At the end of many nights of turning the problem over in his mind and discarding that which had been attempted and that which would not work, he decided to go out into the world and seek advice from other creatures.
Ranagana had come to this conclusion: that not all men wanted to kill wolves for the same reasons. That various groups of humans each had different reasons for wanting wolves dead.
There were those who hunted wolves for their pelts. These were a deadly breed of man but were not mass murderers. In the normal course of events, wolves would not be too concerned at having such an enemy. Trappers were not intent on genocide, for that would rob them of future livelihood. If there were only trappers in the world of humans, the wolf would be in no worse a position than any ordinary prey.
There were those humans who were not concerned about wolves who lived out in the wild and killed them only when they encroached on human settlements. These, too, were not intent on massacre, only on protecting themselves and their property.
Finally, there were those who wanted to exterminate the whole wolf race because they feared and hated the wolf.
This last group were the most dangerous and responsible for the terrible slaughter that swept like a swath over the landscape. Dogs had told Ranagana that certain humans wanted to annihilate wolves because of the way wolves hunted and killed.
‘They’re horrified at the way you tear out the throat of your quarry. They’re appalled at the savagery they witness when you hunt.’
The wolves were at a loss to understand this.
‘It’s the way we were made,’ they replied. ‘Other creatures do the same and they’re not persecuted the way we are. Look at the big cats! What do they do that’s so different from us? What about humans themselves? They even skin their kills.’
‘Well,’ said the dogs, ‘unfortunately you’re not as endearing as a leopard, nor as majestic as a panther. You look savage all the time, whereas a big cat can hide its claws in velvet and purr and look as though it wouldn’t harm a butterfly. Humans will excuse their own actions – they don’t even consider them because they’re for the good of the human race which they believe is god-like and does not have to account for its actions. So, you won’t get anywhere by comparing your own actions with theirs. Even the fox can get away with more than you because it does it out of sight of the humans. If foxes could just leave livestock alone, they might not be bothered at all. No, I’m afraid there’s no real logic behind human hate of wolves, any more than there is behind their fear of spiders. A tiny little creature which a human could squash between finger and thumb, yet they go in terror of it. Fear of the spider, hate for the wolf. These are inexplicable prejudices which will never be conquered.’
Ranagana did not believe this. He felt if wolves could manage to become remorseful about their way of hunting, they might become more acceptable to humans. It was certain they could not change their ways, for they had to eat or die, but they could change their attitudes and show the humans that they, too, like men themselves, thought hunting and killing an unfortunate necessity, a disgusting business to be done behind closed doors.
Ranagana had heard of a weasel, another creature despised by men, who had come to the same conclusion and had undergone a change in attitude towards hunting and killing its prey. He went to see this weasel, to discover whether wolves could undergo the same change, the same process. This is what he heard.
‘Most humans think I’m bigger than I am, but I’m not. I’m little, slim and swift. There is much blood in my history: we are, after all, the children of Mogascunga, the forest god. He picked me as the king of the weasels and gave me the task of saving us from the dark two-legged menace that is now abroad in our world.
‘So I began to meditate on all those activities which disgust our enemy so much. I began telling myself that it was wrong to like the taste of blood – weasels have this thing about blood – even though blood must be shed to get meat. I began to convince myself that I needed to atone in some way, for my behaviour, though it is natural enough for a weasel to love the taste of blood. I began to tell myself that it was an unnatural desire, that I was in some way a freak of nature with inherent evil characteristics which had to be scourged.
‘I used to lie awake in the grass, under the moon, defying the owl. Around me the night was a turmoil of fear and dread, whispers and secrets and hidden tremblings. There were hard, sharp eyes out there. Claws and teeth, fangs and talons. A swirling blackness, a storm of dark red passion. There were snouts out there, catching the scent of prey. There were ears out there, listening for the rustling of quarry. Smells came to my nostrils, of leaf and bark, of sap and still water, blade, stone, clay, fur, feather and flesh, of bracken and gorse and fungi, of warm warm blood.
