Hidden Spirit

Chapter 2: Wolves-2

By midafternoon, the canoe crew was told they had nearly reached their destination. Justin pointed out the narrow bay that lay just ahead.

“Thank God!” Jeff moaned. “I’m exhausted.”

“Give me a break,” Todd countered. “You haven’t paddled a stroke all day. What have you got to complain about? The rest of us did all the work.”

Privately, Morgan agreed with Todd but he didn’t say anything.

They entered the tight channel. Trees came right to the water’s edge. Every so often through a break in the tree line a stream emptied into the waterway. Morgan wondered where they would camp as there seemed not to be any place along their route that offered a beach.

Justin directed them to a rocky place along the shore. “We’re here,” he announced.

“We’re where?” Jeff asked. “There’s no place for us to get out of the canoe, let alone camp.”

“Trust us,” Steele said jovially. “We’ve been here a few times.”

They beached the canoe on a thin strip of rocky shore and piled out, hauling their backpacks with them. Morgan had to admit he was a bit skeptical of where they were going to end up.

After pulling the canoe onto the beach, turning it over, and securing it, Melody said, “Grab your packs and follow us.”

They did as they were told. It seemed they were heading into a solid wall of trees when Justin suddenly disappeared. There was a murmur among the campers. As the line pressed forward one after another of the group seemed to vanish into the trees. When it was Morgan’s turn, he found a sharp bend that opened onto a comfortably wide trail through the woods accounted for the illusion of people vanishing from sight.

The group followed the trail for perhaps a quarter mile where it opened onto a grass-covered clearing. At the end of the clearing a small waterfall tumbled out of the trees. The ensuing stream babbled along beside the clearing, then disappeared into the forest.

Morgan took a deep breath. The spot was idyllic. The deep green of the foliage, the gurgle of the water, and scent of pine all blended into a most pleasant assault on the senses.

As he looked around the clearing, it became apparent the crew from the lodge had prepared well for visitors. At the far end, near the waterfall, was a fire pit encircled by logs. A cord of wood was stacked neatly nearby. A small shed was tucked among the trees, nicely hidden so as to not disrupt the sense of wilderness. Next to the shed was a path. On a tree at the side of the path Melody was hanging a round, wooden sign. One side was red, the other green.

“The facilities,” she said with a smile as she brought a plastic box from the shed labeled T. P. and set it down at the head of the trail.

“You’re joking!” Jeff said, a panicked tone in his voice.

Many in the group laughed.

“Welcome to the great outdoors, Jeff-ee,” Todd said, accentuating the pronunciation of the name as he laughed along with the others.

The first hour was spent setting up camp. The shed was nicely stocked with essentials for meals: cooking pots, an iron grill for cooking over the wood fire, and dried foodstuffs. The canoe had been packed with ice chests carrying the more perishable items. For water, it turned out the small waterfall was safe for drinking and cooking.

A sleeping area was designated. Morgan noticed that Nate had placed their sleeping bags on the other side of the clearing, away from the group.

“Whoa there, Nate,” Steele called to him. “We need to sleep close as a group. Safer that way. You don’t want Morgan to be carried off in the middle of the night by a bear do you?”

Nate grinned at Morgan sheepishly, but still placed their sleeping bags as far away from the others as was possible. The honeymooners had done the same on the opposite side of the sleeping area.

Morgan stood with his hands on his hips and shook his head. His boyfriend was incorrigible. He just hoped Nate wasn’t planning on anything cute in the dark of the night that would get them banished from camp.

“Morgan,” Steele called out.

“Yeah?”

“Didn’t you say you learned the paddle song at Boy Scout camp?”

“Yep, I did. Why?”

“Well then, come on over here and help me with the fire.”

As Morgan and Steele walked to the woodpile, Steele commented, “You seem to really be enjoying this experience.”

“I am,” Morgan replied. “I’ve never been much of an outdoors guy but something on this trip has gotten to me.”

“Maybe it’s the call of the wild.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Morgan agreed. However, he didn’t let on how much he’d been feeling that something was definitely calling to him.

