The Wolf's Boy Read online

  I tried to open my eyes, touched my eyelids cautiously. They were swollen nearly shut. Suddenly I felt the panic again of being swallowed and smothered by the wall of snow, and a fear sound came from my mouth.

  Another sound answered me: “Ummmmm.”

  Someone was there. Still I could not find my way out of the wool inside my head. Gentle fingers touched my face. Warm, wet, fragrant moss bathed my eyes.

  Uff moved her head to rest her chin on my chest. She made the little welcoming sound in her throat that she made for a friend. Again, I lifted my hand to my eyes. Now I was able to open them.

  A person was turned from me, bent over the fire. I squinted. I saw walls. Walls of stone. I reached out my good hand and touched one. We were not in a takka of the People. My heart raced. We were inside walls of stone. A cave. I had heard of such a thing. I had seen caves where a man could lie down and take shelter for a night. Cats and bears used them. But this one was larger than any cave I had ever known. And there was fire. Then I saw a kep of hide fixed over the cave opening so that the smoke could make its way out at the top.

  A stone takka.

  My eyes traveled again to the person by the fire. His back was massive, more so because he was wrapped in bearskin. Why would a person wear a sleeping robe? The man’s hair hung in shaggy clumps. And the hair…was as red as the coals of the fire.

  He turned. My breath went out of my lungs in a rush.

  He was an Ice Man.

  A man, but not a man of the People. Brows like mossy shelves over eyes that glowed with fire on each side of a broad nose. They were strange eyes, all dark—like some beast, yet filled with knowing. And humor, I was sure of it. Did he think I was funny? The big nose with its wide nostrils worked. The Ice Man was smelling me, too.

  Under the cape of thick black fur, laced together at the shoulders, I glimpsed a powerful chest, with hair nearly as thick as the bearskin. His stocky limbs bulged with muscle. He wore more scars on his body than I had ever seen on a man of the People.

  Why hadn’t he killed me? Why hadn’t he killed Uff?

  He was roasting deer meat. Had he dug up the cache I had made? Had he been following us? Watching?

  The Ice Man held out a chunk of it to me on the end of his blade, making a deep sound in his throat. His meaning was plain. Eat. I hesitated. But Uff did not. She was no fool. Meat was meat. In one swift motion, she rose and gulped the offered food. If I didn’t want it, she surely did.

  The Ice Man bent over and made a sound that I knew. He laughed. It was deep and hoarse, but it was laughter. Then he crouched before Uff, touched his forehead to the ground, and chanted a song that made the air quiver.

  He thinks she is magic because she doesn’t run with a wolf pack, but follows me.

  I didn’t refuse a second piece. While I was gnawing it, holding it with my good hand, the Ice Man peered at my injured arm. I saw now that the sleeve of my anooka had been cut open, the broken arm held between sticks and sinew over a padding of dry moss. It was swollen and bruised, but straight.

  The Ice Man had made my broken arm straight. I did not think even Moc-Atu himself could have done such a thing. Could it heal? Would it not be a useless thing like my foot?

  The Ice Man showed me his own arm. I could see a knot in the muscle. He made gestures so that I knew it had once been broken. He laughed and flexed the muscle to show me that it was strong now. Very strong. He showed me a slightly crooked finger. He pointed to his cheekbone. His leg. His leg! My mouth opened. All broken. But he was not a cripple.

  I knew that Ice Men could not speak as the People do. Still, I thought I should try to say something. “Thank you,” I said. “Good.” I pointed to my arm. The Ice Man looked puzzled. Then I touched my chest and said “Kai.” I put my hand on Uff’s head and said “Uff.”

  His face broke into a grin, showing two broken teeth on one side. The Ice Man pointed to himself and uttered a deep sound that was half singing and seemed to me to go on forever. It sounded something like “Oooni-alu-kas-pah-vard-ahhh…” But there was much more to it than that. All the time his great calloused hands were swimming through the air telling a story that went along with the sound he was making.

  I could not repeat all that, so I said the first part hesitantly: “Oooni?”

  There was a sound like a wheezing bear might make. The Ice Man was laughing again.

  “Well,” I whispered to Uff, “maybe he will not eat us.”

  Oooni wrinkled his forehead. He gestured toward my wolf and uttered something that sounded like “Ahhhuff,” working his hands at the same time, making a moving shadow on the wall in the firelight.

