The Wild (25 page)

When Bob smelled a clear, clean odor of deer, he knew the reason for the excitement: a hunt was on. The pack was like a perfect machine. Led by the alphas, it moved off into the woods. Fifteen wolves disappeared as if they had been shadows. But Bob was not lost. His nose and ears worked, too. He could follow them, which he did at once. They ran along beneath the snow-heavy hemlocks, ducking under low-hanging boughs of pine. He wished that he was part of the pack, but that was not to be. By light of morning he cringed to remember the liberties he had allowed them. Every one of them knew him intimately, while he knew none of them. Such knowledge was an important part of their ritual life. Unless he could make them roll before him, they would never consider him one of them. Even then, he wondered if he would ever acquire that almost indefinable odor of belonging that they had, the special undersmell they all shared.

As they moved along, Bob began to smell the deer more and more clearly. He could identify the odor of the breath: the deer had been gnawing a sassafras plant.

The wolves proceeded quickly and efficiently. As far as they were concerned, Bob simply didn't exist. He was there, though, running along behind as fast as he could, his mind swarming with thoughts and speculations, his heart brimming over with love.

They came upon the deer suddenly. The wolves were quick and efficient. They burst out of the woods into the tight clearing where the deer were tearing bark. There was a whistle of alarm, then the flash of a tail. Deer screams, as soft as the blowing of clouds, filled the air. There were three animals: a buck and two does.

The buck bounded off into the forest, followed a moment later by one of the does, who had a red streak on her left leg. Wolves were barking, leaping, snapping. The one remaining deer broke wildly for the woods. Her body twisting in the air, the alpha female leaped for the throat. She missed, falling back into the snow with a thud and a spray of white.

Bob found himself face-to-face with the doe. He didn't hesitate a moment—he leaped right at the throat of the beautiful little animal. He was a big wolf. The doe struggled, dashing him with her front hooves, but it was no use. He had the flap of skin on the underside of her neck. When he worried it she shrieked, a gentle and lovely sound. This was like killing Bambi. But something drove him on. He would not stop for Bambi, not even when her heart rending whistles changed to bubbling sighs, and then stopped altogether.

She stood, her head hanging down. The nearest of the pack wolves, which was the one farthest to the rear, had reached her. It was the shabby little female with the broken tail. She clambered up the doe's side, trying to get on her back and bring her down.

This seemed to break the doe's trance. She proved to have more fight in her than Bob had imagined possible. Despite her torn throat and the little wolf clinging to her she began to run. Soon the wolf fell off. The doe plunged through the woods in plumes of snow. She was swift. Bob could also run, though. He was big and his thigh was healed; he could run like the wind.

The deer plunged on through the drifts, Bob just behind. He was hungry now, and the smell of the blood sent mad thrills of excitement through him. The deer reached a long meadow and picked up speed. Bob ran as hard as he could, stretching his whole body, nipping at the flying hooves.

Then someone was beside him—the alpha female. He was fast but she was much faster, a wolf of lightning, her muzzle stretched tight, spittle flying from her mouth, the whites of her eyes showing as she sped forward.

She shouldered Bob aside, ducked her head under the side of the leaping deer, and with a toss of her muzzle opened a huge hole in the creature's abdomen. Guts spewed out as the deer tumbled over and over. By the time it stopped falling it was dead. The alpha female strutted, her lovely face drenched in blood, and then she plunged her mouth into the still-heaving entrails and began gobbling huge gulps of the steaming organs.

Bob took a bite. A raw flash blinded him. Both she and her mate were on him, biting savagely. He screamed, scrambled away, felt her jaws tear his flanks as he ran.

He was forced to watch, drooling, in an anguish of hunger, while all of the other wolves ate their fill. They did it in strict rank order. To the little female was left the brain and some skin. To Bob was left gnawed bone.

While the others trotted off into the woods, full and happy, Bob bit at the bones, trying without success to crack them for the marrow. It was useless—all he succeeded in doing was cutting his tongue on a bone splinter.

