There was a man who walked far into the cold north in search of wolves to trap. He sold the hides to a company who made the hooded parkas worn by the crews who manned the Distant Early Warning line. The wolf fur stopped their breath from freezing on their faces. He liked to kill the wolves in the fall when their coats were at their best, but this year the cold struck early. He had a cache of pelts at the confluence of two rivers, and now he was trying to find the place as the wind and snow obliterated some of the landmarks he relied on.
The man had trapped the country for twenty years. He dressed as the Chippewa people used to. A layer of fur turned toward his skin, a layer of fur turned out toward the weather. If he kept his feet dry he would not freeze. His great fear was that the road fifty miles south would close a full month early. His truck was parked on that road. The man was navigating by instinct, by the feel of the wind and the incline of the nearly flat earth. He had no dogs, no snowmobile. Never used them. He walked carefully through the deepening snow, prodding the ground ahead with a tent pole. His pack dragged at him. He made slow progress. One more day and he would turn back. Then he heard the river. Ice clogged and murmuring thickly. At once he knew where he was. He found the hides as he left them, packed tight and set on runners. He crouched in the lee of the baled hides and set up his one man shelter. Hot chocolate made as thick as oatmeal. The cold deepened. The man was sick. He had diarrhea and every time he lowered his pants the cold reached him sharp and bitter. Each time it took longer to restore the warmth trapped by his clothes. He curled up in the small shelter, the rip-stop clattering in the wind. He pushed his back against the hides, the hides of twelve wolves, and felt his consciousness leaving him. Warmth seemed to be engulfing him. Was it coming from the wolf hides? Only if they were fermenting. Such a thing had never happened...he fell into a dream of wolves who circled him on a warm summer night. Dark shapes against a darker ground.
``We want our skins!'' they cried.
Some time in the long dark the wind changed. The man awoke weak and sick. A warmer wind was blowing. Soon the snow might melt. He had to move the hides. Quickly he started on his way. In two days he found his truck. At the fur trader's house they unbaled the hides. It was true they had fermented. Rotten. All of them.
``That warmth saved you!'' the fur trader said.
``No,'' said the trapper, ``The weather was warming anyway.''
But all his life he would wonder.