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I hear him farther up the slope, crashing through brush. A roar comes back through the trees after he’s out of sight.

My hand’s still up. I put it down and stand there until I trust my knees.

He was going to come at me. What the hell was that.

The noise moves farther away. I turn toward the river and see the female beside the trunk.

Three bodies. Blood all over the ground where we were standing and up the broken branches, and the path to the den starts right above them.

Shit.

I pick up the bow and set it against a tree. Then I take the nearest wolf by the hind legs and pull.

Her body barely shifts, and pain runs from my left shoulder into my neck.

I let go and bend over my knees, breathing through my teeth.

That’s an excellent start. He’s run off, and I’ve decided to clean up after him.

Okay. Well, fuck. Now what?

I’ve never had a problem moving anything in my life, and now one dead wolf won’t move for me. So how am I supposed to do this?

Think, think. Okay, humans. I’m practically human now, right? So what would a human do about this? What would Mel do?

I laugh. She’d step right over all three of them to get a better look at the moss.

Not helping, Mel.

I breathe out. Fine. I can’t pull them myself, so I need help, and the big stubborn bastard who should be doing this is up a mountain somewhere, so I have to make something.

Make what, though? I’m standing in a pile of broken branches with a bow and a little knife.

Wait. Mel had that wagon she hauled the chickens around in. I can’t make wheels, but I don’t need wheels, I just need something they’ll lie on that slides.

I turn back toward the fallen tree. There are two long limbs under it with the small branches still on. I drag them out one at a time with my right hand.

Rauk brought cord with the arrows, so I dig it out of the bundle and draw the little knife from my belt.

It goes through the cord without snagging. I bind the limbs together at their thin ends, and the small branches overlap enough to make a narrow bed.

Fuck yeah. Now that’s a sled.

The river’s just below the trunk, a strip of wet gravel and then deep water sweeping past a rock. If I can get them that far, I won’t have to carry them.

Getting the female onto the branches takes longer than making the sled.

I crouch beside her, brace my feet, and roll her a little at a time. Her fur’s wet where the blood’s run into it, and it sticks to my palms.

Ugh. Gross. I’ve dragged kills before, plenty of them, but that was my wolf’s teeth, and nothing was gross then. Hands are so much worse.

Her head drags against my knee, and I move it clear of the wood with my fingers well away from her jaws. Dead or not.

She was a person. Somewhere there are clothes she’d have put back on.

I sit on my heels until I can get up again.

The first pull lifts the handles and leaves the rest exactly where it was.