The Wolf's Boy Read online

  Uff did not move when I returned. She was very weak, but I saw her throat move as I dribbled the heart broth between her lips. That night was even colder, with more snow falling. The world has a way of taking forward and backward steps into springtime. But we did not feel it. I pulled the skin of the bear, with its long, dense fur, around both of us. Before I closed my eyes, I hung a piece of sinew around Uff’s neck strung with half of the bear’s claws and one of the two teeth I had taken. The rest I kept for myself to hang beside Oooni’s aurochs tooth.

  “Little Bah, I think you are different from other wolves as I am different from other people,” I whispered to her. She did not move or open her eyes, but her chest still rose and fell. My throat closed. I could not say more.

  In the morning, the sun filled the great cave on the ledge. I threw back the bearskin. Uff raised her head and gazed at me. She thumped her tail. Life burned in her amber eyes.

  I think it is important to say here that Uff is not a wolf, she is an early dog. Because Kai has never known them as any other creature, he calls her a wolf, but he knows she is something different and new. Even though they are genetically close, a dog is not a wolf. A dog has a place at man’s side, but a wolf is meant to hunt and roam freely over vast territories. Take joy in the wolf cousin by your side!

  ah-bah: female baby doll

  ama: mother

  anooka: double-layered reindeer-skin parka similar to those worn by the Inuit

  apa: father

  apa-da: grandfather

  ayee: exclamation of distress

  bah: female child too young to be counted on to outlive infancy and therefore not yet given a name

  bol: tree, the name Kai’s brother is given in childhood

  bu: male child too young to be counted on to outlive infancy and therefore not yet given a name

  das: eating, drinking, or cooking vessel, carved from wood or fashioned from bark

  desu: rabbit-skin vest or undershirt

  eya: yes

  hahk: stone axe

  immet: village of the people

  imnos: friends; the yellow wolf pack that has come to live near the People has a similar social structure to humans, and is beginning to make the evolutionary leap into becoming dogs

  jahs: belt

  kai: pup

  kai-atu: pup who is changed

  kanees: reindeer-skin pants or leggings

  keerta: spear

  kep: door or covering of stiff hide

  lupta: gray wolf pack, which remains wild

  moc-atu: crazy one who is changed

  mora: old-man mushroom

  nah: no

  nnnnn-gata: luck; the hunter’s prayer

  osa: bone flute made from the hollow wing bone of a large bird

  saba: winter boot

  sen: steady one, the name Kai’s brother has earned after killing the aurochs bull

  suli: little owl

  tabat: cursed, unlucky

  takka: reindeer-skin hut

  Tal: God, creator, spirit of life

  umee: mitten

  mehu: friend

  oooni-alu-kas-pah-vard-ahhh: fire-haired traveler with big hands, heart, and voice

  ummmb: good

  Thanks are deserved by many: First and foremost, my dear husband, Fred, who brings me coffee each morning and makes sure I have time for my writing; our daughters, Fern and Spring, who listen patiently to their mother’s ramblings and who make wise suggestions; the divine Patti Gauch, her Heart of the Novel Workshop, and the Heartbeaters group; Rich and Sandra Wallace and their Writing for Boys Workshop, both given through the Highlights Foundation; Kent Brown, for making those good things happen for so many writers; the Rochester (New York) Area Children’s Writers and Illustrators group; my Scribblers and Wellsboro, Pennsylvania, critique groups; three insightful young readers: Bennett Sprague, Carson Grover, and Michael Hixon; and Heath Ward, who helped with IT support so I could work on line edits while aboard ship in the Caribbean. Thanks to Brian Fagan for advice on Ice Age mammals and his imaginative description of a Cro Magnon/Neanderthal encounter in his book Cro Magnon, which inspired Kai’s first encounter with the Ice Men. Thanks to the late Jean Craighead George for endless inspiration and for kindly pointing me toward the Wolf Conservation Center when I asked where I could meet and observe wolves in New York State.

  A very special thank-you goes to Mark Derr, author of How the Dog Became the Dog, who generously answered my questions at length. When I asked where my story should take place, he said it could have happened many places at different times in history: Europe, the Middle East, China…But when he mentioned that it could have happened in France, where the fossilized footprints of a boy and a canine, walking side by side, were discovered in 1994 in Chauvet Cave, chills ran up my spine. I knew I had found both my setting and story. My thanks go also to the discoverers of Chauvet Cave and the French government, who made sure it was never opened to the public and prevented the ensuing damage to the priceless art that would have caused. It was enough for me to climb to the entrance and absorb Kai’s world as it is today.

  Thank you to my agent, Brianne Johnson, for her belief and bubbling enthusiasm.

  Thank you to my editor, Tracey Keevan, for drawing more from me than I knew was possible, with such a light touch, and for knowing exactly what a story needs.

  SUSAN WILLIAMS BECKHORN is the award-winning author of a half-dozen children’s books. Her novel Wind Rider, a “first horse” story set in prehistoric Asia, received acclaim by KLIATT and Booklist, was a Book Sense Pick, and was selected to ALA’s Amelia Bloomer List for literature, which promotes equality for women. Susan grew up in a family where kids, animals, and the outdoors are cherished. She lives and writes in Rexville, New York.