Donner Pass

Dark Woods by Eddson Lens (Pexels)We want to believe the howls are from wolves, the wild west rearing its head. But when we remove our fingers from our ears, we know. Our hunters are not of this world. It’s the menace in between the howls that drives Pa to sit a nightly vigil at the opening of our wagon, rifle-in-hand. We were not the first to ride west in search of fortune, nor the first to traverse the Sierra Nevadas. Townsfolk from Reno warned us to make haste through the ponderosas and to never stop in an open field overnight. But Pa hadn’t listened. “It’s all hogwash,” he’d said. When we settled in that quiet meadow under the stars, we trusted him. That was the first night we heard them. Now every night is a chorus of howls and snarls and scratching of treebark, shaking branches above our heads. If one of us whimpers, the howls grow more animated; whatever hunts us feasts on our fear. Only when laughter joins the chorus does Pa finally venture out in frustration, rifle at the…