Runt (3 page)

Runt looked down. A pair of large paws stood before him, slender legs, silver fur. "Mother!" he cried.

But the stern gray face towering over him was not his mother's. It was not, in fact, the face of any wolf he had ever seen before.

"Why are you in my territory?" the great wolf demanded.

Runt wanted to answer, but no further sound would come from his mouth. It was as though the remains of his voice had sailed away on the word
Mother.
He could do nothing, in fact, before this stranger but tuck his tail, lower his body to the ground, and tremble.

"Why are you here?" the wolf repeated. "I am king of this place. And you are not part of my pack."

"P-p-please," Runt stammered. "I—I'm looking for my family." He didn't dare look again into the face of the great wolf standing over him.

"Are they here?" the gray king demanded to know, the fur along his spine rising to attention.

"No," Runt admitted. "I'm the only one. And I—I seem to be lost. Just a bit."

"Just a bit," the wolf repeated, and Runt detected something in his voice that was almost a smile.

For a long moment neither of them spoke. Finally, the gray king said, "Follow me." Just that. And he turned and walked away.

Runt followed meekly. He had no idea where he was being taken, but he kept close behind the gray king, clambering over fallen trees, circling boulders, slogging through marshy patches that the other wolf stepped over or around or through without even seeming to notice. When they reached the stream Runt had crossed earlier, the king stopped and sniffed a rock standing at the edge of the water. Then he lifted his leg and left a message.
This is my territory,
the message said.
If you are a wolf, stay away
!

"I thank you," Runt murmured, stepping into the stream. "I—I'm sure my father thanks you, too."

The wolf didn't answer, only stood watching Runt cross back to his family's territory. There was, though, something in his intense gaze that reminded Runt very much of another king entirely, one who wore a black coat and carried a white star on his chest.

I will forgive your trespass,
the golden eyes said,
but only because you are young and foolish ... and small. Much too small
.

Runt ducked his head and headed away from the stream—and the watching gray king—though he still had no idea how he was going to find his family, or how he was going to find his way back to the den, for that matter.

Runt couldn't locate his family's scent again, so he tried to pick up his own, to follow the fragrant imprint his paws had left earlier. When he finally got hold of it, he snuffed along eagerly, only to end up at the stream once more. He had retraced his journey away from the gray wolf's realm, not the one he had made from the den.

He tried again and again, but always he found himself circling, away from the stream and back, away and back.

Finally, just when Runt was certain he would never see his family again, he picked up another scent, a very familiar one. Bider!

Runt sniffed deeply—Bider's aroma had never been so welcome—and moved forward at a lope, keeping his nose close to the trail.

He found the white wolf in a small clearing enclosed by quaking aspen trees. Obviously, the hunt had been successful. Bider's face was bloody, his belly distended. And he was so intent upon digging a hole to cache the deer haunch that lay on the ground beside him that he didn't seem to hear Runt's approach until the black pup burst in upon him, yelping with delight. Bider whirled on him with a snarl.

Runt stopped in his tracks, backing away from the fiercely exposed teeth. "It's just me, Runt. I—I'm so glad I found you."

Bider gave the pup a hard stare. "What are you doing here?" he demanded. The fur that had risen on the back of his neck began to settle again, but slowly.

"I—I," Runt stammered. "I wanted to help with the hunt. I tried to follow and got lost."

Bider snorted disdainfully and turned back to his digging.

From a respectful distance, Runt examined the deer haunch that lay on the ground. It was large and very meaty. Why was Bider burying food so far from the den? He should be taking it home to the pups, as the rest of the pack did.

Runt knew better than to ask, though. When the pack had more than they could consume in a single long feast, King cached meat, too. However, he buried it near the site of the kill, where all the hunters knew how to find it, not in some hidden place like this. King buried it and then dug it up later when food was needed at the den. Runt had a feeling, though, that this treasure would never make its way back home, except in Bider's belly.

Runt's own belly rumbled, but Bider ignored him entirely and finished digging the hole. Then he pushed the haunch into it and set to covering it. As the meat disappeared, saliva dripped from Runt's tongue.

