Saint Peter’s Wolf (29 page)

Growling, their voices high and fierce, the foxes retreated, counter-feinted. But there had not been a struggle. The wolverine had owned the rabbit as soon as he had scented it. I stepped through the wall of firs, and the wolverine sniffed toward me peeling back his lips, exposing his teeth.

He skulked to one side, and then another, complaining. “You'll die for this,” his growl said. “Die die die go away and die.” Then he was gone, leaving the still scarcely damaged rabbit in the torn snow.

The smell of the rabbit made me hungry, but I wished that I could feed both foxes and wolverine, and at the same time restore the rabbit to life. Compassion could be confusing, and I saw that even the miracle of loaves and fishes was unkind to the wheat, battered and crushed into bread, and to the fish, who multiplied into yet more unliving fish.

Later that day I smelled strange blood, blood that told me at once that I should stop right where I was. There was not much of it, a stain here, and far up, on a knoll, a sprinkle of it in a ragged line. It had been days, now, since I had felt sharp fear. The sensation was unfamiliar, and I did not understand what was wrong.

This was not a human scent. This was not the scent of bear, or any other predator I could guess. And yet each drop was a screech: leave this place. The blood itself did not tell me enough to guess what hid ahead of me in the snow.

The scent was, however, familiar. If I had lingered, circling back to consider, I would have recognized what it was. But I was confident, and I made a mistake.

There was no reason to be afraid, I told myself. I was so large, and so swift, no creature would even try to combat me. I did not like this mystery. This forest, I seemed to think, was mine. I had not enunciated this scrap of hubris to myself in so many words, of course, but it was plainly what drove me to trot up the slope, following the stipples of blood.

All along I had been thinking that there was a place for me here in the north. I would be among my kind. I was not a human being any longer; I would be an animal. A supreme animal, more compassionate, certainly more powerful, than any of them.

At the last moment, just before it happened, I knew what it was. The thought did not cause me to falter. It did, though, make me slightly less curious, and I wondered if I should continue trotting as I was, slipping along the glass of a frozen creek.

There was a shriek. A rasping, whip-cry, like the shattering of a plane of glass. I heard it only when I was already down, and fangs sank into my neck.

Thirty-Two

Each fang was a dagger. Each plunged into the fur and flesh behind my skull.

There was an explosive sound, and I did not recognize it, at first, as my own roar. My hind legs found new footing. I spun, and flung the beast from side to side, but the creature dug claws into my flesh, and I could not throw it.

I reached behind with my own handlike claws, but they were helpless against this savaging. Then I found myself grasping a hind leg. I was surprised at the tawny skin, and the flexing, searching claws. It was as though I had time to linger over the aesthetics of this carnivore paw. Then my own paw/hand dragged the leg, pulling the flesh off my neck in ribbons as the beast could not maintain its grip on me.

The cat released its hold, and at once found a better, deeper bite. The stench was sharp. A cat had me, and it was killing me. Cat—the word itself was like a cat's hiss. I could not pull the beast off me, so I leaped, and fell backward heavily into the snow.

The cat bunched beneath me, and one of its ribs snapped. Its scream made me cold, and then the cat leaped away, a blur, and would have been gone entirely, except that I had not released its hind leg. I wanted to, and strained to let go, but I could not command my muscles.

I could not let go of the cat. It screamed. I reeled, snarled, and tried to free the leg. But I could do nothing but hang onto it.

The feline visage shrieked into my face. I bellowed, and fell upon it, helpless to do anything else. The fangs had disabled the muscles of my shoulders and both arm/legs were weaker than ever before.

I pinned this whirl of teeth, and its hind legs clawed my belly. There was a wound in its flank, a black-red hole. A bullet wound.

This cougar was dying. Again, I struggled to force loose my grip on its leg, but I could do nothing. I had no desire to harm it, and yet I had to kill it or watch its hind claws gradually disembowel me.

My jaws were all I had left. One foreleg was for the moment powerless, and the other paw was frozen around his leg. I took the spitting snarling dervish of a head in my jaws and bit, hard.

