Runt (6 page)

No one told Runt to follow at a slight distance, but he did. No one called him to close the gap, either.

King chose a new site on a brushy hillside.
Nearby a gurgling stream dropped to another placid lake.
They're here,
the stream murmured to Runt's ears.
The wolf pups are here
!

But where is Thinker?
the rippling lake asked.

"Gone," Runt answered mournfully. "Thinker is gone."

The other pups discovered a grassy indentation where they could curl together for warmth when the nights were cool. King chose the rise that gave the best overview of the surrounding area. Silver found a place near her mate. Bider settled to one side and just below them both. The two yearlings stayed close, too. Runt sought out the shade of a solitary maple at the far edge of the clearing and turned and turned, trampling the grass to make himself a solitary bed.

And so the summer progressed. The hunters went out and came back again. When they were successful, they brought food for the entire family, mostly deer, occasionally moose. When they weren't successful, everyone waited for the next hunt and hoped it would be better.

Something important had changed since
Runt's last adventure, however. The other pups played among themselves, seldom inviting Runt to join them. He couldn't tell whether they were afraid of him or disdainful. He knew only that while the humans had saved his life, they had also left their mark.

His mother, of course, remained his mother, though she continued to show her affection by giving him a good wash. Runt wondered, sometimes, if he would ever smell right to her again.

And his father? King seemed sad, abstracted. Sometimes he went off into the forest alone. What he did there, Runt couldn't guess. He never returned with food.

Helper, apparently feeling sorry for the outcast, began to spend more time with Runt. He singled him out for play, teaching him new skills. Runt accepted his brother's attentions gratefully.

A large family of Canada geese lived on the lake. When the adults molted, leaving them as flightless as their gangly young, Helper often signaled Runt to join him. Together they crept through the long grass
until they were close enough to leap, sending the startled geese flapping their useless wings and braying into the lake. Helper and Runt always ended by splashing their paws in the shallows, rejoicing in their joke.

Helper taught Runt to run in step behind him, to move fluidly and silently through the grass. He even taught Runt to scent a cow moose with twin calves as much as four miles away. Still, Runt never again tried to follow when the hunters left on their search for food.

Runt fed when the others did, jumping up to bump a hunter's mouth to beg the food brought back in their bellies. He joined his littermates in games of tug of war with the bones and chunks of meat the hunters brought back, too. Once he even helped Sniffer locate the haunch of a deer King had cached near the clearing against a hungrier time. For their transgression, their father disciplined them equally with bites on the tops of their muzzles.

One day the pups discovered Skunk, their noses twitching at the compelling and disgusting smell that hung around the waddling black-and-white creature. Runt was the only
one with enough sense to stay back, proving his encounter with Porcupine hadn't been entirely in vain. But it gave him little pleasure to avoid sharing his littermates' smelly fate. His good fortune seemed only to prove in another way how little he belonged.

As the summer moved on, the pups' eyes changed from blue to the deep yellow of a mature wolf's. Their down-soft puppy fur was replaced by sleeker adult coats. And, of course, they grew. Their already-long legs, their big paws and tall ears grew even faster than the rest until their body parts seemed awkwardly mismatched. Runt changed and grew with the other pups, but he remained the smallest. And he was still Runt.

"Why," he asked Helper one day, "did my mother give me such a cruel name?"

"Didn't you know?" he replied. "Our mother didn't name you. Father did."

Father!
His father had named him Runt!

Raven, who had been listening in on the conversation, intruded with his own comment. "There is nothing wrong with being small. Why I've seen a pair of wrens—"

"Yes, yes, I know," Runt snapped. "They
chased a crow across the sky." And he turned away.

Autumn approached. Sumacs blazed red, the topmost branches of the maple tree Runt often rested beneath burst with color. The leaves of the aspens shivered on their slender stems, giving out a rattle as dry as death.

Bears ate their languorous way through the forest. Small red squirrels showered the ground with pinecones, as many as a hundred in an hour, then scurried down to gather them up to store against the coming winter. The reddish brown coats of the deer dulled to bluish gray.

