The vibrations of the thunder travel through me, making me shiver worse than the cold - and it’s freezing with the windchill that’s blowing around the tent.
My only consolation is that, right now, I’m safe from Johnson and Moore. Wherever they are, they are going to stay there until this storm passes. No-one in their right mind goes out in this weather, not even them.
Thoughts of Leah and my mother keep me company as I try not to go mad in the howling darkness. The tent eventually stops shaking, but only because layers of snow now pin it to the ground.
Soon, the sound eases, too, as the snow buries the tree, and my tent with it. I still feel the storm with my senses, and the deceiving silence isn’t helping me at all.
The only thing keeping the snow from crushing my tent is the spread of branches above it, but they are so low, now, I can feel them above me, and I am beginning to feel claustrophobic.
It’s no longer cold in my cocoon of snow, and I pant, desperate for air. I remind myself to stay calm in this blackness, but I’ve been stuck in here all night, and my thoughts are no longer my friends.
My reprieve comes shortly after sunrise when the storm finally abates, but by then, I’m a mess. The snow cover is so thick and heavy; it has pushed the tree nearly flat - and me with it.
There is barely enough room for me to crawl over my bag to get to the zipper of the entrance. No way can I shift in here.
I grab the cord attached to the zipper with my teeth and open it as much as it will go. Snow pours in. It’s pitch black in here, but my senses tell me everything I need to know.
They tell me the approximate thickness of the snow outside and my chances of digging myself out. They tell me that if I don’t hurry up, I will suffocate in here.
I start digging. More snow pours in. It fills the tent faster than I can reach the surface. My paws scrabble frantically, forwards and upwards, while my heart races.
I’ve made a tunnel. My bag is buried beneath me. The snow smells fresh, like ozone, but my panting draws all the oxygen from my limited air supply. I dig faster.
The tiny cave behind me fills up as I progress along my tunnel. I inch along on my belly, scratching and biting at the snow in front of me. I can taste blood.
The snow around me starts to look grey instead of totally black. It spurs me on, and with one final effort, I push my head out of a tiny hole in the snow to peek out at the transformed forest around me.
I lie there - my body still in the tunnel, and my head in the fresh air - taking big gulps into my lungs and letting my eyes adjust to the bright light. After a moment, I wriggle out and tumble several feet down the slope to the forest floor.
My body is spent, and there’s no way I can retrieve my backpack now. It’ll have to wait until later. I have to recover first.
I flop down onto the ground, still panting. Everything around me is white, glittering with the morning sun coming through the trees. If it weren’t for the ordeal I’d just been through, it would be beautiful.
My eyelids grow heavy as my body relaxes. I curl up, head to tail, so I can catch up on some of the sleep I lost last night.
My ears twitch as they pick up a soft rustle, and I know what was left of my tunnel collapsed. Right now, I don’t care, but later, I will have to dig the whole thing up if I want to get my bag out.
I doze off, too exhausted to stay awake any longer. It’s been a hell of a night - one I wasn’t prepared for - and all thanks to Johnson and Moore.
The forest around me is in a state of hush with its blanket of snow, but something makes me lift my head again. My mind is immediately clear, and my ears strain to pick up whatever it was that disturbed me.
I smell the air. Fresh snow, forest, nothing else on the breeze. A soft sound behind me. Too faint for my human ears to have picked up. My fur bristles, and a growl builds in my throat.
Click.
I run at the sound.
The gunshot echoes through the forest.
Chapter 6
How the hell did they find me? My sensitive ears hurt from the blast of the gunshot, but my body reacts to my commands, and I know they missed - this time.
A second blast rings out, and a flurry of snow shoots up beside me. I dart to the side, zigzagging between the trees. My mind races. I didn’t get much rest, and I won’t be able to outrun them for long.
“Logan.”
“Here, doggie.”
Shit, I didn’t miss their voices.
I can now hear them talking to each other, and I know they found the spot where I spent the night.
“We have your stuff, Logan,” Moore taunts me.
“You’ll die out here,” Johnson laughs.
My throat vibrates with the growl building within as I sneak around some bushes. I can see them from here, and Moore uses a branch to poke through the snow where my tent is.
Johnson scans the area. He’s now entirely still, the only movement the cloud of breath in front of his face. He speaks, and the cloud is bigger. Moore stops digging.
My instincts warn me, and I run again. The shot rings out a second later and shreds the bush I hid behind. I feel the heat of the bullet as it passes my ear. Too close.
The snow is deep and fresh, but my paws are broad and webbed, and I now don’t think twice about abandoning my rucksack. The cops give chase, and although they struggle to keep up, their bullets follow me easily.
The forest gets denser the further I run. With the trees closer together, the snow doesn’t lie as thick, and I can run faster.
“We’ll get you,” Moore yells.
“You can’t run forever,” Johnson adds.
I can still hear them, but they are far behind now. They can’t keep going; humans don’t have the staying power of a wolf, not even shifter ones.
The forest swallows me, and I vanish. The cops will probably go back to my stuff, hoping I’ll return to it, but I won’t. It’s a dead loss to me, now.
Skagway is about two hundred miles from here. Last night was a freak storm. Winter hasn’t begun yet. I can make it. Orientating myself, I pace myself to a steady trot and angle south-east so I can intercept the Klondike Highway.
There are a few homesteads and settlements along the main route, but I avoid them. There’s no point in getting into any more trouble than I already am.
Water, I find plenty along my way, but hunting is more complicated. It costs a lot of energy to catch prey, but if I want to keep going, I need to eat. Most days, I just catch voles or other rodents, but it’s enough to sustain me.
I trot through the forest, far away from the road. It’s more challenging to run here than on the tarmac, but I am not taking the chance of the cops driving up and down the road looking for me.
Although I’m tired, I fall into a rhythm, and I manage to run all day and most of the night. I sleep for four hours just before dawn, then I’m off again, and I hunt on the run.
My only goal now - to reach my uncle in Juneau. I have nothing else left. The cops have taken my options away from me. I’m out in the open, and the weather is getting worse by the day.
It’s the third week of October, now, but it feels like we’re already in November. There’s the smell of more snow on the wind, and I don’t want to be caught in another thundersnow or blizzard.
I drive my body to its limits every day, and I know I’m taking strain. The thoughts of the weather, the cops, and the wolves howling at night keep me going even when my legs shake from exhaustion.