‘As I lay there, my mind was in the same tumult as the night around me. I smelt the blood and my senses screamed with delight. I needed it. I needed it. Yet, I had developed this sense of guilt, I had to suffer this terrible remorse. “Those poor creatures.” I would think to myself, “I drink them dry and leave them like husks to shrink, wither, and blow away. I am a demon, but a demon with a conscience.” Can you imagine such a mind, that craves the red viscous river flowing through tthe veins of his victims, yet once the deed has been done, the craving satisfied, the guilt flooding in? Sometimes I think I shall go insane. There is a worm that burrows through a weasel’s ear and into his brain. Creatures who suffer from this worm go blind and mad. I have the same madness, and my lunacy comes not from a real parasite, but from that worm called conscience. Some god somewhere has cursed me with this unreasonable imagination. Since I have indoctrinated myself with man’s feelings on the subject of blood, I am able to change places with my victims and experience their feelings on being confronted by a creature like myself.
‘Yet, the next time the bloodlust is high again, I fail to heed the voices. I push my conscience to the pit of my brain and go forth with needle-sharp fangs, to prick their pulsing arteries.
‘Humans do not like me. I sense their revulsion very strongly. Most of them have never seen a weasel, but still they have this deep-seated loathing for me and my kind. They find me exotic but I am something to be disdained. Humans do not like creatures with sharp teeth and a heady desire for blood. They believe me to be a mammal almost the size of a stoat, but I am quite small and neat. A stoat is huge in comparison. I have tiny bright eyes. I have tiny white teeth. I can stand on my hindlegs and my willowy dancing has mesmerised a thousand rabbits. I have heard their screams close to my ears. I have pierced their jugulars. My soul is stained with dark patches. My soul is a leaf with cankerous blotches.
‘There is much blood in my history, which was why I was chosen by Mogascunga.
‘Mogascunga is a weasel-god. He is the rot that creeps over the forest floor, a dark presence in places of shadow, a stagnant pool. You can touch and see Mogascunga, and you can hear him, but most of all, you can smell him. Have you seen a tree fungus grow black and rotten on the bark? That is Mogascunga. Have you felt the slime that grows at the edge of still dull water? Have you heard a scraping or slithering near your hidy hole on moonless nights. These are Mogascunga. Have you run from a place where alders have locked into each other and odours of death hang from their crippled branches, choking the glade? This, too, is Mogascunga. Not a pleasant god to have, but one does not choose one’s gods.
‘So, I am a weasel with a conscience and a revolting god.’
Ranagana, on hearing this story, went sadly back to his cave. It seemed it was possible to develop a conscience regarding natural ways, but in order to do so you had to go mad, lose all reason. And in the end, would men respect you for it? No. They still despised the weasel, even though he had given away his mind in order to reach a compromise. They still despised the weasel, though they knew nothing about him, not even his size.
There was no answer to man’s hatred.
Chapter Eighteen
Autumn on the tundra is a sight which burns itself into the br
ain: the hot reds of the fireweed blaze across flatlands that seem only a salmon’s leap from infinite. The scene has a calming effect and has the power to promote patience. Apart from the migrating birds, it is a time of stillness and tranquillity. It is a short season that, contrarily, appears to be eternal: as if it is and always has been forever autumn.
The wolfman had had a recurrence of his fever and once again the wolf had stayed by him. It was true that while the human thrashed and moaned, Athaba kept his distance. This kind of behaviour was both distressing and worrying. Once a silence had descended upon the sick wolfman, then Athaba crept back to his side and licked his brow. Kobnama was hot and dry. Athaba realised it was necessary that the sick creature be given water if he was ever going to recover.
A braided river cut through the ground not far from where Koonama lay. There was no way the wolf could get the water to the wolfman, so he dragged the wolfman to the water. When Koonama’s head was close to the rushing torrent, he must have picked up the sound of the flow, or the smell of the water, for he stirred himself long enough to drink. Athaba began a vigil by his resting place. There was the thought that the human might starve to death, so Athaba regurgitated food for Koonama, the way he used to do for the pups of the pack.
