Ice Moon Scott Maddix 2018
In the time of the Ice Moon, Grandmother Wolf fled the pack. She knew it was the way of the pack to kill old ones before they became a burden. It had always been so for all packs in all times, as far back as the Great Memory stretched.
But she found that when her time approached, she was no longer so willing to follow the Great Memory.
She was the oldest, nearly ten summers, and couldn’t keep up with the cubs when the Pack traveled, and on this morning it was all she could do to move at all. I may be slow, she thought, and my sense of smell may be gone, and my heart may beat loud enough to scare the prey, but I’m still wise enough to outwit that pup GreyWolf, even if he sends the whole Pack. Grandmother Wolf had saved her energy the night before. When the young Hunters had found prey, instead of crowding in to get a choice morsel, she had slunk off into the dark. By the time the Pack had slept off full stomachs she would have a strong lead.
Now she faced the broad, frozen expanse of the Big Water River, black in places where the glaring white snow had drifted away to show clear ice beneath. As she contemplated the river, a sharp crack startled her and she fell on her backside. Silly, she chided herself, to jump like a pup at ice noise. Bracing herself against the winds that roared down the river, unshielded by forest or her own thin pelt, Grandmother Wolf set out to cross the ice.
The ice groaned and creaked as she crossed, but she knew it meant nothing. The ice was warming in the sun. She was midway across the river when she heard another crack, this time not so near, and a sound like a long sigh. The crack sounded again, nearer; and nearer still, she heard a sound like a low moan. My, the river is noisy today.
Again the river cracked, and this time she could hear running water. That’s not good. Her aged crawl had only brought her a little past the center of the river. When the ice snapped again, a rent like pale lightning shot through the back edge of her shadow, and she yelped in fright. The snow near the edges of the crack melted as water welled up. Got to move faster, she thought. Ice is failing.
The next crack came as close as her nose, and a stretch of water opened in front of her. She could feel the river rushing beneath her feet, the vibration of cracking ice directly behind her. She made a desperate leap for solid ice and went sprawling on the slick surface, with a face full of snow and a new pain in her hip.
She heard a crack near at hand and found that this ice was no safer than the patch she had just escaped. With a sickening tilt, the ice she lay sprawled on tipped first to one side, then the other as she scrabbled frantically for purchase. Then, as slow as the vapor of her breath drifted skyward, the ice cracked in half between her feet, and she was in the water.
Fire crazed through her veins as the cold clutched her heart. In mid-breath, in mid-heartbeat, and for an eternity she froze and sank beneath the current. Spots of void filled her vision as the river reached for her consciousness.
Fight. Swim. If you give up now, you might as well have stayed behind to be torn to shreds. Swim!
As her muzzle broke the surface she took in a great, ragged gasp of air, fighting to stay afloat, to survive, to reach the shore. As she paddled in the freezing water, panting and wheezing, a great slab of ice came toward her with inexorable drive, and just as impersonally as any force of nature pushed her back under the water, scraping across her back as it continued downstream.
Blood oozed into the current from fresh wounds, and when the ice passed, she bobbed to the surface like a dead tree branch. Steadily, not realizing she was doing it, Grandmother Wolf swam for the far shore. It was closer now, and there was no ice in the water to block her view.
Hot, so hot, she thought, my blood is burning. The distance halved, and halved again, and finally when she reached out she felt solid ground, and she clutched the frozen river bank.
But she had no energy left to pull herself out of the water. She hung there, panting, feeling her blood burn.
Let go. Cease your struggles. Remember.
No, she thought, No, I won’t let go, I won’t. But I remember. Her head and front paws rested on the bank, the rest of her half-floating out behind her in the water, and she remembered. It was summer, and she was learning to hunt. All the world was full of smells, tantalizing smells, earth, rabbits, Wolves.
The water grew warmer, and her limbs stronger, until suddenly, with a pup-like yelp of pure joy, she burst forth from the river and stood on the bank, shaking droplets of water in a fine spray that covered the ground and dewed the nearby grass like a spring rain. There’s some life in me yet, she gloated to herself. What is that I smell? What is that? It almost smells like… it is … it’s RABBIT!
And with an exuberant yelp she leaped again in pursuit of a smell that an older, wiser head would have known for long-cold. Her ordeal forgotten, the young wolf bounded happily across the grass in the bright summer sun after the fading trail…
…and the body of Grandmother Wolf ceased to clutch the earth and slipped quietly, bonelessly into the icy depths.
This story won first place in its category (Short-short Story, Other) at the SLC VA Fine Arts Fest, 2018.
Haunted Spoons 