Red Wolf

by Jennifer Dance

  Crooked Ear stumbled as he veered away. It slowed him down. Seraph’s jaws locked onto his throat, fangs pierced his flesh, body weight pinned him to the ground. Crooked Ear struggled briefly, but he was not yet fully grown. He lacked the muscle and body weight of his uncle, he was depleted from the exhausting journey, and he had not eaten for two days. Instinct told him to submit with what could be his last breath. He lay still.

  As quickly as the attack started, it was over. Seraph released Crooked Ear and returned to the others. They crowded around him, backing him up, growling at the interloper, their lips withdrawn, their gleaming fangs exposed.

  Crooked Ear dragged himself to his feet and slunk away. He slept alone in a shallow scrape under the cover of thick balsam branches. He curled up as tightly as he could, his chin resting on all four paws so his breath warmed them, his bushy tail encircling him. When snow fell it cloaked him, adding insulation and rendering him invisible. Even the tip of his nose was perfectly camouflaged among the dark balsam cones. A passerby would never have suspected he was there.

  Crooked Ear’s urge to be with the pack was, however, strong. He wanted to curl up and sleep next to other wolves, to feel their breath, to benefit from the warmth of the huddle. But more than that, he needed to be with the pack in order to find food to survive the winter. He quickly learned how close he could be without enraging Seraph. And for a while that was where he stayed, on the fringe, barely in sight of the other wolves. But as the nights became colder and food scarcer, he moved closer, submitting to Seraph many times a day. Gradually the alpha’s anger was replaced by cool disregard and tolerance. This change permitted the others to accept Crooked Ear into the pack, as long as he stayed at the bottom of the hierarchy.

  It was a hard, hungry winter, and all the wolves lost weight, but Crooked Ear, low in social standing, was particularly thin. His coat was lacklustre, and although the long guard hairs still disguised his ribs, little flesh covered his skeleton.

  Finally the breeze blew soft, and once again the wolves stretched out on the great slabs of granite that angled slightly towards the sky. Beneath them, the glare ice of Clear Lake was criss-crossed with grey-brown fissures and gleaming channels of black water, but high on the ridge the rocks had been swept clean of snow by winter winds and warmed by the spring sunshine. It was here that they lay, just as their ancestors had for centuries.

  Seraph was in a relaxed mood and Crooked Ear, taking advantage of his uncle’s congeniality, flopped on his side with the other wolves, his thick winter coat absorbing the sun’s rays. At one year, he was almost full grown. He was lofty, as his father had been, but still lacked the girth and muscle of a mature wolf.

  Seraph raised his head and blinked his sleepy eyes then leapt to his feet, alert and attentive, stretching his head toward the scent carried on the breeze. With a whine and a wag of his bushy tail, he sprang off the rocks and trotted down the narrow trail that led to the trees. The other wolves stretched, yawned, and followed him to where the balsam firs grew dense and dark. There, on the south-facing slope, where the sun peeked through the trees, a pile of freshly excavated sandy soil marked the entrance to the old den where Seraph’s mate had recently birthed their first litter.

  The wolves cocked their heads in response to the mewling that came from deep underground. Seraph bowed down and rested his head on enormous paws, a whine of anticipation coming from his throat. In response, the she-wolf crawled along the root-lined tunnel into the daylight.

  Seraph bounded toward her but stopped abruptly when he saw the angle of her ears and the stony stare in her yellow eyes. Tentatively he sniffed the air, savouring the unfamiliar smells of birth and milk that mingled with the alluring odour of she-wolf. He stretched toward her, but her withdrawn lips told him that she was in no mood to be friendly. He took a step back and observed with all of his senses. Her hairless belly was slung low with two rows of swollen teats, ribs stared out of her coarse coat, and hip bones protruded through the tight skin of her haunches. Seraph spun and loped down the well-worn trail, where thin soil barely covered the ancient rocks of the Canadian Shield. The other wolves scrambled after him, their claws gaining traction on the stubborn patches of packed, dirty snow. Survival of the offspring was now the pack’s shared priority.

  Crooked Ear was the first to return, a mouse held gently in his lips.

