The Mammoth Book of Terror (78 page)

“Charles looked away.

“Then I felt the first awful weight of panic . . .”

Claymore looked at me almost with challenge. I was staring, open mouthed, completely absorbed in his tale, caught up in the complex mood behind the words.

“He left you?” I asked.

Claymore nodded.

“Yes. He left me. It was the fact of not having his rifle, you see. I feel certain that, had he not lost the weapon, he would have found some other solution; wouldn’t have abandoned
me. But he had lost the gun and, with it, his courage, his confidence. All his experience was related to the possession of a firearm, and without it he could not function, he could not relate
circumstances to past experience. Standing over me he seemed to have no more substance than his shadow; could no more direct his own behaviour than that shadow could defy the commands of the fading
light. And then, of course, there were the wolves . . .

“All our efforts, although they seemed to have lasted a long time, had passed quickly. Time had been suspended by stress. The sky was still violent with gold and fire behind stratocumu-lus
formations. I distinctly remember turning to look at this flaming sunset; noticing it without relation to my plight, as my mind turned away from reality in self-defence. I thought quite composedly
how beautiful the colours were with the dark pines thrusting up like a palisade. And then, gradually, I became aware of other broken silhouettes above the ridge. It was as if the tournure of the
land had shifted subtly, as if during our suspended period of time the world had continued to age and upheavals had altered the contours. I shielded my eyes and stared into the incandescent sunset
and gradually the objects took form and became the wolves.

“The pack sat on top of the ridge and regarded us in silent hunger. I spoke – I used my voice, although the syllables were broken and did not take verbal form – and Charles
turned to look; jerked up sharply, his face mangled by fear. The wolves followed his motion with their yellow eyes. ‘They never attack humans,’ I said. And Charles knew this as well as
I, but he did not have his gun. He whispered, ‘They have no fear of us. You would not let me kill them . . .’ Trying to shift the responsibility on to me, of course; to justify his act
even before he committed it. And then I knew, definitely, that he would leave me.

“Charles began making preparations then, without another word. I watched him in silence with the fires of agony spreading through my thigh and hip, eager for fuel. He made a fire. He
gathered all the wood in the immediate vicinity and stacked it beside me. He took the blankets and sleeping bag from my pack and wrapped them carefully – tenderly even – around me. His
actions were stiff and jerky and he could not look at me; could not bring himself to tell me he was leaving. Strangely enough, I felt I should make it easier for him, since it was an irrevocable
decision. I asked, ‘How soon can you be back?’ He looked at me then; seemed relieved that I was not pleading or arguing; that I accepted the necessity. He assured me he could travel
very fast alone and unencumbered; that he could be back in two days, maybe less, no more. ‘All right.’ I told him. ‘Obviously you must have tools to free me. “And the other
rifle,’ he added, quickly. The axe was still jammed in the ground and he drew it out; looked at it for a moment, reluctant to part with his only weapon. Then he handed it to me. He held it
out by the handle, as if still undecided – as if he might snatch it away at the last moment. But when I grasped the blade he let it go. He tied his snowshoes on, fumbling with the laces and
glancing sideways at the ridge. Then he stood up and nodded. ‘It is the only way,’ he said. ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘it is how it must be. “I will hurry. I will return
with the rifle.’ The way he said it, I could tell he believed he would be returning not for rescue, but revenge. Then he moved off, swinging the big snowshoes wide and moving fast. I watched
him until he had passed into the trees. Then I turned and watched the wolves and they watched me . . .”

