The Cry of the Wolf

by Melvin Burgess

  The Hunter was cross by now. ‘Stay in one place,’ he growled, and snatching Greycub by the scruff of his neck, he flung him into the kennel, a small utility room at the back of the house where Jenny slept. He pushed the bowl of dog food in after him and slammed the door shut.

  Greycub knew with one sniff that this was a dog room and one glance told him that there was nowhere to hide. The room was empty except for a basket and a pile of blankets in the corner. He sniffed cautiously at the dog food, but decided it was too early to be sure anything was all right to eat in this place. He began to whine, but then thought better of it. It might bring the man back.

  Then there was a movement in the pile of blankets. Greycub blinked and looked again – and a small white head with a crooked jaw poked out and looked at him. Greycub sniffed in its direction. This was clearly the owner of the room, and Greycub sank down submissively. After all, it was her room, and he was the interloper.

  Jenny climbed out of her blankets and came to have a closer look, the hackles on her legs upright. She knew this smell. This was a wolf, and wolves were to be killed. On the other hand, although Greycub was now every bit as big as the little dog, he still had his great big feet and fluffy fur, and was still just a puppy. Perhaps Jenny remembered keeping him warm in the back seat of her master’s car a few weeks before. Her motherly instincts were as strong as ever, and for the second time she began to lick the cub. Greycub sighed and sat down. Why did these dog things always want to lick? It would have been different, perhaps, if it had not been such a doggy tongue he was always being licked with. But he was glad he had one friend anyway.

  After she had washed him, Jenny insisted that he eat and then led him back to the blankets. Rolled up together, the two dozed through the afternoon, dog and wolf cub. Every now and then, Greycub tried to snuggle closer to his new foster-mother, and he was so big he almost pushed the little thing off the blankets. But Jenny was happy; at long last she had something to mother, even if it was a bit big, and even if it did smell of wolf, and she kept nuzzling him with her nose, just to make sure he was still there.

  Later that day, when the Hunter came in to let them out for an evening run, he was surprised to see Jenny ordering Greycub about, and him doing exactly as he was told. Another man might have laughed to see the tiny little thing trying to mother something bigger than herself. The Hunter however was only disappointed that Greycub had not accepted him as his new master, although he was gratified that, through Jenny, he now had a way of getting the cub to do his will.

  That night, left in the kennel with Jenny, Greycub awoke to see the moon shining through the only window in the room, a small, barred, single pane high up near the ceiling. In the kennels he had often woken up at night. It seemed to him part of his strangeness that when the dogs curled up and slept, he wanted to be up and running.

  Without waking Jenny he left the blankets and went to sit under the window. It was slightly open and he could smell the night outside. Away from the kennel, which was the only home he could remember, Greycub now felt more alien than ever. Now, the full sense that he was alone in the world came to him, and for the first time in his life he tipped back his head and spoke in his own voice – he howled a true, wild wolf’s howl. Immediately, Jenny was awake, growling and baring her teeth. Although she had never heard it before, she knew this was no dog song. The wolves of England had long ago learned to keep their music still; it was too dangerous to speak like a wolf in a world that would destroy them if it could. Greycub, separated from his kind, had no one to tell him that song was forbidden, and so he spoke, and wolf-song rolled over the Sussex Downs as it had not done for hundreds of years.

  Up on the first floor, in a small room that was quite bare except for a narrow bed and a small chest of drawers, the Hunter was woken up. He lay in bed listening to the hollow, moving cry filling his bedroom and sailing out into the valley. Then he got up and walked across the thin carpet that lay directly on the bare boards, over to the window looking out across the hills.

  The wide shallow valley unfolded itself into the darkness, revealed here and there by a few village lights, or a splash of moonlight on the fields and hedges. Out there were two wolves, the very last two – the ones the Hunter wanted most of all. In a way, he had killed all the others just to have this pleasure – the pleasure of killing the very last wolves in the country.

