  Try to get a stick into him, or a knife, if you can.”  They’re all staring, paralyzed, like that’s the last thing they’ll ever be able to do. 
    I keep looking for the big one, I don’t see him.  Finally he comes out of the dark, stands there, staring with the rest of them.  I don't know what they’re doing, sniffing us out, again, choosing one of us to kill or deciding to kill all of us at once, or just waiting to see what the big one does.  I breathe, watch them breathing.
    The big one straightens his body out, suddenly, leans forward, makes a line, nose to back, pointing at me, low.  I think he’s getting ready to come at me.
    “What the fuck is he doing?” Ojeira says.
    “I don’t know,” I say.  “Choosing.”
    The big wolf looks from me to Ojeira, sniffing.  Then he shifts, barely.  He’s pointing at Ojeira, now.
    “Is he fucking looking at me?  He’s what— choosing me?”
    I don’t know what they’re doing.
    “If they hit you, we’ll get them off you.  You’ll be OK.”  I know I’m lying, but we can try. 
    “You beat them away from me before, you can do it again,” I say to Henrick and the others.  Henrick and Tlingit just stare at them.
    Behind the big wolf, I see the other wolves lean in too, setting low, like the big one.  They’re all looking at Ojeira, it looks like, which is turning Ojeira into jelly, he’s panting, shaking, starting to