A Little Walk In The Snow

In 1967, I was living with a girlfriend, 10 miles north of Aspen, Colorado, in a little cabin on Elk Mountain, high in the Rocky Mountains. We were attending a dance at the Aspen Inn.

I had been living with Sherry about three years off and on and our relationship had not always been smooth sailing.

Sherry was twenty-four, hazel eyes, brown hair, and light complexion with lots of freckles. Although not beautiful, she had a cute pixy look and a sweet figure which made her sexy as hell.

Personality wise, it was hard to say. She had two. I had been living with her about six weeks when I met Sherry #2. She was a classical multi-personality. Sherry #1 was sweet, adventurous, loving and playful. Sherry #2 was a bitch, cruel, dominant, spiteful, and vindictive.

She would never remember her other personality, and even when I showed her the teeth marks she had made in my arm, she refused to believe it.

Why did I put up with her? Simple, she was exciting. I never knew who I would be seeing that evening. I must say that during the three years we were together, she was Sherry 1 about 80% of the time.

I also had a lot of admiration for strong women. My mother was a weak woman and let people take advantage of her. She always seemed to be the victim. A woman who could not be manipulated or take any shit from anybody was refreshing.

Once when she was in her "bitch persona", she got a call from a couple of college ex-boyfriends who were in town to come out for a couple of drinks.

I knew it meant trouble. I knew I could trust Sherry #1, but Sherry #2 would fuck both of these guys without hesitation.

I had a bad case of the flu that night. I told her I wanted her to stay home and take care of me. She was pissed but complied. I was surprised. It was the first time Sherry 2 ever complied with my request.

We split up for a while and she went to Aspen to ski while I stayed in school and hit the books. She showed up on my doorstep two months later.

"I have a cabin ten miles out of town in the snow with a wood burning stove for heat. "

It all sounded so romantic! I packed my bags and went to the Rockies and Sherry's cabin.

Everything went well for about a month. Then we went dancing at the Aspen Inn where she was working as a maid.

After dancing the night away, Sherry 2 and I got into an argument. She was flirting with a handsome exercise trainer at the inn and wanted to stay with him in town and I was feeling like a third wheel and jealous! I wanted to go back to the cabin. Since it was her car, I was stuck in town. I decided to walk back to the cabin, just a little walk in the snow. Being a city boy, I didn't know that walking ten miles, in twenty degree weather, uphill at a high altitude wearing light boots and suede jacket was a really dumb idea. After walking about five miles, I realized what a stupid thing I had done.

My feet, hands and face were frozen. It was extremely difficult to walk and I kept stumbling and falling asleep on my feet. It was 2am, no one was going to come driving by on this quiet mountain road and rescue me and lying down and going to sleep spelled certain death!

I kept trying to think of things, anything to keep my mind going, to stay awake! What an idiotic and dangerous situation I had put myself into!

After an hour and a half, I was beginning to reach the point where I just didn't care anymore. I was numb and exhausted. I just wanted to lie down and go to sleep. I couldn't take another step.

Just about that time, I heard what sounded like wolf howl. I knew the mountains were full of wild dogs and wolves.

It was a moon bright night and as I looked back down the path I had just traveled I saw a dark, animal-like outline, wolf-like in shape!

The thought of falling asleep and freezing to death was one thing, being torn apart by wolves was quite another! My heart started beating faster and the adrenalin started to pulse through my veins. I gathered up what strength I could muster and started walking toward the cabin.

For the next hour, I could hear, and sometimes see, the wolf tracking me, slowly closing the gap between us.

I finally reached the cabin and the wolf retreated back into the cover of darkness.

It had saved my life! Without the fear and adrenalin it had induced in me, I never would have made it. I actually owed that animal my life.

There was a hot shower area right outside the cabin, I went over to it and turned on the hot water and let it rain down on me, clothes and all.

After I had thawed out a little, I went back to the cabin, changed clothes and crawled under the blankets and drifted off into a very sound sleep.

Sherry 1 came rushing in a couple of hours later. She told me she had awoken on a couch in the employees lounge at the Inn. She had no recollection of the exercise trainer or our argument.

We she woke up and found I wasn't there, she look all around for me, then, frantically drove back to the cabin. She did seem genuinely concerned, but I had already made up my mind. Living with her had caused me to jeopardize my life. I blame myself, not her. I left for Los Angeles the next day.

Do I believe Sherry had no recollection or control over her two personalities? Yes. In the three year period we were together, I had seen it happen too many times.

Her sister had also warned me about her when we first started seeing each other but I was too much in love to heed her words.

Was there really a wolf, or was my imagination playing tricks on me? On the way into town, we stopped at the place I had encountered the wolf. There were animal tracks all over the place. Nope. I wasn't dreaming. Thanks wolf.