  The den held strong memories of his own mother, memories he could not resist. He entered, dragging himself down the tunnel on his belly. Despite his offering, the she-wolf bared her fangs, snarling and growling viciously. He dropped the rodent and quickly retreated, rump first, into Seraph. Fortunately the alpha’s fangs were clamped onto a vole and all he could do was lash out with his front claws. Crooked Ear veered away and retreated to the perimeter of the pack once more.

  The she-wolf moved to the trees and urinated, then, flattening herself to the ground, she crawled back inside the den. The mewling intensified for a few moments as each of the squirrel-sized pups scrambled on wobbly legs to find a source of nourishment and comfort. Soon their crying was replaced by sucking, swallowing, and snuffled breathing.

  Crooked Ear did his part in feeding the she-wolf, who, in turn, fed the growing pups. Of the five, four remained. The runt had been sickly from birth. During the first few hours she had vigorously licked the floppy creature and had repeatedly pushed it toward her belly, but it lacked the strength to nurse. She nosed it to one side of the den, away from the others. As soon as she realized that there was no breath coming from its nose, she licked it one last time, and then, in the manner of wolves, she ate it.

  Even in their sleep, the wolves heard the far-off call of the ravens and knew that the big birds had spotted prey. Heads popped out from under bushy tails and ears pricked up, alert. Crooked Ear stood and shook the balsam needles from his coat, then, quivering with anticipation, he raised his voice in chorus with the pack. In the excitement, the wolves chased their own tails and nipped at each other until a stare from Seraph’s yellow eyes silenced them. They followed him as he loped toward the voices of the ravens, leaving the new mother standing at the entrance to the den. She sighed and returned to her pups.

  Crooked Ear watched the other wolves closely. They all took their orders from Seraph, a glare from his eyes rooting them to the spot or telling them to advance. The limited hunting that Crooked Ear had done with his parents had taught him little. Now he was learning that every member of the pack had a part to play in surrounding the prey, worrying it, and tiring it so that the kill could be made without injury to the wolf itself. He was learning patience, planning, and stealth. He was learning the way of the wolf.

  They approached the elk from downwind, long strands of saliva drooling onto their paws. With bodies low to the ground, and moving so as not to snap a twig, they skirted the herd, fanning out, eyes and noses searching every detail. The cows were heavy with young. In a few weeks the newborns would be easy targets, but the experienced wolves knew that right now the females would not go down easily. They would fight.

  The elk sniffed the air, their senses attuned to any noise or smell that might indicate the presence of a predator. They gingerly inched away from the oval depressions in the snow where they had slept, away from the yellow, urine-stained craters, away from the safety of the cedar stand, out to where straw-coloured seed heads stood tall above a tangled thatch of winter-damaged grass. Some pawed the ground to remove snow from the matted pasture. Others wrapped their tongues around tall stems and chewed, their jaws moving from side to side in a faltering motion.

  The wolves spotted an old bull, moving stiffly from one patch of snow-covered grass to another. Its ribs and haunches protruded through rough hair, its mane was matted, and its antlers, which would be formidable weapons later in the season, were harmless velvet-covered buds.

  The wolves closed in. A cow, her nostrils twitching, caught the first scent of danger. She raised her tail, warning the others with the flash of white. Eyes wide with panic, the elk moved closer
together. The wolves stood tall. Realizing they were surrounded on three sides by their most feared predator, the herd bolted for the only opening in sight. The wolves exploded toward the old bull, cutting it off from the panicked herd and driving it toward Seraph, who waited in the undergrowth. When the bull elk was almost upon him, Seraph leaped, sinking his fangs into its throat.

  Crooked Ear joined the others, jumping onto its back and clinging with his teeth as the bull spun and bucked. Finally, another wolf grabbed the elk’s muzzle, clamping down over its nose and mouth. Desperate to breathe, the elk thrashed its head from side to side, lifting the wolf from the ground and sweeping him back and forth, but the wolf held firm. With a thud that shook the earth, the old elk fell heavily on his side.

  There was a brief moment of silence.

  Then powerful jaws crunched through bone and flesh.

  Cloven hooves pawed the air.

  Legs flailed in a desperate bid to run.