Finally he went hunting alone. He was surprised to find such a lack of game. Then he understood why these wolves had come so far south. They, also, were suffering from the shortage of game. This was an exceptionally snowy winter. They had moved south with the deer.

As he sniffed about for sign of raccoon or opossum, he reflected on his passion and their seeming injustice. He shuddered, remembering the pleasure they had accorded him. Nobody but Cindy knew him that way, Cindy and now these wolves, who were so beautiful that he could not help but let them do their bidding with him. He knew the truth—that they had humiliated and rejected him. But they had done it so sweetly. Did they make their pack important by creating in others a desire to join it? Or would what they had done to him have felt different to a real wolf? He suspected that a real wolf would have found their nosing about an intolerable humiliation and put a stop to it as soon as a beast weaker than himself tried.

He mounted a ridge. From here there was a view for miles. The St. Lawrence glimmered on the northern distance, a jagged tumble of ice. Far to the south rose the Adirondacks. For a moment Bob thought he heard music—a harpsichord, perhaps Scarlatti or Bach. The sound made him cock his ears, but then he lost it, gone in the immensity of the view.

He was hungry. In fact he was damned hungry. Sooner or later, he had to find a kill of his own. He sniffed the air in the careful, searching way he had learned from experiment. It was possible to sort out the different smells not only by odor but by an elusive texture. The ubiquitous smell of snow was crisp except where there was melt, which had a much smoother feel.

Besides the snow, he detected ice, frozen plants, a wisp of smoke, cold stone. No smell of game, not a trace. He was disconcerted. In all of his travels he had never encountered a day when he smelled no animals at all. The image of the winter wolf, its ribs like bars, came to him, and the image of the starved wolf, curled in death agony.

He paced the ridge, taking deep breaths, analyzing the air for any trace of food, any carrion even, any garbage. He wasn't revolted by these things anymore, at least not so much that he wouldn't eat them if necessary. He let his body decide what to eat and what to pass up.

Then he stopped, cocking his ears. This time it wasn't music he heard, but the grinding of gears. The sound came from behind the line of ridges to the south. His estimate was ten miles. He turned, cocking his ears, and listened carefully. When he did so, a welter of tiny sounds came into focus: cars moving on snow, voices, various snatches of music, doors slamming, children shouting. So there was a town over there.

A town meant garbage and it meant the chance of stealing some animal, a chicken or a goat, perhaps, from a farm. The other wolves would I shun the town, but they did not possess the human lore that Bob did. He felt that he could sneak in and out quickly, and get himself fed. A guerrilla attack.

Without further ado he set off down the ridge, going straight toward the source of the human clatter. As he dropped lower the sounds faded, but he knew they would be there when he mounted the next rise.

He was halfway up it when he heard a sharp bark behind him. He turned and saw the alpha female standing in a clearing. Her tail was high, her face was stern. She was commanding him to turn back. She trotted up, whining. He was surprised, he thought the pack had rejected him. Apparently not, because she was treating him just like one of her other wolves. Whining, she rubbed her cheek against his. She began wagging her tail. At that, his interest in the town evaporated. She was far more important to him than food. Hunger could wait, journeys could wait. To have her come near him, to notice him, even touch him, drove him to a joyous pitch of excitement. He practically danced around her.

She played. She barked and tussled with him, growling in mock challenge. To say that he was delighted was to understate the feelings that washed over him, the rich, mysterious, enormous feelings. It was as if the basic creative energy of the earth was flowing right through him. When they tussled, he smelled and tasted her. Beneath the odor of her fur there was a sweetness so pure that it was shocking, and then the powerful female musk.

When it grew suddenly much stronger, he felt his loins contract. There was a sensation as if of a tickling, delightful fire between his legs. He found himself mounting her, felt himself thrusting at her, saw her eye shimmering with amusement when she glanced over her shoulder, felt her expertly pull herself away. He tried again, whining for her to stay still, pushing, trying in his clumsy way to make this new practice of sexual union work. Never before in his life had he mounted like an animal.

He was hurled off her into the snow by a snarling, biting streak of enraged alpha male.

