Umnik's flying hooves thundered over the icy bridge, up to the gates and through, over new snow at the gateway and onto the trampled streets of the city; the doors swung shut. Andrei reined in, circled Umnik as he put on a brave face, waved a jaunty salute at old Pyotr and son Fedor who kept the gates. Then he trotted Umnik on into the narrow streets, past citizens bundled against the falling snow, folk who knew him, bright-cheeked children who looked up in delight and waved at a hunter's passing.
He turned in toward the cozy house of Ivan Nikolaev, two houses, in truth, which, neighbors, had leaned together for warmth and companionship years ago and finally grown together the year his own parents died, leaving him to the Nikolaevs and their kin. The carven-fenced yards had become one, the houses joined, and so did the painted stables where the Nikolaevs' bay pony and the Orlovs' three goats waited, Umnik's stay-at-home stablemates.
The household had been waiting for him; the side door opened, and Katya his foster mother came out bundled against the cold, to take Umnik's reins. He dropped to the snowy yard and tugged down the scarf to kiss her brow and hug her a welcome, cheerfully then slung the frozen game over his shoulder while he stripped off the pony's harness to carry it indoors. Umnik shook himself thoroughly and trotted away on his own to the grain and the warm stall waiting, and Andrei, slinging the saddle to his shoulder with one hand and hugging mother Katya with the other arm, headed for the porch. She would have worried for him, with the hour late and the snow beginning; she was all smiles now. And with a second slam of the door Anna was coming out too, her cheeks burned red by the wind, her eyes bright. She came running to him, her fair braids flying bare, her embroidered coat and skirts turned pale in the blowing snow; he dropped the gear and clapped her in his arms and swung her about as he had done when they were children of the same year; he kissed her (lightly, for her mother stood by laughing) then dragged the harness up again and walked with his arm about her and Katya along beside, lifted his hand from Anna's shoulder to wave at her brother Ilya, who had come outside still bundling up. The oldest Nikolaev was a woodcutter, and his son Ivan a woodcutter; but young Ilya, Anna's twin, of no stout frame, was an artist, a carver, whose work was all about them, the bright posts of the porch, the flowered shutters. . . "Ah," Ilya said to him cheerfully, "back safe—what else could he be? I told her so." He hugged Hya a snowy welcome too, stamped his boots clean and hung the game on the porch, then whisked inside with all the rest, into warmth like a wall. He hung the bow and harness in the inner porch, stripped off snowy furs and changed to his indoor boots. Katya bustled off and brought him back tepid water to drink, and mistress Orlov met them all at the inside door with hot tea. There was the smell of the women's delightsome cooking, and the cheer of the mingled families who beamed and gave him welcome as he came into the common room, a babble of children inevitable and inescapable in the house. Young Ivan came running to be picked up and flung about, and Andrei lifted him gladly, tired as he was. Fire crackled in the hearth and they all were gathered, settled finally for a meal, himself. . . a Gorodin; and Nikolaevs and Orlovs young and old, with the warm air smelling as the house always smelled, of wood chips and resins and leathers and furs and good cooking. Then the fear seemed very far away.
He rested, with a full belly, and they drank steaming tea and a little vodka. Old Nikolaev and son Ivan talked their craft, where they should cut in the spring to come; and grandfather Orlov and his son, carpenters, talked of the porch they were going to repair down the street on the city hall. Grandmother Orlov sat in her chair which was always near the fire, tucked up with flowered pillows and quilts; the children—there were seven, among the prolific Orlovs— played by the warm hearth; and the women talked and stitched and invented patterns. "Tell stories," the children begged of any who would; drink passed about again, and it was that pleasant hour. The young would begin the tale-telling, and the elders would finish, for they had always seen deeper snows and stranger sights and colder winters.
"Tell us," little Ivan asked, bouncing against Andrei's knee, "ah, tell us about the hunt today." Andrei sighed, taking his arm from about Anna's waist, and smiled at the round little face and bounced Ivan on his foot, holding two small hands, joked with him, and drew squeals. He told the tale with flair and flourish, warmed to the telling while the children settled in a half-ring about his feet; his friend Ilya picked up a fresh block of pine and his favorite knife, a blade very fine and keen. . . . Most of all Anna listened, looked up at him when he looked down, her eyes very bright and soft. The wind still howled outside, but they were all warmed by each other, while the timbers cracked and boomed now and again with the cold. He told of the wild ride home, of the wolves. . . wolves, for something in him flinched at telling of the Wolf, and of the lost arrow. Little Ivan's eyes grew round as buttons, and when he came to the part about the closed gate, and how it had opened, the children all clapped their hands but Ivan, who sat with his eyes still round and his mouth wide agape.
"For shame," said his grandmother, sweeping the child against her quilt-wrapped knees. "You've frightened him, Andrei."
"I'm not afraid," the child exclaimed, and shrugged free to mime a bowshot. "I shall grow up and be a hunter outside the walls, like Andrei."
"What, not a carpenter?" his grandfather asked.
"No, I shall be brave," the little boy said, and there was a sudden silence in the room, a hurt, a loneliness that Andrei felt to the heart—alone of Gorodins, of hunters in this house, and a guest, living on parents' ancient friendship. He had never meant to steal a son's heart away. Then a timber cracked quite loudly, and the roof shed a few icicles and everyone laughed at the silence, to drive it away.
"That you shall be," said Ilya, and reached to ruffle the little boy's hair. "Braver than I. I shall make you a wolf, how will you like that?"
The child's eyes danced, and quickly he deserted to Ilya's knee, and hung there watching Ilya's deft blade peel fragrant curls from the pine—Hya, who was Anna's very likeness, woman-beautiful, whose delicate hands likewise had no aptitude for his father's work, but who made beauty in wood, most skilled in all Moskva. Andrei watched as the child did, and with amazing swiftness the wood took on a wolfs dire shape. "I remember wolves," grandfather Orlov began, and childish eyes diverted again, traveled back and forth from Ilya's fingers to the old man's face, delightfully frightened.
Andrei held Anna's hand, and drew her against him, a bundle of furs and skirts beside the crackling fire. He listened to this tale he had heard before, and grandfather Orlov's voice seemed far from him; even Anna, against his side, seemed distant from him. He watched Ilya's razor-edged blade winking in the firelight and more and more surely saw the wolf emerge from the wood. He heard the snow fall; he had never truly heardit before: it needed silence, and the sense of the night outside, as the flakes settled thicker and thicker like goose down upon the roof, and their voices went up against the wind and fled away into the cold.
They spoke each of wolves that evening, and he did not hear with all his heart, nor even shiver now. He watched at last as the stories ended, and Hya handed the wolf to the boy Ivan, with all the children crowded jealously about, a clamor swiftly dismissed for bed, blanket-heaped cots in the farthest room of the loft, and deep down mattresses and coziness and the rush of the wind at the shutters.