Category: Fiction

A Christmas Short Story

Posted in FictionTagged 3 Comments

Santa was in trouble. Just north of Cobalt Ontario, Prancer lost a shoe. Santa needed to land the sleigh. Now.

Below he spotted a clearing in the bush. There was a house, the windows still lit. Good.

With care, he slid the sleigh into a turn, and landed. Very carefully. Unfortunately at the very edge of the bush. He sighed, and looked at the long walk to the house, through snow drifts that looked taller than he was.

He stumbled off the sleigh, into snow that was almost up to his waist. Ugh. Slowly he struggled forward to let the reindeer loose from their harnesses. Then he heard the wolves. This was not good.

Just as he got the last reindeer unhitched, the first of the wolves crept out of the forest. Santa struggled back to the sleigh, and consulted his list. Right. Billy got a baseball bat. He quickly pulled it out of his bag of toys. Luckily the wolves were having nearly as much trouble in the deep snow as he was.

Santa waved the bat and shouted. The wolves didn’t look impressed. Not at all. And there was a lot of them. At least twenty. Not good at all. Reindeer knew how to handle wolves, but not that sort of a crowd!

Then he heard growling. From behind.

Santa turned quickly, and saw an enormous golden dog, with a curled tail, bounce over the sleigh. It got between the wolves and the reindeer, and stood, hackles up, growling most ferociously.

Some of the wolves retreated. The biggest, probably the pack leader, didn’t. The pack leader, and the big dog had a staring contest.

Suddenly, there was a blur, and the big dog had the pack leader on his back, on the ground. The other wolves scattered.

“Good dog!” came from behind. Santa looked back over his shoulder, at a huge man, dressed in a red and blacked checked coat, on snow shoes, carrying a rifle across his arm.

The dog growled, again. Louder. Santa turned, and saw him back up a bit. A moment later, the wolf pack leader staggered to his feet, and ran off into the bush.

The dog trotted over, and sat beside the huge man, tongue lolling out. The man laughed. “Good dog Mark, I didn’t even need my rifle,” and petted the panting dog on his head. He then turned, and said, “Merry Christmas Santa Claus!”

*****

I wrote this last year, and forgot to put it up. I’m a bit late this year, but better late than never. Hope you enjoy it.

Regards

Wayne Borean

Saturday December 27, 2014