Lone Wolves by John Smelcer Page A

isn’t always easy, especially here in the village. Things don’t always work out the way we want them to. But you can help this little girl to have a better life. You can give her all the love that you never got and teach her to make better choices in her life. She depends on you. She needs you. Don’t ruin her life. This is a chance for both of you. If you . . .”
    Just then, Norman Fury burst through the door in a panic.
    â€œI think Johnny’s dead!” he yelled. “You gotta do something!”
    Denny and Silas ran outside.
    Johnny was lying in the snow beside a knocked over garbage can and with a rag clutched in his fist. A red one-gallon gas can with the cap off was nearby. Johnny was still and his lips were blue. Denny unzipped his jacket and listened for a heartbeat and breathing.
    â€œHe’s not breathing! Go get help!” she shouted at Norman, who was just standing there. “Go! Hurry!”
    Norman ran off down the street, dogs barking at him, the tops of trees swaying in the wind coming off the river.
    Denny began CPR. She had taken a short course at school one summer, and she remembered the basics. She squeezed John ny’s nostrils shut while breathing into his mouth in long, drawn breaths.
    â€œGet down here and help me,” she said to Silas.
    â€œWhat do you want me to do?”
    â€œPut one hand on his chest, right here,” she said quickly pointing at the place, “and then put your other hand on top of it and push kind of sharp and hard every four or five seconds.”
    For several minutes Denny and Silas worked together in the tight illuminated sphere of the porch light, until the village EMT arrived to take over.
    â€œHe’s breathing,” he said, after listening for a sign of life.
    Johnny’s lips slowly returned to their normal pink, and he opened his eyes.
    â€œWhat . . . what happened?” he asked in a daze.
    â€œYou were huffing gasoline, you stupid moron,” said Silas. “You were pretty much dead.”
    Everyone knew that huffing was a big problem in every village. While alcohol and weed was hard to come by, gasoline was readily available, used in outboards, snowmobiles, four-wheelers, generators, and chainsaws. Kids, sometimes as young as ten or eleven, would pour gas onto a rag and hold it to their face, breathing in deeply to get high. But gas fumes are deadly, and many young people had died in the villages, some the first time they huffed. You could sometimes tell who was huffing by their chronic cough from the damage to their lungs.
    â€œI’m freezing,” said Johnny.
    Silas and Norman helped Johnny to his feet and guided him back into the house and sat him on a chair near the wood stove. Denny put a blanket over him. The village EMT stayed for a while to keep an eye on Johnny, checking his vitals every ten minutes and giving him some pills for his massive headache.
    â€œYour vitals seem okay, but you need to cut that crap out,” he said sternly. “I’m not joking, Johnny. The next time could kill you.”
    â€œBig deal,” replied Johnny, throwing his head back to swallow the pills.

    Late Sunday morning, Denny hooked up the dogs and headed into the wild. She could feel the difference without Kilana; the loss of the one dog robbed the sled of a little power and speed. She felt it most when the team pulled the sled up into the hills. It was like having an eight-cylinder truck that ran on only seven. She wondered how well she would do in the race without a strong eighth dog as a leader.
    Barely a couple miles out of the village, Denny turned around and saw the black wolf following the sled as he had done before.
    She smiled.
    For many miles, the extraordinary band of dogs, wolf, and girl made their way up into a narrow valley, flushing a large flock of ptarmigan on the way. Finally, at the edge of the tree line, Denny called for the team to stop. It took her longer to unhook the team