The first thing I noticed was the blood steaming on the snow beside me as I was holding onto the blue and white rope of the toboggan. We had just come across a pack of coyotes eating the fresh kill of a deer. There was steaming fresh blood melting the snow and drag marks from the brush where they must have taken it down. One of the coyotes saw us and started snarling with its head down at us walking sideways towards us. It yipped and the rest of the pack looked towards us and started coming after us. I screamed to my brother to “pin it!” My brother put it in full throttle and turned the Polaris around. I was holding on for dear life to the toboggan. The coyotes were running beside me nipping at my snow suit.
We were now on the cut line and coyotes were still keeping up to us. All of a sudden, somehow while hitting one of the tree stumps, I got flipped over. I was on my back being drug over tree stumps on my back still holding onto the toboggan. I could feel every tree stump sliding over or hitting my back. I was looking up at the aluminum curl of the toboggan praying I could hang on. It felt like it was a life time I was being drug upside down. The next thing I knew the Polaris hit a snow drift and was air born for a split second. I thought:” This is it. The coyotes are going to eat me.” I was bracing for the sharp pain of their teeth sinking into my flesh and tearing me apart. But when the toboggan hit the snow drift I was flipped over and I was upright. We were coming out of the cut line getting closer to home. I turned around and I heard yelping and saw the faint white and grey of the wolf I saw the night before fighting with a coyote while the others were running away.
My brother kept full throttle on the Polaris until we reached the barbed wire fence opening. I was drenched and soaked to the bone from being drug in the snow. My hair was plastered to my face and I was so out of breath I couldn’t speak. We sat there in silence at the gate opening staring behind us. We couldn’t see the coyotes but we could hear them fighting in the distance.
I got off the toboggan and hopped on the back of the Polaris with my brother driving and we pulled into the yard. We parked and my brother asked me if I was ok. I just nodded my head and said “Yeah, that was scary.” I could not wait to get inside, get some dry clothes on and sit in front of the fire place.
I often looked out that patio window at night watching for the wolf but I never saw him and over time forgot about him until I was in my twenties (the witch talked about him) and I never saw him again until I was thirty-four years old. Interestingly enough it was during a Reiki session with a beautiful native woman who exchanged two nights in a row of sessions for hours of knowledge. This woman is so full of knowledge, wisdom and spirit. She left an imprint on my soul and will never be forgotten. I am a firm believer that we are all here to learn from one another and people come into our lives when they are supposed to be there. This was one of those times.