Chapter 5
“You’re sure you’re not disappointed that I’m taking Hans’s place?” Sheri asked Slade on the drive to the cabin.
“Not at all. I’m glad to be able to spend the time with you.” Slade understood Sheri’s concern that she had been his second choice, but he really didn’t feel that way about it. Hans had been the one who had asked him to join him on the camping trip, and then the two of them had planned it for the last seven months. “Hans and I had asked if anyone wanted to join us at the cabin for the last couple of days that we’re there, but at the time they couldn’t commit. It can easily accommodate eight adults, so we could have six come and join us and go fishing, hiking…”
“And then running as wolves?”
Slade smiled. “Yeah, run as wolves at night when anyone else who is camping out in the woods is hunkered down for the evening. Or early in the morning before sunrise.”
“Yeah, sure, that would be fun.”
“We meant to ask the others again before this, but we both forgot.” He got on his phone and called Cameron at the PI agency. “Hey, can you ask everyone again if anyone wants to stay with us at the cabin for the last couple of days to ice fish, cross-country ski, hike, and/or run as wolves? We have enough beds for six more adults, but we can accommodate your three little kids too. It has one queen-size bed, one full-size bed, and two futons.”
“Let me check with everyone and we’ll get back with you. Hans asked if any of us would like to do it several months ago, but we didn’t know what our caseload would look like at the time. Now that we know, we can see who would like to do it. I suspect our new parents won’t be able to make it.”
“Okay. There’s no rush on making a decision. The cabin is available if anyone wants to come.”
“You’ll have takers, I’m sure.”
“Good. Talk to you later.”
Two hours later, Slade and Sheri arrived at the cabin and used the access code that Slade had received when he had rented it. They started to unpack their gear from the SUV and carry it inside.
Sheri set up a tabletop Christmas tree on the coffee table. “Oh, did you bring the drone? That would be fun to use.”
He smiled at the Christmas tree, thinking Hans and he would never have thought of doing anything to make the experience more Christmassy while they were here. “No, we’ll have to test it out over our lake. The Boundary Waters Canoe Area restricts the use of drones. Plus, I have to get a remote pilot certificate to operate it and register it with the FAA. I planned to do it after Christmas.”
“Aww, okay.”
The cabin’s interior was all light wood paneling, making it look rustic and perfect for a getaway. The living room and spacious entryway had wooden flooring and large, blue area rugs. The kitchen had a tile floor, and all the cabinets were honey-stained pine, the walls white, and large windows overlooked the lake and forests.
A woodburning stove sat in the middle of the living room. Two sofas, two coffee tables, and several chairs filled the large room that opened to the kitchen. That made it nice if some of the people staying here were cooking and others could still talk to them from the living area. Everything was decorated in blues and browns, very cozy for a cabin in the wilderness. Black bears were featured on the shower curtains in the bathrooms, birch tree wallpaper on the walls. Pictures of black bears, wolves, and moose dominated the walls. A bookcase housed books, DVDs, and board games.
Slade was really glad he’d made a reservation for this particular cabin. They even had their own private dock, if they’d come here to paddle when the weather was warmer. He had also picked up some mistletoe before he had dropped by Sheri’s place that he wanted to hang up in the cabin without her catching him doing it.
“Upstairs is the queen-size bed and a full-size one in the one room and there’s a bathroom. Downstairs are the futons and another bathroom, the living area, and the kitchen,” Slade told Sheri. It was totally up to her how she wanted to work this. When it had been just Hans and him, they were going to sleep in the upstairs room in separate beds. But if they had guests for the last couple of days, they would figure it out then. If she wanted the room upstairs to herself, Slade was fine with that, though he truly hoped that wouldn’t be the case.
“Okay, so we sleep upstairs.” She hauled a couple of her bags up the stairs.
He smiled. Good. He had hoped she would say that. He continued to haul the items in from his SUV and set them in the living room. They could sort everything out later. For now, he wanted to put the groceries away and fix lunch.
She returned to the SUV to bring in more of the groceries. “What do you want to eat?”
“The steaks?”
“Yeah, that sounds good. Green beans and potatoes to go with it? Then before it gets too late, we can go on a snowshoe hike?”
“I would love to do a hike.” He realized how different it would be staying here with Sheri instead of her brother. With her brother, he didn’t feel the need to impress him about anything. They were more laid-back. But with Sheri, he felt the need to show her how he could cook a great meal, keep the cabin picked up, and plan some fun-filled excursions.
“It’s so cute and rustic, yet modern and warm to return to after a day spent out in the cold. It even has a firepit, and you know what that means,” she said, hauling in more groceries.
