‘You’ll be a great hunter, one day,’ said Meshiska to her daughter. ‘That growl’s coming on nicely. I shouldn’t be surprised if your teeth are growing too.’
One time Meshiska went off hunting, as usual, leaving the pups in the entrance to the den. Koska said to the other two, ‘I’m going to follow her. See where she goes. Anyone coming?’
The other two shook their heads. They had been told to stay in the den. Their mother’s anger was not a thing they witnessed very often, but when it came it was decidedly unpleasant.
‘Cowards,’ said the she-pup. ‘I’m going anyway.’
She went trotting down the trail after her parent.
As she rounded a rock, she came slap up against a large ochre-coloured lump of fur. Koska was slightly annoyed for a moment, wondering who or what was blocking the trail when it should be an open road, for the use of all. Then she looked up.
It was her mother.
Meshiska was sitting in the middle of the track, obviously waiting for her.
‘Yes?’ said her mother. ‘Did you want something?’
Koska nosed around the pine needles, as if looking for something, then gradually made her way back to the den. Mother followed behind and gave her rump a sharp nip just before they got back to where the other pups were waiting.
Then without another word, the adult went off down the trail again.
‘I bet she’s not there a second time,’ said Koska, after licking the sore patch on her bottom.
‘You want to test it?’ asked Okrino.
‘Not today,’ replied his sister. ‘But I bet she’s not, all the same …’
The incident was never forgotten, by any of the three pups. Despite Koska’s bravado, she never tried the same trick again.
That was not to say they respected the grown wolves so much that they were afraid of them. They loved to sneak up on one of the adult wolves and grip it by the ruff, hanging on while the adult shook them around trying to loosen their hold. Their father was a particular favourite, he would allow himself to be gripped by three pups simultaneously and would rise with them dangling from his fur like cones from a pine. Once or twice they chose the wrong adult, of course, and were firmly held by the muzzle and pinned to the ground for a moment or two to teach them a lesson. They learned which of the pack were to be avoided.
Athaba was feeling frisky one morning and was, as usual, engaging in mock-combat with his siblings. They were belly crawling through the grasses, stalking each other and pouncing when they came within range. Though some of the adult wolves were busy at small tasks, most of them were sprawled around the entrance to the den, watching the pups indulgently. It was a fine day, full of butterflies and birds, which often distracted the fickle pups.
Athaba was by this time a slate-blue coloured wolf with blond and grey hairs flecking his pelt. His eyes were bright, searching, though the inherent curiosity in them was not too obvious now. He had learned to hide what others might think to be a flaw in his character. His jaw was strong and firm and his brow deep. A handsome wolf, some said. He had a pleasant disposition and was not too cocky, and was therefore well liked by most other members of the pack.
At one point in the game, Koska was stalking Athaba, and the he-pup was waiting for her, hidden by the tall wispy foliage. He was watching, as he had been taught, for movement amongst the grasses. Then he saw it, a twitching of some stems, and when he thought the time was right, he leapt.
Even before he hit the wolf he knew it was not Koska, but an undermega whom the youngsters never played with simply because he always looked so serious. Athaba, now in mid-leap, went in anyway, full of bravado.
The wolf he had unfortunately jumped at was a yearling called Skassi, a very ambitious young male who seemed eternally preoccupied with something very important. Athaba gripped this undermega by the ruff and attempted to pull him to the ground. Ordinarily such play was encouraged by adults, but this occasion was not one of them. Skassi rolled and flipped, sending Athaba flying through the air. The pup landed heavily and had the wind knocked out of him. Before Athaba could get to his feet, Skassi was standing over him, and the yearling’s eyes were hot with anger. He administered a savage bite to Athaba’s rump.
The pup squealed and took up the submissive position as his only line of defence. He raised one paw, curled his tail under, lowered his body and flattened his ears. As Skassi stood over him, he flashed the whites of his eyes and produced his most submissive ‘grin’.
The yearling’s ears were forward, his tail erect and his hackles raised. His lips were retracted, up and down, so that his front teeth were revealed. He looked what he was, a ferocious killer who could tear the throat from the he-pup in an instant.
Meshiska came running and confronted the undermega.
‘That was unnecessary,’ she snapped. ‘Get away from my pup. He’s not old enough to understand yet.’
For a moment the three wolves formed a tableau as they stood there in the soft light of the forest, each caught in a dramatic pose. Everything was still.
The first movement came from Skassi. Athaba saw a gradual change come over the male yearling. In seconds, he went from a dominant posture to a submissive one.
Skassi went forward on his belly and licked Meshiska’s muzzle, nipping it lightly. Then he tried to slink away, but as he moved off Meshiska stepped forward and body-slammed the young male, knocking him over.
Skassi recovered his feet and said, ‘I wasn’t ready for him. I just reacted.’ He then slunk away, but not without a malevolent glance at Athaba, who knew he had somehow made an enemy. It was an incident that was going to have a strong effect on the rest of the pup’s life. He scratched his fleas out of nervousness. An undermega was not a very important member of the pack, especially a yearling, but to a pup such a wolf was more dangerous than an adult. Yearlings had everything to prove, especially to their peers.
