OUR FROZEN WORLD

I KNEW ABOUT ICE. I saw the giant glaciers moving slowly forward, destroying anything in their paths.

I knew about snow. It had covered our northern forest home, this time not leaving much alive except us. Not even wolves now. I gazed ahead at the frozen land. White flowed to the horizon, only the tops of trees showed. The freezing air and whipping wind burned my eyes, my nose, and my throat as I tried to breathe. Frost hung on my eyelids.

Our group of one hundred frozen souls trudged through it on our way east.

So many animals had disappeared. The mastodon, most birds, small rodents, rabbits, and some of the larger cats. Where did they all go? Did they die, or did they find a better place, a place without ice and snow?

I had to convince our group to move on because they would not give up hope that life would go back to the way it was. Some of them said we had had rough winters before, but spring and summer had always returned with fresh grass, flowers and trees filled with leaves. Bees fed on wild flowers, birds nested, and small animals scurried about while we spent lazy, pleasant hours enjoying our life.

The weight of the truth hung heavy on my heart. This time there had been no summer. Our paradise was probably gone. Even if it was not, we could die waiting for the warm season to return. We had to go. Our life here was over. I told them we needed to leave, to search for a new home, a place that I was sure existed, even after this catastrophic weather had hit our land. The place was to the southeast. I had no idea how I knew that, except I thought I heard a voice on the wind. The voice told me there was a place where the sun warmed the earth, played sparkles on the water, and the grass and trees basked in its love. At night, a silvery moon, the sun’s shy sister, would come out and, in a clear sky filled with stars, sing us to sleep.

We were so cold and starving, I simply had to believe that the voice calling to me, telling me to go and find that warm land, was real. It just had to be.

That was how we happened to be on this dangerous journey. My plan was to take us east and then south. Our thick fur coats protected us from the icy winds as we struggled through lands that were dark and cold, with moving mountains of ice, sometimes surrounded by turbulent rivers, and where thin and starving wolves and saber-toothed tigers hunted us.

As we climbed another set of mountains and came to a crest, the vista before us made my heart sink, and my hope began to die like the trees and grass had. Below was a plain where the mountains ended, but there was nothing but tundra, bleak and frozen. We could not see even a speck of green.

I hung my head, as I could not find the will to go on. I looked at my mates, and they glared at me with hate, blaming me for leading them here to die.

But hate turned to fear of death as the snow began to fall again, covering the earth and blanketing everything as we plodded down the mountain and finally reached the plain. The flakes fell on our fur hides, blinding our eyes. The grass had long since disappeared, smothered and dead. Here and there, a solitary tree stood, asleep as if the slumber protected it from the reality that there would be no sun to warm unborn leaves.

Our group plodded forward, heads down and hungry; they all had long since given up. They had gone from anger to fear and then apathy. It was as if they were just waiting to let death take them.

Their suffering was all my fault. I had told them to follow me to a new land. Had I been wrong?

Regret and shame flared stronger. I had led us here, but if I did not change the morale, we would all die. It was up to me. I had to dig deep inside me and pull out some strength, to find a way to give them the courage to go on. Either that or we would die.

Then I saw it. It flew over, appearing as just a speck in the cheerless, gray sky.

My heart pounded, and I let out a long sound, as if I were braying at the hidden sun. “Come! Come here, all of you!”

They did not respond.

I called again.

Finally, they moved into a circle around me, vapor coming in puffs as they breathed the cold air.

“Listen to me,” I said. “We are close. I can feel it. I saw a bird. Birds eat seeds, and seeds mean plants. It came from over that ridge.”

They all turned their heads.

“We can make it. We will find what we seek over that ridge.”

Our largest male said, “That, as you call it, is not a ridge. It is a mountain range, and who knows how many more ranges we would have to travel to … what? More tundra?”

“To a better world, warm and full of food. I can feel it. Just a little farther.”

A female said, “It was you who talked us into leaving our home. And now we will die trying to get over those mountains.”

“You would have died anyway!” I shouted. “The ice has frozen our world, killed everything, and threatened us all with death. We must keep going forward. We must keep hope in our hearts.”

Another male, one who usually spoke for the rest, said, “You dream of this better world, and all we ever see is ice and snow. We need to go back. There is no food here. No sun. Why do we keep battling the ice, the cold, in this horrible world?”

However, another female rounded on him. “Go back? Look at how long it has taken to get this far. He was right. We would have died there. And he is right, we need to keep hope and keep going. Stop taking this out on our leader.”

It was her mate that said, “Leader? You call him a leader? If I had any strength, I would take him on and take his place. He is wrong, and he has brought us to this dark, cold and turbulent place, this bleak tundra. He has killed us all.”

I backed up as they became more agitated and started striking each other, bellowing and screaming, taking their suffering and frustration out on one another.

I shouted, “BE QUIET!”

They turned to me.

“I have a dream of a better world, one of sun and a land filled with life. We must keep moving toward the rising sun. We will find it. I promise you.”

They simply stepped aside as I strode through the group and marched toward the mountains.

I did not even look back to see if they followed.

However, they did follow.

We battled ice storms and raging rivers, starving and cold. No one said a word. We just marched ahead as the area seemed to change. We saw several birds. Then live trees and foliage. A little grass peeked out from the snow. We gobbled it as fast as we could, our ribs showing on our sides like skeletons. Now and then, we saw rabbits and deer.

A pack of wolves attacked, and somehow we found the strength to fight bravely, and I was so relieved when they ran off, some bleeding and some with legs crippled.

We had fought off wolves and won. Our hearts were feeling lighter with that victory when a bear crashed through the trees, scattering snow everywhere. He was ten feet tall and bellowing.

My herd backed away in terror as I bellowed back.

I leaned down to ram him with my antlers, pawing at the snow with my sharp hooves. Anger consumed me and made me blind to the fact that one swat with those huge powerful paws, with claws that were inches long, and I would be dead. Just one blow and no more me.

I bellowed again.

The bear turned! He left. Not running, but in a hurry nonetheless.

We all breathed relief. I turned. My herd was looking at me with admiration in their eyes. Huffing and pawing the ground, I knew they now saw me as their fearless leader. We were all still alive.

We found some leaves and grass to gain some strength to climb the next set of mountains, and when we crested the summit, there was another series of mountains ahead. To my surprise, no one stopped. No one quarreled. It was as if they had heard that voice on the wind. The one I had trusted. I thought it whispered to them to move, to trek over the mountains to our goal.

It took several moons, and we finally stood on a ridge. As far as the eye could see, there was prairie. Prairie!

Our hearts soared. Life sang from that lush green expanse. I could feel the spirits of the wolf, the bear, and the eagle. There were herds of wide-horned bison and antelope. There were mastodon, and on the ridges of the mountain we stood on, mountain goats pranced from rock to rock.

A stream fell from the mountains in a waterfall and meandered through the land that was fresh and new with pine, elm, maple and lovely willows, and a sky that made an azure ceiling in a land with no more snow and ice.

My herd of elk tossed their antlers, playfully nipped each other, and, filled with joy, we ran toward our new home, a place that told time by the seasons, the sun, and normal cycles of birth and death.

We arrived and took our fill, grazing in silence, listening to a light wind that ruffled the tall prairie grass, a soft breeze that whispered to us the secrets of the earth.