Juggling Fire by Joanne Bell

“But they probably like their pups. They’d be sad if you took one home.”
    “They’d still have some left,” I reminded him.
    “We’d have Becky if you ran away. But it wouldn’t make us not sad.”
    I leaped at his legs, signaling forgiveness. “Don’t worry,” I reassured him when he squatted down so I could hop on for a piggyback. “I won’t run away yet.”
    One moment I’m sleeping, the next listening, fully alert.
    Wolves are calling from beyond the river. They sing to each other like chanting monks and break off one at a time. I disentangle myself from Brooks and sit up in the dark.
    A lone wolf cries from the other side of the cabin. Brooks is lying on my bag, growling deep in his throat.
    I swing off the bed and crack the door. Cold blasts in; I rub my bare feet against each other. Moments ago I was safely asleep.
    Becky said that each wolf in a pack howls at a different pitch to make it sound as if there are more than there really are. She also said that wolves can hear at a much higher range than humans and stake their territory for absent members of the pack by scent marking as well as howling.
    Eyes shining, a pack of wolves stands in the moonlit forest, spread out in a straight line. They’re so close I can see their fur is wet from wading across to me. Only my head sticks from behind the door. They pace forward, holding my stare, tails level with their spines. I open my mouth to yell “GET!” but it comes out soft, like a breath.
    They splash away across the river and mill about on the far bank like they’re waiting for a signal to proceed. A few sit on their haunches like dogs. One stretches his front legs and yawns.
    “Now you can get,” I call across. From behind me comes the howl of the lone wolf. The northern lights are a smudge of green dancing above the horizon. The sky is enormous.
    I’m surrounded.
    “Enough,” I shout, mustering a firm voice. “Wolves don’t attack people. GET OUT OF HERE!”
    Anything can happen in here. Dad could stroll up the bank or I could hear shots popping in time to the northern lights and follow them tomorrow to a dugout with Dad’s stovepipe jutting from a bank. The tide of his disappearance will wash away from my life, and nothing will be smashed where it’s flowed.
    Heads slightly lowered, the wolves twist around and slide back into the willows, outlines broken by branches moving as they retreat.
    Slowly, the twigs stop trembling and shine, motionless once more in the moonlight. My heart is banging against my chest.
    I slam the door and climb into bed. Brooks washes my face and I shove him away and listen for the lone wolf, the lookout, arm slung for comfort over Brooks’s chest.
    The sun’s already high across the mountains beyond the far bank when I wake next. In that first moment before I can really remember where I am, before my eyes slip open and meet Brooks’s, I’m happy. I slip on my boots and blow the fire’s coals into life.
    Brooks dangles his head over the edge of the pole bed and barks. “No problem,” I say. “You just had to ask.”
    I lift him down and he walks, stiff-legged, out the open door. He puts his paw on the ground but with no weight on it.
    Outside, there’s no sign of any life. I grin and duck back in: four walls, unpeeled roof poles, stove, table and two shelves, all made from poles. The wolf pack that surrounded me feels like a dream in the hot sunshine. An enamel cup and a frying pan hang above the table. Magazine cutouts of beautiful women in one-piece bathing suits line the walls; their hair is curled and tucked neatly behind their ears.
    The shelf beside the stove holds several tins: tea, flour and a bitter white powder I guess is baking powder.
    I lift each picture off its nail and check the underside for notes. Those pictures were there all my life; some longago trapper who built the cabin tacked them into place and we left them up. Becky and I thought they were beautiful mothers because their breasts