Where the devil had
he
come from? And with him the rest of the pack, all barking, all threatening, their anger wild.

The next moment, though, he thought the alpha male was going to forget him, so intense were the odors coming from his mate. But he didn't. The alpha male attacked, leaping onto Bob with savage fury.

Even as they fought, both of them made involuntary sexual thrusts. One of the younger wolves mounted the female. The alpha male stopped beating Bob up long enough to turn and bark him away. This alpha was not enormous, but he was a devil of a fighter. His pack mate knew it, and the barking was quite enough to make him rush away.

Bob realized something in that instant of respite. He had to beat this wolf if he was going to have a place in the pack. Now was the time. The alpha female's heat had precipitated the confrontation.

If he won the battle, he was going to be able to make love to her. The male grabbed for his throat and sank his teeth into the much-scarred skin. Bob yanked away, managing to bite the other wolf's ear hard enough to draw blood and a high scream of pain.

His eyes gleaming, the alpha took Bob by the scruff of the neck and shook him. Bob skittered away, feet digging the hard, old snow. So far he had always lost fights with the wolves, but he did not want to lose this fight. He had to find a way to succeed. The wolf was so fast, such an expert at this, so relentless and wild and passionate. Bob had never encountered such powerful will before: it mattered to this wolf, it mattered terribly.

They separated and Bob ran at him, forcing himself to be more aggressive than he felt. To his surpise the weight of his body completely unbalanced the smaller animal, who went flying into a snowbank with a scream and a great windmilling of paws. Bob was on him instantly, biting, growling, clawing. For a time there was nothing but a jumble of flashing fur and fangs, then Bob found himself on top, and his opponent was screaming.

He backed away. His heart hurt—he did not want to do injury to this magnificent creature.

The alpha wolf clambered to his feet. When he would not meet Bob's eyes, a rush of triumph filled him. He could not help himself strutting. His tail went high, he yapped in excitement. The female leaned against him, and her odor was strong.

He mounted her, causing a tremendous explosion of excitement among the other wolves. They yapped, whined, ran about, paced. Some of the males snapped at each other. Then Bob found her secret, and thrust, and was rewarded with the most exquisite sensation. It was a perfection of feeling: soft love mixed with electrifying pleasure. Lying on the back of that wolf, he found the edge of heaven.

It was not a quick thing. He burst open like a flower within her. His body collapsed from the sheer intensity of the sensations that were roaring through it like storms come down the mountains of love. Her back was strong. She stood like a stone, receiving him in her milky center. The other wolves kept coming up and licking at him, sniffing under his tail, adding to the pleasure he was already experiencing.

His heart beat so hard he thought it would explode. But it didn't explode. Instead his loins exploded, and he saw flashes of stars, and smelled coming from her an odor so sweet that he could not but be humble before it. Then he was finished. He dismounted. For a long time, with quiet waves flowing back and forth between them, they stood linked.

He thought when it was finally over that he knew this wolf better than he had ever known any creature. In her dark and gleaming eyes, he saw that she, too, shared the knowledge. The total intimacy still shocked him a little. Privacy, secrecy were not known here. All the wolves had participated. Now some of the younger males were mounting each other. There was much intimate licking and much barking.

The alpha male went a little distance away, curled up, and slept. Bob also slept, and the alpha female midway between them.

Bob thought, on awakening, that he would become pack leader. She soon disabused him of this notion. By the operation of laws he did not begin to understand, all that had happened was that she had somehow changed places with the alpha male. She was now leader. The scraggly little female at the end of the line reasserted her dominance over Bob, making him roll to her. He did it because he sensed that ignoring her demand would lead again to total rejection.

That he could not bear. To be near them, to be included in their love, was the only thing Bob really cared about. That and food.

He cared about food. And there was so little food. No more deer, no possums, no coons.

There was that town, though, and on mornings when the wind was right, Bob was sure he heard the calling of a rooster and the bleating of goats. This was lumber country, so there weren't any significant farms, but that didn't mean that people in the town wouldn't be keeping chickens and goats, maybe even a few cows.