Firstborn

by Tor Seidler

  “Your old pack?” he said as the last of them disappeared into the woods.

  “Sorry, thought they’d moved on,” Raze said with a shrug. “But they have now. It’s all ours.”

  “Your father?” Blue Boy said, eyeing the mangled corpse.

  “He was a nasty old tyrant. I’ll get rid of him.” Raze snorted. “What’s left of him.”

  As Raze dragged his father’s remains into the woods, the other wolves came up the slope.

  “What happened, Blue Boy?” said Frick. “Did that fool wolf challenge you?”

  “Are you all right?” Alberta said, licking blood off Blue Boy’s muzzle.

  Blue Boy licked her back.

  “It is a nice spot,” Lupa said, surveying the slope.

  “Look, Mother, there’s a den already dug,” said Hope.

  All the traveling had worn Frick out, and he conked out as soon as he lay down. The others were hungry, but it was getting to be late in the day and they were weary, too. Hope and Lupa and Alberta found sleeping spots near the den. Blue Boy stood sentinel farther up the hill. I settled in the aspen. Raze spent a long time in the woods before rejoining the rest of us. I don’t know if he was giving his father wolfish last rites or snacking on him.

  In the pearly predawn light Blue Boy rousted everyone up. Frick remained at the den site while the others followed Blue Boy along a ridge trail in their usual hunting order: Alberta second, then Lupa, Raze, and Hope. I flew overhead. From a promontory overlooking the valley Blue Boy led the party down into the bottomland, aiming for a bull elk that had strayed from the herd. Blue Boy and Alberta circled downwind of him. The others stalked the elk from the upwind side. The elk lifted his imposing rack of antlers, sniffed the air, and bolted away from the stalkers—straight toward Alberta. She leaped up and clamped her jaws onto the right side of his neck. Blue Boy hit him from the other side. The elk tried in vain to knock them off with his antlers. He staggered a few steps, carrying both wolves, before stumbling to his knees. In a trice the other three wolves were on him too. It was a quick death.

  The bull was my first taste of elk. I liked it. But the wolves loved it. A grown elk is far bigger than a deer, yet the wolves managed to finish off half the carcass before a pair of enormous grizzlies lumbered up. Not even Blue Boy felt like tangling with them; he tore off a slab of meat for Frick and left the rest for the bears.

  And so we established ourselves on the slope above Slough Creek. Food was so abundant in this northeast corner of Yellowstone that we didn’t have to go hunting every morning. Some days the wolves just lolled around digesting the feast from the day before. Even when the snows came and Slough Creek froze over, there was still game to be had. The ousted pack never tried to reclaim their territory, and everyone felt the move had been worth it—except Frick, and maybe me. Frick’s hindquarters were no more insulated from the cold here than in Idaho, and when mating season came, he had no more luck with Lupa than last year. He spent more and more of his time sleeping. Often he was still out when the other wolves returned from the hunt. As for me, with food so plentiful my game-spotting abilities were no longer needed, and I began to feel a bit extraneous.

  On the brighter side, the snow finally began to melt, and as the creek swelled, so did Alberta’s belly. Toward the end of April she disappeared into the pre-dug den. A week later we heard the whimpers of newborns. After depositing his chunks of elk meat in the den entrance, Blue Boy took to lying just outside, his ears pricked up. He was sure he could distinguish three different yaps. He started getting up well before the others to watch for the pups. Late one moonlit night in mid-May I woke to see him pacing outside the den as if the ground were on fire. There are places in Yellowstone where the ground actually is on fire, but here on the slope above Slough Creek the snow pack had only just melted, and there was still an eyebrow of snow at the foot of my aspen.

  It was odd to see Blue Boy nervous, but I could understand his anxiety. He hadn’t been lucky with offspring. He’d lost his whole first litter, and of his second litter there was only Hope.

  “Think they’re coming out today?” I asked softly.

  “I can feel it,” he said.

  The other wolves were still curled up asleep. Over the mountains to the east the sky was still a rich magpie-black. A faint, triangular glow appeared—false dawn, it’s called—then little by little the sky lightened to the nondescript gray of a catbird. Suddenly Blue Boy stopped pacing. Even from my aspen I’d heard the yap.

