Lone Wolf (5 page)

Some bright green leaves caught the last of the setting sun’s light as they fluttered down. He leaped up to catch a leaf before it hit the ground. Thunderheart made a low amiable grunt and then shook the tree again. Faolan leaped again. They played this game for a while. Each time Faolan jumped a bit higher.

Then Thunderheart turned from the tree and continued walking, still on her hind legs. She looked back to see Faolan following, but on all fours. She stopped abruptly, faced him, and lowered herself down briefly. Next, she rose up, waving her arms as she had when she had encouraged him to jump at the tree. “Two legs!” she commanded.

Faolan stood very still. It was almost as if she could see his mind turning over what she had just proposed. He rose up on his hind legs. Thunderheart watched, hardly daring to breathe. Tentatively, Faolan took a step toward her.

Thunderheart grunted happily and lowered herself to lick Faolan under his chin, making soft chuffing sounds.
She spotted a low shrub with some plump berries and broke off a branch. Then, raising herself up again on her hind legs, she waved the branch in front of Faolan. She knew he loved these berries. Instantly, he was on his hind legs walking. This time he took four steps! Thunderheart was thrilled.

He was learning and she was delighted with herself for teaching him. Cubs knew how to do this almost from the start. It was natural for them. But it wasn’t natural for Faolan. She was beginning to realize that Faolan was not just an exceptional pup, but an extraordinary creature.

By the time darkness fell, Faolan was walking on his hind legs almost as well as a cub. And, on that brink of time between the last drop of daylight and the first purple darkness, Faolan learned his best lesson. He caught a flash of white as an ermine scuttled into a burrow on the far side of a tall shrub, something he would have never seen had he not been upright. He sprang in one arcing leap across the shrub and landed on all fours, madly digging. The splayed front paw had grown stronger since he had been forced to use it. He never thought twice about it now.

Thunderheart trotted up behind him as a storm of dirt spun through the air. Suddenly, a furry dart shot from
the nest. Faolan staggered backward and tumbled heels over tail as something lunged onto his back. Sharp digging claws. He leaped up into the air and twisted himself, trying to get rid of the horrid attacker. It was much smaller than he was, not much bigger than a squirrel, but it was strong. Faolan yelped as the sharp claws and teeth dug deeper. Thunderheart roared. She could not risk swatting the ermine from his back without injuring Faolan. They fought fiercely: The pup had just torn apart her nest and her young kits quivered in fear. If the ermine got near Faolan’s neck and the vital life-pumping artery, he would be finished.

Thunderheart was frantic. She could see that Faolan was weakening already, losing energy. This was his first real blood battle. Thunderheart tried to false charge, but the ermine paid no attention. Faolan sank to his knees, rose up again, and this time streaked toward the riverbank. In one flying leap, he plunged into the water. Thunderheart plunged in after him. She watched his head break through the surface. Red streaks coursed down the back of his neck, but on the opposite side of the river she saw the ermine slink up the steep muddy bank.

In the den that night as leaves outside rustled with warm summer breezes, Thunderheart licked Faolan’s wounds. They were not as deep as she had feared. They would heal, but she sensed a new restlessness in the pup. He did not nurse. He was done with milk. He wanted blood.

THE LESSONS CONTINUED THROUGH the summer. Faolan loved learning. He became more and more proficient at rearing up, and he could walk for extended distances upright. His hind legs were becoming very powerful, and because they were more flexible than a bear’s, he could jump very high. He took a puppyish delight in showing off his leaping skills.

There was an immense spruce tree near the den, the lowest limbs of which were almost as high as Thunderheart’s shoulders when she stood. Nearly every afternoon they went to this tree. Faolan was determined to reach that limb by springing up on his hind legs.

“Watch me! Watch me!” he yapped. Each day he got closer. “Watch me, Thunderheart! You’re not paying attention!” he’d scold. “I’m almost there!”

And then one day he made it. He found himself draped over the limb above the one he had aimed for. He was stunned. “Urskadamus!” he yelped. The curse startled Thunderheart.

“Where did you learn that?” she roared.

“From you!”

She chuffed heartily.

“Don’t laugh at me! I’m stuck!”

“You jumped too high. You weren’t paying attention!” she added slyly.

