15
The Promised Land
although the wolf may have eaten his fill he would be back for the rest
of it sooner or later so I set one of the traps under the snow, near the
remains of the pig, and fixed it by its chain to a tree.
It took some strength to open the thing up and set it, even
with the aid of the axe handle, as you know yourself. I don't
think I would be strong enough to do it now. I thought I
would see if I could follow the tracks and perhaps set the other one
up somewhere along the way and maybe double up on the
chances of trapping the wolf. I wasn't intending to be away
that long. I know I'm a farmer not a tracker but the ground was covered
in snow."
"So did you catch it then?"
"Well, I carried on following its tracks along that old overgrown
road which leads inside. You might remember that path which leads
into the depths of the forest. I don't think you and I ever did follow
it too far when you were a child. It must go on for miles. Nobody
ever goes there. I believe it's a very old, even an ancient, route. But
I did stop to set the other trap in the middle of the path. I used the
length of chain again to fix it to a tree and then covered it up with
some branches I pulled from a spruce and then I disguised the whole
thing with a sprinkling of snow. The wolf seemed intent on where it
was going. It twisted and turned and seemed to be following an older
trail. The forest was very gloomy and quiet in there once I was out of
sight of the edge. It was a bit like walking in a lofty ice cavern. The
tops of the pines had trapped a lot of the snow above before it had a
chance to reach the ground and it was in a state of suspended animation.
The eerie silence was only broken sometimes by a soft plop, as
a lump of it dislodgd itself and fell to the forest floor. Whatever our
wolf had caught wind of must have been somewhere up ahead.
Then after a while I noticed with a shock that another set of prints
came in from one side and mostly blocked out the first in fact there
were so many tracks I was confused but I carried on. I saw the marks
of at least two horses and, at one point, boots and some smaller paw