  And life poured from the elk into the wolves.

  Ravens watched from the trees as the wolves ripped into the soft underbelly of the old bull elk. Seraph turned on the others, growling ferociously, driving them back a few paces, where they snarled and squabbled among themselves. He pushed aside steaming intestines and tore the liver out of the body cavity. With two chomps of his massive teeth it was gone. Pushing his bloodied nose back into the tangle of guts, he rooted through to find the heart. Then, with a barely perceptible motion of his ears, he allowed the pack to join him.

  The wolves snatched whatever was closest while trying to maintain their own pecking order. Crooked Ear was at the bottom. Even though he had played his part in bringing down the elk, he had to remain on the edge of the kill. Finally, as stomachs started to fill, Crooked Ear was allowed into the circle to feed.

  Satisfied, with skin pulled taught across their distended bellies, the wolves ambled homeward, leaving the ravens tearing at the bulging intestines. A red vixen approached on silent pads. The ravens attacked and she retreated to wait her turn, along with those who had caught the scent on the wind and were still travelling toward the kill.

  Within hours nothing would remain of the old elk except for a few fragments of bone and fur.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Spring was on its way, yet winter was not willing to relinquish its hold. Despite the warmer temperatures that had melted all but the most obstinate patches of snow, the trees remained bare. Then, suddenly, violets wearing hats of dried leaves popped up from the forest floor and bronze beech leaves that had rasped on slim branches all winter long were pushed aside by the force of new buds. A green carpet rolled across the landscape from south to north and, almost overnight, the school lawn became verdant. Mother Hall’s daffodils pierced the ground with their spear-like leaves and within days their yellow trumpets nodded in the sun.

  It was a bright Thursday morning in May. Mother Hall entered the dormitory, her arms full of ironed shirts. This was unusual because the boys knew that Sunday was the day for clean clothes, not Thursday. Cleanliness was next to godliness and both these things coincided with chapel on Sundays. Mother Hall seemed jittery, in fact, a bundle of nerves. Promising a whipping to any boy who got his shirt dirty, she announced that an important man would be visiting them in the classroom, so they would stay inside all day and had better be good, or else.

  Around noon, a horse-drawn carriage rolled through the gates. Father Thomas greeted the visitor and escorted him to the staff dining room.

  “I’d like you all to meet our school governor,” he said to the assembled staff.

  Mother Hall made a small curtsy. “It’s so lovely to meet you, Governor,” she said coyly in her most refined language. “You must be hungry after your long journey. We’ve prepared luncheon and the girls are waiting to serve, so please sit down.”

  The governor unbuttoned his coat and Mother Hall helped wrestle the sleeves from his arms. Father Thomas watched the guest settle his ample backside on the chair, and he sent up a silent prayer that the slender mahogany legs would withstand the weight.

  “Grace!” he said in a rush, wanting to get through the meal before disaster struck. The boys bowed their heads and Father Thomas recited the shortest prayer he had ever uttered. “Heavenly Father, thank you for the food we are about to enjoy. Amen.”

  “We produce all our own food here, Governor,” Mother Hall said as five schoolgirls, their brown hands covered in white gloves, served roast pork, squash, potatoes, and gravy.

  “The children are surely spoiled by such abundance,” the governor said, spreading his linen napkin over his rotund mid-section.

  After several distracted bites and swallows, during which conversation was definitely not a priority, the governor directed his conversation to Father Thomas. “The board of governors is very pleased with the work that you are doing here, Father. I’m sure you’ll agree with me that the residential school system is working wonderfully well. The government builds the schools and provides the funding, and you, at Bruce County, use that money to transform the children’s lives. Obviously you do much more than just provide an education. You are civilizing the Indians, teaching them good behaviour, good manners, the difference between right and wrong.”

  He snapped his fingers at the closest serving girl and with his plate heaped for the second time, he continued. “Clearly, taking the children away from their families is a big help when it comes to assimilating them into our society, especially regarding Christianity. Separating them from their pagan communities gives us a far greater success rate, don’t you agree?”

