As we come back to the house, the snow falls hard, and we struggle through a foot of it that has accumulated on the ground. We’ve made it back before sunset, so we’ll be inside before the night creatures appear. Sometimes there are deer. Sometimes an elk. This night there is an animal in the yard that defies naming. It is large. Larger than the elk and dog like. I blink, and it’s gone, but when I look out the side window, it is there again. Ice blue eyes and a white muzzle, it is too big to be the wolf. I decide it is my power animal come to greet me in the new year. I lean my face against the coolness of the window and salute it. It gives a powerful howl in return, then runs off into the forest. It moves too fast to be real.
