Lone Wolf (11 page)

Or could she?
he thought sometime later. He had been tracking her over a great distance for a long time. Stars had risen and slid down the other side of the black dome of the night. The moon was now on the distant horizon. And still her pace was steady. But
I am not alone,
he thought, and remembered again the flowing line of wolves. Each wolf had a part to play in the formation, whether they were migrating or hunting. When he had stood close to the rock wall and gazed for hours, there were moments when he had felt as if he was truly part of that flow of wolves. Now he could almost feel the presence of scores of fleet animals pressing in around him, and then other times the wolves would stretch out in a long swift stream as they silently signaled one another in this phantom
byrrgis
of many, of which Faolan was just one.
One in all. All in one!

He must let the caribou cow think that he had given
up. He scanned the landscape. There was a dip ahead and then beyond it a hill, not big but big enough. If he could fool her, then he could come from around the other side and force her to head for the incline.

He gave a short, breathy series of huffs followed by a howl and turned tail. There was a sudden pocket of quiet in the night. The sound of the clicking tendons ceased. Faolan turned around slowly, almost elaborately. He felt the cow watching him. He disappeared into the dip and then circled around behind a low bluff. The cow had slowed to a walk. There was no defile to trap her, but if he could force her toward the slope…

He acted fast, so she had no time to recover. He bolted out from behind the bluff he had just circled and chased her up the incline in a tremendous burst of speed. She was only halfway up when he gave a great leap, slamming his front paws onto her hips to bring her down. He scrambled on top of her and secured a jaw hold on her neck. Then, peeling back his dark lips, he sank his teeth into the neck, crushing her windpipe. He wanted her to die fast, but not too fast. Once again, as with the cougar, he had an urge to acknowledge her strength, her endurance. She needed to know that he respected her, that he felt her worthy. The instinct for
lochinvyrr
was a
compulsion as old as wolves. He was desperate to look into this dying caribou’s eyes. He wanted her to know that he valued her life, her gift to him. If this could happen the meat would be
morrin,
sanctified. It would be with good purpose that the caribou had died. Faolan knew none of this; it was only ancient instinct that guided him as the cow lay dying.

There was a flicker of light in the old cow’s eyes as she looked directly into Faolan’s. He heard the crackle of the last breath in her broken windpipe.
I have lived a long life, a good life. I have calved and run with the herd. I am ready to go, to let go. My time is over.
It was as if the two animals nodded to each other, and then the caribou died.

THE RAVENS BEGAN TO CIRCLE overhead before the caribou had taken her last breath. It irritated Faolan. It was not selfishness or hunger that made him growl as two pairs settled on a rock a short distance from the carcass. It was not even the fact that he had been the one to bring down the caribou and they wanted to feast on his hard work. It was rather the notion of these rackety birds with their harsh
kras
pecking at the meat of this noble animal. It disturbed him deeply. There was still meat left and Faolan had more than satiated his hunger, but the idea of the ravens sickened him. He decided to take the carcass to a place where it would be safe from scavengers.

He began dragging the body by its antlers across the flat, treeless plain. The ravens followed and when he
paused or rested they would light down. But Faolan was a relentless sentry. He bared his teeth, revealing the long fangs that the birds had originally counted on for ripping open the tough hide of the caribou. The ravens found his behavior bewildering. Normally, after wolves had their fill they left the rest for the birds. It was why ravens were often known as wolf birds, for they followed the packs.

As Faolan hauled the body across the plain, an idea came to him. He recalled the times when he and Thunderheart looked out onto the summer nights, and the grizzly told him the stories of the star pictures. In particular, he remembered the night she had told him of Ursulana, the bear heaven to which the constellation of the Great Bear pointed and where she was sure that her cub’s spirit had gone. In the Cave Before Time, he had begun to think that there might be a refuge for the spirit of wolves as well. It now occurred to Faolan that perhaps there was a starry refuge for the spirits of caribou. The thought quickened his pace.

A bold raven swooped down toward the caribou. He was still quite high, however. Faolan was incensed and leaped up and snatched the bird right out of the air. The five other ravens were so stunned that they stalled in their
flight and began to plummet toward the ground. Never had they seen a four-leg soar so high. Faolan had killed his raven instantly. The others recovered from their near fatal plunges and flew off. That was the last Faolan saw of them.

It had been Faolan’s intention to drag the body of the caribou to the high banks of the river, to a spot far from the fishing grounds frequented by animals during the salmon spawning season, and far from the shallow crossing points used by migrating herds. He knew that such places were favored by predatory animals for bringing down moose, caribou, deer, and musk oxen. He was determined that no creature should touch these bones while there was still meat on them. He would finish eating what he could, and then he would hide the bones.

At last Faolan found a good spot high above a deep place in the river. The calm surface water concealed treacherous currents, making it a precarious place for migratory animals to cross. Furthermore, he had not picked up the slightest trace of scent. Fox families would have been frightened that their kits might fall off the edge. Wolverines preferred dens at the bottom of steep rock slides or at the very top of talus slopes. They were
skillful at finding sheltered spaces between the rocks. Martens and weasels liked the deep forest. This place was perfect.

