Midnight's Sun: A Story of Wolves

by Garry Kilworth

  Athaba’s observations under the cold light of an ice moon, under the single-eye stare of the dog star, led him to believe that Ulaala was not with the pack. He caught no scent of her (a scent he would know instantly), no sound or sight. All he saw were pack wolves moving in and out of the cave, going to or returning from, the hunt.

  But he had to be sure. He could not leave the place without first being absolutely certain that she was not of their number. It was possible, of course, that she was sick and remained in the cave. He tried to decide whether any of the pups might be his, but he had been away so long, his offspring would have grown considerably, developed different scents.

  He lay for days without food, watching the cave, using the wind to lift the pack scents to his nostrils, and finally deciding which of the wolves below he was going to follow and confront. This was his plan, to choose a victim, track it and then corner it in order-to obtain some information.

  One wolf in particular looked something of an outsider. She was scruffy and had one ear bitten in half. Her dealings with her contemporaries almost always led to a quick snapping and snarling contest, before one of them went away submissively. The grey she-wolf had a dark streak above her right eye that was probably a birthmark. The guard hairs beneath her body almost dragged on the ground. Athaba could not decide whether she was submissive or vicious, or both, but once he had decided on her, there was no going back.

  He studied her movements, noting when she left the cave for water, or for hunting, and whether anyone went with her. This was the main reason for choosing Birthmark. She was hardly ever accompanied. For some reason none of the other wolves liked going on hunts with her. When he was satisfied that he had all the necessary information on her movements, Athaba took to the snows and found himself food, digging up lemmings and voles.

  Once he had fed and watered himself sufficiently, he went back to the ridge and watched for Birthmark to leave the cave. She did so that night, under a moon the colour of coagulated blood, crossing the rugged white landscape going east.

  Athaba followed her.

  Birthmark’s spoor in the day’s fresh snow led between two rock overhangs well out of sight, smell and sound of the den. Beyond this gateway was a canyon, walled on three sides. Athaba entered cautiously, thinking that this was an excellent place to trap his victim and force her to tell him all she knew about Ulaala. When he slipped through the gap, he found to his astonishment that Birthmark’s tracks ceased just inside the canyon. But her odour was there. He looked up into the darkness. He couldn’t think where she had gone, unless she had sprouted wings and flown to the moon. Athaba stood there, perplexed for a moment, his eyes scanning the canyon, her scent filling his nostrils. Where was she? Was she invisible? Was she hanging from the nose of the night by a hair-thread? The whole situation was so uncanny it made the hairs on his ruff stand out. What should he do? Call her? Where would she answer from?

  ‘Why are you following me, rot your nostrils?’

  The voice made him start. It came from somewhere behind and above him. He whirled, to find her on a ledge just inside the gap, where she had obviously leaped on entering. She looked down on him with contempt.

  ‘I asked you a question, why are you following me? You’ve been watching our pack. The others couldn’t understand where the whiffs of wolf-stink were coming from, but I marked you soon enough, up on that ridge.’

  Who was following whom?

  ‘Why didn’t you give my position away?’

  Again that look of contempt.

  ‘Tell them anything? I’d rather puke on their pups. I’d rather pee in the drinking water. Why should I tell that bunch of wormbrains anything? What would they do with it? I’ll tell you. They’d run around in circles sniffing their droppings and wailing, “What shall we do? Oh, what shall we doooooo?” From my days as a pup, I’ve heard the same song whenever a decision had to be made. They make me vomit, those sanctimonious turds. “For the good of the pack,” they whinge.’ She snorted. ‘For the good of the pack, my rear end. Since I was a yearling I decided to have nothing more to do with them. I hunt when I feel like it, for myself and nobody else, and if they get stuck with a rogue moose, they get no help from me. I wouldn’t give them the tics out of my left ear. And as for mating,’ she shuddered, ‘ I wouldn’t touch one of them with your scraggy haunches, let alone mine.’

  Whereupon, she dropped off the ledge and gave him a heavy body-slam, sending him skidding across the snow.