Later Meshiska spoke to Athaba.
‘I was nearby this time, but there will come a time when you’ll need to fight wolves like Skassi. I can’t be a mother to you forever. You’re very young yet and I will protect you throughout the summer, but eat well and grow strong. The yearling may not let it rest at this. One day it might be between you and him and I might not be around to intervene. Even if I were, the pack might not let me. You’re my pup and I don’t want to see you hurt. Attend to me and your father and we’ll teach you all we know – after that, you’ll have to find your own place in the hierarchy of the pack. Do you understand?’
Her words were firm but her eyes were soft. There was a torment in her breast which a young pup could not hope to understand. It was a mother’s knowledge that however hard she tried she could not keep the world from her young ones and eventually they would have to be able to fend for themselves. All she could hope to do was prepare them to withstand the onslaught. There would be harsh conditions, starvation, storms and enemies to contend with and a mother could not hope to live forever, nor could she expect to ignore the laws of the pack. When her pup was a year old he would be outside the protection of his parents. That did not mean Meshiska would not go to his defence, but she would risk a great deal by doing so. Many a headwolf has become a tailwolf overnight. The tailwolf is the lowest member of a pack, despised by all, chased and bitten, tormented and left only the barest scraps of meat. Only the utlahs, those that have been banished from the pack forever, are lower than the tailwolves. The utlah, or outsider, is not even considered to be a wolf any more, but becomes a raven. The outsider eats with the parasites, the black scavengers that follow the pack, contending with these crazy birds for carrion.
‘One day,’ said Athaba, stoutly, ‘I shall become a mega like you and Aksishem – once I reach three years and go through initiation. Then I’ll be able to fight Skassi and …’
‘And Skassi will be a mega too, long before you are. Don’t dream too much of revenge, little one. Try to think about getting around Skassi, getting him to accept you. It’ll be a long time befo
re you’re strong enough to tackle him in the way that you’re talking about.’
‘But you said I had to learn to fight!’
‘So you must, but you must also learn to wait. If you start nurturing thoughts of revenge now, you’ll become too impatient and he’ll be the one to choose the time. The wolf who chooses the time and place is most often the victor. You must be submissive until you are strong and ready, and thhe time is right. It may be that you will make friends anddd therefore such a fight will not be necessary. It happens, more often than not. Skassi’s a young wolf, wanting to make his mark early and like many ambitious undermega he’s becoming frustrated with having to wait two more years for his mega. By the time he gets it, his personality will have matured and I doubt he will be concerned with you any longer.
‘For the moment, he’s chosen you as a target, which is foolish of him. You’re not even an undermega yet, and no credit would come of him harming you. We’ll see. Just don’t show any hate too early, my son. It may yet all melt away like the winter snows.’
For his part, Athaba hoped it would.
Fortunately for Athaba, as they moved into summer the pack became looser and covered a wider area. The pups hardly saw their father and mother together, let alone other members of the pack. Each wolf, or sometimes pair, went off in search of the plentiful game. There was less need for group concentration during the summer and privacy could be had. Athaba was safe until the autumn, when the pack began to pull together again into the tight knot that would take it through winter.
The summer was a good one. Voles and lemmings were plentiful and the pups developed, learned their hunting skills, and stayed away from other predators like the lynx and the bear. They found birds’ eggs and feasted until they were fat, then lay around for days until the feeling of fullness wore off and they needed food again. They played in the sedge and amongst the stunted larch, spruce and alder. There were hot springs to watch bubble and hiss. The light was strong, glancing off shallow pools and scattering itself amongst the rocks. Sometimes it was a blinding gold that hurt the eyes and the pups had to turn their heads. Out on the tundra, where the permafrost still lay beneath layers of ground water and mosses, herbs gave the air a rich fragrance – saxifrages, bluebells, campions, shinleaf and poppies. There were dwarf willows out there, and flowering shrubs, but every step was a disgusting squelch and the wolves soon went back to the high country where it was dry.
Athaba saw the mighty moose and the formidable caribou, and wondered how a wolf could ever bring one these creatures down. He chased hares, and lost the race. He crept up on lakes of geese and jumped them, just to see them rise in the air like a single cloud of feathers, making a noise to wake his ancestors from their long sleep. He fed on the brilliant coloured bearberries which grew on the moorlands.
One day Aksishem found Athaba alone and told him a riddle which he said must remain a secret between the two of them. It went like this:
I am –
the stone that floats,
the wood that sinks,
the rock that runs,
the air that stinks.
What am I?
No matter how Athaba pleaded, his father would not tell him the answer.
‘One day you’ll work it out for yourself,’ he said. ‘It’s more satisfying that way. If I tell you, you’ll just say, “Oh no, I would have guessed that, if you gave me more time” and you’ll get nothing satisfying out of it at all. You wait and see. I know I’m right.’
Even though his father had said it was a secret, Athaba mentioned it to his mother. The she-wolf looked shocked and told Athaba not to repeat the riddle to anyone, to forget about it altogether. Later Athaba heard her remonstrating with his father, though he could not understand what anyone had done wrong.
