The old man sense the animal’s eye on him as he tried to shift to a more comfortable position. He felt faint but tried to beat back the waves of tiredness.
“Keep your distance. I’m not dead yet,” he said in a low, controlled voice.
The wolf watched the old man silently.
The old man studied the animal. He was sure it had been there, staring at him for the whole of last night. It looked nearly as old as he was. When it yawned he could see the once frightening teeth, now dull and chipped.
“Looking for an easy meal, huh?” he shouted suddenly. “I’ll make you wait for it.”
The old man’s hip was broken. After his fall, he had walked three impossible kilometers with the help of a wooden stick before the pain and fatigue stopped him. Now, he lay under a pine tree. The bitter cold wind sapped his remaining strength. With nothing to do, his mind slowly wandered.
He found himself thinking of his dog, Barney. Barney had been his constant and faithful companion. It had weighed over 100 kilograms. It was an intelligent animal, and lived to be 15. The old man remembered the tears he had shed when they buried Barney. He was then a young man of 22.
“A real good dog,” he said softly. “Hey, there you are! Here, Barney, come here, pup.” The old man was now hallucinating.
He shook his head as if to recover from a blow and saw the wolf take a hesitant, lame step towards him.
“Get back there,” he yelled, frightened. “Not yet, not yet.”
The wolf stopped and sat down again, a short distance closer.
It was beginning to grow dark when the first snowflakes began to fall.
“Come over here, Barn, so we can get warmer.” He opened his eyes and saw the big dark body standing over him.
“That’s a good boy, pup,” he said as he reached up to smoothen the soft fur of the animal’s massive head.
The next morning, a search party found them. They were astonished at what they saw.
The old man’s arm was round the wolf while his other hand rested lightly on the wolf’s head which laid across the old man’s chest. There was a gentle smile on the old man’s lined face. Both were still and cold.
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