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The wolf was up to something and Chris wasn't quite sure what it was all about. With many exaggerated hand gestures and some unintelligible and somewhat growly mutterings she had been trying to make him understand that she wanted him to follow her. At first Chris had been rather hesitant to leave his camp and rightly so. His ankle still wasn't one hundred percent and he wasn't exactly sure where the wolf wanted him to go or what she had in store for him once they got there. Then there was the matter that everything he had left to him was contained within the small circle of his camp and he didn't particularly want to leave any of his stuff behind. However, the wolf was persistent, and after several failed attempts at getting him to follow her it was easy to see that she was getting frustrated. Her ears were back, her tail held motionless and her entire posture radiated annoyance. She glared at him for a moment and let out a long and very human sounding sigh. She appeared to do the canine equivalent of counting to ten before she took a deep breath and started her act over again. She trotted out to the edge of camp, firmly planted the butt of her spear into the snow and mimed at him to follow her. When he didn't budge from his seat by the fire, she sighed again and leaned heavily on her spear. She stared down at the snow and said something in a tired sounding voice before she raised her head to stare at him. Her amber glare was deep and penetrating. Chris had the distinct feeling that she was thinking that he was more than a bit challenged in the intelligence department.

For several minutes the wolf stood motionless at the edge of camp and Chris thought she looked just about ready to leave without him. She finally stood up straight, cleared her throat, and came several steps closer. Chris eyed her curiously. After casting a rather worried looking glance at the sky, she mimed at him to follow her again, this time with more urgency in her actions. Chris frowned slightly. Whatever it was that she wanted of him, she was becoming adamant about it. Partially to see how far she would go and mostly because he was reluctant to leave the cozy circle of warmth cast by the fire, he decided not to move for the time being. That did it for Kendri. She threw her spear down in disgust and vented a frustrated growl. She crossed her arms and shook her head slowly from side to side. She stood there in that position for a moment, giving him one of the most penetrating stares that he'd ever been on the receiving end of before she stooped to pick her spear from the snow. She gave him one last exasperated glance and turned away to slowly walk out of camp. This time she did not try to get him to follow her.

"Okay, okay, You win." The sound of his voice stopped Kendri in her tracks. She turned around slowly and glared at him.

Chris levered himself to his feet. Kendri just stared at him. Even though his ankle was mostly healed, Chris picked his crutch from where it leaned against his shelter and then slung his rifle over his shoulder. As he walked slowly towards the wolf, he wondered what it was that she wanted of him and where she intended to lead him. She wagged her tail briefly at his approach and then turned away, leading him into the forest, heading uphill and away from the river that coursed through the depths of the valley.

A pattern soon emerged. The wolf would range out ten or twenty metres ahead of Chris then she'd stop and wait, turning to watch him slog painfully up the trail she'd broken through the snow. His ankle had been fine at the start of this journey but nearly an hour of arduous hiking through the snow had aggravated the nearly healed sprain and slowed his progress to a painful limp. He stopped and leaned heavily on his crutch for a moment and paused to catch his breath. Kendri watched him with unblinking amber eyes from short metres away. Her tail wagged a few times when she caught his eye. He thought she looked uneasy about something. She kept eyeing the sky warily and scenting the breeze at every opportunity and he wondered why. Chris thought about that for a minute. The day had become eerily still and thick clouds had drifted in from the north to blot out the sun. He'd heard stories that animals were more sensitive to changes in the weather than humans were and he wondered if that was the cause of the wolf's concern. Maybe there was a storm coming. He looked up at the sky for a moment and scratched his chin. Whatever it was that had Kendri on edge, it was beyond his abilities to sense it. He shrugged and shifted his slung rifle to his other shoulder.

More snow would not be particularly welcome at this time and it would certainly not make his situation any easier. Almost all of his equipment and supplies were back at his camp and he did not relish the thought of trying to find his way back there during a blizzard. Why he had allowed himself to be led out here into an alien forest by an equally alien creature was a mystery to him. He wasn't sure why, but it had seemed like the right thing to do at the time. He sighed and his shoulders sagged. If it snowed enough, there was a good chance that he'd never be able to find his way back to his camp.