  “Must be the firstborn,” he whispered. “Sounds like a boy, doesn’t it?”

  I could understand his eagerness for a son, too: a wolf in his own magnificent image. As the rising sun began to gild the mountaintops, birds on the other side of Slough Creek started twittering—thrushes, by the off-key sound of them. Hope and Lupa stirred, and Raze, too.

  All of a sudden a pair of pups stumbled out of the den. They were roughly the same size, a fluffy brown female and a mostly black male. When Alberta came out right behind them, Blue Boy barked happily and gave her a congratulatory nuzzle. The fuzz balls tumbled around in the new grass. Then two more male pups appeared—and one was riding on the other’s back! The rider was a runt, his mount definitely the biggest of the litter.

  Blue Boy shot Alberta a look of surprise. She shrugged. Blue Boy sniffed and knelt down. The first two pups wasted no time in toddling up on their little bowed legs and licking him under his chin. The runt slid off his brother’s back and did the same. But the last pup got distracted.

  “The firstborn?” Blue Boy said, eyeing him.

  “Mmm,” said Alberta.

  A little downhill from the den a beetle with an iridescent shell had landed on a twig. The firstborn pup stepped tentatively that way, and the beetle opened his wings and took off. With a burp of excitement the pup chased it. He tripped and tumbled down the slope. If he hadn’t bumped into my aspen, he might have rolled all the way down to the creek.

  “Quite the little adventurer,” Hope said. “What are you going to call him, Mother?”

  “It’s your father’s turn,” Alberta said. “I got to name you.”

  Blue Boy glanced down the notch, toward the valley. “How about Lamar?” he said. Then louder: “Lamar!”

  The firstborn pup turned and clambered up the hill. But just when it looked as if he was finally going to pay his father tribute, the sun hit the creek, striking diamonds of light off it.

  “This is the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen,” Lamar exclaimed.

  “Out of your vast experience of beautiful places,” said Frick, who’d woken at the commotion.

  The pup turned and fixed his eyes on him. “You have a thing on your neck like Mother,” he said.

  “A collar,” Frick said.

  “What are those little things?”

  “Flies,” Frick said, giving his nub of a tail a swish.

  “What’s this tickly stuff?”

  “Grass,” Frick said.

  As Lamar bombarded Frick with questions, Alberta enlisted Blue Boy in helping name the other newcomers. They called the girl Libby and the boy Ben. Out of tact for Hope they even named the runt: Rider. Ben and Libby started sparring, as wolf pups are meant to do, and small as he was, Rider joined in. Lamar kept on grilling Frick about the novelties around him, oblivious to his father’s narrowing eyes.

  “What’s the thing I hit?”

  “A tree,” Frick said. “A quaking aspen, to be precise.”

  “What are those things in the quaking aspen?”

  “Budding leaves, mostly. The black-and-white thing’s a bird.”

  “A bird,” Lamar said, looking suitably impressed.

  “She’s a friend of ours, a magpie,” Frick said. “Her name’s Maggie.”

  Lamar’s upturned eyes were an adorable baby blue. His body was mostly his mother’s gray, but his face was an expressive mix of gray, brown, white, and black. As I was about to welcome him to the world, Rider let out a squeal.

  Ben had cu
ffed the runt and sent him flying. Lamar raced over, helped the runt to his feet, and turned on his other brother, his tail shooting up. Ben’s wilted.

  “That’s more like it,” Blue Boy said under his breath.

  The wolves spent the day playing with the pups. Watching the pups frolic, I noticed that none of them had any of their father’s blue in their coats, but this didn’t keep Blue Boy from beaming at them. Not even Lupa or Raze could resist them. By late afternoon the endearing little things were falling asleep on their feet, and Alberta herded them into the den.

  Next morning I went off with the hunters, but after a few quick pecks of that day’s kill I zoomed back to the den site. I made it in time for the pups’ second appearance. Today Rider came out under his own steam, peering around hungrily. Alberta must have begun weaning them, for the other three pups came out looking hungry too. Frick had slept in as usual but woke up when Lamar started nuzzling his belly in search of a nipple.