Such ministration did not go unrewarded. On an evening when pastel colours covered the sky, and northern lights fell like curtains, forming a backdrop, the wolfman rose to his feet. He had been getting steadily better, steadily stronger, and was now ready to walk again. Athaba had decided that if Koonama was to survive the coming winter, they had to get down to the tree line, where the game was more plentiful. There were wild sheep to the south, and goats. There were also plenty of bears and humans.
Splashing over a shallow lake one day they came across another wolf. By the look of him, he was an utlah with no pack behind him. He stopped some distance away from the two and when he began to walk again, he veered from his original path, as if to avoid them. Athaba went out to intercept him, wanting some information on the path ahead. The other wolf seemed uncertain but as Athaba got closer it slowed its pace. They stopped some ten lengths from each other.
‘Where are you going?’ asked Athaba.
The grey wolf rumbled in the back of this throat, then said, ‘Never mind where I’m going. What are you doing with a human?’
Athaba glanced over his shoulder to where his pack was waiting patiently, standing in the shining waters, looking lean and lost.
‘Human? Oh, him? I’d forgotten … he’s part of my pack. I’m travelling across country looking for the other part. I’m headwolf of … well, never mind.’
‘But a human. Say, he’s not one of those creatures raised by us, is he? You hear about these things – a she-wolf finding a human child and rearing it with her pups.’ The stranger shook his head gravely. ‘It never works, you know. They always revert.’
‘No,’ replied Athaba, ‘you’ve got it all wrong. You see, he originally captured me, put me in this prison-cage, but the vehicle he was carrying me in went wrong. I don’t know what happened, but we found ourselves stranded on the tundra. Now I’m trying to get home.’
The other wolf came closer now. His fears of the human seemed to have been stifled by Athaba’s explanation, or perhaps it was just a case of curiosity? He told Athaba that his name was Moolah.
‘I thought you were a dog at first – a man and his dog. That’s what worried me. You don’t often see a man and his wolf, if you see what I mean. No, no, don’t get me wrong, I know you’re not his wolf. From the sound of it, he’s your man. What I don’t understand is, why you’re travelling with him? I mean, you say he’s part of your pack, so you’ve taken responsibility for him, but does he pull his weight in the hunt? Where do you put him? Shoulder? Flank? Tailwolf, perhaps? I’m not trying to be sarcastic, you understand, I’m just curious. I mean, if a wolf doesn’t come up to scratch, he’s out, or she’s out, depending on the gender, right? Out. Full stop.’
Moolah paused to scratch himself behind the ear.
Athaba said, ‘So you’ve been banished from your pack?’
Moolah’s head came up quickly.
‘What? What’s that? Why do you say that? Who told you lies like that? What did I say? What? Don’t look at me like that. I don’t need your pity. I never wanted to be in the pack in the first place. I was always different from the others. They were jealous of me, that was clear enough. When you have talents out of the ordinary, you’re bound to make enemies. So I was a little vague about hunting! Hunting’s not the be all and end all of everything, is it? Some of us can hunt, some of us are better at other things, like story-telling. That was my job, only – only –’
‘Only what?’ encouraged Athaba, gently.
The other wolf looked thoroughly miserable.
‘Only I was too good at it, see? I told all the old tales, all the traditional stories, but I have this imagination see. I – I embellish a little, pepper the story with my own little additions, make it more exciting, more colourful …’ He stopped and blinked, and looked away to where Koonama was still waiting.
‘And in the end,’ said Athaba, ’you made up new stories.’
Again, the head jerked up and round.
‘Eh? What are you, some kind of sorcerer? How do you know all this? You’ve met my pack, haven’t you? You’ve been talking to owls and weasels. Who’s been spreading lies about me?’