Kendri began to make her way back down the tail towards him, probably wondering why he hadn't started walking again. She came up close, her face a question mark with perked ears. Her tail wagged hopefully.

Chris couldn't help but smile at the wolf. Her canine appearance lent a sense of familiarity to anyone who had ever owned a dog. Her moods were so easily read and it brightened Chris up for a moment to see something that was so familiar in a land that was so alien. A sudden pang darkened his mood and he sobered abruptly. He wondered if anyone was taking care of his dog at home right now.

"I'm coming, don't worry about me" Chris said with a wave of his hand as he limped forward a couple of steps. "I'm just a little slow, that's all."

Kendri's tail wagged harder and her muzzle split into a canine grin. Chris smiled back. Kendri ran ahead a few steps and stopped, looking back over her shoulder at Chris.

"Go on, I'll catch up." He waved her ahead with a grin. The wolf raced back up the trail, a spring in her steps. He suddenly noted how the wolf was taking extra time to trample down the unbroken snow ahead in an effort to make it easier for him and his injured ankle to stumble along. Once again, he was surprised by her actions. They showed a depth of compassion that he would never have suspected from something that looked nine tenths like a wild animal. He shook his head in wonder and stumbled slowly along the path that Kendri made for him through the snow.

An hour later things were much the same and Chris's curiosity was beginning to get the better of him. He was weary to the bone yet he kept pressing himself onwards, always wondering what lay around the next bend in the trail. Kendri seemed to be getting more and more anxious the longer they hiked.

Chris's mind worked overtime as he slowly worked his way up the trail, Kendri a few metres ahead of him. She had to be leading him somewhere she thought important, somewhere where she thought there would be shelter from the weather, and food. Maybe there was a village of her kind nearby and that's where he was being led. His thoughts stopped abruptly and his feet almost followed suit. A whole village of wolfy looking humanoids. He didn't know if he'd be able to deal with that. The picture that suddenly lodged in his mind's eye made him wonder if he was going to be someone's next meal. He shook that thought away when he suddenly remembered the brief and undeniably startling connection that he had shared with Kendri several days ago. She was out here all by herself, and had been for nearly two years. Chris relaxed somewhat as those memories returned, but he still wondered just where exactly his guide was leading him. To her camp was the most likely explanation and in order for her to want to bring him along and put up with his slow progress, her camp must be something better than the makeshift lean-to he had hastily constructed. As he trudged along, he tried to picture what it would like. What kind of structure would her kind build? Something like a tepee perhaps, a log frame wrapped with animal hides? Maybe they built with wood, or perhaps with stone. Maybe their homes would be like dens; dark tunnels leading to rooms hollowed out below ground level. What ever it was that Kendri lived in, he hoped it was at least warm. The wind had recently picked up and it was distinctly chilly on the rare occasions that it penetrated the thick evergreens that surrounded them on all sides. Thankfully it hadn't started snowing yet thought Chris as he stopped for a breather. The wind whooshed in the trees overhead and the forest was filled with an eerie cacophony of squeaking and grating trees. Kendri stopped suddenly and raised her muzzle to sniff the air and her tail began to wag. Without a glance back she ran ahead, elbowing her way through a thicket of close knit spruce trees and disappeared from sight.

Chris suddenly felt very alone. Where was she going in such a hurry? A minute passed and then another, and Kendri still hadn't returned. Chris began to wonder if she had decided to abandon him to his fate. The squeaking and moaning trees played on his fears and he felt the sudden urge to flee, but to where? He stumbled after the wolf as fast as he was able.

He fought his way through the trees, the thick evergreen branches scratching at his face and pushing him off balance. His ankle flared in pain and he stumbled and fell face first into the snow. He lay there for a moment, catching his breath and waiting for the pain in his ankle to subside before he forced himself back to his feet. He struggled to drag his crutch free of the dense knot of branches.

Kendri's tracks stretched out before him in the thin layer of snow that had managed to penetrate the thick canopy of pine branches overhead. He felt a pressing urge to follow those tracks rise up in him. He bent low to the snow and threaded his way through the dense undergrowth, thick moss spongy under his boots. Winter frozen branches whipped at him as he passed, stinging his face and dragging at his clothing. The scent of pine sap was strong in his nostrils. Feeble light penetrated through the branches ahead of him, moving in curious patterns as the wind buffeted the trees.