  For the tiniest moment, I thought I saw the image of a wolf running through deep snow, its tail held high. I shook my head. “How did you do that?”

  He looked intently at me. “Khhhaiii,” he said, while his hands made shadow pictures of a hunter killing a deer. Khhhaiii…The sound of my name-that-was-not-a-name seemed to ring in the air and fade into nothingness.

  I started to shake my head to say, No, that’s not me. I’m only a crippled pup that will never grow into a hunter. But Oooni must have watched me kill the reindeer. He knew me only as a hunter.

  I met his eyes and nodded. “Eya.”

  I saw that Oooni had carefully gathered my things: stick, keerta, pack-basket, even the wreckage of my snow-walkers. They were in a row along the far wall of the cave. I watched now as Oooni inspected each item carefully. He was especially interested in my keerta, studying the length of the shaft and the way the point was bound into the split end of the sapling.

  I asked with gestures to look at Oooni’s keerta. It was short, made of heavier wood. The point was well formed, but too thick to be set into the wood the way the People did it.

  Then Oooni gave me a bitter-tasting drink that made the pain in my arm fade and my head swim. Sleep overtook me again.

  In the morning, I pointed to my twisted foot and made Oooni understand that I wanted my stick. I pulled myself to my feet. There was pain, but I was able to walk outside. I found that Oooni had made a great heap of firewood. The tool he used, with its big stone head, was almost too heavy for me to lift. He did not need snow-walkers to travel in deep snow. I saw that instead of boots, Oooni wore hide wrappings bound with leather straps. He had brought the remainder of the deer, but he ate much of it himself. I was sure that between the three of us, every scrap of it would be devoured in a day or two.

  There was a thing I needed to know. It kept gnawing at me. Are there others? The stone takka was big enough so that other people could have slept there. Where were they? There was a tool-making area at one side of the fire pit with many fragments of flint lying about. More Ice Men must have been here at some time.

  Somehow, I made Oooni understand the question: “Where are your people?” He stared at me. I could not make out the expression in the eyes under those fiery brows. Then he gestured for me to follow him down the hillside to a level place. Here, he bent and scooped the snow away with his hands. I saw a heap of rocks. Oooni sang and gestured a name. He crouched and swept off a smaller heap of rocks. And another. And another—this one very small. Each time he sang a name—his hands told more. Tears ran down his leathery cheeks.

  Even though I didn’t know what the rumbling words and gestures meant, I understood enough. These were his people. “They’re dead?” I asked using signs as well as words. “All of them? All of your people, dead?”

  Oooni rose and pointed to the mountains. There were more Ice Men.

  The moon grew big, waned, and began to grow once more. From time to time, Oooni went out and hunted. Uff wanted to go with him, but I would not let her. The ache and the swelling in my arm faded. Outside, the winter howled like a hungry thing, but the cave held the heat of the fire so that I could go without my anooka and still be warm.

  I cut pieces from the reindeer hide to make a new umee to replace the one lost in the snow. Oooni had scraped it while I slept for so long. At least Ice Men kne
w how to work hides. Now Oooni watched as I opened my sewing kit and threaded a bone needle with a long strand of sinew. He did not take his eyes from my hands as I punched tiny holes with my awl and carefully stitched the hide. Sewing with my left hand was very awkward, but Oooni seemed to think it was a sort of magic.

  He studied the reindeer teeth that decorated the shoulders of my anooka. He could not stop himself from touching them. His eyes glowed as he turned them to see the holes I had drilled and how I had sewn them to the leather.

  “You should see my father’s anooka, and the headman, Rhar’s. They’re covered with teeth—cave lion, bear, aurochs, wolverine…” I tried to tell him, making signs and sounds for each animal, but he only partly understood.

  Then I offered him the needle to try stitching for himself. He stared at me. I took one of his big, hard hands, with its broken nails and many calluses. I tried to get him to hold the needle, but he could not pinch such a tiny thing. Oooni’s hands, so weathered, made me think of the pads of Uff’s feet. I had seen him put a hand under his bearskin. He had no other way of keeping them warm. I pointed to my umees. “Where are yours?” He laughed, opening and closing his great paws, and shook his head.