  Greycub’s cry spread and filled the valley. The Hunter knew that if his prey were within a few miles of the house, they would hear and they would come.

  8

  GREYCUB AND JENNY spent their nights curled up in a ball together in the kennel. The door to this was a slide door, unlocked, but neither animal had the strength to push it aside, so they were stuck there until the Hunter came to let them out for their morning run. In one corner there was a basket, but Jenny preferred to scratch the blankets into a heap and sleep there. Greycub lay under her chin.

  Jenny had taken the cub completely under her charge. She was wary of letting her master near him as if she sensed he meant Greycub harm. But it was she who made sure he did not run off when they were let out, who took him into the kennel at night. She mothered him to the point of fussiness, as if her own lost pups were all somehow tied up in this one great big, strange young creature. She became frantic if he went out of her sight, fretted and worried that he finished his food and lived in dread of him being taken from her, like her own pups. She did all this in a furtive, guilty fashion, as if she wasn’t quite sure if it was all right. She began to crouch and cringe, wagging her tail desperately whenever the Hunter came near, trying to placate him, since she knew that creatures which smelled like the cub usually meant a killing, and she spent endless hours licking and washing him with her tongue, in a vain effort to make him smell more like a dog and less like prey.

  In the middle of a very dark and moonless night a couple of weeks after the Hunter took Greycub back, Jenny awoke to find herself alone among the blankets. Greycub was sitting alert in front of the window, his head to one side, listening. She whined anxiously, calling him back to bed. Greycub cast a quick glance but took no notice. The little dog went to him, licking her lips and crouching, very unmotherlike, begging him to come back, almost as if she sensed he was passing beyond her.

  Greycub stretched his jaws and shuffled tensely. He lifted his nose up to the window and sniffed.

  Jenny sniffed the air, pricked her ears, turned her head this way and that, but sharp though her senses were, she could pick up nothing. The wolfcub, too, seemed to lose whatever it was that had been exciting him and he began to pace up and down the wall, sniffing aimlessly in the corners, whining fretfully. Then out of the darkness came a sound that Jenny recognised. She began to cry and beg again.

  A long, musical wail floated across the garden, getting closer. This was no dog talk. The wolves were coming.

  Upstairs a door banged. Feet rattled on the stairs. Greycub threw back his head and answered the call of his kind with his own true voice. The kennel door opened and he tried to squeeze through but a foot kicked him back.

  ‘That was no dog.’

  The Hunter clenched his fists. ‘You’ve been worth your weight in gold,’ he told Greycub.

  Now the call came again and as the Hunter dashed out again, Greycub and the wild wolves called to each other as if they did not care if the whole world heard them.

  Minutes later, fully dressed and with his bow over his shoulder, the Hunter called for Jenny and left the house. The little terrier followed him unhappily, looking back over her shoulder at where Greycub was still trapped inside. The howling outside had stopped now, but the Hunter had noted where it came from – about a quarter of a mile away, near a place called Tulley’s Wood.

  ‘Tonight I’ll see the end of it,’ he thought.

  *

  Greycub pushed against the door as soon as the Hunter and dog were gone, but he could not budge it. He turned back to the window and whined, stood up on his hind legs, yelped and howled, as if he
expected something to come flying through.

  He did not know what was happening or what to expect. That howl and a slight scent that a breeze carried in excited him to the point of fear. Out there, in a world he did not remember, lived a creature that was a part of him.

  Once the Hunter had left the house there were no more howls. Greycub grew despondent. He lay down on the blanket and sniffed the smell of Jenny, but it brought him no comfort. He was confused and miserable, relieved and terrified at the same time that the mysterious, magic presence had gone. After ten minutes or so of crying, he buried his head under the blanket and went to sleep.

