Ordinary Wolves by Seth Kantner Page B

shaft.
    â€œIce is thick.” Abe sat on a bucket and took off his beaver hat. His hair was sweaty and matted. Snow squeaked under the bucket. “Traveling might be good late this spring.”
    â€œWe went to a swimming pool. Kids teased me ’cause I can’t swim.” Iris claimed to have roller-skated, ridden buses, eaten pizza—things I had heard bits of from Jerry’s letters. Jerry was more impressed now with macro lenses and Bukowski poetry. “Oh,” her voice dropped in mock gossip, “Jerry’s got another girlfriend.”
    â€œTwo of ’em?” I jumped into the hole and chipped at the bottom. Only my head stuck out the top, my shoulders level with the snow.

    â€œNo, no. He and Callie split up. Be careful, Cutuk!”
    Split up: the words reverberated with romance.
    â€œWe went to a dance.”
    A dance! While Iris was gone I’d mushed my dogs north, climbed a pass in the Dog Die Mountains. I tracked and shot a wolverine beyond treeline, beyond landmarks I’d never seen or heard stories of. I skinned it there, awed and humbled by the towering fling of white mountains, white valleys, white land that left me feeling small as dust, daring as an astronaut. Days later on the way home, in timber at the base of the Dog Dies, a brown bear charged out of alders. The team tugged forward. The bear stood in their midst. The dogs pulled against necklines, trying to scatter. I shot from the sled. The bear fell, rose, and bounded into the thickets. Cautious and alone, I snowshoed in after the wounded animal and took the bear’s meat home, fat bulging between the bed slats of my sled, me tingling with pride and hoping Dawna would be present when Enuk heard.
    Now in the thud of one heartbeat it was nothing even worth telling. My first wolverine was a greasy pelt, the bear simply meat, jars of rendered lard for pie crusts and fat to store masru and tinnik in. As boring as breakfast. Iris had been dancing.
    â€œCutuk! Be careful! You’re almost through. It’s thin under you.” She leaned over the ice hole. Her voice was small, worried now about my feelings. Abe cleared his throat. He unlaced the top and bottom laces on his mukluks and pulled up his socks. The heels were gone. I remembered him unraveling our socks when our feet grew too big, crocheting larger pairs from the yarn. Abe was fast with his crochet hook. He never allowed us to throw a shirt, a pair of pants, a jacket away without unstitching the zippers and buttons.
    â€œI bought a radio,” Iris said. “It’s for you, to listen to next winter. If Abe can stand it.”
    I leapt out of the hole and cut my eyes up at her, squinting to hide the dread that rose in me like the water now boiling up the ice shaft. “Where are you going?”
    â€œCollege. Next fall.” The water overflowed the ice, soaking blue into the snow. “I know we talked about trapping and raising dogs together.
But I met friends! They’re all enrolling! If you come the year after, we could rent an apartment together.”
    I chipped at the ice. My strong arms ached to drown these shadowy friends down our new water hole. They beckoned Iris to dance away, with no thought of our family coming apart. I pictured ripping those worn brass zippers out of rag jeans, the fling of dust, old lint, and snapping threads. Abe’s coffee can was full of used blue and gray and black zippers, the cloth edges curled and unraveling. We were never going to use all of them now.
    â€œI’ve got to finish school. I’ve got seven dogs to feed. I can’t talk to people the way you do.”
    Abe rubbed his sore knee. He pulled the tuuq out of my hands. Iris stomped off a few yards in frustration. She stood so unaware of her comeliness, her dark lashes leading the light into pale blue pools, her nose straight and sure, knifing through doubt. Allegedly, my sister.
    Abe chipped methodically at the ice plug still