Free Prairie Widow by Harold Bakst

scare the pack away.
    She rummaged through the box. Its contents were still visible. There was a hammer, some beef jerkey, a tin of tobacco, bullets even, but no gun. There was, however, a coal oil lantern and matches. Jennifer removed the lantern and lit it. The glow spread slowly out, recasting pale light upon the ground. Headstones reemerged from the gloom. Some of the near wolves, their attention caught by the lantern, lowered their heads, as if trying to see under the light. Their eyes glowed eerily. Jennifer hung the lantern on a bent nail embedded in the jockey box. But as she lifted the reins and raised her eyes, terror gripped her. She couldn’t believe what she saw. Swarming in the grasses outside the cemetery were still more glowing pairs of eyes, almost like fireflies in the summer evening. It seemed to Jennifer she was surrounded by at least fifty or sixty wolves.
    The ox raised its head and lowed into the starless sky. Jennifer gently flicked the reins. The ox tried to move forward, only to struggle against the wagon wheel break. Flustered, Jennifer released it. She flicked the reins again. “Go,” she hissed. The ox tried to bolt, but Jennifer held him to a walk. One wolf that had been lying down in front jumped to its feet and trotted out of the way.
    The wagon rolled down the little hill on a nearly invisible, narrow trail. The lantern swung, throwing swelling and shrinking shadows upon the grass, teeming with wolves. No matter how far the wagon went, no matter which way she looked, Jennifer saw still more wolves. Nearby, they were grey and shadowy. Farther off, they were only those glowing eyes.
    The pack seemed endless. But Jennifer realized it really wasn’t. Rather, it was following the wagon. This wasn’t obvious at first because the wolves just seemed to be there at every stretch of the way. But then Jennifer lifted her lantern to extend the range of its light, and she saw that she was the hub of a moving pack, some of whose members trotted alongside the wagon, others of whom ran ahead to wait for the wagon to catch up. Jennifer wondered why the wolves didn’t attack. Surely a fat ox and a not-so-fat woman were tempting enough prey. All she could figure, and hope for, was that they had already eaten.
    She returned the lantern to the bent nail. Her eyes watered. She pictured her children as orphans stranded so far from home. A tear dribbled down her cheek. She was sorely tempted to set the ox running, but she knew he would never out-distance wolves.
    One troublemaker began to worry her. He was a skinny thing, and he kept nipping at the ox’s rear left hoof. The ox didn’t seem to notice, or—if oxen were so capable—he was choosing to ignore the pest. But it was only a matter of time, thought Jennifer, before the wolf took a real bite. Then the ox would lunge, and the hunt would be on.
    Jennifer continued steadfastly through the grass until she came to the clear rutted trail that lead to the Baker homestead. Along this trail she rode at the same slow rate, ever accompanied by her horrific escorts. It seemed like an eternity, but Jennifer at last saw in the black distance a solitary light, a beacon: the Baker soddy.
    Again, Jennifer was tempted to flick the reins and make a dash for it, screaming as she went. Then Seth Baker might come out with his rifle and shoot at the wolves. But even as she considered this, she knew it would as likely be suicidal for her.
    Then she noticed something—the grasses were empty. The wolves were gone.
    Jennifer turned in every direction. She raised the lantern over her head. She saw nothing within its glow now but the billowing sea-like waves of grass, beneath which, so it seemed, the wolf pack had plunged to some greater depth.
    Later, as Jennifer arrived at the Baker soddy, her heart racing, she noted two wagons and two mules tied up outside. Through the parted red window curtains she saw some of the neighbors who had been to the