Page 37 of A Land So Wide

O nly…

Noah Finn never came back.

Lost in her thoughts and worries, Greer didn’t notice the passing of time, the way the bruised sky finally turned over into the black of actual night.

It wasn’t until a shooting star raced by, streaking across the void, that she noticed the dark, noticed she was still alone.

Greer stood and left the fire, daring to wander to the edge of its glow.

“Finn?” She took another step into the pines, hesitating to raise her voice, lest she catch the attention of something large and wild hiding in the trees. But when he did not answer, she felt forced to. “Finn? Are you out there?”

Nothing.

“Finn!” she yelled once, a sharp, loud bark. A command to be answered.

There was no response.

“Damn everything.”

Greer studied the faint highlights of his tracks in the snow, their edges barely limned. She plodded after them until she came upon a mess of bones, the remains of their dinner. They were cast in a heap, as if Finn had dropped them there, with no intent to bury them.

“Finn?” she tried again.

His silence grated on her nerves.

She stepped around the mess of rabbit and started to charge after him, but then stopped, realizing she’d gone the wrong direction.

There were no footprints to follow. Turning back to the bones, she searched the area for more of his tracks, but the only ones she saw were those that led from the campsite.

Then they just…stopped.

She circled around, certain she’d simply missed them, but there was just the first set and the bones.

She recalled how the Bright-Eyed had drifted on currents of air high above Ellis. Her mouth dried and fear closed her throat. Greer didn’t think she could call out Finn’s name even if she tried.

A swoop of air stirred through the canopy, sounding just like the muscled flap of a pair of very large wings. Greer bolted back to the camp, back to the fire.

She hoped that Finn would be seated at the fire, that he’d somehow doubled back without her catching sight of him, without her hearing. He’d give her a dry look of amusement as she explained her foolish worries.

But the fire burned without an audience, and his great wool coat was still thrown haphazardly over the log, waiting for its owner to come retrieve it.

Greer wandered from the fire again, this time going in a different direction, one without footprints to follow, because somehow, inconceivably, Noah Finn did not feel the cold, and Noah Finn’s breath did not fog in the air, and so maybe it was possible, maybe it was stupidly and improbably possible, that Noah Finn had wandered off in this direction without leaving a trace.

He hadn’t, of course.

Just like he hadn’t gone north or east or toward the rushing sound of the river off in the distance.

Greer roamed as far from the fire as she dared, searching and scouring for any sign of the trapper, but there was none.

Only when a lone howl rose up, eerie and wavering and setting the hairs on the back of her neck on end, did Greer return to the circle, this time for good.

The wolves were back.

Greer imagined what she must look like to the creatures of these woods, to any wolves, or bears, or mountain lions. To a Bright-Eyed swooping overhead. A little speck of a human next to a little speck of light, ready to be swallowed by the surrounding void of darkness and teeth and claws.

I need protection, she thought, and, even in her mind, her voice whimpered.

Greer pawed through Noah Finn’s coat, hoping to find something larger than her knife, and cursed when she discovered nothing but empty pockets.

Her eyes fell on the mess of innards he’d left behind just past the circle of logs. He’d cleaned the hares well and with an expert hand. The organs lay on the snow like glittering rubies.

Without hesitation, Greer scooped them up and raced to the pile of bones. She lay out the remains of the hares, arranging them in an artful offering, and prayed that the Benevolence would hear her and come.

“With…gratitude and…thanks, I leave these…tokens as an offering for…thee,” she recited, out of breath and tripping over her words. “May they be of good use…and bring you great pleasure. Please…protect me now. Keep me safe through this night…and on my journey.”

Another howl rose, sounding closer now, and Greer was horrified to see how her hands trembled.

“And, please, keep Ellis safe…bring us together again,” she added before flying back to the fire.

Sometime between rescuing her and disappearing into the night, Noah Finn had gathered up a mighty pile of branches, and Greer threw them onto the fire now, letting the flames rise high.

Too high, probably, but if the stranger was still out there, if he was alive and had not been scooped up by the sneaky voice that persisted after Greer, she wanted him to be able to find his way back.

Back to the light.

Back from the wolves.

Back to her.

Recklessly, Greer tossed another branch onto the flames and picked up Noah Finn’s coat.

She could hope for his return, even while pragmatically acknowledging that its heft was far warmer than anything she had.

She slipped her arms through the sleeves and buttoned up the front.

It hung off her frame as if she was a child playing at dress-up, but it made her feel safer somehow, as if it was a suit of armor, not just tattered wool.

She laid her cloak over the ground and sat, pulling the bear blanket over her lap, and began her vigil.

She would stay awake, waiting for Finn to return. And if the dawn broke and he had not, she would say a prayer for his soul, douse the fire, and continue after Ellis.

She couldn’t afford to lose sight of her mission. Finn’s disappearence had shown her just how terrifyingly fast the wilderness could strike.

She would let the fire burn all through the night, high and bright, a beacon calling out to anyone who might need to see it.

In the morning, as the sun painted the sky soft in shades of gray, as the cold winter winds howled through the firs, gusting and tousling their branches until everything inside her mind turned to a hush of white noise she could not escape, Greer ate a small breakfast. She packed her rucksack and set off into the woods once more, Noah Finn’s coat on her back.

As she went past the spot where she’d laid out her offerings, she noticed that the area was clear, save for the bloody stains on the remainder of the melting snow. Whatever had come to feast upon her gratitudes had not left a single footprint behind.