Midnight's Sun: A Story of Wolves

by Garry Kilworth

  ‘Yes. Catching marmots and voles, eating grass. I’m quite well now.’

  This was reluctantly accepted by Urkati and Athaba was allowed take his place within the pack again. However, his standing amongst the wolves was never the same again. No matter what he did, how well he performed his duties, he was always regarded with a certain suspicion, sometimes faint, sometimes strong. If he was spoken of behind his back for any reason, there would be a wrinkling of the nose, as if a slightly unpleasant smell were in the air.

  From that time on it was noticed he took himself off occasionally, to be on his own. This he did when he felt one of his dizzy spells coming on. Though he learned to control these bouts to a certain degree, and the periods between them became longer, they never completely went away. He knew it was essential to keep his problem from public knowledge and did not even trust Ragisthor with the secret. His mother – well, his mother had raised him, but she had raised other pups too. He was not that special to her. In short, he did not trust his mother either.

  Skassi had recently been called a great-great hunter-warrior and was too full of himself at that time to bother with Athaba, though when the subject of Athaba’s initiation ceremony into the circle of megas came up, Skassi was adamant.

  ‘The wolf, I seem to remember, has been under scrutiny not once, but twice since his birth. You will recall the time he went off and carried out strange rituals, the meanings of which are known only to him, at the time of the hunter-warrior Aksishem’s death? Then there was his more recent behaviour. I am reluctant to brand any wolf a mystic without irrefutable evidence, but I am equally reluctant to allow a wolf with such a damning history into the circle of megas …’

  For once, Ragisthor did not defend him. The older wolf was beginning to grow tired – the exhaustion of age – and no doubt he felt Athaba’s position was indefensible. He made no explanations to Athaba, and Athaba asked for none.

  So, Athaba’s initiation day came and went without reference to him becoming a mega. He awoke in the morning (at this time unaware that the decision had been taken to exclude him) full of hope and promise. Once the status of mega had been attained, he felt he could begin to work his way back to his former position once again. There would be a renewed respect for him, so he thought, when he joined the inner circle.

  Gradually, he realised he was being shunned out of embarrassment, even by those who normally would have passed a few words with him. He went to his mother.

  ‘Meshiska,’ he said, ‘is there to be no ceremony?’

  At first his mother would not even look at him.

  ‘Go away,’ she said at last, her eyes full of weary anger. ‘You’ve shamed your father’s memory with your strange antics. I disown you.’

  ‘I have shamed no one,’ said Athaba. ‘I have lived, hunted and fought as well as any wolf – better than most – and have always had the good of the pack at heart. It’s you who should be ashamed, that you turn from your son when he needs support, because there is a wolf with power who is my enemy.’

  Meshiska turned on him fiercely.

  ‘Don’t – speak – to – me – that – way! I can still take you to task and I will, make no mistake!’

  ‘I doubt it mother. I have grown stronger since I have had to rely on myself and not on the pack.’

  He flexed his broad shoulders, which were indeed hard and muscled. Athaba knew he was a match for any wolf in the pack, even Skassi, if it came to one to one combat. He had spent a winter hunting by himself having to go out alone into the teeth of blizzards, while others were resting, knowing he had to prove himself worthy. It had all been futile. No matter what kills he brought back, they were taken from him grudgingly and distributed without a word of praise to him. And, of course, the scrag ends of the carcasses always ended in his belly.

  ‘However,’ he continued, ‘I would no more harm you than I would bite off my own paw.’

  He turned and left her then, knowing that without a ceremony, with its howls and songs, without his vigil on the rock, without the acceptance of the rest of the pack, he could not be called a mega. Equally, since he was now over three years of age, he was no longer an undermega. He was nothing, nothing at all. Soon the youngsters would begin to jibe. Soon the kills he brought in would be spurned, no matter how hungry the pack was.

  He would have been better off dead.