“How do I get down?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never been stuck that high in a tree,” she replied.

Faolan gave a plangent little yelp.

“No whining!” She turned her back and walked away as if she didn’t have a care in the world.

Faolan stared at her broad back in dismay. “You’re leaving me like this?”

“You’ll figure it out,” she said without turning around. “You’re the smartest youngster I know.”

A few seconds later she heard a soft thud as Faolan dropped to the ground.

He was soon at her side, wagging his tail. “I did it!”

“I knew you would!” She turned her head and gave him a soft bump with her muzzle.

All summer long the pup grew, although to Thunderheart he still seemed small compared to a bear cub. For a wolf pup, however, Faolan was large and very strong. He had abilities that ordinary wolves simply did not possess. He was a wolf without a pack, which made him fiercely independent. And since he had acquired the taste for meat, he had become proficient at hunting down the four-footed animals, the occasional ptarmigan, and other ground-nesting birds. Swifter on his feet than Thunderheart and with a keenness for strategy, he had managed to chase an injured caribou into a narrow defile and trap him. When Thunderheart arrived, she brought the animal down with a single blow. This strategy worked so well that the two had done it several times since that first occasion.

“I love caribou,” Faolan said one day after they’d brought down another one. “Where do they come from?”

“Different places at different times. In the spring they come down from the Outermost.”

“The Outermost?”

“North of here. The taste of the caribou from the Outermost in the spring is the best.”

“How do you get there?”

Thunderheart pointed to the North Star. “In the early spring, when the Great Bear constellation rises, you follow the last claw in the foot that points to the North Star. The Outermost is in between that claw and the North Star. I once had a den there. Someday…”

“Someday what?” Faolan asked. Thunderheart looked troubled and didn’t answer. “Someday we’ll go back?”

“Perhaps. But I am not sure if it is good for your kind.”

“My kind?” Faolan felt his heart race. “But the Outermost, it is good for your kind? If it’s good for your kind, it’s good for my kind.”

“Never mind, never mind. Eat up.” She was about to say more, but Faolan interrupted.

“I know, I know,” Faolan said wearily. “I must grow fat for winter.”

“Yes, eat that liver.” She yanked out the bloody organ and tossed it to him.

He obediently began eating, but his mind turned over what Thunderheart had said.
I am not sure if it is good for
your kind.
He didn’t like the way it sounded and didn’t want to hear it again, out loud or in his mind. He would simply seal up his ears.

Together the grizzly and the wolf pup would often hunt late into the summer evenings until the stars broke out. Faolan liked to sleep near the opening of the den, where he could see the stars and hear the star stories that Thunderheart told him. By now the words and the hidden language of bears beneath the words had become completely transparent to Faolan.

Thunderheart would point her paw toward the sky and trace the star picture of the Great Bear constellation with her longest claw. “He leads the way to Ursulana,” she whispered. It was to Ursulana, the bear heaven, where Thunderheart was sure her cub’s spirit had traveled.

Every star seemed to have a story, and every animal a constellation. Faolan was impressed that Thunderheart knew so many. She pointed to the west of the Star Bear to the Wolf constellation. “It’s disappearing now in the middle of summer. It shines the brightest and rises the highest in spring, but look, there are the Great Claws.”

Faolan blinked as a clawlike figure began to creep up over the purple horizon. “It’s late, but it stays the longest, arriving in early winter and staying through summer. If you go to the banks of Hoolemere, you can see the young owls of the Great Ga’Hoole Tree practicing their navigation exercises by tracing it. The owls call the Great Claws the Golden Talons.”

“Hoolemere? Great—what do you call it—Tree? Navigation?” Faolan asked. He was completely bewildered.

Thunderheart made a snuffling sound, which was the way she laughed sometimes. “You’re young and you haven’t seen much! Hoolemere is a vast sea, and there is a group of owls who live on an island in a huge tree in the middle of that sea. These owls are called the Guardians of Ga’Hoole. They are very intelligent owls.”

“You mean smart?” Faolan asked.

“Yes, very smart.”

“As smart as you?”

“Oh, much smarter! They can find their way to many places just by looking at the stars and how they move. That is what navigation is—finding one’s way by the stars.”

