How visible the blaze is from across the river continues to worry me.

But a wall of young conifers stands between the shack and the water’s edge. And the snow is coming down heavier. Maybe I am all right here.

Shadow seems to know how close he can sprawl to the licking flames without having sparks rain down on his fur.

I wish I had food for him.

I wish I had food for myself.

I decide to take a gamble and lie down several yards from his massive head. He appraises me with those inscrutable eyes but doesn’t growl or flinch. We bask together in the heat the wood is throwing off.

No one is a greater defender of wolves than I am. But there are moments when I am in the presence of this fearsome creature, when the Brothers Grimm take authorship of my internal monologue, and I feel as terrified of him as a medieval peasant hearing howls in the night.

Then this monster out of folklore will whimper in his sleep or let loose with a stinking fart, and I will remember he is just another mammal, like me; and that the evils we see in wolves are merely projections of our own moral failings. Since the dawn of history, his kind has paid the price for our ignorant self-regard, our eagerness to blame others, our persistent lack of courage. Wolves satisfy humanity’s pitiful need for villains.

The fire grows too hot for me.

Now that I am out of danger for after-drop, I grab my parka and wander down to the river to rinse my scraped hand. My night vision needs time to adjust. The falling snow looks faintly gray in the darkness, like wood ash blown from some distant fireplace. I stand motionless behind my wall of firs, not wanting to risk a wrong step.

Slowly the Androscoggin reveals itself. The river is mostly a blur, made worse by the spitting flurries. Below my feet, I can make out slags of fractured ice piled at the edge. Then a pale sheet stretching away, as smooth as a carpet: a dangerous invitation to cross.

I imagine Bruce Jewett hidden on the heights of the far shore, methodically sweeping the eastern bank with a night-vision scope. Given the extent of his armory, he must possess every modern military device. To set his ambush for me, however, he had foregone contemporary weapons and reached back to the Bronze Age.

The simplest weapons are often the best. Out of reflex, I touch the knife in my pocket.

Jewett is a clever man, I have to hand it to him. He fooled Bibi Chamberlain. And he absolutely fooled me.