  He carried out the vigil on his own that night, travelling overland to a high-tower rock, and there meditating on his life. He thought about what he had done and what he would do. He considered his faults and made promises to himself to overcome them. When he descended in the morning, he felt spiritually cleansed and ready to withstand the contempt and ridicule of the pack. Life was quite different now, from what it had been just a few months previously, but he knew he had to stop himself from growing bitter. Such feelings eat away at the spirit until there is nothing left inside either.

  He returned to the pack and no one commented on his absence. His mother, when she acknowledged his existence at all, looked at him with accusing eyes. It was as if he, Athaba, had done something terrible to the pack. His unjust punishment became more bearable when Meshiska died a natural death in the middle of the summer. It was at the time of the loose pack, when only the two of them were in the vicinity. She contracted dysentery, became dehydrated, and dried into a husk from which the breath eventually ceased to whisper. At the height of the illness, Athaba tried bringing her mouthfuls of water, but she rejected any help from him. Her eyes had yellowed and had lost their moisture, but they still held her disdain for him. He found her one morning, stiff, her hair coarse and lifeless. Her neck was extended and her mouth partially open, as if reaching for a drink.

  When the pack came together in the autumn, Athaba found that the summer had not been kind to Ragisthor either. The wolf looked old and worn, his eyes pouched and his jaw grizzled. He snapped at others when addressed and no longer seemed inclined to seek Athaba’s company. Athaba sought him out one morning, when the dew was like spittle upon the plants.

  Athaba said, ‘You have rejected me, along with all the others. I thought I could trust you to remain my friend.’

  Ragisthor shook his head.

  ‘These are selfish thoughts, sapling. You judge things always with regard to yourself. It’s not you I’ve drawn away from, but life. I’m in pain. There’s a burning inside me which won’t go away.’

  Immediately, Athaba apologised to the older wolf.

  ‘I’m sorry. You’re right, I was just thinking of myself. I’m alone so much now that I’ve come to believe the only one in the world with troubles is me. Can I help?’

  ‘No one can help. If it goes on, I shall not see the end of the summer.’ He turned his soulful eyes on Athaba. ‘But don’t feel sorry for me, sapling. I’ve had a good life – you too. None of us is guaranteed happiness from the moment we are born. You could have been your brother, killed not long after leaving the womb. Would that have been better?’

  ‘It might have been.’

  ‘No, no. We had some fine times together, little shrub, would you have them be nothing? Just one of these days is surely worth many of these? Yes, these are bad days for you, but who knows, they may change again tomorrow. And you have had the good ones. Skassi can’t take those away from you. You may not believe this but Skassi has always been unhappy, and he always will be. You are much more fortunate than he. You have known many days of joy. He has known few, if any at all. His ambition has burned his spirit to nothing. You must not envy Skassi, rather he should envy you.

  ‘And look at these new experiences you are going through. They are turning you into the strongest wolf I’ve ever seen. Strong in body and limb, strong in spirit. Why, you don’t even need me any longer. Once upon a time you relied on me so much I was afraid to die. Now I’m not.’

  Athaba was alarmed by the tone of Ragisthor’s words.

  ‘You’re not going to die?’ he said. ‘Not so soon after my mother?’

  The eve
ning began to melt into darkness. Shadows chased each other across the land, amongst the grasses. The clouds turned on one another.

  ‘You’re being selfish again,’ murmured Ragisthor. ‘If I want to die, then surely it’s up to me. I think I shall go tonight.’

  But he did not die that night The winter was almost through before he finally sighed his last. In the end, he was whispering blasphemies about the red people that had once covered the land and how they would return and bring the old ways with them. Ragisthor had never known those times, though they were part of wolf history, before the new white hunters, but he spoke as if he had lived then. His eyes burned hotter than fires the night he died and he unnerved the whole pack by going down to a stream and rolling in the ochre clay, so that he looked like something not-wolf. The pack shunned him, when he walked into camp, his coat stiff with shiny river clay and those two eyes burning deep in their sockets. He was like something cast from the earth.

  When Athaba asked him why he had done it, he rambled about always having done the expected, so why not when going out to where no one could touch him, why not do the unexpected?

