Chapter 3

ONE DOWN

Bill and Bart would glance sometimes
And let their own day-dreaming minds
Wander far in dreams of greed
That exceeded both men’s need.

Then in a routine known so well
They dimmed the lamp as shadows fell
And Bill slumped in a fireside chair
And dozed and snored without a care.

Bart, in his bunk to the wall,
Snored as if dead to all
Then weighed his gold once again
And in his dreams he sighed, "Amen."

Back along the cliff's broad face
Tom, with numbing limbs, then traced
And made his way with saving grace
In steady time, a hunter's pace.

Dark was edging in on him
As he left the mountain rim.
There he could just barely see
The cabin in that snow white sea.

Far back, along a hundred yards
Two wolves as ancient body guards
passed Tom toward the cabin home,
No mercy given, left or shown.

The northern code of true survival
Is a rule without a rival.
Tom knew that it had to be
And not by any slight degree.

Closer Tom came homeward bound,
Closer came the snarling sound
But Tom's hands, too cold to use
Were like his feet in snow shoes.

But now the cabin within sight
Was beckoning him at twilight.
Another fifty yards to go,
No time to stop or be too slow.

There it is, some twenty feet,
He had cheated his defeat.
The wolves would have to have their fill
And backtrack to the moose kill.

The wolves were snarling very close
But there, the cabin, warm as toast
Would shelter him from harm's way,
In minutes more, this very day.

To the door he leaned his shoulder,
Came the wolves forever bolder
And Tommy with frost bitten hands
Could not do his mind's commands.

Tom shouted then and loudly screamed.
"Wake up in there!" and it seemed
To Tom that someone surely would
Open now for God and good.

Inside the cabin seemed in haze,
Smoke from fires in hews of grays
Circled bodies dozing there
That seemed to sleep without a care.

While at the door a screaming sound
To wake those souls still in the ground
But to the men within this place,
Made no movement, not a trace

To show alarm or just attention
Of any kind worth to mention.
Just a steady breathing sound
Of two spirits deftly bound.

The sound of wolves on their chore
Now echoed through the cabin door
And still no movement to detect,
To screams of bloody, harsh neglect.

Then the sounds died down a bit,
Just of wolves in feeding fit
And Bart reached back to scratch his ass
And Bill sighed and passed some gas.

Not an action did they take,
Not any movement did they make,
Not the slightest alarming sign
For what seamed the longest time.

~Robert E Browne~