A crunch, and a spitting, hissing burst of blood. Then I rolled away, still dragging the kicking corpse. I was thankful that the snow was so numbing. I left streaks of scarlet that blotted into it, melting it as they spread. But the cold soothed the pain. Good snow, I thought. Good, lovely snow.

At last I freed myself from the bloodied, contorted cat. I coughed up one of its teeth. I was shuddering, and even as I trotted away, the snow around me swayed, shimmered, and vanished.

I nose-dived into the crust. I was up at once. Don't stop, I told myself. And whatever you do, don't sleep. Where there are bullets there are men, and even worse—dogs. Keep going. Down the frozen creek, and up the keel of the valley, always north.

It won't be so difficult. Remember: you heal quickly. Remember: you are powerful. I repeated these phrases to myself. With each panting breath I saw how foreign this place would always be to me.

I had no home here. I did not belong.

It was a cold night. The snow glowed beneath me, as though it alone were a source of light. Don't stop, I told myself as I ran, more and more stiffly. Must not stop. You'll heal soon.

I climbed a rubble-field. Wind was blasting out of the north, and where my fur was gouged away the cold probed a steel finger. I even growled at the wind, snarling at it. I was learning that animal speech, that talk which is not communication so much as an utterance complete in itself.

Wind, I growled, you will die for this.

Die die go away and die.

I managed to snout out several mice, and crunch them up, warm and squirming. I did not feel quite ready to attempt a rabbit. I clambered to the crest of hillock, a scabrous dome of granite and snow, when I heard, far to the north, a sound. A voice. More than a word: a message.

We are here.

I lifted a call in answer. As soon as I did, however, the wind made an even fuller cry, a chord of sound that swept my cry, and any answer, away from me. I could hear nothing, from any direction, but the wind.

I had the sense—or perhaps only the hope—that there were other calls to me in the night, but for me there was only the battering of the wind. I ran hard all night, so hard my vision faded, and I ran on scent and strength alone. I wobbled and fell, twice, but was up at once each time. I was not hurt, I told myself. Not hurt. I heal quickly.

At first dawn, an aching, cold dawn, I ate snow to ease my thirst. The light was bleak, brown rust in a gray sky. I dragged myself ever north, and at last surmounted a spine of snow that overlooked a field of wrinkled ice.

It was a great, cold-mummified river, a glacier. The air was thin, and painful to breathe. I did not have the power, for the moment, to move from where I sat on my haunches. Slaver had frozen on my chest, and ice clotted my eyelashes.

The litany was still comforting: I would heal soon. My strength would return to me. I was close to my kind.

At last the scent of dung brought me around, and I half-slid down a slope. The black curl on the ice was not fresh, but it told me: male. And farther on a fading amber stain on the ice told me: male in charge of this place. And it told me: leave now.

What froze me then was not the sight of an animal, nor the sound of one. It was the sight of something that did not belong, an orange cone in the face of a hill. A human dwelling. The structure was empty, as far as I could tell, but I trotted toward it, curious and alert.

It was a small A-frame, smelling of pine tar and a recent coat of varnish. A stove vent pierced one roof, the metal still shiny. I scented man, man dung, man sweat. But there was no one here.

The door was thick and unlocked. I shouldered my way in, and then stood warily, thinking: trap.

And yet when I examined the interior, it was not a dangerous place. The man scent mingled with the pleasant funk of mice. A tripod was set up at one window port, the mount for a telescope which was not present. There was a small propane stove and some packets of freeze dried beef burgundy. There was a white cup with the emblem of a humpbacked whale. There was a dictionary, a Merck Manual, the instruction manual to a computer, and a baseball encyclopedia.

There was a neat stack of
Science
magazines, and a sheaf of sharpened pencils held together with a rubber band. All was cold, unused for weeks. The computer was gone, and there were few clothes in the closet. A rusty Coleman lantern hung on a nail. A roll of kindling rested beside a small pyramid of pine cones and a yellowing sports section. There were a few lengths of firewood, the lichen on the bark aged white.