  ‘Come on, why the tracking? I could bleed to death from a cut on the tongue waiting for you to answer. Swallowed it? Cough it up with your liver, quick, or I’ll tear your snout off.’

  Athaba stared at this fascinating creature with her half-an-ear and black birthmark on her scruffy brow. Why did he have to pick one like this? She was clearly a little crazy, but they obviously hadn’t got the courage, or perhaps the ounce, to order her from the pack. To say she was a non-conformist would be to understate the case. She was clearly so much an individualist she put all other rebels, including Athaba, in the shade. In his own pack she would have been torn to pieces before she was six weeks old and the bits scattered over the widest stretch of tundra the pack could find.

  ‘Listen,’ he said, squaring his shoulders and gathering as much dominance as he could muster, ‘you’d better be careful. I’ve killed one of your pack already. I want some information …’

  ‘Killed?’ she sneered.

  ‘At the end of last winter.’ It wasn’t an act he was particularly proud of, but he needed to get the upper hand in this confrontation, without too much fuss. ‘Ulaala …’

  ‘Oh, that was you, was it? Ran away with bitch-pretty, eh? Listen, puppy-fat,’ she gave him another body-slam which almost bowled him over, despite her skinny torso, her lack of weight. ‘I could have killed that cottonball by blowing on him. He was about as tough as a sandpiper’s egg. Understand me? You’re not talking to some rat-killer now, rangy, you’re talking to me, Tolga, and this bitch-nasty will tear your eyes out and spit them down your throat. Got it?’

  Suddenly, he had had enough. He ran at her and body-slammed her until she spun off her feet. Then he grabbed her by the throat-ruff and dragged her in a circle around the canyon, finally hurling her bodily along a slide of ice, so that she turned circles three times before coming to rest.

  She climbed groggily to her feet.

  ‘So you want to fight?’ she slurred.

  He charged her again, body-slamming her on to her back, and then stood four-square over her, barring his teeth just above her throat.

  ‘Just let me …’ she panted, struggling to get to her feet. He kept her there with his weight on her. Non-conformist? She disobeyed all the rules of wolf-fighting. Once an opponent had you on the ground with his teeth at your throat, you were supposed to submit – or die. He didn’t want to kill her. That wasn’t at all necessary. All he wanted was for her to agree that he was the dominant animal.

  ‘If I could just …’ she wriggled and wormed, trying to get into a position to bite him.

  ‘LOOK!’ he roared. ‘KEEP STILL. What do you think you’re playing at? I could have killed you half a dozen times. You’ve lost– don’t you understand? There’s no way you can win now. Just accept that fact, like any wolf would.’

  ‘Never,’ she panted. ‘I’m not any wolf. I’m Tolga, I’d rather die than submit.’

  One of those, he thought wearily. One of those creatures that actually meant what they said. She would die, rather than submit. What was he going to do?

  In the end, he stepped away from her, letting her up.

  She climbed to her feet, obviously still a little winded.

  ‘Why did you do that?’

  ‘What?’ he thought she meant why had he attacked her.

  ‘Let me up? Why didn’t you rip my heart out. I would’ve done if it was you on the ground.’

  ‘I don’t want to kill anyone. I just need some information. All I want to know is if Ulaala has been back he
re.’

  Tolga sneered again.

  ‘Run away, has she? Couldn’t hold her, eh? What’s the matter with you? Not passionate enough for her?’

  Athaba kept his patience with difficulty.

  ‘Nothing like that. I was captured just after … just after last spring. By humans. I escaped but had a long walk back to my home country. When I arrived she was gone. She probably thinks I’m dead. Now I’m trying to find her.’

  ‘Why bother? Plenty more insipid females in our pack. Kill another mega male and take his mate. You could make a hobby of it, attacking and killing males and running off with their mates. Sounds like fun. I might even give you some help. I could spy for you. Find out which females are most attached to their males, and you could go for them. No point in inflicting pain unless you do it properly, is there? Why, I could …’

  ‘I just want to know if you’ve seen Ulaala.’

  ‘Haven’t seen, smelled or licked her rea…’

  ‘That’s all I wanted to know.’

