The Road Home by Clifford Beck - HTML preview

Chapter 24

The morning sun streamed through the south-facing windows and with everyone out of bed, Aurora soon noticed how little was hidden by her nightgown. Of course, Eli was the first to discover this.

“Aurora,” he began. “Holy shit, I can see right through your nightgown. Nice.”

Aurora and Eli never seemed to get along. She always saw him as an obscene stoner and tried to keep a healthy distance from him. But with his comment, she retaliated with a nasty remark of her own.

“You asshole!” she said. “By the way, I’ve seen your dick, and the last time I saw one like that I was changing a diaper, so fuck you.” Aurora successfully put him in his place as Eli flushed with a mix of embarrassment and anger. Everyone else became startled into silence, having realized there was more to Aurora than previously thought. In her anger and disgust, Aurora stomped off to the restroom with a change of clothes and returning stormed out the door. But within minutes she returned, terrified at something no one expected.

“Guys, get over here,” she said. “You need to see this.”

After her display of temper, the group found it difficult to take her seriously and hesitated in their response.

“Guys,” she continued. “I’m serious, get the fuck over here!”

Maya seemed to be the only person listening, and as close as the two had become walked to the open door. What she saw left her speechless, and saw no need to inquire as to why Aurora demanded their attention.

“Jesus Christ,” she said. “Those fuckers were here.”

Everyone clamored to the door and, staring down, saw deep claw marks gouged into its lower half. Nathan, making a closer examination, discovered several prints left in the soft earth. He wasn’t a wildlife expert, but he knew what he was looking at.

“Guys,” he began. “We had company last night. Look at the size of these tracks.”

Jackson made his own examination and asked Nathan for an opinion.

“Do you think these are the same wolves that were at the store?”

Continuing to study the hand-sized prints, Nathan gave a vague response.

“I don’t know—maybe.”

Calling Aurora over, he questioned her about what she knew about wolves.

“We saw three last night down at the store. Do you think any of these tracks could be from them?”

Now that she had calmed to the point of being able to think clearly, Aurora tapped from her knowledge of wildlife.

“Probably,” she said. “Their territory can be pretty big. It can go on for miles in every direction.”

The wolf's visit to the cabin left Eli especially terrified, but he asked one important question. “Do you think they’ll come back?”

“Well,” Aurora began. “If they think there’s food here, they might. But, really, they’re more afraid of us than we are of them.”

Eli refused to believe that an animal whose head came up to the middle of his chest could be afraid of anything, and found Aurora’s assessment less than comforting.

“Oh, I feel much better now.”

Finishing their examination of the claw marks left on the door, the group decided to remain indoors until later in the morning, when they could venture out to the lake. Not having showered in a few days, they were keenly aware of how much bathing had become necessary and looked forward to a dip in the lake, regardless of its frigid temperature.

Breakfast was the first order of the day and eager to fill the void left by a night’s sleep, everyone contributed to its preparation. It had been a long night, with nearly everyone barely asleep, listening to the painful nocturnal silence occasionally broken by the distant howls of wolves hidden somewhere in the icy mountains. But Maya found the soft baleful lament to be something of a lullaby, pulling her into a deep soothing sleep, and morning found her waking from the best sleep she’d had in years. Such is the stress of higher education.