Читать книгу Algonquin Quest 2-Book Bundle - Rick Revelle - Страница 14

Battle of the Woods

WE WALKED SLOWLY TOWARD the sound of the jay. The warmth of the noon sun and our nervousness about the unseen ahead contributed to us sweating uncontrollably. If the jay was disturbed by another person we could be walking headlong into an enemy war party.

We came upon the small river in a short while and still the jay was yelling his warning. At that moment Wàgosh said, “I hear sounds, brother. They are the sounds of animals fighting.”

No sooner had Wàgosh uttered that statement, but an immense stench permeated our nostrils.

“Mahingan, something has a shigàg (skunk) cornered, and he is not happy. There are a lot of smells in the air!”

“Wàgosh, I am afraid it is not a shigàg that is causing this horrific odour. Come. We will discover what all the noise is about.”

We walked around a small bend in the river and came upon a rocky outcropping that led to the small river. Here we found what was making all the screaming and growling. Four kwìngwayàge (wolverines) had cornered an old bull moose as he was coming out of the small river. There was a mated pair with their two young kits from the previous spring. The old bull looked gaunt from a long hard winter that had weakened him considerably. The wolverines were a formidable foe at any time and the moose in his youth would have put up a ferocious battle and chased off this vicious pack, but not this day. They had attacked him when he was climbing the smooth rock from the river and the two adults were on his head, one on the nostrils and the other on the throat. The yearling kits were ravaging the bull’s hind legs and had succeeded in tearing his back tendons away from his legs. The moose was bellowing, bleeding, and gasping for air. I could see the fear in his eyes, knowing that death was coming, and it would be slow, because the wolverines had not yet pierced his jugular vein.

Wàgosh and I watched the death dance for ten or fifteen minutes until finally the old moose bled out and died. The wolverines then dragged the old bull up the rock ledge to the edge of the forest.

Wolverines feared neither man nor beast in this wilderness, and they were as strong as they were vicious. It was very rare that we were witnessing a battle like this. Our elders told stories of the wolverine and their bravery and tenacity. There were few predators that would go head to head with them. However, hunger would make animals take risks.

“Wàgosh,” I said, “I think it is time to go.”

“No, brother. There is moose meat there for our taking!”

“Wàgosh, I would rather take on ten Haudenosaunee than try to take this moose from those killers.”

As we were about to leave our hiding place downwind from the kill, more players entered this battleground. The smell and noise of the kill had brought out the wolverines’ biggest competitors, two wolves. They were young, probably only three or four, and probably had just become sexually active. There were only two of them, and because they were so young, it indicated they were starting their own pack. In all likelihood they had a couple of pups somewhere close.

The wolves wasted no time. They were hungry and the female had probably whelped seven or eight weeks previously so she was eating for more than one. They charged down the small hill at the wolverines.

Two full-grown wolves against two adult and two yearling kit wolverines was not very good odds, but hunger ruled. The wolverines, although caught off-guard, met their adversaries head on. The female wolverine immediately went for the throat of the female wolf. The wolverine, being so low to the ground, hung onto the wolf, and they tumbled and rolled down the rock embankment into the water. The wolverine then made quick work of the larger beast by holding onto her throat, weighing her down and drowning her.

The male wolf was close to death also. The female’s mate had him by the nose and the two smaller wolverines were on the wolf’s hind legs as they had been with the old bull. They were tearing him to pieces from the hindquarters and their father was tearing the wolf’s face to bits. Soon he was dead. The wolverines had killed these two intruders in a matter of minutes with ferocity unparalleled in the wilderness.

“Wàgosh, do you still want to try to take some moose meat from them?” I asked.

“No, brother. I’m convinced. We’ll see if the suckers are running. Fish will be enough for me today. Moose, some other time.”

“Wàgosh, follow me. There is something I want to check out. These wolves had to have pups, and I would like one to raise.”

We then skirted around the wolverines and their kills.

“These four will come back here for days to eat the moose and the wolves that they killed here today. Woe to another animal that comes here to feed if the wolverines are in the vicinity.”

Wàgosh and I followed the trail that the wolves had left through the sparse snow until we came to a small den. I made the sound of a wolf calling its young, and instantly I received a small yowl in return. I had some meat in my pouch, and I set it outside the den. No sooner had I done this than a round ball of fur waddled out and grabbed the meat. I then grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and pulled the pup up in the air. He fought and squirmed, trying to turn his head to bite me, but to no avail. I noticed the pup was a male and had lots of fight in him.

“Wàgosh, I have a fierce companion now.”

I then noticed he had a small bit of white on his nose shaped like a blaze cut on a tree like when we cut the sweet water trees.

“Your name will be Ishkodewan (Blaze), and if you grow up to be as energetic and brave as you are now, we will have many good adventures together.”