“Making s’mores?”
“Yep. At least we know the bears are all hibernating so we don’t have to worry about them coming to see what we’re roasting over the fire. We’ll have to return here in the summer when we can go paddling. I’ve done some of it around Yellowknife, and of course on the lake where the wolf pack’s homes are located, but I would really love to do it here too.” Sheri hung up her parka, scarf, and hat next to his on the coat-tree and then she put the perishable foods in the fridge.
“I would love to do that too.” Summer was his family’s seaplane busy season taking paddlers out to the BWCA, but he could carve out some time to come here again with her for sure.
Slade had been afraid that Sheri might be feeling some rebound effects after she’d called it quits with her former boyfriend, Bentley, in Yellowknife. But she had seemed perfectly fine with moving forward to date Slade exclusively.
She cut up the green beans and started cooking them while he began peeling the potatoes and boiling them.
“I wasn’t sure if you would stay here permanently with the rest of us… I mean in Ely,” he said, though he was really glad she had.
“I only told Kintail I would return with him because I didn’t want any of you hurt. The pack leader of Yellowknife is hardheaded and was angry that Elizabeth and I left the pack. As long as Elizabeth had a home here, I would deal with him. But you all stood up for me. There was such an outpouring of love for us that I hadn’t expected at all. Kintail had to go home with Bentley and the other guys empty-handed, and that’s the way it was meant to be.” She flipped the steaks and then dished up the green beans.
Slade drained the potatoes and began mashing them, adding some butter and milk. “Well, I know for me, I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. I was ready to take Bentley and Kintail on myself. Kintail had already conceded defeat where Elizabeth was concerned. But with you? It had to be your choice, not Kintail’s. Or Bentley’s.”
“You’re absolutely right. I’m just so glad Faith and Cameron are democratic in their leadership. Kintail was a tyrant. As far as Bentley goes, he was just as controlling. I just didn’t know Elizabeth had planned her escape like that with you and Amelia piloting her out of Yellowknife. Talk about the adventure of a lifetime.”
Slade served up the steaks while she got some water for them. “Yeah, imagine our surprise when David and I saw you arrive with Amelia and Elizabeth and that you weren’t just there to see her off but that you wanted to come with us.”
“You were worried that my parents and brother would be upset about me leaving, more than that Kintail would be.” She set the plates and silverware on the table.
“Cabernet sauvignon to have with our steaks?” Slade asked, showing her the bottle.
“Oh yes, that would be perfect.”
He poured them each a glass of wine and then they sat down to eat. “Family means everything to us, and I know you’re close to Elizabeth, but I knew you would also be missing your parents and your brother. Your brother sided with Kintail about Elizabeth to begin with, but now that he’s here, he’s with us all the way. That was some of the reason that we were going to go camping together. To get to know each other better.” Slade cut up some of his perfectly tender steak.
“All I know is I love it here. Of course, when my parents and brother said they were going to move here too, there was no going back. Not that I had any intention of returning to the way things were back there. So I’m here to stay.”
Slade smiled. “I can’t tell you how glad I am to hear it.”
“Good. I wouldn’t have wished my poor brother’s illness on him or anyone else, but I’m excited about being here.”
After they finally finished eating their dinner, they washed up.
“That was sure delicious,” she said.
“Yeah, Hans’s steaks were great. I brought us fixings for chili and beef stew too.”
“That sounds like it will be great. Are you ready for our hike?” Sheri asked.
“I sure am.” Slade grabbed his waterproof, breathable pants and pulled them on. She did the same with hers. Then they put on their parkas, snow pants, snow boots, hats, and gloves and grabbed their backpacks filled with snacks, water, first aid kits, and their satellite phones. They both packed ice cleats too. They shouldn’t be separated or lose each other, but it was always good to be proactive just in case something happened they hadn’t planned on.
Wearing their snowshoes, they took the Daniels Lake Spur Trail to reach the Border Route Trail. He loved the quiet out here, the snow lightly falling, the fresh powder on the ground, white, pristine.
“It’s so quiet out here,” she said.
“Yeah, except for some geese honking off in the distance, it is. Only one other cabin is winterized, so the rest of the cabins and the main lodge are empty for the winter and that makes our resort even quieter.”
“It’s so pretty out here covered in white sparkling snow,” Sheri said, her voice soft.
“It is. We’re looking for a small wooden bridge that will take us to the rapids flowing down from a waterfall.”
“Oh, wonderful,” she said.
They kept a lookout for the bridge crossing over the frozen water, then finally found it. They crossed the bridge and followed the frozen rapids to the falls.