‘I understand,’ said Athaba. ‘I really do understand. I was an outcast too, an utlah. They used to call me the raven-wolf, because I ate with the feathered parasites that followed behind the pack. But I came out of it. I have my own pack now.’
‘What, that?’ said Moolah, nodding contemptuously towards Koonama, who was now stamping his feet. He looked a strange sight, with his musk-ox cloak hanging from his skinny shoulders; his pale face and dark-ringed eyes; his legs bare from knees, covered in red swollen bites.
‘Koonama is a good hunter, in his own way, which you are not,’ said Athaba, ‘by your own admission. So don’t go spitting on something you don’t know anything about. Besides, he’s not the whole of my pack. I have a mate and six pups, too, when I can find them.’
‘Name? The human has a name? Isn’t that overdoing it a little? Humans don’t have names. That’s silly. You’ll be talking to him next.’
Something, a hunger for social contact, stirred within Athaba. He had not realised how much he missed discussion, how much he yearned for a conversation.
‘Listen, evening’s coming on,’ he said. ‘Why don’t you spend the night with us? Talk a little. I haven’t talked to anyone in such a long time. Yes, I speak to Koonama, but of course I don’t get any sense out of him. He understands one or two commands, but it’s just the tone of the word he knows. What do you say?’
Moolah looked at Koonama dubiously.
‘I don’t know – I mean, he’s still a human, no matter how much you trot around that fact. I’m a firm believer in the saying “you can tame a volcano more easily than a human”. Even dogs tell you, you can’t trust humans in general. Oh, they all say they know and admire individuals amongst them, but,’ he nodded in a sage manner, ‘in general they’re a bunch of crazy killers. They’ll kill anything, whether they’re hungry or not, whether they can even eat the prey, or not. It doesn’t seem to matter to them. Something on four legs? BANG. Kill it. Then decide what to do with it afterwards. I mean, they can always throw it to the ravens and the coyotes, if they find it isn’t of any use to them, can’t they?’ Athaba found his sarcasm entertaining and again he pressed the other wolf to keep them company for the night.
Moolah studied Koonama. ‘Are you sure he won’t go for me? Has he got a gun under that ox-skin?’
‘Can you smell a gun?’
Moolah shook his head.
‘Well, I was never very good at that sort of thing. It’s why I’m not good at hunting, you see. I don’t know what people mean by smell. I know what it’s supposed to mean, I think, but …’ he shrugged.
Athaba was suddenly consumed with pity for the other wolf. For Moolah to have survived to adulthood must have taken enormous reserves of mental strength and initiative. Athaba could not imagine how one could manage without the most important of the senses. To be blind, yes, or even deaf – but not to scent the world? Why, it was impossible to form a picture of the landscape without using one’s nose. Athaba would not know which way to turn without his ability to gather information about the landscape and its creatures through his sense of smell. On those days in his life when he had been ill and his nose had been dry or blocked, he had been so miserable and helpless he had been close to despair.
‘Come on. You must need a good talk, too,’ he urged.
Moolah shrugged.
‘Oh, all right, if you insist. Have you got any food?’
‘My wolfman’s carrying two hares.’
‘Wolfman, eh? Koonama, the wolfman? Bizarre, very bizarre. Can you get him to bark for me?’ Moolah, fell in beside Athaba, and they trotted to where Koonama was standing. ‘Will he yap if I ask him to?’
‘No, but his howls are coming along. I’ll show you later. In the meantime, let’s find somewhere to stay for the night. Where’s your pack, by the way?’
‘Lost,’ said Moolah, miserably. ‘I lost the spoor one day when they were crossing an ice field. Never picked it up again, even though I circled and circled.’
‘Of course,’ said Athaba, remembering that this wolf did not follow by scent. ‘Well, I found I was better off without my lot, even though it was a wrench at first. Bit like being born again, isn’t it, except that there’s no pack around to help you grow up?’
‘You’re so right,’ replied Moolah, excitedly.
Midnight's Sun: A Story of Wolves Page 21