“I took stock of the situation,” he said. “I felt, at first, that I would be able to survive until Charles returned. I kept telling myself that there are few, if any, recorded
instances of wolves attacking humans in North America. I had the axe and my sheath knife and the fire. I had a plentiful supply of firewood. I tried to look upon my plight as an experiment, a
chance at first hand observation, and actually managed to feel almost cheerful for a short while. But it could not last. I don’t suppose I’d expected it to, really. There was the pain
and there were the wolves. The pain had become unbearable and the wolves were hungry. I told myself the wolves would not approach the fire and fashioned a tourniquet for my leg, using one of the
groundsheets and turning it tight with the axe handle. I was able to cut off the pain this way, but was afraid of stopping circulation too long and each time I released the pressure the agony
flooded back worse than before, increasing with each turn of the axe. Time passed with incredible slowness. The sunset lingered, the wolves waited. Then, at last, it was night. I shifted another
length of wood on the fire, raising the flames and increasing the circle of light. I could no longer see the wolves, but I could hear them panting. And then, suddenly, I could see them. They had
come down the slope to the very rim of the firelight, formless grey shapes with glowing eyes. I threw small flaming sticks at them and they backed away calmly. I held the axe in one hand and the
knife in the other, turned my back to the fire and waited. Panic faded into a stupor. I blacked out.

“I had the axe.

“I had to remove my leg.

“It was decided. I considered no other course of action; refused to contemplate the blinding agony and the unspeakable horror of the act. I used only one rationalization – telling
myself my leg was hopelessly mangled already and would never be of use to me again; that I would be cutting away a thing already dead. But I didn’t really need to convince myself of this, for
I was merely an animal in a trap. Very carefully I began to plan the operation.

“I placed the blade of my knife in the hottest embers of the fire. It was a large triangular blade, very keen, which I used to dissect the remains of the wolf pack’s kills. I tested
the blade of the axe with my thumb. It seemed sharp – it had to be sharp enough, for I had no way to hone it. Then I waited for the knife to heat. I was very calm. I took out my pipe and
tobacco and lighted it with a burning twig. I smoked slowly and contemplatively, watching the smoke rise against the flames. I timed it just right, so that when the pipe had burned out the knife
had begun to glow. I knocked the ash out and put my pipe in my pocket, then tightened the tourniquet just above the knee. I raised the axe with both hands and marked an imaginary line across my
shin; lifted my torso, threw my shoulders back, and brought the axe down.

“But my nerve failed.

“At the last instant, involuntarily, I twisted the stroke to the side. The blade bit into the earth beside my leg and the concussion leaped at my elbows and shoulder sockets. I cursed
myself for a coward. And, as if the wolves could sense the failure of my courage, they moved nearer. One wolf advanced ahead of the pack – the same, I thought, that had advanced to test the
moose. Anger surged up in me. I screamed loudly and the wolf retreated, lowering his muzzle. The anger helped. It purified my perceptions. I took one of the blankets and draped it over my leg,
smoothing it around the calf so that the contour could be seen. I was very annoyed with my leg. But, covered with the blanket, it ceased to be a leg, it was a lump beneath a blanket, no more. I
drew the axe edge across this lump at the proper spot, wrinkling the blanket to leave a visible line. I raised the axe once more. I looked at a wrinkle in a blanket. Just a wrinkle in a blanket in
the wavering light of a fire. And then, very accurately and very hard, I chopped down.

“This time I did not fail.

“The blow did not sever the leg, but it broke through the slender shin bone and cut deeply into the flesh. I stared at it. I tried to raise the axe but it was stuck. I had to heave with
all my strength to withdraw it, and the blood spurted behind. There was more blood than I had imagined and it rose with incredible force, towering above me and then splattering in all directions.
The blanket turned instantly dark. I was seized by frenzy. My mind rushed from my body and I saw myself from above, a wild madman broken in dancing flames, spewing heavy blood in wide arcs, roaring
and jerking and lifting the axe. I had but one thought: I had to finish the task. I fell upon my leg, hacking savagely time and again, no longer capable of accurate strokes but chopping and
slashing with insane fury, sawing the blade back and forth across parting tendons and pounding the edge through convulsing muscle.

“I have no recollection of when the leg finally parted. I did not know at the time. But it did and I found myself pounding the earth, digging great furrows in the soaked ground, separated
from the trap and from the grisly burden it held.