  The governor didn’t wait for a response. “We’ve been criticized for wasting money educating the females,” he said, glancing at the serving girls, “but in my opinion, the fate of the next generation hangs on girls such as these! What will happen if the boys leave here and marry unschooled girls?”

  The question was rhetorical, but Mother Hall valiantly tried to answer.

  The governor ignored her, slapping his palms down on the table with a resounding smack that shook the water glasses. “They will fall back into their heathen ways! And the children from these marriages will almost certainly adopt the habits of their pagan mothers. All things considered, the money spent educating females is money well spent. By the next generation there won’t be an Indian problem because the Indians will have been assimilated into our society.”

  “Yes, yes, quite so,” Father Thomas agreed, anxious to steer the conversation to another topic. “But we do have a problem for next year, and I was hoping you might be able to help.”

  “That’s what I’m here for, Father, but I’d like to talk more about —” The governor stopped in mid-sentence. Apple pie, piled high with dollops of fresh whipped cream, had appeared in front of him.

  Father Thomas, seizing the opportunity of the governor’s distraction, continued with his well-rehearsed speech. “Some of the children are now in Grade Eight, but we don’t have the curriculum or the teachers for higher education. We have wonderful, dedicated people on staff here. They have a passion to bring the love of God to these children, but none of them are qualified in the field of education —”

  The governor swallowed and intervened. “My good fellow, you don’t understand —”

  Father Thomas kept talking. “As you know, Governor, it’s hard to find qualified educators willing to come out to these remote places and work with the Indians. I made an enormous sacrifice coming here, giving up a comfortable life in a well-to-do parish. But I have no regrets. This is my calling. Remuneration and worldly goods are of little importance compared to saving the souls of these boys and girls. I am, after all, storing up treasures in Heaven, not on earth, where moth and rust can destroy. It’s what the Lord tells us to do.”

  One or two heads nodded in agreement.

  “However, the problem is this — we need someone capable of teaching the older children. If we were to offer a more lucrative salary we could employ one or two trained teachers. So, in short, Governor,
I need you to organize additional funding.”

  “My dear man,” the governor said, wiping cream from his lips, “the policy of the government is to provide the children with an elementary education! We are not trying to turn out Indian students who compete with our students for university places, or for jobs. The government policy is to rid the children of their Indian-ness, to kill the Indian in the child, so to speak! Then to assimilate them on the bottom rung of the social ladder where they can do manual labour.”

  Father Thomas looked shocked.

  And Mother Hall lost her airs and graces. “But we’ve got to keep ’em here ’til they’re fifteen or sixteen? What the heck are we supposed to do with ’em?”

  Mister Hall kicked his wife in the shins. “Let’s not worry the governor about that, my dear.”

  “If you can teach them the basics of the three R’s,” the governor continued, “Reading, ’Riting and ’Rithmetic, you will have achieved your mandate.” He chuckled. “And, of course, Father Thomas, the fourth R: Religious studies!”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Turtle waited until all the boys in the dormitory were sleeping, then he slipped out of bed, and in his bare feet and nightgown crept out of the door and along the corridor to the staircase. The wooden steps creaked loudly. He stopped dead, heart pounding, but nobody came, and after a few seconds he tiptoed on.

  It was coincidence that earlier in the day Turtle had been sent to Father Thomas’s office at the same time as a girl from the other side of the school had been sent there. Turtle had done nothing wrong, at least he didn’t think he had. He was merely delivering a written message. But he had walked slowly, head down, wondering if he would be able to complete his mission without getting punished. However, the girl who sat forlornly on the chair outside Father’s Thomas’s office, fingering a single strand of yellow yarn, knew for sure she would be punished. She knew exactly what she had done. It had been in sewing class. They had been making baby dolls, stuffing the cloth bodies with fluffy white blossoms of columbine then using strands of yarn for hair and red felt for lips. The girl had attached a pair of sky-blue glass buttons for eyes and held the finished doll at arm’s length to admire her handiwork. The doll looked back at her with a quizzical expression. Emotion took the girl by surprise. Suddenly, her eyes were stinging and breath caught in her throat. She clutched the doll to her chest and sobbed as memories washed over her: a soft deerskin baby doll, a mother who hugged her.