Some days the hunters were successful and the pack lay in the cooling sunshine, gorged and contented. Sometimes they returned home with bellies still empty.

It was after several unsuccessful hunts that Raven flew overhead. "Moose!" he called. "Moose!" He often flew in with reports of game nearby. When wolves eat, ravens eat, too.

The pups stopped their play. The adults woke from their napping or half napping states, suddenly alert.

King rose to his feet. "Where?" he asked.

"This way!" Raven croaked. "Very near." And he flew off across the stream into the forest. The wolves all stood, watching the bird's departure, their ears pricked and their noses working.

King tipped back his head and howled. Silver joined him, and the others gathered around, adding to the song. "Moose!" the song said. "There are moose waiting for us out there."

Their voices started low, then rose and rose, each on a different note, until the entire forest reverberated with their presence. Even the pups joined in ... except for Runt. He had not howled once since he had sung his way back through the forest from the human place.

Raven flew back. "Don't sing," he scolded. "It's time for action. Let's go!"

"Come!" King called. And to Runt's amazement, this time he looked directly at the pups.

Runt's heart raced. Could his father possibly be calling the pups to join the hunt? Even him?

"Come!" King said again, and his meaning was clear. The pups were to go on their first hunt!

Runt wagged his tail and looked at Helper, who wagged his tail, too. "Now," Helper whispered, "you can use what I've taught you."

Runt intended to do exactly that. He would prove himself to Helper. He would prove himself to his mother and to Bider, too.

Especially, though, he would prove himself to the one who had named him Runt.

King took the lead, and the rest of the pack followed in their usual order. The adults set a steady pace, but the pups' legs had grown long enough over the summer that they were able to keep up.

The pack moved silently, crossing the stream and angling off in the direction Raven had shown them, their noses testing the air.

King was the first to pick up the scent. He stopped abruptly. "There," he told the others. "Just there. Close!"

Sniffer got it next. "There!" she echoed in a high, excited voice.

And then the rest, including Runt, could smell it, too.

They circled around King, touching his nose, wagging their tails, savoring the rich,
good smell of moose.
There,
the breeze told them.
Just there!

"Come!" King said again, and they moved out in the same unerring line.

After a short distance, Bang called out, "At the edge of the woods, in the long grass. Lying down."

The message passed down the line. "At the edge of the woods. In the long grass. Lying down."

"If he refuses to run," King commanded, "drop back. The ones who hold their ground are young and strong. We don't want a fight."

Again King's words passed back along the line, this time accompanied by Bider's muttering.

"We're hungry," Bider complained. "Don't tell us to give up before we've even begun."

Runt heard it all, his father's words and Bider's complaints. He didn't know which one he should listen to. He, too, was hungry. He knew that.

The wolves ran full out until the scent they pursued was overwhelming. Then, suddenly, King slowed and the pack slowed behind him. They crouched lower, moving
with more deliberate steps, their heads thrust forward.

Moose! Moose!
The scent sang in Runt's brain as it sang for every other wolf in the pack.

"There!" King said, and that word passed along the line, too.

"There ... there ... there ... moose is there."

And then an enormous creature came crashing to his feet, rising out of the long grass where he had been lying. It was a bull moose, full grown, enormous. Would he stand? Would he fight? Would they return home with their bellies still empty and aching?

For a long moment the moose remained still, peering at the approaching pack with small, nearsighted eyes, and the wolves fanned out, forming a half circle, waiting their chance.

I know,
the moose's eyes said.
I know you have come to kill me. But I won't go without a fight
.

Runt was stunned at the size of the beast. He hadn't realized anything could be so large.
And glancing at his littermates, he was certain they were as overwhelmed as he with the fellow's size, with his smell, with being part of the hunt for the first time. Sniffer trembled, even as she savored the rich scent of the beast before them. Runner and Leader danced forward, then back again, forward and back.