A canopy of snow-covered trees covered the whole area and was just beautiful. Then they finally reached the partially frozen falls and put on their cleats to cross the frozen rapids to get closer to the falls. Once they were close enough, they could see just how huge they were. Sheri and Slade were dwarfed in size compared to them. After they touched the ice and took all the pictures they wanted, they started to cross the rapids again and reached the bank.
“Do you want to fish tomorrow?” Sheri asked as they took off their cleats and put on their snowshoes.
“Yeah, and cross-country ski?” he asked. Now if his sister, Amelia, had been here with them, she would have had the whole trip perfectly organized from start to finish. While he was on vacation, he relaxed, though if Sheri wanted to organize things and have packed days, he was fine with that too.
“Sure. That would be perfect.” Then Sheri asked, “Amelia told me about the harrowing flights she’s had with Gavin—two of them, in fact—but have you ever had any that you piloted?”
“Oh, yeah, sure. The engine failed once, and I immediately found a place to land and ended up in a cornfield. We were lucky and no one was hurt.”
“Wow, now that would be scary.”
“It was. We were just lucky the cornfield was nearby.”
“Who was with you?”
“A girlfriend from when I lived back in Seattle. But she never flew with me again.”
Sheri laughed. “I believe in getting back on the horse that bucked you off.”
“Good for you. I’m the same way.” Slade checked his GPS to make sure they were still on the trail. “What’s the wildest time you’ve ever had?”
“When on the job? As a store clerk? Well, both Elizabeth and I were working at a dress store in Yellowknife, and three armed robbers ran into the shop, locked the door, and told us to get on the floor. We were afraid they would hurt us. Luckily, no one was shopping in the store at the time. But one of the men’s arms was bleeding and we wondered if he’d been shot or stabbed.”
Sheri and Slade paused to drink some of their water and began moving again.
“What did you do?” He wished he’d been there with her to help her out at the time. He wanted to know everything he could about Sheri on their vacation!
***
Sheri still had nightmares about the armed men taking her and Elizabeth hostage. “Elizabeth and I decided one of us would turn into a wolf. Our growly side wanted to take all three men down for threatening us with guns. With the distraction of me turning into my wolf, Elizabeth would go for the silent alarm button under the counter. The guys were busy watching out the window. We figured they had stolen something from someplace else and were on the run and the one guy had been shot in the process. At the time, we didn’t know that they’d broken out of jail, had killed a guard, and were really dangerous. Anyway, I hurried to strip behind a rack of clothes as quietly as I could. And then I shifted into my wolf.
“One of the men turned and saw that Elizabeth wasn’t where she’d been, and I was a wolf leaping toward him. All three men were so shook up that one of them lost his gun and tried to open the door to run. One fired a shot at me, but he was too scared to aim properly before I lunged and knocked him onto his back. At the time, I felt invincible. Afterward, Elizabeth gave me heck about it. In any event, the gunman I collided with hit his head hard on the floor and he was knocked right out. The other guy, the one who had been wounded prior to entering the store, tore off after his friend. Of course, I was growling and baring my teeth at them as they were scrambling to make it outside and run down the street. Then I heard the sirens. Elizabeth had set off the silent alarm and was on the phone to the police.”
Snowflakes fluttered about them as Sheri and Slade saw a faded, wooden Border Route Trail sign pointing to both ways on the trail. She took a selfie of them next to the sign.
Then she said, “The other guy was still unconscious, though I could hear his heart beating and I knew he wasn’t dead. I raced back to redress. Elizabeth grabbed the guy’s gun and we both took refuge behind the checkout counter until the police arrived. Elizabeth turned over the gun. We gave the police descriptions of the other two men, and they revived the one on the floor. He was raving about an Arctic wolf that had nearly killed him. They had EMTs check him over, and then they handcuffed him and took him out to a police car.”
“Did you learn who the guys were?”
Sheri and Slade reached a fallen tree covered in snow and he helped her over it. This was a unique experience for her. When she hiked with Hans in the winter like this, he would figure she could get over it on her own. Once Sheri was on her feet on the other side of the downed tree, she and Slade began to hike again.
“One of the men had shot a store clerk when they tried to rob a drugstore before they reached our store. I guess they thought they could score some easy money from the drugstore, but the manager shot the one escaped prisoner after he wounded the clerk, and the three gunmen took off. The clerk didn’t die, but they were wanted by the police for assault with a deadly weapon and attempted murder and murdering the prison guard earlier. It was one thing to threaten unarmed employees, quite another to deal with someone who was also armed.”
“Still, the drugstore manager was outnumbered three to one.”
“Yeah, I guess the convicts got spooked.”