He was hungry again from the labor of dragging the caribou. Soon, he had stripped a few bones clean. He had even scraped the hide clean and then curled up on it to rest. There was a moment just before twilight when the moon rose in the east like a ghost of itself just as the sun set in the west. Then the night unfolded, first tingeing the air violet. The violet deepened to purple and then the purple to black as the constellations climbed in the sky. Faolan tipped his head up and began to howl, calling to the stars.

Show me the shelter

in the sky

for the noble caribou.

Show me the starry path she must travel.

Her way is the way of honor—

she is caribou.

I am wolf.

I live because she died.

She is goodness,

I am humble beneath this silver night.

I beg—show me the way,

and I shall put her bones to rest.

Faolan howled until late in the night. There was not a breath of wind and when he first spotted the antlers of the caribou constellation, it was not in the sky but in the reflection of the moon-polished river. The surface quivered slightly, like the spreading limbs of silver trees in a breeze. Faolan stepped closer to the edge and looked straight down. His pulse raced with excitement as the constellation rose in the night and he traced the familiar profile of the caribou—starting with its antlers, then its head, dwarfed by the lofty height of those branching horns. He followed the slight scoop of the neck flowing back to the meaty hump that rose above the shoulders. It took six stars to make those large concave hooves. Faolan began to howl again.

Follow! Follow!

Follow the star caribou.

Follow her to the spirit shelter.

Find your mother who died in the winter,

your father felled by the bear.

Gather with the spirit herd—

they wait for you

in the star-splashed night.

And when he finished howling, he looked down on the stripped bones glistening in the moonlight. An urge thrust up from deep inside him. It was a new kind of hunger, not for food, not for blood, but simply to gnaw, to create something beautiful on these gleaming bones like the images inscribed on the rock walls in the Cave Before Time. This overpowering urge was one that all gnaw wolves, those pups who although abandoned had survived, seemed to possess—a fierce compulsion to gnaw on stripped bones. Not all gnaw wolves, however, perceived so clearly the possibility of the beauty they could create, or kept it so firmly in their mind’s eye as Faolan seemed to. He could envision precisely what he had to do to make these etch marks into a powerful design.

The instinct was not only to gnaw but to inscribe on the bones designs that were sometimes stories and sometimes simply art with no beginning, middle, or end. If a gnaw wolf was selected for the Watch at the Ring of the Sacred Volcanoes, the bones they gnawed were piled on top of others from centuries before and the mounds that formed were called
drumlyns.
The wolves of the
Watch perched on these
drumlyns
in their vigils at the Ring of the Sacred Volcanoes. Faolan had seen such mounds in the painting in the cave. Whether he remembered them now did not matter. He had never gnawed a bone like this before but he instinctively knew what to do. For he was filled with this urge to gnaw a design, a message for the star caribou. And with this urge came a yearning to be with his own, to find wolves.

By the time the dawn broke, Faolan had started his first
drumlyn,
though he did not know the word. He perched atop it and began to howl at the dawn. The rising sun broke on the horizon, fracturing the surface of the river into shards of light—rose, burnt orange, blood red. The river glittered fiercely as Faolan sang his wild song—a song of farewell.

FAOLAN HAD HOWLED HIS FAREWELL to the spirit of the caribou. He was certain the spirit had found its way to the shelter just beyond the starry tips of the constellation’s antlers. He did not leave the
drumlyn
immediately but lingered for several days, gnawing new designs in the empty spaces on a thigh bone or a shoulder or rib. He had learned how to use his shearing teeth delicately, so that only the finest lines were inscribed. Had he heard the howling of other wolves he would have moved on to join them. But he heard none. However, he felt certain that he must have crossed over the border of the Outermost into the Beyond, and the wolves here would be like the ones he had heard when he was at the winter den with Thunderheart. But he never heard any. He had meticulously scent marked the surrounding territory of
the
drumlyn
so no animals would trespass. But certainly if there had been wolves in the vicinity he would have heard them.

In addition to the absence of wolves, there were very few other animals. This spot where he had erected the
drumlyn
and where he had passed much of the summer seemed quite isolated. When he went to hunt he had to travel a fair distance if he wanted large animals like caribou. And he had gone hunting, adding the bones of his prey to the original ones of the cow. So now the
drumlyn
rose to a fairly respectable height.

It was hard to leave this peaceful place that had become the earthly point of departure for the caribou, but as the summer waned and the earth tilted farther away from the sun, the caribou constellation slid farther down in the western sky until finally one night, only the tips of the antlers rose above the horizon. Faolan knew that by the next evening the constellation would disappear completely. It was time to go. The days were shortening. Autumn was coming. He needed to find a winter den.

No,
he thought.
I need to find a pack of wolves.
He recalled vividly the paintings on the walls of the Cave Before Time. He so wanted to be part of something larger and something better than those routs of outclanner wolves.

In the Cave Before Time, he had seen two constellations of wolves. One was the starry one on the rock ceiling. The other “constellation” was not stars but the hunting and traveling formation of wolves running together. In that formation he had sensed a common feeling, a spirit of fellowship. It made him feel all the more lonely. He had wanted to run with those wolves, to be part of that “constellation,” ever since he had first seen the picture. But what if he was rejected?