The Wolf in the Chair

Once I happened upon a blond child weeping bitterly as she stared up the dusty slope of an off-season ski run. I couldn't see much worth crying over. Sure it looked a little ugly, a great wide swath of dirt and rock running through an otherwise pristine pine forest, but it's an acceptable trade-off. Recreational use of parts of our wilderness tends to do more good than harm in the long run as far as awareness and preservation for the rest.

Ah, so the naiveté of youth. I chuckled and patted her on the head. "Dry up little Ma'am, sure this one section looks kinda slashed and ruined, but it's an acceptable trade off--recreational use of parts of our wilderness tends to do more good than--"

She roughly jerked her head out from under my hand and glared up at me. "Shut up, I know that. That's not why I'm crying."

"Oh, it isn't?"

"No."

I went back to studying the slope, more intently this time. Squinty-Eyed Gunslingers pride themselves on their observational skills. I didn't want to ask, I preferred to figure it out.

"Um, you were picnicking at the top and you forgot your doll up there and your mother says there's no time to go back and get it."

She gave me a dirty glance and continued crying. I nodded resolutely to myself and got down to the business of some serious observation. I crouched down, resting my weight on boot heels and a fist. I absently rubbed my stubbled jaw with the other hand and tasted the wind with long, slow nostril breaths.

"Okay, your father used to be ski lift operator here but last winter he lost his job when he showed up to work drunk, forgot to adjust the speed setting and accidentally killed the children of a visiting foreign dignitary and so now your family has to move to Des Moines in shame."

She slowly turned to face me, contempt oozing from every pore. "Are you stupid?"

"Depends on who you ask."

She stared into my eyes a long time, evaluating my worth. Finally she stretched a pale arm up the slope at the line of motionless ski lift chairs. "Count down four poles from the top. Second chair below the fourth pole."

"I see it."

"That chair is inhabited by the spirit of an old timber wolf."

I laughed in her face. I couldn't help it. "What did you just say little Ma'am?!"

"Just look at it."

So I did, and I'll be damned if she wasn't right. That chair was inhabited by the spirit of an old timber wolf. He howled his anguish down the dusty track and it nearly split my mind in two. I really don't know how I could have missed it before.

I slumped to my knees and stared up at the child. Not a trace of squint remained, my eyes were now wide and pleading. "How the... why..."

She wiped her eyes with her knuckles. "His joy was running free and strong up and down mountains. Last winter he knew he was dying so he inhabited that ski lift chair with his spirit-" Her voice broke and she was consumed by sobs for a moment. When she spoke again it was in a near whisper. "He didn't know when the snow is gone they turn it off."

I screamed my grief into a blue sky. My shirtfront was fast becoming as mucus stained as the child's. In a tearful terror I reached wildly for her arm. "Child!!! What the hell are we going to do?!!!"

She sadly shook her head. "Hand over hand up three hundred yards of cable, bolt cutters in back pocket, cut the chair down..." She buried her face in her hands. "But it can't be done. No one is that strong."

I nearly knocked her over I leapt to my feet so fast. "Oh god Child--I'm Latigo Flint, don't you know? Okay, your job is to shout encouragement and keep track of how far I've gone and how many chairs I've yet to go!"

I was fifty yards up the mountain and a hundred feet in the air when my strength gave out. Many bones were shattered and the bolt cutters punched a new asshole for me in the small of my back. The little girl ran to my side and stood over, concern twisting her perfect face. I stared up through hemorrhaging eyes.

"Child, I fell."

"I know, I saw."

"I'm not going to be able to try again for at least a week, maybe longer."

"I understand."

Then her parents started calling for her from the lodge and she had to go. I got a little lonely just lying there and tried talking to the wolf in the chair, but he was a wolf, and wolves don't speak English. I decided it didn't matter and talked to him anyway. I taught him the lyrics to Van Morrison songs and he taught me how to howl in anguish.

When it rained we drank. When the buzzards appeared we shuddered.