Yellowstone
When I was 12 years old, my father took me on a fishing trip. My mother and two sisters stayed home – this new adventure would be for just us men. Twenty years later, I still think of this as being the best week of my life. But it was almost the last week of my life.
Back then my family was living in America, in a city called Buffalo. Yeah, I know, I always thought that was a funny name for a city too. Had the names Horse, Dog and Cat already been taken?
Anyway, my father and I had a four hour drive to get to Yellowstone National Park, then had to hike for another four hours to reach his favourite fishing spot. It was his favourite for one simple reason – it was where his father had taken him when he was a boy. My father had been waiting a long time to share this rite of passage (as he called it) with me. We’d followed a path that took us through a dense forest, but the moment we emerged from it we were there: on the shore of a lake so large it looked like an ocean. I was eager to begin fishing straight away, but by that point we only had a few hours of daylight left and my father insisted we set up our camp first. So together we pitched our tent then made a campfire.
A few hours later, it was fully dark and my father and I were sat around the fire, speaking in great depth about our favourite wrestlers. But then I saw something: a white figure moving towards us. I alerted my father and a moment later we both saw what it was: a white wolf! It came within about five metres of us then stopped, then started to growl at its potential dinner. My father stood up and ordered me to get behind him. I was gripped with terror so overwhelming I felt like I couldn’t even breathe, but somehow I managed to do as I was told. He told me that as long as we stood with the fire between us and the wolf, it wouldn’t dare attack. That was when we both heard it: a growl from our left side. It was another white wolf! How it had snuck up on us, I’ll never know, but it was on our side of the campfire. It started to edge towards us, whilst the other wolf moved to flank us from the other side. My father grabbed a small flaming log from the campfire and started waving it in front of us. “Chidi,” he said to me, “whatever happens, don’t run. You’d be turning your back to death. Our only advantage is here.”
Well, it sure didn’t feel like we had an advantage. But just then, something jumped on the back of the wolf on our left – it was another wolf! But this one was black, and noticeably larger than the white ones. The two wolves rolled around on the floor in a frenzy of teeth and claws, until the black one sunk its fangs deep into the white one’s neck and its whole body went limp. The other white wolf barked at the victor, but when the black wolf pounced at it, it thought better of challenging the larger beast alone and ran away. The black wolf chased it for a moment but then stopped. I couldn’t believe my eyes. A wild wolf had just come to our rescue! It was a miracle! Except, it wasn’t. The black wolf turned back towards us and began to growl as it approached us with bared teeth and mad hunger in its eyes.
How will Chidi and his father defend themselves from the black wolf?
How persistent will the wolf be? Will it give up after a few minutes or continue to stalk them until their fire goes out?
How much wood do they have to burn? How long can they keep their fire going?