The haunch safely buried, the white wolf finally turned and leveled a hard stare at the pup. "So you're lost," he growled.

Runt crouched, his head low, his tail tucked, and said nothing.

Bider took a step toward Runt and repeated the growl without any words this time.

Runt rolled over, exposing his throat and tender belly.
Help me,
his entire body said.
I'm only a pup. You must help me.

Bider moved closer, straddling the black pup now. He stared down at him, his ears pricked and hackles raised.

Runt lay perfectly still, his tail tucked, his legs splayed, waiting. Was Bider going to hurt him? It wasn't possible.
No
wolf ever attacked another who surrendered so completely, especially a pup.

In a single swift movement, Bider lunged, his teeth grazing Runt's throat. Then as swiftly as he had started the attack, he pulled away again. Pulled away and trotted briskly out of the clearing.

Runt scrambled to his feet and hurried after Bider, assuming—hoping—that the white wolf was heading home to the den. Once Bider started moving, though, he never looked back to see if Runt was following, let alone to see if he could keep pace. The pup, already exhausted from his long trek, had to use all his strength to avoid being left behind and lost once more. As he stumbled after the disappearing flag of Bider's tail, he found himself remembering something Raven had told him.

When a king was deposed, as Bider had
once been, he was usually permitted to take a lower place in the pack. But if he'd been the kind of leader who bullied the rest of the pack, they might use the moment of his fall to drive him away. Bider must have been driven away because he was a bully.

Runt picked up his pace. Bully or not, right now Bider was the one who knew the way home, and there was little Runt could do but follow.

Only when the white wolf had almost reached the home clearing did he slow his steps, and Runt, seeing the familiar opening before him, put on a sudden spurt and caught up. The two of them entered the clearing side by side.

The rest of the pups and Helper were feasting on the meat the hunters had brought back to the den. The hunters themselves were resting, watching with pride while the others fed. When Bider and Runt came into view, King lifted his head and looked past Bider, directly to Runt.
Where have you been?
the golden eyes said.
What foolish thing have you been doing now?

Runt cringed, knowing that he had disgraced himself. Following the hunters, getting lost, wandering into another pack's territory ... he should have known better. But before he could even attempt an explanation, Bider spoke.

"Here is your foolish son," he said. "He ran away, but I rescued him for you."

Runt lowered his head, keeping his eyes carefully averted. Still, his father's stern gaze was like a pressure against his skin. King said nothing, but as the black pup made his way across the clearing to join his littermates at their meal, he had only one thought.

Bider had lied about his running away. That's not what he had done, and Bider knew it. He had lied about rescuing him, too. The white wolf had taken himself home, nothing more, and Runt had managed to follow.

Until this moment Runt hadn't known it was possible for a wolf to lie. What else might there be about the world that he didn't know?

Nothing that he wanted Bider to teach him, that was sure.

Runt didn't try to follow the hunters again. But he didn't move back into his familiar place at the bottom of the pack, either. He found a spot at the edge of the clearing beneath some fragrant balsam trees and often lay there, watching.

He watched the dragonflies skimming the surface of the lake, then swooping skyward again, their wings clacking. They were hunters, too; their prey, the droning mosquitoes.

And the redbelly snake gliding out from beneath a rotting log, and the bats crisscrossing the sky. All were hunters.

Runt watched and envied. He knew Raven had said that small could be brave and fierce, but would he ever have a chance to prove himself?

An opportunity came, finally, the day the storm blew in. The hunters were out, and Helper was in charge. He gave a short, sharp bark. "A storm is coming," he called. "Everybody in."

"A storm. A storm," the other pups echoed, tumbling over one another to reach the mouth of the den.

Runt sat at attention, observing Helper, his littermates, the roiling sky, but he didn't leave his spot at the edge of the trees to join the pell-mell rush to safety. After all, the hunters weren't running back to the den for shelter. He wouldn't, either.

