The winter is cold, bitter cold. I don't remember a time when my skin was flush with warmth and my belly didn't ache of emptiness. Our food supply is running short here, and we try to parcel our food in small portions, but really there's nothing left to savor. The snow keeps falling in bucket-fulls on our makeshift shelter, so hunting is not an option. We've already killed the animals as well; even the meat from our horses is growing scarcer. I'm very confident we're all going to die here. I don't know what's going to happen when the food finally runs out.
George sits on a log beside a dying fire, shaking hands spinning a stick of meat over the low flame. The last of the meat. My stomach clenches in apprehension.
What will we do?
I look up at the sky, the gray clouds pregnant with unfallen snow. Please, no more snow. My eyes feel heavy, and I try to resist the urge to cave in, to give up, to die. Why resist? I'm gaining nothing here, nothing.
I close my eyes, resting my head against the side of the stranded wagon. Just when I feel it's ending, that everything is over, my eyes open to the sound of a shrill, furious scream. George is on his feet, kicking snow in his desperation and smothering the last of our pitiful fire. I sit up and strain my neck to try and see what is happening, why George is in such a panic as he hares through the snow.
"You damn fox! Come back here with that!"
An even deeper chill settles in my bones: the fox stole the meat. The last of our meat. Apparently we are not the only ones starving out here, and George must have dozed by the fire, making him an easy target for the animal. He must be caving in to his own deteriorating health, just as I am. I want to cry, want to scream, but have no tears left to shed nor a voice to scream with. Instead I rest my head back against the canvas.
And then the shouting begins.
The men around me start yelling and clicking bullets into the chambers of their weapons. I peer through a hole in the canvas as they run, but I don't see anything. I only hear the rain of bullets hitting rock and duck down, my belly scraping on the wooden planks. I throw my hands onto my head and press my face into the wood.
I wish it were over.
The screams continue, though the bullets have ceased. Reluctantly I push myself up on shaky hands, hopping gingerly from the wagon and pulling my rags tighter around my body. I shiver against the cold as I make my way through the fresh snow and to the circle of men by the cliff edge. George's body lay splayed on the ground, blood staining the snow around him. His body is criss-crossed with scratches, though, not bullet wounds, and for a moment I'm baffled by what I see.
And then I notice the pawprints. Big, cat-sized paws. The straight line is interrupted by a bloody smear in the snow, where the cat had escaped; they must have shot it after the attack. The stick of meat lay limply beside George's body and I can see its very reflection in the glassiness of his wide, terrified eyes.
One of the younger boys on the inner part of the circle picks up the meat before the scene has even been processed by some others. He runs off with it; a few men trail him and tackle him into the snow. Some others stare at the body before them, a fierce hunger like I've never seen burning in their eyes. It makes my stomach churn.
I can't watch anymore. I turn away and heave myself back into the wagon, lying on my back and staring up at the tattered canvas roof. When I run my hands over my skin I can feel every bone jutting out like a boulder in a creek. I shut my eyes again and block out the nightmarish sound of a body being dragged through the snow. My eyes burn. I no longer know what to do or even what I want, because what I want is relief and I know of only one way to get it.
Taking shaky breaths I press my fingertips to my eyelids and focus on my breathing. Every breath feels like my body will disintegrate into the floorboards. I don't know how much more of this I can take or what will come next; all I do know is that everything hurts. And after all that I, we, have been through now, I know that if by some unlikely phenomenon I live...none of this can be unseen.