Free Ian Mackenzie Jeffers The Grey by Ian Mackenzie Jeffers

job. 
    “That’s fucking great.  So we’re here for the night?”  Bengt says.  It’s all night, more or less, from here.  And the trees aren’t going to save us from wolves, if they want us.  But I don’t say anything to him.  I keep looking back to where I think the plane is, along our tracks, and Ojeira and Feeny trailing behind. 
    Ojeira’s at the back, hobbling pretty bad , but he's still going better than he was before.  I think maybe he’s not as bad off as he seemed, after all, even with his hernia or whatever it is he doesn’t know about, if he still hasn’t noticed.  He didn’t want us to help him like Luttinger and I did before, maybe he’s mending already.  Feeny’s with him, he’s only got the missing hand, but he might have fever or something, he’s wobbling, walking drunken, it looks like.  He looks worse than Ojeira.  The snow’s hip-deep in places so none of us are going that fast, and they haven’t dropped behind too badly.  But they will before long, as slow as we’ve been going, they’re going slower.  They’re strung pretty far back already.
    “We should wait a little for those two, though,”   I say.
    The others look back, waiting.  After a minute Tlingit and some of them sit, breathing hard.  We look around, again and again, I do, the others too, and I know we’re looking for the wolves that are supposedly going to leave us alone, and not come at us, because we think we’re trying to respectfully go the fuck home.  Ojeira and Feeny barely seem to be getting any closer, and Feeny keeps stopping to hold his stump up high.  I think it’s hurting whenever any blood fills into it so he gives up and walks with his hand in the air like he’s on strike for something.  We should have stopped sooner.  As I look again Feeny looks like he’s dropped further back than Ojeira.  The wind is creeping up harder, getting to be a slam, pushing cold through us, making it harder for Ojeira and Feeny, us too.  I stare back at them, in the half-light that’s left, waiting for them, wishing they’d hurry. 
    Then, like before, I see something I’m not sure I’m seeing at all, lines moving in the dark, grey or black, two from the right, two from the left, one from behind, coming at Feeny.  They don’t seem interested in Ojeira.  They’ve chosen Feeny, like they choose any animal, based on some invisible thing, though not so invisible this time, and that’s going to be that, nothing will turn them away, unless it’s a threat.
    I start running before the others seem to see them.  I start straight for Feeny, but then I shift, head for the one of them coming from the right, the one closest it looks like, waving my arms, shouting, trying to look like a threat. I hear the others doing the same, behind me, same as they did to beat that one off of me. We’re far away.  Feeny looks at us, sees us running, looks around.  He sees the one from the right I’m charging at but he doesn’t see the ones from behind him, or the left.  Ojeira looks too, almost falls backwards but catches his balance, stands there, frozen, then he starts jump-hobbling as hard as he can to help Feeny, yelling like the rest of us, but all they seem to care about is Feeny.  They don’t even care about me, so I yell louder and wave my arms.  I realize there’s a log and a knife in my pack and I’m empty-handed, running at them, but there’s no time.
    The one I’m charging at finally turns off Feeny to start at me, and the ones from behind and the left are still on Feeny but further from him, so I’ve gained him ten seconds maybe, or five, and now I have to keep charging at the one I’ve committed to. 
    I yell back at the guys, “ Get on the others!   Go! ” 
    I seem to think there’s some way if we split them up and charge at them we’ll be able to get the others off Feeny.  What we do with whichever wolves we pull off I don’t know, but they’ll be off Feeny. But run as hard as we