When a few fat drops began to fall, Runt took little notice. He had always loved the silvery rain that worked its way through his fur to tickle his skin. He loved the wind, too, and had never entirely given up his first conviction that the trees talked when it blew.

He didn't pay much attention, either, to the odd yellowish tinge the sky had taken on or to the way the air had gone so strangely still.

When the wind rose suddenly, carrying a wall of rain toward him across the clearing,
Runt stood and, with studied dignity, moved beneath the close-standing trees. This would be shelter enough ... surely.

Inside the forest an entirely different kind of weather prevailed. While the tops of the trees swayed and bowed in the wind's increasing force, the world at their base was calm. Even the pounding rain had gentled by the time it reached the forest floor.

Runt stood perfectly still, feeling smugly superior to his brothers and sisters huddled inside the den. He was every bit as protected and safe as they. He looked around.

Bunchberries bloomed at his feet, their tiny white flowers snug against their leaves, and the ground pine spreading across the forest floor reached for the rain as the drops trickled through. All was silvery quiet, silvery dim.

"Go home. Go home," a green frog sang from a gathering puddle, though he was clearly happy enough himself to be out in the storm.

A grouse, huddled on the limb of a tree, laughed. "
Cac-cac-cacl
What are you doing out here by yourself, foolish pup?"

Runt ignored the frog. The bird, too. He
was perfectly safe, even nicely protected. He was the king—or at least the prince—of this quiet, storm-free world. And he probably would have stood where he was through the entire storm, happily in charge of it all, if a tall pine nearby hadn't suddenly sprung into dazzling light and split in two with a bang that shook the ground beneath Runt's feet. The tree fell away from itself, crashing into other trees, cracking, crunching, grinding.

With the first sizzling bang, Runt's fur stood on end and his paws left the ground. When he landed, his legs were already moving ... fast. A few seconds later another bolt of lightning struck a spruce, this one directly in his path, and even as he changed direction, his speed doubled.

Runt didn't know where he was headed. He was too frightened to think about going to anything. But every muscle in his body was trying to escape the storm that reached into his quiet world with such surging power.

Thorns caught at his fur. Long-limbed bushes slashed at his eyes. The bed of needles beneath his feet grew slippery so that he began to slip and slide and stumble over his
own paws. Still he ran. Having started, he couldn't seem to stop.

The trees hissed and groaned, parting to reveal the fierce light stabbing the sky. And every few seconds the ground itself shook with the cracking thunder.

"Help me! Mother! Father! Helper! Please, help!" Runt cried. Once he even called for Bider. But no one came.

He knew, of course, that his parents and Bider and Hunter were many miles away. He knew, too, that Helper and the other pups were curled together in the dry dark of the den. He would have been glad enough himself for the den now, but he couldn't stop running long enough to sort out which direction to go to get there.

And it was no longer any consolation that the weather on the floor of the forest was quiet. The world above him sizzled and roared, and now he had proof that the sizzle and roar could reach him in an instant. He dodged trunks, slammed through underbrush, scrambled over rotting logs, crying, "Help! Help!" until suddenly, the trees parted and a clearing opened before him. At last!

Runt stopped at the edge of the trees, trembling. He had run a long distance, but he must have come full circle, because here he was, back home again. Beautiful home!

Head down, he picked his way through the slanting rain. When he reached the place where he was certain the mouth of the den should lie, he stopped. But instead of the welcoming hideaway dug into the side of the hill, an enormous structure rose before him. Trunks of trees piled on one another formed a huge enclosure. What kind of creature could live in so large a nest?

Runt knew instantly that he was in the wrong place. He knew, too, that he should return to the safety of the trees. But he couldn't seem to take another step. He stood panting, rooted to the ground, his tongue lolling out of the side of his mouth. Even when the racketing storm moved on, taking its fierce light and noise with it, even when the rain began to fall more gently, he remained utterly immobile. His terror flowed out of him like the rivulets of water that coursed over the sweet-smelling earth, only to leave him empty, humiliated. He had proved, once
more, that he wasn't brave and fierce at all.