By Eddie Grey Wolf Marine
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Chapter 1
There are few men who can say that they have lived and they have dreamed. I have lived what I dreamed, and now I dream what I have lived. This is how that dream started.
This was a cruel world that my father had bequeathed to me, a land of no compromise and no guarantee of survival. This was the Frozen North, this was the Yukon. What was I to do here? I was four hundred miles from nowhere, near the Arctic Circle and stuck in a log cabin with my father's body lying there on the bunk all froze out and dead. The only other living thing was my father's dog, Raven. She was a full grown wolf which was a real daughter of a bitch at the best of times and really didn't cotton on to anybody other than my father. Nonetheless, she seemed to take to me. Maybe she knew that I was only a 15 year old inexperienced youth, a Chechako, a greenhorn, the last of the line of the Greywolf Clan. The dawn broke with the usual cold that wanted to steal the life from my body. It froze all the hair up my nostrils into needles that hurt with the slightest movement of my face. I was now faced with the immediate problem of burying my father, but first things first - tea, something hot, I needed warmth. There is no love here, other than that which you give yourself. It was some hours later that I finally got the whole shooting match all slung together -the resting post for my father - so he could rest up high there for he is with the earth. I stopped short of severing the dog's head to hang up there alongside of him - I know that she loved him very much, but now she's stuck with me and I looked at him as I walked away, he's goin' to lay there and freeze and be there for the spirits. I don't remember quite why I built this kind of trapeze for him, but, it was within my blood, and that's where he lay and that's where he'll stay. But, nonetheless, Raven still clung close to me. I didn't know why, but, she was there. She was a big wolf, all black, with eyes that looked deep into a man, as if searching for the truth in his soul. She sat there watching me, never once taking her gaze from me which had the most profound effect on me - I suppose it is called fear. Yet, as I laid my last few prayers in place to the great spirit she walked up to me as if she understood everything I had been doing. From now on it was going to be Raven and me. I stretched out my hand to her and knelt down. This I thought would be her chance, it's now or never, she would either kill me or we would become good friends. At that moment I had no idea just how much of a friend she would become. "Raven, Raven" I called as I looked at this beautiful animal which was to be my only companion here in this hostile world. I turned to my father's cradle, and I looked up at him, I then looked at the cabin where I had spent the last few months, and it was only then that I started to appreciate what my father had. I stood a while and looked at the cabin in the middle of nowhere, which was now mine (and Raven's). All made by a man who could not live with the white man, a man who only understood the way of the earth and the wilderness. "Well Raven, unless we get inside we're going to be just as cold as dad". We walked up the track towards the cabin, and the dog, even at this point, walked close to me - that's as close as she had ever been to me, and that had been the first time that she had ever even give my hand a lick. I think that she and I are going to be as one. The snow was about a foot thick on the cabin roof and the old pot-bellied stove still gave off some smoke, so at least the fire wasn't out. I've heard of a man freezing to death because his cabin fire went out. Still, as we walked towards the cabin, I felt a great sadness. Whether it was for the loss of my security, or the loss of a father that I had never really got to know, I'm not sure, but at least I had a home that I could call my own. It was the first that I had ever had in my life and it wasn't the most luxurious of places. There was a table, a couple of chairs, one or two bunks, oil lamps, a place to store food and a large open fire that the snow would hiss into all night long. The windows, well they were just rifle slits with animal skins over them and large wooden shutters that could be barred from inside should there be potential danger from the elements, or man. The walls were lined with animal skins and the bunks had buffalo robe bedding. As for the rest of it, just the usual pots and pans and a coffee pot that was always on the go, near the door, near where Dad hung his traps. Outside was a tall four-posted meat safe that stood at least fourteen feet high that even a grizzly couldn't reach. A grizzly can be a real mean bastard when hungry, and these were the things that I could no longer ignore. I was now faced with the fact that survival depended solely upon my own strength and courage. In the glow of the fire sat Raven, her eyes reflecting the light until she rested her head on her paws and fell gently asleep, as for me I continued to work on a pair of mukluks, snow boots, for many hours until I could hardly keep my eyes open, but I needed these boots desperately for without the right kind of footwear a man is going nowhere in this kind of land. This is the law that my father taught me, a man must be able to hunt an animal and kill it, and then skin it cure it and then wear it, this is the law of the wild. The boots were now finished and I wondered where I'm going from here, the food has nearly all gone, and I have to start learning to hunt and provide for both myself and Raven. And now, I regret the lessons of life my father showed me and I wish I had taken more notice of them, because now I was going to be put to the test. The boots fitted well, and I strutted up and down the cabin like a peacock, thinking that I was the world's number one - they were indeed fine boots. Raven by this time was woken up by my strutting around and sat up looking at me as if I was I prize jerk. She did not understand what I was doing, but responded well to the hand out of moose jerky, dried moose meat, this she had no quarrel with at all. The wind had started to pick up and howl like the devil himself, as if to say "this land is mine" - there was a great storm coming, and I was beginning to think that my cabin was right in the middle of it, then out of the night, I heard a voice call "hello the cabin, hello the cabin,"