  Yet he had made his keerta. And he could kill with it. But not from a distance. He must be a deadly stalker to get close enough to kill with just a thrust. I remembered the feeling that I had been followed. Had he been close enough to kill me or my wolf and neither of us had known it? And what if he didn’t hit the killing place of a beast? What if the animal struggled or fought back?

  I understood the scars and broken bones.

  Night after night, staring into the Ice Man’s fire, sharing meat together, trying to share our thoughts, I wondered: What was the difference between us, really? The sounds and gestures Oooni made were strange, but I was sure now that it was a way of talking. I could not understand it very well. I tried to copy him, but we both ended up laughing. A few things were the same. Smiles. Frowns. Head shakes. Nods. Hand gestures. Raspy laughter when I tried to tell how I had gone into Yellow Mother’s den for Uff. Wide eyes when he understood what I had done. Tears for his dead people. The sharing of food.

  Why was Oooni caring for me? I could see no reason except kindness. It was against everything I had ever known about Ice Men.

  Uff did not wonder. Each time Oooni went out and came back again, she bowed and waved her tail. She leapt up, trying to lick his face. He was her friend. She would have followed him if I had not held her back. I was terrified of losing her. “Stay here with me,” I whispered to her. “We don’t know him. Maybe he eats wolf.”

  The days were slow while my arm healed. I was tired of smoke, of darkness, of sitting still. I longed to be outside. “Wait, Oooni,” I said one day as he was about to leave.

  He drew his eyebrows together, frowning, and shook his head. He muttered something. Motioned for me to stay.

  Uff was on her feet now, pacing back and forth by the hearth, whining to go. “I know I cannot throw my keerta yet,” I said, “but my arm doesn’t hurt so much now. Just let me walk behind you. Maybe Uff will scare up a ptarmigan.” I pointed to a heap of feathers in the corner, pointed to Uff, flapped my arms.

  Oooni’s face broke into a grin.

  My snow-walkers were beyond repair, but I could make my way in his trail. I picked up my stick. “Just let me walk with you—a short walk,” I pleaded.

  He paused. At last, he agreed. He bent, took up a handful of the ptarmigan feathers, and held them out to Uff. What was he doing? My wolf sniffed the feathers carefully. Oooni put a finger to his nose and then to his eyes. Looked at me. What? Then he put a finger to Uff’s nose and to her eyes. She sees with her nose. Yes! Of course. I knew that, but it took Oooni to make it into a thought for me.

  Then the Ice Man tucked a strange thing into the rough jahs he used to hold the bear fur closed around his waist. It was made from several fist-size rocks tied together with long strips of leather. He took up his keerta and went out, letting me follow.

  The sun glittered. I breathed the cold air. Uff snapped at the snow, tossed a stick in the air. I watched Oooni stalking through the drifts ahead of me. Silent. Powerful. As alive to the world as a wolf. From a distance, I had watched my father and brother stalking game, but Oooni’s way was different. Somehow he became the trees, the bushes, the dried grasses….He moved like a shadow. I felt very awkward, making my way behind him.

  We came through a grove of pines. Suddenly Oooni’s hand shot out behind him, shaking the branch over my head, sending a shower of snow down my neck.

  “What?” I sputtered, shaking it out of my hair. Then I saw that he was peering back at me, eyes dancing, actually holding a big hand over his mouth to keep from laughing. It was a very old trick. Sen and Uli had played it on me many times. Oooni looked so funny that I couldn’t be angry.

  I grabbed a fistful of snow and flung it at him, smacking his hairy chin. He bellowed with laughter. Then we threw snow at each other until we both collapsed. Uff loved it. She raced back and forth between the two of us, snapping at the flying snow, twisting, spinning in the air, all the while yipping like a pup.

  So much for silent hunting. At last we got to our feet, brushed ourselves off, and continued on our way.

  We came to some willows. Ptarmigan sometimes hide under the drifts. Suddenly Uff froze, nose working the air, quivering all over. For a moment, Oooni’s eyes met mine. I nodded. He did not raise his keerta. Instead, he took the strange weapon of rocks and straps from his jahs. He nodded back at me.

  “Now, Uff!” I whispered. She surged forward. In a thunder of wings, a group of ptarmigan burst from the snow. Oooni flung his weapon. It snaked through the air, taking down not one, but three birds. Three! Uff snapped up a fourth one herself.