“But you told me about the star to the north. You find your way by it.”

“That’s easy. That star never moves. It only sits high in the sky. It’s my only guide. But the owls use all the stars—the whole sky.”

“That’s probably because they fly and know it better.”

Thunderheart gave the pup a little squeeze. What a smart little wolf he was!

Faolan yawned and said sleepily, “Someday maybe I’ll go to the banks of Hoolemere and maybe even swim to the island. Such a funny word, ‘Hoole.’ What does it mean?”

“Well,” Thunderheart sighed, “some say that it is actually a wolf word and that it is their word for ‘owl.’” But by this time Faolan was fast asleep in her arms.

With the waning days of summer, Thunderheart had but one thought:
Eat!
Eat all one could for the winter! The cold sleep was coming and the two of them must have enough fat. But beyond her overwhelming obsession about Faolan’s size and the question of fat, there was another more elusive fear—that of the cold sleep itself. Soon she would have to find a winter den farther away from the river. She was not sure if wolves went into their dens and slept for endless days. How would she know? She had slumbered through every winter of her life. She knew
nothing of the winter world and what other animals did. How would she explain this to Faolan? She knew that she changed during this sleep. She grew thinner and if she did rouse herself, her mind was foggy. If she slept and he didn’t, how would she protect him? Perhaps she should warn him. But not right now.

Right now, the salmon were swimming up the river to their spawning ground. Thunderheart and Faolan had waded out to the shallows on the upstream side of a small rapid where scores of salmon were heaving themselves forward. Thunderheart scooped them from the water or caught them on the fly.

It was the easiest fishing Faolan had ever done. He paused for a moment and looked at Thunderheart. Facing west, the setting sun turned her eyes gold. He felt a sudden surge of affection sweep through him as he realized how different they were. He had put out of his mind that day months before when they had seen the grizzly mother with the two cubs. He had since then refused to allow such thoughts to enter his mind. Except he now remembered a few days earlier when they had brought down a caribou, and Thunderheart had first mentioned the Outermost and how it might not be a good place for his “kind.”

Thunderheart had mentioned wolves a few times, but
Faolan had never seen any, except for the Star Wolf in the sky. So the notion of a real wolf was vague. The thought of wolves did not trouble him, for when he looked into the golden eyes of Thunderheart, he felt his world was complete. Those eyes offered a universe. He needed nothing else.

That evening was their last night in the river den. The next morning, well before dawn, they began their trek to find a winter den in the higher elevations of the Beyond. Thunderheart was particular about her winter den. Most grizzlies dug out dens under large tree roots. But the trees were few in this part of the Beyond, and what trees there were grew at lower elevations. If a bear went above the sparse tree line, there were good natural rock caves to be found, even tunnels in the lava beds. But most important, the snow came earlier in the high country, insulating the den for a longer period of time.

By mid-morning, they had crossed the broad flat meadow, and Thunderheart was pushing her bulk through the low-growing bracken and nettles at the base of a long slope. They were almost above the tree line. The air was thinner and the going harder. Thunderheart’s breath came in labored bellowing huffs, but she marveled at
Faolan, who never seemed to tire. His chest had broadened, she noticed, and she suspected it might have been because of his jumping, which he loved to practice. It was hard to imagine that a brief four months before he had been a whiny little pup dramatically flinging himself onto the dirt and waving his splayed paw in the air. Now he scampered ahead. He had already pounced on a marmot and made quick work of him. His muzzle was still covered in blood.

Thunderheart had insisted that Faolan consume the liver entirely himself, for she knew that it was rich and would give him fat. She would never cease worrying about his size. And she was not ready yet to warn him about how she changed during the cold sleep.
Not yet…not yet,
she told herself.

The days had shortened considerably, and by late afternoon, as the long shafts of the setting sun angled across the short grass of the slope, Thunderheart found what she thought might be a suitable winter den. It was near a rock where they had commenced digging. Thunderheart’s paws were much larger than Faolan’s, but Faolan anchored himself firmly by the four toes of his back paws and dug furiously with his five-toed front paws. The fifth toe was
somewhat smaller, and Thunderheart had wondered once what such a small claw could accomplish. It turned out to be perfect for digging.