Читать книгу White Feather 3-Book Bundle - Jennifer Dance - Страница 16

After the small Upright had disappeared into the waves of sun-bleached grass, Crooked Ear had waited in the shelter of the forest for the child to return, but the tall Upright had come back alone. The days were becoming shorter and instinct was tugging at his paws, telling them to go back to the place of his birth, back to the granite ridge at Clear Lake. But there was a stronger force tugging at him, also, and he followed it … right to the barbed-wire fence of the school. Under the cover of darkness he trotted around the perimeter, looking for a way past the fence, but there was none. He stood on his hind legs and stretched his forelegs as far as they would go, feeling the sharp barbs of the wire. He whined softly and scrabbled at the base of the fence, but the wire went into the earth also. He could smell his little Upright, but there were many other smells too, ones that filled him with fear. He spun, broke into a lope, and started the journey back to Clear Lake.

Snow was falling long before Crooked Ear reached the place of his birth. He pushed on through the cold, his limbs cramping with exhaustion, his instinct telling him that respite was not far away. He loped the last few miles and rushed into the old pack with tail wagging and a lupine smile across his face.

His mother and father and siblings were not there to greet him.

The pack stared at him with an aloofness that bordered on hostility. Crooked Ear knew what to do. He lowered his head, tail, and ears. He averted his gaze from their amber and yellow eyes. He flattened his body toward the ground. He held this pose for a few seconds, his keen senses judging the reaction among the other wolves. One, alone, bared his fangs and snarled. Crooked Ear discerned that this wolf was the pack’s new alpha male, and he recognized him: his Uncle Seraph, Tall-Legs’s younger brother. The rest of the pack waited for Seraph to make the decision as to whether or not Crooked Ear would be allowed back into the family. In the silence Crooked Ear judged that things were not going well. He was about to roll onto his back in the ultimate gesture of submission when Seraph charged.

Crooked Ear stumbled as he veered away. It slowed him down. Seraph’s jaws locked onto his throat, fangs pierced his flesh, body weight pinned him to the ground. Crooked Ear struggled briefly, but he was not yet fully grown. He lacked the muscle and body weight of his uncle, he was depleted from the exhausting journey, and he had not eaten for two days. Instinct told him to submit with what could be his last breath. He lay still.

As quickly as the attack started, it was over. Seraph released Crooked Ear and returned to the others. They crowded around him, backing him up, growling at the interloper, their lips withdrawn, their gleaming fangs exposed.

Crooked Ear dragged himself to his feet and slunk away. He slept alone in a shallow scrape under the cover of thick balsam branches. He curled up as tightly as he could, his chin resting on all four paws so his breath warmed them, his bushy tail encircling him. When snow fell it cloaked him, adding insulation and rendering him invisible. Even the tip of his nose was perfectly camouflaged among the dark balsam cones. A passerby would never have suspected he was there.

Crooked Ear’s urge to be with the pack was, however, strong. He wanted to curl up and sleep next to other wolves, to feel their breath, to benefit from the warmth of the huddle. But more than that, he needed to be with the pack in order to find food to survive the winter. He quickly learned how close he could be without enraging Seraph. And for a while that was where he stayed, on the fringe, barely in sight of the other wolves. But as the nights became colder and food scarcer, he moved closer, submitting to Seraph many times a day. Gradually the alpha’s anger was replaced by cool disregard and tolerance. This change permitted the others to accept Crooked Ear into the pack, as long as he stayed at the bottom of the hierarchy.

It was a hard, hungry winter, and all the wolves lost weight, but Crooked Ear, low in social standing, was particularly thin. His coat was lacklustre, and although the long guard hairs still disguised his ribs, little flesh covered his skeleton.

Finally the breeze blew soft, and once again the wolves stretched out on the great slabs of granite that angled slightly towards the sky. Beneath them, the glare ice of Clear Lake was criss-crossed with grey-brown fissures and gleaming channels of black water, but high on the ridge the rocks had been swept clean of snow by winter winds and warmed by the spring sunshine. It was here that they lay, just as their ancestors had for centuries.

Seraph was in a relaxed mood and Crooked Ear, taking advantage of his uncle’s congeniality, flopped on his side with the other wolves, his thick winter coat absorbing the sun’s rays. At one year, he was almost full grown. He was lofty, as his father had been, but still lacked the girth and muscle of a mature wolf.

Seraph raised his head and blinked his sleepy eyes then leapt to his feet, alert and attentive, stretching his head toward the scent carried on the breeze. With a whine and a wag of his bushy tail, he sprang off the rocks and trotted down the narrow trail that led to the trees. The other wolves stretched, yawned, and followed him to where the balsam firs grew dense and dark. There, on the south-facing slope, where the sun peeked through the trees, a pile of freshly excavated sandy soil marked the entrance to the old den where Seraph’s mate had recently birthed their first litter.

The wolves cocked their heads in response to the mewling that came from deep underground. Seraph bowed down and rested his head on enormous paws, a whine of anticipation coming from his throat. In response, the she-wolf crawled along the root-lined tunnel into the daylight.

Seraph bounded toward her but stopped abruptly when he saw the angle of her ears and the stony stare in her yellow eyes. Tentatively he sniffed the air, savouring the unfamiliar smells of birth and milk that mingled with the alluring odour of she-wolf. He stretched toward her, but her withdrawn lips told him that she was in no mood to be friendly. He took a step back and observed with all of his senses. Her hairless belly was slung low with two rows of swollen teats, ribs stared out of her coarse coat, and hip bones protruded through the tight skin of her haunches. Seraph spun and loped down the well-worn trail, where thin soil barely covered the ancient rocks of the Canadian Shield. The other wolves scrambled after him, their claws gaining traction on the stubborn patches of packed, dirty snow. Survival of the offspring was now the pack’s shared priority.