  It was a scent that awoke him. This scent was brief but it was not pale or distant. In a second he was wide awake. Every hair on his body stood on end and he cringed down into the blanket, terrified and amazed that his own scent, transformed into something fierce and magnificent, should be stalking across the garden outside towards him. That one wall, that thin impenetrable layer of stone blinded him and cut him off from this great mystery, but the scent came thick and powerful through the little open window above; it filled the kennel and flattened him to the ground.

  At last, just a metre away on the other side of the wall came a small dry noise. The cub sprang up and hurled himself at the wall, whining and yelping, cringing and jumping up in turns, desperate to reach the presence so near, yet terrified of what he’d find. A second noise, a soft cough, and he had a vow of silence clapped on him. Instantly he crouched. That noise, which he had never heard before, was a warning to be still and, although every nerve of him screamed to jump up, he lay tensed, ready to fly the second he was released.

  The presence withdrew. Greycub, still under an imposed silence, scuttled round as he sensed it moving around the house. A small noise, a scratch, then a crash as something fell to the floor and he knew it was inside the house and coming close to him – not this time towards a solid wall but to the sliding door, the door that could be opened. Greycub’s lip curled back; he seemed to be able to follow the creature as it moved through the rooms of the house towards his little cell. The presence found the passageway along which his room lay. It came along and drew near. It stood outside the door. The door slid open.

  The air was suddenly full of that wonderful, mysterious scent that was himself and at the same time so much more. Greycub flattened himself on the ground, licking his lips but keeping his silence, eager and terrified. A great beast came into the kennel. It licked its pale jaws. The light shone thin upon its silver flanks and front. It came at him, pushed him over onto his back, sniffed him, and began to lick.

  Silver’s long wolf’s tongue licked away the layers of scent that wrapped him up in a fog – licked away the smell of blankets, the smell of little Jenny, the reek of the Hunter’s hand; licked away dog food and wet plastic bowls, the pungent reek of disinfectant and soap. She licked away the confusing layers of kennels, of the foster-mother dog and her pups, the smell of deerhounds and kennel maids, of the Breeder and his soapy hands, of wet tiles and floorboards and dry biscuits. She licked away all the things of captivity, all the clustered rubbish that concealed him from himself, even the most distant human things – the smell of the boot of the Hunter’s car, of his pocket, the smell of frozen wolf flesh in the deep freeze, where the victims were stored – all this she licked and licked away and at last all that was left was pure wolf.

  Greycub stopped trembling and relaxed under his mother’s jaws. As she licked she cried wolf noises to him, noises he instantly knew, and that placed him clearly, not as a strange dog or a bad pet, but as wolf. He replied and she understood. When that exchange was over, Greycub knew what he was and who he was and the danger he was in.

  Silver turned and he followed quietly and obediently, along the passage, through the lounge and across the living room, out of the window into the good world. He had come home.

  Silver led her cub north-west. She knew very well what great danger she had put them all in by this desperate rescue. She could not count on the rain to hide their tracks this time. It was a clear, mild night – just the sort of night that would hold clues of scent in the earth. Tracks tonight would be easy to follow.

  After she and Conna had made their way down south back to the house where they knew the Hunter lived, she had quickly discovered where Greycub was and wasted no time in recovering him. She had not known he was in no immediate danger. Had she known that, she would perhaps not have chosen so reckless a method of rescuing him as luring the Hunter away with those howls.

  It was Conna’s howls that had led the Hunter away. Now he was heading north-east, hoping to reach the river Ouse and shake the Hunter off, before looping round and reuniting with Silver in the woodland around Haslemere. Hopefully this would leave Silver and the inexperienced Greycub in safety, for the time being at least.

  Silver had hesitated a long time before giving this difficult task to Conna. None of the wolves had ever managed to shake off the Hunter, except by luck. What chance had Conna on this night, when even the damp, warm earth and still weather were against him? Luck, great good luck was needed if he was to survive. In her heart, Silver doubted whether he would. At least he could run fast. The only alternative was for Silver to go herself but this would mean allowing the rescue itself to be taken out of her control, and this she would not do.