“A semblance of sanity snapped taut in my brain then. I dropped the axe and grasped the glowing knife; clamped the flat blade against the ghastly stump. The odour of charred tissue and
boiling blood sprang up in overpowering waves. I held my breath and held the knife and the bleeding stopped. The pain, too, had stopped. My nerves could not convey this message of horror, this
agony beyond sensation’s scope. I sat there, gasping and gaping. I stared at the trap. Blood bubbled and coiled from the shapeless, lifeless lump in the clamped jaws. It was hideous. I did
not want this monstrous object near me. I leaned forward and raised the trap, swung it and threw it from me with all my might. It flew, the chain clanking, and the blanket dropped away. The trap
bounced twice when it landed.

“Again I blacked out.

“And again awoke.

“I awoke with a sense of relief and with the wolves making sounds very near. I gripped the gory axe and surged upwards. Every trace of fear had left me, severed as surely as my leg, and I
rose to fight. But the pack were not attacking me. They were clustered about the trap. They snarled and growled and their powerful jaws snapped. The wolves were devouring that useless scrap I had
abandoned, and somehow that fact was more terrible than the amputation. I shifted back, my arm brushed a burning log and the flames leaped higher. A wolf raised his jowls, his muzzle dark with
blood, his eye reflecting the flames. His jaws worked slowly, crunching down, and the flesh disappeared. Some part of my mind insisted it was just flesh and some other part knew it had been my leg
and I vomited into the fire . . .”

“And so it was,” he said, and spread his hands.

I stared at him. I felt like vomiting myself. He turned and ran that searching glance across my face.

“You do understand?”

“I . . . My God . . . I don’t know what to say . . .”

“Oh, the horror of it, yes. But you do understand why I did not die . . . why I am alive to tell you this macabre little tale?”

I didn’t answer.

“The wolves did not attack, of course. I was too . . . aroused . . . for fear. They tested me and I waited with the axe and they drew back and squatted and then they moved off to seek
easier prey. I did not shout at them, did not depend on the fire; I drove them off by the instincts they sensed within me. I daresay they would have found the moose better quarry that night. I was
more than a man, because I had become less and it was more than a leg that I cut away. I waited until dawn. I remember little of that time. I believe I ate a bit of food from my pack and
systematically loosened the tourniquet. At any rate, I did whatever survival demanded. In the morning I began to crawl. I hardly thought about directions; knew my instincts would guide me. As they
did. My mind was free for other thoughts, for concepts. I envisioned revenge upon Charles for a time, but not seriously, for I realized he had acted in accord with nature. The pack does not wait
for the injured individual, the species does not risk survival for the organism, the body does not pause for the loss of a cell. Hatred and rage dried up in the basin of my brain, emotion
evaporated and laid bare the true fabric of the mind. And in this dry bed all my experience flowed together, all branches met and shared the same natural roots. Some might say I went mad in the
long hours of my ordeal, but whatever I lost it was not sanity . . .

“And that was that.

“Charles found me later that day, the next day, whenever. He had his rifle and his confidence and, when the first shock had passed he respected me greatly for what I had done. He did not
understand, as a man reasons, but he sensed, as a man should. And do you?”

I could not answer.

I don’t believe Claymore expected an answer, beyond what he saw in my face. That was sufficient. Presently he stood up; leaned on his stick for a moment, then nodded pleasantly and moved
away. I remained on the log and he went down the trail between the trees. I wondered where he was going. He had told me that lately he’d been doing a bit of field work. Just a bit, he’d
said. An application of former knowledge. But that could mean anything. I watched him as he came to a bend. His limp was more noticeable as he turned. The man who had attacked. Bill had favoured
one leg when he left. But Bill might have injured him. And Bill, of course, had survived. He had been tested and he survived. Then Claymore was gone and I sat there for some time. Presently, just
as if this had been a real forest, a chill seemed to move through the trees and caused me to shiver, there among the wolves . . .