“Like you spooked them.”
“Yeah, when they caught the other two men a week later, they told the same wild tale about a white wolf coming to eat them. The police had figured the one man had hit his head so hard, he’d had a hallucination, but the other men? They didn’t know what to think, except they didn’t believe them about that for sure. Yes, wolves are seen regularly in Yellowknife, but not Arctic wolves. Of course, Kintail was mad that I’d turned wolf, not in front of the gunmen, but to go after them. He hadn’t wanted us to reveal our wolf halves. We had been afraid for our lives. Kintail hadn’t been there to protect us. He might have been angry about it, but the townspeople were thrilled that we had caught one of the would-be murderers.”
“What about the store security cameras? I would have worried that they would catch you stripping and shifting and proved what the men claimed had happened was true,” Slade said.
“The owner had security cameras that were never on. He just had them for show.”
“Good thing for you.”
“We would have come up with another plan if that hadn’t worked. We had asked him about the security cameras in case anyone had tried to rob us. It helped that we didn’t have any customers at the time, and that the robbers had locked the door so no one new could come in. Oh, and they got away with a whole forty Canadian dollars from the drugstore. Not much to show for the extra prison time they all got.”
“It’s a good thing they were all incarcerated again.”
“For sure. Whenever anyone entered the dress shop after that, Elizabeth and I worried armed robbers were coming in to take us hostage again.”
“I don’t blame you.”
Then Sheri and Slade were quiet so they could listen to the sounds of any animals in the area. It was just the perfect solitude out here. Because of the remoteness of the trail and the minimal maintenance it had, Sheri had the paper map and compass to navigate by. They also had downloaded an offline GPS on their phones. Slade was using the online GPS so far. But because they were wolves, they could also navigate by their sense of smell.
The trail was littered with downed trees that they had to navigate because of a rare tornado that had hit unseasonably late in the year. Volunteers would remove them in the spring and summer, but not until next year now. The trail was difficult enough to traverse without the downed trees—narrow and rugged, lots of climbing up and down, icy or snow-covered rocks.
But then they saw a bull moose up ahead, about seven feet tall, his huge antlers spreading nearly six feet from end to end, his brown fur soft-looking. They both paused to watch him. He was so big, he could weigh around a thousand pounds or more. That was worth the whole trip! He caught sight of them, then started to eat some birch, acting as though he had nothing to worry about. In truth, they had more to worry about if he decided to charge them. He finally moved off, and when he was gone, they continued their journey.
Slade smiled back at her. “That was great.”
“I’ll say.” She was glad she had gone with Slade to do this.
“Since we’ve been hiking for about three hours, I figure it’s about time to head back.”
Thankfully, with their wolves’ vision, they could see in the dark since the sun would set before they reached the cabin.
“We’ll see the sun setting. That will be nice.”
“Yeah. Maybe even the aurora borealis later,” he said.
This time, Sheri led the way, and they could just follow their own trail back. No one else was around at all, which was really nice. Then they heard wolves serenading them from off in the distance.
“We’ll be doing that too,” she said.
“Yeah, after dinner? A wolf run and s’mores after that?”
“That sounds like fun.”
As soon as they came to another big, downed tree in their path, Slade hurried to squeeze by Sheri and helped her over it. Then she was in the lead again.
“What had you planned to do with Hans if he and you had been here? I don’t want to mess up your plans,” she said.
“We didn’t have any plans. We were just going to wing it.”
“Okay, super. I’m really good at winging things.”
He chuckled. “Good. Me too.”
They had walked for about an hour when they saw movement in the woods. They both paused and listened to the brush moving, then out came a pretty red fox. She looked around, then headed back the way they had come.
It was nearly four in the afternoon and the sun was setting. The sun would rise at about a quarter of eight in the morning. They could even take a wolf run before that, if they wanted to.
The sky turned pink and blue, reflecting off the snow. So pretty. Sheri took a video of it before they moved on again.
“Oh, I’ve been meaning to tell you that all of us ladies, with the help of Cameron and Faith’s kids, picked out the toys for about seventy-five kids between the ages of three and eight for your Santa Seaplane Toy Drop. I think it was wonderful that your parents wanted to make that happen for the first time here.”
“That’s great. The stores provided them, then?”
“They sure did. They were all in, free publicity, great charitable cause.”
“That’s wonderful! And the music?”
“A band will play Christmas music and a group from Ely will be dressed in Victorian clothing and sing Christmas carols with everyone there.”
“I’m glad I’m playing Santa.”
“Oh?”
He chuckled. “I don’t sing. At least that anyone wants to hear.”