Chris burst out of the trees and into the feeble afternoon light. A wave of relief swept through him when he saw Kendri standing just a few metres away. She had her back to him and was staring at something in the trees roughly twenty metres away and her tail was wagging.

The trees were much sparser here, only a few thin and scraggly pines jutted up from the rolling ground that surrounded them. Snow lay thickly here and animal tracks crisscrossed through the trees. Chris saw deer and moose tracks and a trail left by a lone coyote. His eyes wandered over the snow and the trees, taking in every detail. He stopped and stared a look of wide-eyed surprise when he came face to face with something he hadn't expected to see.

There was a cabin nestled back there in the trees, the kind of structure that brought to mind images of fur trappers and mountain men in the old days, not of wolves that walked on two legs. He glanced over at Kendri for a moment. She was grinning at him and her tail was wagging. She walked towards the shack and waved at him to follow her. Chris stood rooted to the spot for a moment and let his eyes rove over the old shack before he slowly followed the wolf. His mind went into a flurry of action. A cabin. Somewhere relatively protected from the weather, a place where surviving the winter would be far easier.

The cabin was small and rectangular and he guessed that it probably held only one room. The roof was not peaked in the way that traditional houses were. Instead, the front wall of the shack was maybe a metre higher than the back wall to give the roof a gentle slope. A thick layer of moss had been stacked on the roof, probably for insulation value. Horizontal logs made up the walls of the cabin, stacked and notched in the same way as the log cabins he remembered seeing back home. As he drew closer he saw that the log walls had been chinked with generous quantities of moss. A chimney of carefully mortared stone occupied nearly all of one of the side walls, tapering to a neat square as it rose to perhaps a metre above the moss and snow laden roof. A single door constructed from rough sawn planks occupied the center of the front wall. An impressive set of elk antlers had been affixed to the wall beside the door, the branching tines reaching up to the pierce the cornice of snow that curled delicately over the edge of the roof. A small window graced the wall on the opposite side of the door, four small panes of glass held in an aged frame. His brow furrowed when he saw that. Glass? Where had this strange creature ahead of him found glass? After a moment of hard thinking that got him nowhere, he pushed that thought away and turned his attention back to the cabin.

There was a sizable stack of firewood piled against the wall opposite the chimney. An indentation in the fresh snow showed that at one time there had been a packed trail that led from the door and around to that side of the cabin. Chris caught a glimpse of a smaller structure hidden away in the trees a short distance behind the cabin. An outhouse? Or perhaps a storage shed. From what he could see of it, it looked a bit big to be an outhouse.

Motion caught Chris's eye and distracted him from his inspection. Kendri had opened the door of the cabin and was beckoning at him to come inside, a look of concern written on her features. The wind whooshed through the trees and a few haphazard snowflakes carved slanted paths through the clearing. Chris held his breath and entered the cabin.

The interior was gloomy, the air musty and stale and bearing odours of dust, smoke and a vaguely familiar animal smell that had Chris scratching his head until he finally placed it. It was Kendri's scent, it had to be, but it reminded him so much of his old dog that a momentary frown came to his face before his curiosity pushed it away. He stepped further into the cabin, boots clonking hollowly on the rough plank floor. Kendri stood off to one side, quiet and motionless, letting him adjust to his surroundings at his own pace. Her watchful eyes followed him around the cabin.

The interior held little in the way of furnishings. There was a rough hewn table and chair that occupied the center of the small room. Shelves lined the wall beside the door and there was a small bench under the window in the front wall. A battered and sooty pot sat on the bench next to a corroded knife and a weathered wooden spoon. The shelves held little except a thick layer of dust, a couple of unidentifiable tin containers and an empty glass jar. He frowned and moved on to other things.

Another window graced the center of the back wall, the same four paned design as the one in the front wall. A few snowflakes drifted down outside and the smaller building behind the cabin could be seen through it. He'd have to go and check that out later, he thought as he limped painfully towards the fireplace.