  ‘You’re a master at that, Athaba. Eccentric wolfery. I always admired that in you. Brave sapling. I can only find the courage in death. Look at them!’ he nodded contemptuously to where the others were cowering, each of them hoping one would come forward and denounce this strange behaviour. ‘Creatures of correctness. How I despise them. Don’t judge all packs by this one, sapling. There are those more enlightened. GRHAAAAAA!’ he yelled, at the eyes in front of him. The he sighed and rolled over.

  Athaba howled over his body the whole night. In the morning Skassi came and told him to leave the corpse alone. It was a mistake on the part of the new headwolf. The pressure in Athaba’s chest had reached the point of explosion. Athaba was just looking for someone on whom to vent all that tightly contained emotion. Skassi was the perfect target.

  ‘Make me!’ he said.

  Skassi had left himself no choice. He attacked, probably thinking that Athaba would humble himself, as he had always done in the past. Athaba did no such thing. He met the attack with such ferocity that the fear immediately sprang to Skassi’s features. In the first hit their leaping bodies struck each other in mid air and they cracked skulls. Both wolves fell to the ground dazed.

  Skassi was first on his feet, a trickle of blood finding a pathway down his brow and across his eye. He blinked away the blood and then made a rush for Athaba who was now struggling to his feet. A powerful body-slam sent Athaba spinning into a tree, which knocked the wind out of his lungs. He knew he was in trouble and somehow had to give himself a few seconds respite. He rolled down a slope and lay still at the bottom, his lungs heaving.

  Skassi started down the incline, obviously still a little dizzy from the clash of heads himself. Once, he tripped and staggered, but quickly found his feet again.

  By the time he reached the bottom of the slope, Athaba was a little recovered and got up to face his opponent.

  ‘You piece of meat,’ snarled Skassi, ‘you’ve gone too far this time. I’m going to tear your hide open.’

  Some of the rest of the pack had been alerted to the fight and were standing, watching, from the top of the incline. Athaba could sense their hostility towards him. To them he was a wolf who did strange things, who had fits and was not to be trusted in times of emergency. Skassi, on the other hand, was headwolf of the moment. There was little doubt that the majority of the pack were rooting for Skassi,, whatever they thought of him personally.

  ‘Not this time,’ replied Athaba with the same determination his dead sister Tesha might have shown in the circumstances, ‘not in front of those miserable wretches up there. This is my time.’

  And with that he flung himself at Skassi, gripping the headwolf by the ruff and spinning him round. He let go and watched as Skassi lost his footing and struck a half-buried rock. Skassi was on his feet again in an instant and the pair of them began circling one another, looking for an opening. Twice Skassi leapt forwards, only to find his jaws clashing on air. Once Athaba went for the flank but came away with only fur in his mouth.

  Finally, they both went in together again, but this time two pairs of scissor jaws locked on each other, like forked sticks rammed together. Both wolves had a grip of the soft sides of his opponent’s mouth. Athaba felt intense pain flooding from his face: he knew if he relaxed his grip Skassi would crack the joints of his jaws and cripple him. Instead, he attempted to force his adversary down to his knees and hopefully on to his back.

  Skassi seemed equally determined that he should not be the one to go down. They were like a couple of wild bulls, locked together, of equal strength. They pushed against one another, their teeth deep into flesh, and swayed back and forth.

  Then suddenly, Skassi’s legs went from under him. He went sliding backwards over the forest floor, his legs skittering, trying to get a grip on the loose pine needles. Athaba then transferred his grip to the other wolf’s throat and Skassi’s eyes opened wide, knowing that he was a moment away from death.

  At that point a mega broke from the group of spectators and shoulder-slammed Athaba away from his kill. Exhausted, Athaba rolled away. Other megas came for him, driving him away from their headwolf. They called Athaba mad. They said he was rabid, out of his mind, not fit to live with other wolves.

  Skassi, limping and dropping blood onto the snow, called:

  ‘You are utlah! Outcast. Outlaw.’

