SAND WOLF: By Robert C. Eccles
Monday, August 22nd, 2011I used to be able to show people where I lived in Michigan by holding up my right hand and pointing to the spot on my palm I called home. That was before a sand wolf tore my hand off at Sleeping Bear dunes. Sure, I could use the back of my left hand to represent the state of Michigan, but it feels weird, showing the back rather than the palm. So now I don’t even bother trying to show people where I live.
Back when I still had both of myhands I took my wife up to Onekama on vacation. We stayed at a beautiful bed and breakfast on Portage Lake that was once a summercamp. As a kid I spent several magical summers there, and one of the annual activities for campers was to travel north to Sleeping Bearand walk across the dunes to Lake Michigan. I thought my wife would enjoy the same adventure, so off we went one beautiful summer morning.
The trip across the dunes started off well enough. Truthfully, I had to stop and rest a few times onthe way up that first huge hill. I’m not in the same kind of shape I was when I was a kid and could tear straight up the side of thething. My wife mocked me from the summit as I stood with my hands onmy hips, sucking in huge gulps of air. Finally I made it to the top,and our trek across the dunes began in earnest.
You have to understand that my wife is a driftwood freak. She collects the stuff. Our home insuburban Detroit is a clutter of driftwood furniture, sculptures and other knick-knacks. Since the dunes were once under water, you can guess what they’re covered with. Yep, driftwood. So it’ll come as no surprise that we weren’t even halfway to the lakeshore by lunchtime, considering the fact that we had to stop and examine every chunk of driftwood along the way.
I think it was about one-thirty in the afternoon when things got weird. My wife called me over toexamine an especially lovely piece of driftwood she’d found. It wasa pretty good-sized log, with one end buried in the sand. My wife reached down to pick it up, and the strangest look crossed her face when she touched it. Looking back I guess she was probably wondering why a chunk of driftwood felt so soft. So…furry.
The sand in front of my wife exploded upward. For a split second there was a giant swirl of sand,fur, fangs and claws, then my wife was gone. The sand wolf’s tail –which my wife had mistaken for driftwood – was the last thing tosink into the sand and out of sight.
I ran over to the spot where I last saw my wife and fell on my hands and knees. I plunged my arm into the sand up to the elbow. A searing pain shot up my arm, as if I had grabbed a handful of razor blades. I yanked my arm out of the sand, and all that was left where my hand had been was a bloody stump. I fell back onto the sand, clutching my arm to my chest. I might have bled to death if not for a fellow dune-walker who happened to find me and apply a tourniquet.
It’s not all that rare to hear oftourists going missing during a trek across Sleeping Bear dunes. Most of the disappearances are chalked up to folks drowning in Lake Michigan, and I’m sure some of them are just that – drownings. But take it from a guy who tends to get a little sour these days when someone asks him what part of Michigan he’s from: There’s something nasty out there on Sleeping Bear, and if you ever venture across the dunes you’d be wise to examine the driftwood very carefully before trying to pick it up.
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© 2011 Robert C. Eccles