The hearth was a magnificent piece of stonework that took up nearly the whole wall. Someone with considerable skill had managed to stack flat pieces of grey slate on top of one another and mortar them together into something that was almost a work of art. The center of the hearth had been built out from the wall several feet and a low ring of carefully stacked slate encircled the mouth of the fireplace. There was even an arc of edge on slate sheets above the mouth of the fireplace where wall became chimney. A large and very heavy looking frying pan rested on the edge of the ring of stone. Charred remnants of meat and congealed grease still lingered in the bottom of it. Ashes and fragments of charred logs filled the hearth itself and judging by the thick layer of soot on the stones above the fireplace, it had seen some heavy use over the years. A large box constructed from rough lumber lay off to one side of the hearth. Chris stepped over to it and peered inside. It held dry kindling and tinder. More firewood was stacked up against the wall. He shook his head in wonder and turned his attention back to the stonework. The amount of work that it must have taken was nothing short of staggering. Had the wolf built it? Had she built all of this? He wondered as his eyes roved over the rest of the cabin. His gaze snapped over to Kendri. The wolf stood by the door, staring at him with and steady expression. He wondered what she was thinking as she watched him examine the inside of her home.

There was a pile of animal hides close to the hearth and he limped over to them. Deerskins by the looks of them. He poked the pile with the toe of his boot. There was a larger one in the pile that looked as if it might once have belonged to an elk. The sharp scent of leather rose up to his nose. He raised a questioning eyebrow at the wolf. This must be where she sleeps, he thought. Kendri continued to eye him steadily, her face an expressionless mask. Chris's eyes wandered back over towards the table. He unslung his rifle and propped it up against the bench under the window. His crutch he leaned against the wall. As uncomfortable as it appeared to be, that chair by the table just looked too inviting.

The chair groaned slightly under his weight and he let out a big sigh as he finally let himself relax. His ankle was slowly getting better but it hadn't really been impressed with the hike to this cabin. He leaned over and massaged the sides of his aching ankle and loosened the laces on his boot. Kendri's ears went back a bit as she watched him, an odd look evident in her eyes. Sympathy? He couldn't be sure. Once the pressure on his aching ankle had been relieved somewhat, Chris leaned back and took in a deep breath. His eyes roved over the ceiling. Smallish logs stripped and peeled clean of their bark were spaced at regular intervals. What looked like hand sawn planks had been laid across the logs. Irregular spaces showed between the planks here and there and he began to wonder how waterproof the roof was. Even if it was a bit porous, he'd put two weeks pay on it that it would be better than his tent or the lean-to that he'd hastily built. As he leaned back and stared at the ceiling he realized that surviving the winter didn't hold such a bleak outlook now. He smiled a bit at that thought and let his aching body sink as much as it was able into the rough and hard edged chair.

A noise off to his side snapped him out of his reverie and he turned to see that Kendri had pulled open the door of the cabin. His brow furrowed as he watched her back out through the door, waving her arms in an attempt to tell him something. He frowned and raised an eyebrow. It looked like she wanted him to stay where he was. He shrugged and nodded at her. It wasn't like he felt like going anywhere else at this particular moment anyway. With a perfunctory wag of her tail she shut the door and was gone from his sight. Chris wondered what she was up to now. With little else to do, he let his eyes wander over the interior of this shack again. He'd done some construction work over the years and had even been part of a framing crew for a few summers after he'd gotten out of high school. He had a bit of an idea what it took to build something like this and what he saw surprised him. Whoever it was that had built this shack, they'd had a pretty good idea of what they were doing, especially with all of that stonework on the fireplace. This cabin must have taken almost a whole summer to build, especially if there had only been one person working on it. He frowned and shook his head. He couldn't quite bring himself to believe that the wolf had done all of this herself. For some reason it just didn't fit with his impression of her. But if it hadn't been Kendri, who had built it? Chris sighed and tried to ignore that question. He didn't particularly feel like wrestling with such things at the moment.

His mind drifted through the nothingness of random thoughts for a few moments. Kendri still hadn't returned yet and he wondered where she had gone and what exactly she was doing. Now that he had stopped moving he had begun to cool off and his toes and fingers were beginning to feel the cold. He eyed the fireplace idly. Might as well get a fire going then he thought. The energy to get out of his chair was sorely lacking but he forced himself to his feet anyways. The promise of warmth overrode fatigue and a throbbing ankle.