They went to the stack of wood. Steele began picking up some logs. Morgan leaned on the pile and waited his turn. Suddenly a chipmunk appeared, ran up to Morgan, and without hesitation, tried to turn Morgan’s hand over and pry his fingers apart.

“Hey!” Morgan exclaimed and pulled his hand away. The little creature sat up and scolded Morgan. Morgan looked at Steele, who’d begun laughing. “That’s Chip,” the big man said. “He’s looking for these.”

Steele put down the logs, reached into his pocket, and pulled out a handful of almonds. Chip ran to where Steele stood and raised up on his haunches. Steele lowered his hand. The little rodent hopped on and began stuffing his pouches with the nuts.

“He waits for our trips and suckers the campers into providing him with his winter store of food. He’s been doing it for years they tell me, long before I came onboard. Of course it’s probably not the original Chip—they don’t live that long. But I bet he’s one of a long line of descendants.” Chip disappeared into the woodpile.

“Here,” Steele said, and put a few almonds in Morgan’s hand. “He’ll be back.” Morgan stood leaning on the stacked wood. When Chip reemerged, he immediately scampered along the top of the stack over to Morgan, pried open his fist, climbed aboard, and began to refill his pouches.

Morgan smiled. “This is great,” he said.

“He’ll hang out with us until we leave. You’ll see him running around underfoot, begging all the time. I better warn the others so they don’t think they’re being attacked by some wild animal. Especially—”

“Jeff!” both men said together and laughed.

The rest of the day passed very enjoyably. Margaret and Joseph were ecstatic there was no Wi-Fi or cell phone signals from cyber space here and the boys were forced to relate to each other and the world around them, rather than their iPhones. Jeff said he needed to nap. Todd stretched out beside him, reading a book. Melody and Steele set themselves to the task of preparing the evening meal.

Justin guided Nate and Morgan and the newlyweds, Penny and Ned, on a hike. As they wandered among the trees, the primal atmosphere began to impinge itself on Morgan once again. The feeling of oneness with the forest came over him, and he wondered how a man born and bred in the heart of a large US city could have this affinity for a place to which he’d never been.

They followed the stream back from the waterfall in the clearing and came to a beaver dam behind which was a pond, the beaver lodge rising out of the water near the center. They crouched at its edge. Justin told them to be as quiet as they could. After a time, a pair of beavers appeared on the opposite bank, dragging birch branches to the pond. They swam to the lodge and disappeared beneath the surface, pulling the branches after them. “They’re storing food for the winter,” Justin said in a whisper.

Awhile later the couples stood up. Their movement interrupted the beavers on one of their foraging trips. The animals slapped the water with their broad, flat tails and disappeared beneath the surface.

The group left the pond and wandered back toward camp by a different route.

“Shhh,” Justin warned. They crept forward to a spot just inside the trees bordering a meadow. Justin pointed. There, grazing in the tall grass was a small herd of elk.

“Omashkooz,” Morgan said in a whisper.

“What?” Nate asked, looking at Morgan quizzically.

“That’s right,” Justin said. “Omashkooz is the Ojibwe word for elk.”

“How would you know that?” Nate asked.

Morgan, who was as surprised as anyone, shrugged and said, “I don’t know. It just popped into my head. I must have read it somewhere or something.”

Just then they heard a howl in the distance. The single cry was joined soon after by a chorus of howls. The elk raised their heads and ran out of the meadow.

“Wolves,” Justin said. “That first howl was an alert to the pack that prey had been sighted. It was a call to the hunt. It’s dusk. That’s the time they begin their hunts, that and dawn. That was pretty far away but we should probably get back to camp just the same. It wouldn’t be a good idea to run into a pack of hungry wolves.”

While Ned, Penny, and Nate seemed to react with fear to the news that a hungry wolf pack could be hunting nearby, Morgan’s reaction, however, was entirely different. It was one of excitement. He wished he could see the pack, watch them hunt, and…and…what? Celebrate the kill? Why did that thought come to mind? And why did he have the feeling that he wanted to howl?