Crooked Ear was the first to return, a mouse held gently in his lips.

The den held strong memories of his own mother, memories he could not resist. He entered, dragging himself down the tunnel on his belly. Despite his offering, the she-wolf bared her fangs, snarling and growling viciously. He dropped the rodent and quickly retreated, rump first, into Seraph. Fortunately the alpha’s fangs were clamped onto a vole and all he could do was lash out with his front claws. Crooked Ear veered away and retreated to the perimeter of the pack once more.

The she-wolf moved to the trees and urinated, then, flattening herself to the ground, she crawled back inside the den. The mewling intensified for a few moments as each of the squirrel-sized pups scrambled on wobbly legs to find a source of nourishment and comfort. Soon their crying was replaced by sucking, swallowing, and snuffled breathing.

Crooked Ear did his part in feeding the she-wolf, who, in turn, fed the growing pups. Of the five, four remained. The runt had been sickly from birth. During the first few hours she had vigorously licked the floppy creature and had repeatedly pushed it toward her belly, but it lacked the strength to nurse. She nosed it to one side of the den, away from the others. As soon as she realized that there was no breath coming from its nose, she licked it one last time, and then, in the manner of wolves, she ate it.

Even in their sleep, the wolves heard the far-off call of the ravens and knew that the big birds had spotted prey. Heads popped out from under bushy tails and ears pricked up, alert. Crooked Ear stood and shook the balsam needles from his coat, then, quivering with anticipation, he raised his voice in chorus with the pack. In the excitement, the wolves chased their own tails and nipped at each other until a stare from Seraph’s yellow eyes silenced them. They followed him as he loped toward the voices of the ravens, leaving the new mother standing at the entrance to the den. She sighed and returned to her pups.

Crooked Ear watched the other wolves closely. They all took their orders from Seraph, a glare from his eyes rooting them to the spot or telling them to advance. The limited hunting that Crooked Ear had done with his parents had taught him little. Now he was learning that every member of the pack had a part to play in surrounding the prey, worrying it, and tiring it so that the kill could be made without injury to the wolf itself. He was learning patience, planning, and stealth. He was learning the way of the wolf.

They approached the elk from downwind, long strands of saliva drooling onto their paws. With bodies low to the ground, and moving so as not to snap a twig, they skirted the herd, fanning out, eyes and noses searching every detail. The cows were heavy with young. In a few weeks the newborns would be easy targets, but the experienced wolves knew that right now the females would not go down easily. They would fight.

The elk sniffed the air, their senses attuned to any noise or smell that might indicate the presence of a predator. They gingerly inched away from the oval depressions in the snow where they had slept, away from the yellow, urine-stained craters, away from the safety of the cedar stand, out to where straw-coloured seed heads stood tall above a tangled thatch of winter-damaged grass. Some pawed the ground to remove snow from the matted pasture. Others wrapped their tongues around tall stems and chewed, their jaws moving from side to side in a faltering motion.

The wolves spotted an old bull, moving stiffly from one patch of snow-covered grass to another. Its ribs and haunches protruded through rough hair, its mane was matted, and its antlers, which would be formidable weapons later in the season, were harmless velvet-covered buds.

The wolves closed in. A cow, her nostrils twitching, caught the first scent of danger. She raised her tail, warning the others with the flash of white. Eyes wide with panic, the elk moved closer together. The wolves stood tall. Realizing they were surrounded on three sides by their most feared predator, the herd bolted for the only opening in sight. The wolves exploded toward the old bull, cutting it off from the panicked herd and driving it toward Seraph, who waited in the undergrowth. When the bull elk was almost upon him, Seraph leaped, sinking his fangs into its throat.

Crooked Ear joined the others, jumping onto its back and clinging with his teeth as the bull spun and bucked. Finally, another wolf grabbed the elk’s muzzle, clamping down over its nose and mouth. Desperate to breathe, the elk thrashed its head from side to side, lifting the wolf from the ground and sweeping him back and forth, but the wolf held firm. With a thud that shook the earth, the old elk fell heavily on his side.

There was a brief moment of silence.

Then powerful jaws crunched through bone and flesh.

Cloven hooves pawed the air.

Legs flailed in a desperate bid to run.

And life poured from the elk into the wolves.

Ravens watched from the trees as the wolves ripped into the soft underbelly of the old bull elk. Seraph turned on the others, growling ferociously, driving them back a few paces, where they snarled and squabbled among themselves. He pushed aside steaming intestines and tore the liver out of the body cavity. With two chomps of his massive teeth it was gone. Pushing his bloodied nose back into the tangle of guts, he rooted through to find the heart. Then, with a barely perceptible motion of his ears, he allowed the pack to join him.

The wolves snatched whatever was closest while trying to maintain their own pecking order. Crooked Ear was at the bottom. Even though he had played his part in bringing down the elk, he had to remain on the edge of the kill. Finally, as stomachs started to fill, Crooked Ear was allowed into the circle to feed.

Satisfied, with skin pulled taught across their distended bellies, the wolves ambled homeward, leaving the ravens tearing at the bulging intestines. A red vixen approached on silent pads. The ravens attacked and she retreated to wait her turn, along with those who had caught the scent on the wind and were still travelling toward the kill.

Within hours nothing would remain of the old elk except for a few fragments of bone and fur.