I pause to rewarm my hands in my armpits. I stomp my feet like an old-time Chicago beat cop.

A noise behind me triggers my nervous system’s early warning system. I listen without turning. Gurgling river, whispering phragmites.

Slowly, I pivot and point the light at my erratic boot prints. The beam shudders and shakes. Beyond thirty feet it fails altogether.

“Shadow?”

Raggedy oak leaves spin and flutter on their branches. They are one of the few deciduous trees in Maine that don’t lose their foliage in the autumn. The dead leaves make a dry, papery rustle.

“Come out, big guy.” The cold has given me lockjaw. “It’s OK.”

And suddenly there he is: eyes glowing yellow at the outer edge of my light. The wolf’s heavy coat is chunked white with ice from his dip in the river. He appears to be his own ghost.

Maybe he really did drown?

If I were not hypothermic, if my mind were functioning properly, I would understand the idea is ludicrous. The steam rising from his open mouth is evidence enough of his corporeality.

“It’s good to see you,” I manage to say.

He doesn’t so much as twitch. And a crazy thought enters my mind. Is he stalking me for food?

Whatever else Shadow is, he is no man-eater. Wolves are almost never dangerous except in fairy tales. And yet isn’t this where I am now—in a German folktale?

I peel up my sleeve to check my watch again. Six minutes and counting. When I raise my eyes, the wolf has receded into the night.

I start forward, quickening my pace. Not caring about the cold sweat rolling down from my armpits. The sensation of being chased becomes overwhelming. If not by the wolf, then by what the wolf represents.

In my carelessness, I miss the drop-off ahead. The Andro, in one of its rages, has chomped a bite out of the land. The result is a deep, sandy undercut. I stumble and fall four feet onto a sheet of ice as hard as a concrete slab.

Once again I have the breath knocked from my lungs. My SureFire slips from my grasp and drops between two floes the river has pushed against the shore. In a panic I reach my whole arm after it. My numb fingers brush the aluminum barrel and succeed in pushing it deeper down the hole. The bulb shines into my eyes, mocking me. I can’t reach it, can’t move these heavy, interlocked sheets. I have no choice but to leave it behind.

I crawl up the bank, blind, frustrated, but not yet defeated.

When I pause for breath at the top, I realize I am no longer shivering. That’s a bad sign.