  Silver knew that if the Hunter did manage to catch up with and kill Conna, he would then return to his house and pick up their tracks. For this reason she did her best to make their trail as confusing as possible. She had plenty of time – they had a few days’ grace at least – and she concentrated on turning her scent into a maze. She walked along stream beds, swam up and down the little rivers of the chalk country, set down false tracks, doubled back – all the tricks of her wolf cunning.

  This journey to Haslemere served as Greycub’s education. He learned all the scents of the hedgerows and meadows, the tricks of hunting and tracking, as well as those of laying false and confusing trails. His mother, who had been a pack leader, made sure her son was equipped for his dangerous life. Greycub had no difficulty learning. This was knowledge that he was waiting for. His joy at discovering that his loneliness and strangeness in the kennels and with poor Jenny were all due to a craving for his real life now helped him to learn the true, quiet, wolfish way of stalking and walking unseen through the man-made countryside.

  As Silver and Greycub made their way, the Hunter had already found Conna’s tracks. At first he thought he was having great good luck that the wolf should howl so incautiously near his house; he thought his luck was even better when he found Tulley’s Wood covered with prints. Jenny picked up the scent in a second, but even without her he could have followed the marks the wolf had made as he headed away up a footpath. But it was not long before the Hunter asked himself why the wolf had behaved like this. So many marks so easily seen, and this clear track – it was not like the wolves to give themselves away so easily.

  The Hunter was in no hurry. He knew there were two wolves left and here were the tracks of just one. He decided, since he was near, that it would be a good thing to go back to the house before he began the hunt.

  Silver had been more careful than Conna, but she had left traces, and, of course, Jenny picked up her scent in a moment. The Hunter found the open window, the ashtray broken on the floor. He found the single tracks leading up to the house and the double ones leading away. He decided that here was the better game. He began his hunt – not after Conna, as the wolves expected, but after Silver and Greycub.

  As they neared the woods around Haslemere, Silver began to slow down. This was the centre of her old running ground, the hub of the great loop her pack of eleven wolves had travelled in the course of their hunting. As such it was an old meeting place. Now it was marked with danger. The Hunter had struck them there before; her own father had been murdered here. But it was not fear of the Hunter that slowed Silver down. She did not expect him yet. She knew Conna would not even try to lose him for three or fou
r days, and it would certainly take him at least that long to catch her mate. It was fear for Conna that slowed her down. In her heart Silver was sure he did not have the skill to shake the implacable Hunter off his track. She was sure that the meeting place, when she arrived there, would be empty. It was that knowledge, that she was alone with her cub, that she lingered to avoid.

  The ambush took her completely by surprise – but it was not the Hunter who caught them but Conna himself. Jumping hard out of a bush he bowled her right over and she yelped in surprise and fright. Then the two wolves rolled over and over, biting and licking and fighting a soft fight, full of love. Greycub, who did not know this even taller great beast, rushed in to protect his mother. But the newcomer just grabbed him in his jaws and tossed him up at the sky. By the time he was caught by Silver and rolled in a ball over and over he knew he was in no danger. For a brief minute the two wolves, joyful at seeing each other, relaxed all their rules and huffed and growled and yapped, kicking up the wet earth and the dead leaves on the ground. Then they got down to the serious introductions and welcomings – Silver on one side, Conna on the other, licking each other’s mouths and lips, with little Greycub standing in the middle on his hind legs, trying to join in.

  The first bolt took Conna directly through the neck. His spine was not severed, but the central artery to his head was cut, and he was able to crawl a few metres into the undergrowth before choking on his own blood. Silver jumped up in surprise and so the bolt intended for her head caught her instead on her chest, just above the shoulder. She did not cry out, but continued the jump in a run, leaping over the dying Conna into the shielding bushes all around. Greycub leaped after her as a third bolt struck the empty ground where he had stood. Behind, a man’s voice cursed.