And yet there was a general feel of order, goose down sleeping bags rolled and tucked under a bunk, matches on a shelf beside a box of powdered milk. A khaki jumpsuit hung on a nail beside a parka so ratty and stained that it had been left, apparently, as a refuge for mice. There was a pair of oversize ski boots—size thirteen at least—which were so worn out as to be useless except to keep feet warm inside the cabin. There were hooks on the wall and shelves where equipment had been hanging, and a weather station, a slatted wooden box on a pole, stood watch not far downhill. One of the ports had a good view of it, as though the men here wanted to see where they were going before they left this shelter each morning. On one slanting roof wall was a photograph, where some men would staple a pinup. It was the picture of a wolf.

I felt the picture had been tacked to the plywood as a gesture of affection, but it reminded me of other, actual trophies, stuffed heads and animal pelts. I sniffed, backing out of the shelter. Men were dangerous. Still, I sensed the purposefulness of these men. There was no trouble here.

I was happy, though, to back out of the A-frame, and head downslope. I found the scent I sought, and followed it until I stopped, and nosed the air. They were close. So close they must see me.

They must be shadowing me, even now.

Wolves. They were watching me. I could feel it in my fur and in my breath. The air told me nothing. The slopes around me were various shades of white and gray, glittering in one place, ash-gray in another. Nothing moved. And yet I felt it in the way my fur prickled, and the way my ears cocked. They were watching me as I hurried, snout to the snow.

I think I expected the sort of greeting I had received at the zoo, so far away and, in my mind, so long ago. There I had been celebrated as one of their own, without hesitation. But what happened here was another reminder: this was a foreign place.

He was standing across a valley when I first saw him. He was perfectly still, and had been watching me for a long time. I barked a greeting, but he merely trotted parallel to my course, and did not answer.

To see a wolf in his land made me slow down, and feel my way along the ice. This was the master of this place. This was a creature who knew all the languages of the hunt. That was what stunned me about him more than anything else: the way he carried himself. He knew. He knew everything. And I was empty in my soul, still a man somewhere in my blood and bowels. I would never be what he was.

He was big. Not as big as I was, but larger than any wolf I had seen before. He was silvery, except for two dark ears. He trotted patiently, and whenever I worked my way closer, he retreated watchfully. He lifted a leg to splash a boulder, and then trotted onward. He was arrogant when he turned to watch me. All that I had considered about my own power was exactly echoed in his attitude.

You are of only mild interest to me, he seemed to say. Of only mildest interest, and yet I believe I will keep an eye on you.

I decided to show him what I could do. I gathered myself, and bounded high over a boulder, so high a current of colder air combed the hair of my spine. When I landed, I continued to frisk across the frozen slope.

I had hoped that he would join me in an impromptu sport. He did nothing. He merely watched. He was a measuring spectator, however. When I turned to let him catch up with me he did not hurry. He took his time, picking his way across the ice.

I had made a mistake. My attempt to impress him only made him see one thing: I was not a wolf.

Then I saw it, the place he had been leading me to. I had been unaware that he was bringing me anywhere, and I was shaken by his guile, as well as what I saw before me.

The snow was scarred, and a great frozen pond of blood glistened. The smell of wolf was strong, everywhere, in the snow, saturating the air, wolf and man. Boot prints tore the surface. A cigarette butt festered in the ice. Two deep cuts in the snow told me what had happened.

A helicopter had set down here, after gunning a wolf. The men had climbed out of the helicopter, and celebrated the kill. Then they had gathered the body, and themselves, and ascended into the air, leaving the land here afraid of everything strange, everything foreign, forever wary.

Leaving this blood turned to stone.

It was late in the day when the four found me, a young male and three females, their tails carried like flags of greeting. They sniffed me, polite, and seeing no reason to be shy. I was one of their own, they seemed to say. It was not the romping greeting I had hoped for, but they were welcoming enough.

Dark Ears joined us immediately. He was suddenly there, his ears upright, one paw raised, unmoving. The others froze in place.

He spoke once, a hard syllable. The others melted away, and I was alone with him.

He took one step forward, and the hair along his spine rose in a bristling ridge. His snout wrinkled, baring his teeth. Unlike a dog, he did not display the teeth as a warning. There was no long wait for me to retreat, impressed by his display.