When they were a few months old, the pups underwent a rigorous programme of indoctrination. Play time was over. The serious stuff of life began.
‘Repeat after me,’ said their father. ‘Every action, every thought, every word, must be for the good of the pack.’
’… for the good of the pack,’ they chorused.
And this was to be their watchword until they died. For the individual was unimportant, except as a member of the whole. Only by ensuring the safety of the pack could the individual hope to survive. Teamwork. Cohesiveness. The pack worked together, ate together, slept together. They did not watch over each other, each watched over the pack. No wolf was expected to lay down his life for his brother or sister, but he was bound, if required, to give up his life for the pack. Their songs were of comradeship but not of individual friendships. Unity. The good of the pack.
When he was four months old Okrino had an epileptic fit. Two months later he had a second fit. Such an affliction made a wolf a liability to the pack.
The other megas heard about these fits. A midsummer meeting took place by Waterfall Rock. Were he a fully grown wolf, Okrino might have been banished, but as a pup and not yet an undermega a more definite and immediate fate was in store for him. Two days later two large shoulderwolves came to collect Okrino. He was taken away into the darkness of the trees and Athaba never saw his brother again. When he asked his parents what had happened to him, they told him Okrino had gone to the Far Forests.
Why? he asked.
For the good of the pack, they replied.
Chapter Two
During the summer human hunters pushed the loosely formed pack northeastwards. Under the guidance of the two headwolves, their efforts to stay out of range of those that hunted on foot were successful. Shoulderwolves and flankwolves led the pack over rugged ground to make it difficult for pursuers. Tailwolves laid false trails with their droppings, trying to confuse the men and send them in the wrong direction. The narrow-eyed native hunters, usually on foot, were good at tracking and excellent marksmen, but their weapons were not as powerful as the wide-eyed southern hunters. Those that travelled the land in noisy machines were an unavoidable phenomenon. This second group, however, were not such good shots, and you could smell them from the far side of a mountain.
On the other hand, avoiding the native trackers was a matter of technique, learned from centuries of such lessons in survival. As soon as one trick had been used a couple of times it had to be discarded because the native men soon devised counter-moves, no matter how ingenious it seemed at first.
That season only one wolf was killed by the guns, an elderly male called Rikkva.
The pack at this time numbered about sixteen, not counting the pups. They studiously avoided areas marked by other packs in their search for new territory. Man is enough of an enemy for a wolf without antagonising his own kind.
The time of the light was drawing in, and darkness drawing out, especially since they had moved farther north than they had been before. Summers are swiftly over in the land of midnight suns. Autumn brought cutting winds and coats thickened in preparation for the coming of the deep cold. The landscape took on a russet hue in forest and on tundra. Skies and surface waters were inseparable in their weak colours. Once more the pack became a tight-knit group, moving and working as one.
During the autumnal time there was a trial of a wolf accused of mysticism and magic. Athaba witnessed this event which took place on a rocky outcrop under the light of a pale moon. The atmosphere as the wolves gathered and took their places, the important megas on the most prominent rock, was deadly serious. The jaundiced light which seemed to trickle through the spruce created a frightening scene to the young pup. The only comforting aspect was the scent of the forest floor on which Athaba and Koska lay, which smelled of ordinary crisp leaves and pine needles.
The wolf who was on trial, an undermega flankwolf by the name of Judra, was escorted from the den and brought to face her inquisitors. The precise nature of her crime was that she had been caught telling stories of an improper nature to Koska, who was too young to understand the seriousness of this transgression.
Meshiska, as headwolf, opened the trial.
‘A charge has been brought here of a particularly offensive nature. One of instilling the young with mysticism and magic, which we are all aware are corrupting influences on a pack. Let us be quite sure what we are talking about here. We are not speaking of religion, which is an established fact. The Far Forests, that land of tranquillity to which we go after death, is held firmly in place by reason not magic. It is entirely reasonable that we go to another land after we leave this one.
‘We are not speaking, either, of the Old Ways, when wolves roamed the earth in great numbers. The stories of our ancestors are historical in nature, not mystical. Whether such things as evil spirits may have inhabited the landscape in those times is not our concern, but the business of our heroic forebears. That such things are part of some traditional stories does not make them acceptable to the enlightened wolves of today.
‘No, what we are talking about here is the invention of new tales containing unacceptable elements. Judra was overheard telling one of our impressionable young that there were such creatures as tree spirits, which came out in half-light and swallowed shadows for food …’
There was a gasp from the onlookers and Koska shifted her weight so that her side was touching Athaba’s. She was shivering.
‘… it must be obvious to all intelligent wolves,’ continued Meshiska, ‘that such things just cannot be. We cannot afford to have to look over our shoulders for things that are not there, when we have to concentrate on the danger that is there. If our attention is taken up with so-called ‘tree spirits’ it will not be on the scent or sound of men, the real danger in our lives.
Midnight's Sun: A Story of Wolves Page 2