  Athaba knew then that he could never go back to the pack. He was banished, without friends or family, and could be torn to pieces by his former kin if he even tried. A horror settled on his heart. This was worse than death, to be cast out. From this point on he would have to walk alone.

  He raved at his persecutors, running at them, attempting to breach their lines. They stood fast against him, their eyes hard, and a panic took hold of Athaba. He ran off, into the forest, and kept going until his legs gave out and he fell exhausted to the ground. He felt wretched and spiritually disabled. A great misery was in him and he was hollow. When he had regained his breath he just lay there and howled and howled until his throat was sore and his voice was hoarse. None of this did him any good at all. It did not heal his spirit, nor did it mend his hurt. He remained an empty thing, a walking pelt, a bitter soulless being.

  From that time on Athaba followed behind the pack with the ravens. He ate carrion with the black birds and the coyotes. He was truly alone in the world, having no pack. The young wolves taunted him from the safety of the ridges, as if he were an old ragged musk ox, silly in his brain. They called him weakling and coward. He could have broken their puppy necks with one snap of his jaws, but he took their jeers, knowing that the young will always find a scapegoat for their own fears. If it had not been him, it would have been one of themselves, and he did not care any longer.

  The ravens and coyotes treated him warily, with a kind of respect. They could see he was no broken-down reprobate or a wolf whose brain had addled. They were aware of his strength.

  ‘Utlah,’ the ravens said, ‘whaat you do? Why you by utlah You keel him someone? Eh?’

  He was a king amongst the scavengers, a chief among bone-pickers, and he was answerable only to himself. He had the satisfaction of knowing that with his expulsion from the pack had come the downfall of Skassi. Athaba had lost his place with the pack, but Skassi had lost his status.

  Skassi’s wounds, first by the bear and then by Athaba, had reduced his skills as a hunter. His reactions were far from sharp and there was sometimes a momentary delay when going in for the kill. The bear and Athaba had created a psychological problem for Skassi which muted his zeal. He no longer threw himself vigorously into a situation. He paused, just a moment, assessing things first. That moment was enough to take away his edge over other ambitious wolves.

  And of course, he had lost in single combat. No wolf’s reputation remains undamaged after being beaten by another wolf in a one-to-one fight. He had lost the re
spect he needed to remain as headwolf hunter-warrior. He retained, above all, a cold hatred towards the wolf that had brought him down. The only thing that stopped him from going out and killing Athaba, as that outcast slept, was the fact that he knew banishment was a worse punishment than death.

  Finding a new position in the pack was not as easy as Skassi thought it would be. There were only so many places, for so many wolves, and they all had their ambitions. It was not a case of naturally slotting into the position vacated by the new headwolf, because others had been waiting for that opening too, and the competition was fierce. There were other aspects, which contributed to his problems of finding a new position. When a headwolf lost his status, as dramatically as Skassi had done, he or she automatically lost a great deal of face. When a headwolf fell, enemies suddenly emerged from the shadows, and took their small vengeances. These were, of course, wolves who had at some time or another stepped out of line and had had to be reprimanded or punished by the headwolf Skassi. Some felt they had been victims of injustice. There were grudges to contend with, and petty jealousies that could now be voiced.

  Thus, Skassi found himself with quite a battle on his hands, simply to keep from being pushed back as far as tailwolf. One night, as he was licking his paws and reflecting on his lot, he thought how Athaba would have gloried a little in the results of his single combat. Not only had he beaten Skassi in a one-to-one, but his victory had shattered Skassi’s life.

  Skassi, through straightforward determination, managed to hold on to the status of flankwolf. In time he hoped to work his way back to a shoulderwolf position (though not the top one, of course) and pursued these ends. He was diligent in his duties, though he had lost a lot of his former flair for insider politics, and fiercely pro-pack. When his turn came round to lead the Howling, he always chose the most traditional of songs and grew dangerously close to becoming maudlin. He was indeed once accused of mawkishness. He responded to the charge with such formal dignity that the council of megas who had called him to task almost ended up praising his patriotism.