The tinderbox drew his attention for a few moments. There was dry grass and a handful of dry twigs in there and he frowned as he looked at the contents of the box. Where was some good dry paper when you needed it? Nevertheless, he took a handful of the dry grass and a few small twigs and carefully arranged them in the hearth. A groan escaped from him as he pushed himself back to his feet and limped over to the woodpile that lay stacked against the wall. He carefully selected the driest and smallest pieces of wood that he could fined. These he arranged carefully over the dry grass and twigs in the hearth. He groped in a pocket for his lighter and flicked it a couple of times before it lit.

The dry grass caught quicker than he thought it would and the spruce twigs soon lit up. In no time at all, a small fire was crackling away in the slate hearth. He made another trip to the woodpile and picked a few more small and dry pieces of wood and added them to the slowly growing fire. He pulled the chair up close to the fire and let the warmth slowly seep into his aching bones.

The sound of the door opening behind him made his head turn sharply in that direction. Kendri stood in the doorway staring at him with what appeared to be a surprised look on her face. She had what looked to be a chunk of frozen meat in one hand. Her eyes flicked between him and the fire several times, wonder slowly growing on her features. After a moment of curious staring she closed the door behind her and moved into the cabin. She came up slowly and carefully behind Chris, moving beside him to pluck the battered frying pan from the edge of the hearth. She sniffed at it, made a face and turned away to grab a knife from the bench under the window. She used it to scrape the remnants of grease and charred food from the pan into the fire. She deposited the slab of frozen meat into the frying pan. It sounded like a chunk of granite when it hit the metal. She carefully put the pan on the edge of the hearth and then backed away. Chris looked up at her questioningly. Kendri grinned at him and wagged her tail. She said something to him in that musical, growly voice of hers and retreated to the door of the cabin. Chris looked at her and wondered what it was that she was up to now. The wolf opened the door and said something else. He didn't have a clue what she meant. Before he realized it, the door closed and she was gone. Chris shrugged and turned back to the fire and the chunk of meat that was slowly thawing out on the edge of the hearth. The message the wolf had given him was clear. Stay here, rest, have something to eat. He couldn't argue with that. The hike to this cabin had made him ravenously hungry and his ankle had had more than enough of him staggering around on it. Chris leaned back and tried to forget about the meat slowly thawing at the edge of the hearth as he let his mind wander. Things were finally looking up. It was about time, he thought.

**********

The wind had brought the forest alive, the spirits of the trees murmuring and groaning to each other as they waited for the onslaught of the storm. A few snowflakes raced past Kendri's head as she turned to look back at the cabin before it was out of her sight. The thin wisp of smoke that rose from the chimney was soon ripped apart into nothingness by the wind as it rose above the trees. She took a deep breath and held it for a minute, hoping that she had done the right thing. She'd led the stranger to her home and he'd settled in surprisingly well. He'd even managed to start a fire faster than she thought possible. She shook her head in wonder at that. There was no end to the surprises from that pale skinned giant. Perhaps there were things that she could learn from him, Kendri thought as she turned away from the cabin and disappeared through the trees at the edge of the clearing. She broke into a jog as she started out on the trail that would lead her back to the camp that the stranger had made down in the valley. There was a lot of work ahead of her, she realized as she trotted along the trail. She would try to bring as much of the food that the stranger had left back to the cabin before the storm set in in earnest. Given enough time, she would trying to bring back the rest of the things that he had left at his camp as well. She had no idea what they were for, but the stranger would probably want them.

Feet thudded into the snow and cold air stung nose and tongue as Kendri warmed up enough that she started panting. Hunger gnawed at her belly but she ignored it. She would find time to eat when she returned. Trees groaned and muttered at her as she ran past yet a happy, panting grin was on her face as she jogged. She was starting to feel alive again and it was a strange, almost alien sensation, but it felt good. She hoped that feeling would last the winter, come what may. She stepped up her pace and weaved through the trees, revelling in the simple joy of running, the happy grin on her face widening as the wind whirled around her.