  He turned to leave, but she called him back.

  ‘Look, I like you. You’ve got the makings of a good outcast.’ ‘I was an outcast, still am. I ate with the ravens and ran with the coyotes.’

  ‘So. Just as I thought. A wolf of character. I knew there was something about you. A mange on strong dependable wolves who follow the rules, give me a ruffian like you any time. Listen, a raven told me a story, that some of the utlahs are running with the hybrid swarms in the south. Maybe the insipid little bitch-pretty has gone down there?’

  Athaba was despondent at this news. He seemed to have been walking forever. Perhaps his whole life was going to be one long walk, from day to day, from month to month, from season to season? It was a daunting prospect. Nevertheless, he rallied enough to complain.

  ‘Why do you keep calling Ulaala “insipid”? She has plenty of fire – more than most wolves. She’s certainly not insipid.’

  Tolga said, ‘Next to me, she is.’

  ‘A fully grown rabid black bear would be insipid next to you.’

  This remark was taken as a compliment, for Tolga gave him a nudge with her shoulder.

  ‘Don’t flirt with me, you fellow,’ she murmured.

  ‘I – I won’t. Listen, something has been intriguing me about you since I first saw you. That mark above your eye – were you born with it? Or is it a scar of some kind?’

  ‘Are you trying to mock me?’ she said, her tone suddenly very savage again.

  ‘No. Not at all. I was just interested.’

  She stared at him for some time, then grunted.

  ‘To tell you the truth, I’m a little sensitive about it. It ruins my good looks. I’m inclined to bite the ears off any scabby creature that mentions it. I got it when I was a pup. Some puffy-faced hunter found the den – not really hunters, they just had guns – they stank of fermented berries and couldn’t walk straight – the pack was loose – it was summer – we were alone with my mother. They shot her as she tried to protect us, then they began digging us out. They took my brothers and used them as target practice, pushing them on to sharp stakes in the ground and then shooting them to pieces. When they picked me up, I bit off the end of a scurvy finger and there was a lot of screaming and shouting and blood dripping on my coat. Finally – may their kidneys dry up like old nuts – they took me to their fire. Just as they were about to push the end of a red-hot spike into my eye, my father came out of the darkness and savaged the arm of the man that held me.

  ‘So, he missed with his brand, but caught me above the eye, burning a wound there, may his bladder swell and burst in his gut. As you can see, it’s never gone away and I have to put up with a lot of mockery.’

  ‘You escaped! That’s incredible. And your father too?’

  ‘Yes, he got away that time. But they came back in their dozens and hunted us down relentlessly. They got my father in the end. You can’t wound a human and get away with it. The only wolf who can do that is Skassi. Have you heard of him?’ Her eyes shone. ‘You must have heard of him. Skassi and his pack of renegades? Now there’s a wolf I admire – for leading our kind against the men. They’ve looked under every stone in the land and still they haven’t caught him. They come in their hundreds, on foot, in vehicles, in sky machines. You must have heard seen? When you go south, you’d better steer clear of the eastern range. That’s where Skassi is, I believe, up in the mountains. Every day new wolves join them. Probably go myself soon …’

  Thanks for the warning, but I already know about Skassi. In fact, I think he’s an old rival of mine, from my former pack. We fought once.’

  ‘And that’s when you were cast out?’

  ‘Yes, but not because of the fight. There were other reasons.’

  ‘And Skassi let you go, without killing you?’

  Athaba saw that a misunderstanding had crept into their conversation, and though he was a modest wolf, he felt he ought to put it right.

  ‘Just a moment, Skassi didn’t beat me – I thrashed him. It was me that walked away. I wasn’t chased, not by him. It took the other members of his group to do that.’

  Tolga looked at him askance.

  ‘You, beat Skassi?’

  ‘I said so.’

  She yawned in his face.