Even King hesitated, sizing up the beast.

Bider stepped out ahead of the rest, moving closer to their quarry. "Come on," he prodded. "Don't lose this one."

And then their chance came. The moose's courage failed, and he turned and lumbered away. The pack dashed after.

"It's an old one," Silver said, passing the word to the pups. "We have a chance."

And watching the moose run, Runt could see what his mother meant. The huge animal carried himself with a towering dignity, but his gait was stiff. He seemed to be a bit lame on the left side, too. And though he picked up speed quickly, the wolves were easily able to match him.

King and Bider jumped at the moose's rump, slashing, drawing blood in streams. Hunter and Silver ran past them. They leapt
and clung to the beast's shoulders, one on each side. Helper put on a burst of speed and got in front of the great animal's head. Then he turned back. With a lunge, he leapt to take hold of the beast's leathery nose, grabbing on, swinging free with all four feet off the ground.

The moose bellowed but didn't slow his pace.

Already Runt could taste the fresh meat. He longed to take hold, too ... anywhere. And though his heart was hammering in his chest, he pushed and pushed until he had moved past the rest of the pups and was right on the great beast's heels. Then he plunged forward, grabbing for the back of one leg.

The next thing Runt knew he was flying through the air, flying and landing, too hard. He lifted his head, struggling to pull air into his lungs again, and from that position, flat on the ground, he observed the rest of the action. The bull moose brushed one shoulder against a slender aspen, strong and straight. Silver crashed to the ground, twisting as she fell. Then the great creature passed close to a tree on the other side. Hunter's hold was jerked
free, and she, too, landed unceremoniously on the ground.

Now only Helper had a hold, swinging from the beast's nose. And as the moose continued to stagger forward, he swung his huge head, hurling the yearling wolf this way and that. Helper might have been a leafy branch buffeted by the wind. With the next sweep of the bull's enormous head, the yearling's body smacked into the trunk of an oak tree. Hard. Then the moose swung his head back and drove the young wolf into an elm on the other side.

Helper dropped to the ground like a rock.

In the sudden silence that followed, the bull moose disappeared into the forest. Only Bider still pursued him.

Silver and Hunter rose from where they had fallen. Silver limped, but she led the way toward the place where Helper lay. Runt rose, too, and the pups and Hunter followed close on their mother's heels. King joined them all.

Silver sniffed Helper's face, his eyes, his ears. Then the silver wolf whimpered and stepped back. The others approached, sniffed,
whimpered, one after the other. Helper did not stir. Only Runt stayed back.

King licked his son's face, just once, then turned away. "Come," he said to his family. It was an entirely different call than the one with which they had begun the hunt.

Even Silver hesitated, looking down at her fallen son, but then she whined, sniffed Helper again, and followed her mate.

Runt stood alone beside Helper's still form, frozen into place. How could his family leave...?

"Come along," Hunter commanded, moving the pups forward with gentle bumps of her muzzle. "Come along."

"But ..." Runt dropped stubbornly to the ground, glancing over his shoulder at his parents, who were now some distance away, walking with their heads down. His mother's limp looked bad. "We can't leave Helper here. He needs us!"

"Helper will never need us again," Hunter replied softly. "Now come." And she and the other pups moved off after their parents.

But Runt did not come. He laid his chin across Helper's tan chest and watched his
family go. He didn't understand. If there was truly nothing they could do for his brother, then why didn't his father follow Bider and continue the hunt? Bider had been right about one thing. They were hungry. They were all hungry.

Long after the rest of his family was gone, Runt lay next to his brother's still body. The light sifting through the trees grew dim, and the bright gold of Helper's steadfastly open eye grew even dimmer, but yet Runt did not move. Flies began to settle on the golden eye, on the dark lips. They crawled into Helper's ears. A turkey vulture had come to perch on a branch overhead, then another. How quickly news traveled in the forest.

But Runt took little notice of any of it until Raven dropped out of a tree, landing near him.