  “That’s a dead end, I’m afraid,” Frick said.

  Lamar looked disappointed, but before long the hunting party returned, and Lamar and the other pups raced up to them and poked the corners of the adults’ mouths with their snouts. It must have been wolfish instinct. The hunters regurgitated pre-chewed food onto the ground, and the pups dug in.

  “What is this?” Lamar cried after gulping down a mouthful.

  “Elk,” said Blue Boy.

  “It’s the best thing I ever tasted.”

  “Out of your vast culinary experience,” Frick murmured.

  Libby and Ben kept shouldering Rider away from the food, but when the feeding frenzy was over, Lamar spat some up for the runt. I don’t think Blue Boy approved of this—pups are supposed to grab all the nourishment they can—but he didn’t interfere.

  “Is elk over there?” Lamar asked, staring off toward the valley.

  “Don’t you worry about where it comes from,” Blue Boy said. “Just have fun.”

  By “fun” he meant sparring. This was early training for the hunt. Lamar sparred with his brothers and sister for a while, but in time he got bored and tottered over to Frick.

  “What are those tall things?” he asked, looking up the hill.

  “Lodgepole pines,” Frick said.

  “What are the big creatures way over there with the spiky green fur?”

  “Those are called mountains.”

  Lamar immediately headed toward the mountains, but his parents growled. Pups aren’t supposed to venture far from the den. Lamar had to content himself with asking about things.

  And ask he did. Ask, ask, ask. But at least he didn’t repeat the same questions over and over. Once he got an answer, he moved on. And it didn’t take him long to figure out who not to bother. He picked up on his father’s disapproval of his questions, and Raze’s annoyance, and Lupa’s disinterest. He zeroed in on Frick—and me.

  The height of the lodgepole pines amazed him, as did the sudden pageant of wildflowers. The sky amazed him too. One day it was the blue of his father’s fur, the next it was the lustrous gray of Lupa’s, the next it seemed to be full of the puffy white things, and the next it spat at us.

  “Look, the birds can go up into it!” Lamar cried one morning.

  “Those are just chipping sparrows,” I told him.

  I showed him what real flying looks like. When I landed back in the aspen, he was jumping up and down, trying to fly himself—a pitiable sight indeed. Not wanting to rub his nose in the natural superiority of birds, I pointed out that we couldn’t howl.

  “What’s ‘howl’?” he said.

  He soon found out. One night in the wake of a hearty elk feast Blue Boy, Hope, Raze, and Lupa were keeping me up with their howling when Lamar’s head poked out of the den. His little ears cupped at the sound of answering howls in the distance. I think this was his first inkling that they weren’t the only wolves in the world. As he inched outside, he said in an awed voice:

  “Look at the big yellow wolf eye!”

  I think I was the only one who heard him. I was about to tell him it was called the moon when there was a different howl from far away, higher and more musical than the rest.

  “What kind of wolf is that?” he asked.

  At this the grown-ups noticed him.

  “Why aren’t you in bed?” Blue Boy said gruffly.

  Lamar ducked back inside.

  When Lamar and the other pups came out in the morning, it was sunless and cold. Blue Boy had gone off to patrol his territory, as he did periodically, but the rest of the hunting party was lolling around with Frick, bellies still full. Since Frick had slept through last night’s concert, Lamar turned to Hope for information about the interesting howl.

  “That was a coyote,” she said.

  “What’s a coyote?”

  “Scum,” said Raze.

  “What’s scum?” Lamar said.

  “Coyotes are something like wolves,” Hope said, “only smaller.”

  “Especially their brains,” Raze said.

  “This from our resident intellect,” Frick said.

  Just as Raze was narrowing his eyes at Frick, Blue Boy returned. He stood a ways off, his tail straight up. Alberta went and kissed him under the chin. Lupa did the same, and Frick too, and even Raze. The pups quit sparring and followed the example of the adults, Blue Boy lowering himself a bit so they could reach. Lamar gave a shrug and for the first time followed the example of the others. Blue Boy let out a happy croon.