  ‘Well, I’m afraid, my prince of story-tellers, that’s a bit too looooooong to accept, that one. Let me tell you, I have seen Skassi, which I’m sure you will too, one day. Skassi is the most magnificent wolf that walked the earth. He’s a fighter beyond comparison, without parallel. No one has ever beaten Skassi. Do you think he’s the leader of fifty hard, mean renegades for nothing? You ball of cottongrass fluff, Skassi’s body is marble and his soul granite. He’s been hit by bullets on three separate occasions, and he just ignores the wounds. They heal over. He’s invincible.’

  ‘He’s certainly very lucky. He and I are the only survivors from our old pack.’

  She yawned again.

  ‘Was that before, or after you, what was it? “thrashed” him?’

  ‘After.’

  ‘Sure,’ she sneered. ‘The day it rained death from the sky machine, you …’

  ‘I was the raven-wolf, following a long way behind the pack.’

  Her jaw suddenly dropped open. When she finally did speak, it was in a tone of awe mixed with uncertainty, as if she couldn’t be quite sure whether to throw herself at his feet and praise his name, or dismiss him as a liar.

  ‘You – are – Athaba?’

  This took him aback a little. She knew his name. When he had been in this area before, he had had no name. He had been the Outcast. Only his scent was known to Ulaala’s pack.

  Tolga continued, still in the same cautious tone.

  ‘Skassi tells – tells that you went over the edge of a cliff. That you could not have survived such a fall.’

  ‘Here I am, with the luck of dogs. I have been as fortunate as he, surviving as many encounters with men as he has. I’ve never been shot, and I don’t wish to be, but I’ve been in their hands and had a human shoulderwolf for a time …’ he stopped as he realised he was bragging now.

  Tolga’s mouth hung open again, but after a few moments she closed it with a snap, as if trapping a lone mosquito.

  ‘Now I do know you’re lying. A human wolf? Listen, I don’t know what your name is, herring-head, but it isn’t Athaba. Skassi speaks of this Athaba with great respect. They once ran together until circumstances drove them apart. He often calls for the spirit of this Athaba, to assist him in the fight against men. “Athaba,” he says, “had the heart of a bear.” You? You look as though you’ve got the heart of a cabbage. Athaba wouldn’t go chasing over the countryside looking for a female, for a start. Not the Athaba Skassi speaks of. You demean him with your silly lies. You demean my hero Skassi. We have a great leader at last – not since Shesta, the warrior-priestess who killed Skellion Broadjaw, has there been such a hero amongst us. Not since the Firstdark battles on the southern plains has there been a creatu
re with Skassi’s strength, his fortitude, his courage.’

  ‘Let me tell you something, Tolga, before we part for good. There is more to fortitude than fighting, there is more to courage than killing. Skassi has courage and fortitude, and strength too, but they’re misdirected and certainly, from the way you’re talking, overrated. There’s nothing supernatural about Skassi. In fact he’s more down to earth than I am. You talk as if he’s on some holy mission from … from some god of the mountains, some fox-deity that has finally turned to unbelieving wolves to carry out his bidding. Skassi will get a lot of canids slaughtered for nothing: for a revenge that will neither satisfy nor heal. I hate the men who slaughtered our pack, too. They’re a poison in my blood. But they are gone, we’ll never find them. They are scentless. They are lost to us. All Skassi will succeed in doing is stirring up fury amongst the hunters, and they won’t be satisfied until every wolf is an empty pelt stretched between drying poles.’

  ‘You still say you are Athaba?’

  ‘I don’t have to prove that to anyone,’ said Athaba, and he rose and walked from the ridge, down through the snows, heading south. On either side of him the white walls of the hills protected him from the wind. When he was quite a way from Tolga’s den, he heard a howl.

  He turned. She was standing on a tall rock.

  ‘Skassi needs you, Athaba,’ she called. ‘He needs you!’

  Athaba turned and continued walking. That night a blizzard came in obscuring all his senses, but despite the danger he kept on walking. He wanted to reach the south before midwinter. The further he went, the warmer it would get, of course, but not that warm. The danger would increase, too. In the south were men beyond number. Skassi. His former rival was making a hard life that much more difficult, rot his soul, Athaba thought, catching a little of the flavour of Tolga’s character for a moment.