  There was a deafening grunt-snort. Something black exploded from under a hazel bush. A red-eyed boar, tusks slashing, charged us. A young one, but dangerous enough. Oooni shoved me away. Uff lunged, snapping at its snout, just giving Oooni time to snatch up his keerta again. I had never seen anything like the power behind the thrust he made. A hideous squealing. And then stillness.

  “You killed it, Oooni!” I said, panting.

  “Eyahhh.” He was touching the boar very gently at the sacred place between the eyes, murmuring something. He knew. A hunter honors the life taken.

  At least I could carry some of the kill home. We were making our way back when we heard a distant drumming far across the open land. It was a herd of some sort, coming toward us. Oooni made a sign that meant horses. I stared at him. I saw only a dark mass and a cloud of snow. How could he tell they were not bison? Did those strange, dark eyes see farther than mine? At last I made out the arched necks and streaming tails. Now we could see wolves following, seven of them, beside and behind, keeping pace. The horses were mostly unafraid, but some of the yearlings were nervous. They whinnied, broke away, joined back again.

  At the tail of the herd, a horse stumbled. It was an aged mare, gaunt with the slow hunger that comes when teeth are gone. Suddenly there was a flurry of fur—a wolf dragging at the throat, three at the flanks. I grabbed for Uff and held her back. It was soon over. The pack fed while the herd moved on.

  Oooni shifted the burden on his shoulders and turned to me. His eyes were bright. He nodded, and said a word I had learned: “Ummmb.” Good.

  “Good?” I asked.

  He nodded again. Gestured to the lead mare. Made gestures showing how fast she was, how strong. Pointed to the stallion, also strong, beautiful, trotting now, with his nose to the wind, legs lifting in a high-stepping dance over the snowy ground. Oooni pointed to the wolves. He spoke again, and even though I did not understand all his words, suddenly I knew. The wolf pack made the horse herd swift and strong. They were not two separate things. They were part of each other. They were Tal, which is all things. Life. Death. Tal.

  “Eya,” I said.

  In Oooni’s cave that night, I ground charcoal and mixed it with fat from th
e boar to make a glossy black. He watched, eyes glinting, as I drew the horse herd on the wall. The wise lead mare. Her stiff black mane. The stallion, nostrils wide, tasting the wind. I paused then, wondering how to show them galloping.

  Oooni reached out a hand. Dipped a finger in my paint. He squinted his eyes. Then in a flurry of motion, he traced legs, not two, not four, many legs, dancing legs, galloping horse legs, moving, pounding. Moving.

  I sat back with my mouth open. Yes. That was how to do it.

  One night, soon after, Oooni motioned for me to show him my arm. With his blade, he carefully sliced through the straps. The splint fell away. I touched the chafed skin where the sticks had rubbed. I opened and closed my hand. The shrunken muscles of my forearm flexed. The place where the bones had broken was still swollen and sore, but the arm was straight. Weak, yet it worked. I looked at Oooni. The Ice Man nodded. He flexed his own arm to show me that the arm would soon be strong again, like his.

  The next morning, Oooni took his keerta and was gone until very late. At last my wolf made her uffing sound. I went outside, and there was Oooni coming back through the snow, carrying the entire hindquarters of an aurochs cow across his shoulders!

  “Tal, that is huge!” I helped him bring it inside. Uff leapt at the fresh meat. “Nah, Uff, get down! You must wait!” But Oooni took up his hahk and with one motion, severed a lower leg and gave it to her.

  His face broke into a misshapen grin. One of his eyes was purple and swollen nearly closed, but he rumbled with satisfaction as he set down his burden. He made cutting motions. I nodded. I would start butchering it—roasting some. Then he left again. Before dark, he returned with the skin and the front quarters. It was a huge amount of meat for two of us, even with Oooni’s great hunger. We both laughed over the heap of it while Uff begged for—and got—more scraps.

  While the meat was roasting, I removed the cutting teeth from the jaw of the aurochs cow. I drilled a hole in each of them. Oooni watched me intently. I could not see how to sew the teeth to his bearskin cape. At last, I strung them on a length of sinew and put this around Oooni’s neck. He studied my gift, turning the teeth over in his thick fingers.