  Later that day it snowed.

  “What is this?” Lamar cried, dashing around in every direction.

  “Snow in June,” Raze grumbled.

  “Can you fly in it?” Lamar asked me.

  I flew off across the creek and circled back to my aspen. I think seeing me disappear into the snow gave Lamar an idea. He went to roughhouse with the other pups, and when Libby landed a clout on his snout, he pretended it was more powerful than it was and rolled off down the hill, figuring he could vanish into the snow as well and go exploring. He passed the big boulder by the creek and made his way along the water’s edge. An interesting creature was nosing around on the opposite bank, a creature even smaller than he was, and when Lamar came to the log spanning the creek, he started across. But the log was icy, and he slipped.

  Slough Creek is shockingly cold. I’ve rinsed my feathers in it. Lamar thrashed and gasped for air. I squawked for Blue Boy, who dashed down and yanked Lamar out by the scruff of the neck. Lamar coughed up some water and rasped a thank-you.

  Blue Boy fixed him with a stern stare. “Just where did you think you were going?”

  “I saw a coyote on the other side,” Lamar said.

  Blue Boy looked across the creek, and his expression softened. “That chipmunk, you mean? I applaud your hunting instincts, Lamar, but you’re too young to leave the den site.”

  “I didn’t want to hunt it. I wanted to hear that nice song again.”

  Blue Boy’s expression hardened again. “One of my sisters drowned in a creek like this when she was your age.”

  “You have sisters, Father?”

  “I had three—but none of them made it.”

  “What happened to them?”

  “They died.”

  “Died,” Lamar said. “Why don’t you wear a collar like Mother and Frick and Raze and Lupa?”

  “I lost mine.”

  “How’d you lose it?”

  “You ask too many questions, Lamar. At this point there’s really just one thing you need to know. That the world’s a perilous place.”

  “The world’s a perilous place,” Lamar repeated.

  “And don’t let Libby smack you around like that.”

  Lamar nodded, not mentioning that his tumble had been staged.

  “You’re the firstborn,” Blue Boy continued. “You have to assert your dominance.”

  “What’s ‘assert your dominance’?”

  His father sighed.

  10

  AS THE PUPS GREW, Lamar’s size advan
tage increased. He was fascinated by every new flower that popped up, every new bird or insect that flew by, but he restrained his impulse to explore and even swallowed some of his questions, especially within earshot of his father. He did his best to “assert his dominance,” too. The hunters began bringing back elk bones and hunks of real meat instead of pre-chewed fare, and Lamar would make a point of grabbing the biggest chunk. He spent more time sparring with his siblings, returning their swats with harder ones, and winning games of tug-of-war they played with sticks and bones. Strangely enough, the bossier he acted, the more devoted they became to him. All he had to do was press his ears forward and lift his tail for them to roll over and show their white bellies in surrender. But he wasn’t despotic. The only thing he seemed to insist on was that Ben and Libby leave some food for Rider.

  One day at dusk, just when it looked as if Rider might actually make it, a swallow swooped so close to the little fellow’s snout that he went chasing after it. In a flash a short-eared owl dove out of the sky and grabbed him. Blue Boy raced after the owl and made a desperate leap, but he came up short. For a moment I was too stunned to move, then I shot after the beast myself. Magpies are smaller than owls, so my best hope was to harrass him into dropping the poor pup dangling from his talons. But he’d gotten the wind under his wings, and, fast as we magpies are, I couldn’t catch up.

  Finally, I circled sadly back to my aspen. Down below, Lamar was frantic. “What happened?” he cried.

  “A hawk grabbed him,” said Raze.

  Catching my breath, I pointed out that it had been an owl.

  “Hawk,” said Raze. “Owls only hunt at night.”

  Blue Boy said something, but it was inaudible over Alberta’s heartrending wail.

  “What?” Lamar said.

  “Maggie’s right,” Blue Boy said grimly. “It was an owl.”

  “Will the owl bring Rider back, Father?” Lamar asked.

  Raze snorted. “When buffalos fly,” he said.