The Wolf's Boy Read online

  “I have spoken with Mir, and with her parents. We will be joined at the reindeer moon.” He picked Suli up and spun her around so that she squealed with delight.

  I bent my head over the rabbit skin I was working. My father was pleased. “You will need many reindeer skins if you are to build your own takka.”

  Ama stood up, took him by the shoulders, and gazed into my brother’s eyes. “My small boy has grown into a strong and well-looking man,” she said. “Mir is very beautiful.” Then she added softly, “I hope she will be a good mate for you.”

  Uff’s nose found the scent of many small creatures now—mice, voles, rabbits, and such. They all scurried or leapt away before she could catch them. Whenever I caught a rabbit or a marmot in one of my snares, I wriggled it for Uff, trying to make it seem alive. She shook the animal as if it were her scrap of hide.

  One morning, she snuffled her nose into a nest full of half-grown mice. The tiny beasts exploded everywhere, running between Uff’s paws and under her belly. One darted up over her face and between her ears. It leapt into the long grass and disappeared. Uff looked confused. But suddenly, one more mouse ran from the broken nest. My wolf pup pounced, snapped her jaws, and swallowed. I could hardly believe it.

  All by herself, Uff had caught a mouse. I had not taught her how. Somehow she knew.

  It was another small step.

  At last Tal stopped calling the salmon to come up the river to us. Many of the fish seemed to grow old. They died. Bears and other animals ate these, but we did not. The rest swam back down the river to wherever they had come from.

  The few remaining berries shriveled. The bushes turned red as blood. All along the river, willow leaves turned the color of old sunshine.

  I gathered moss for the winter lamp wicks and Bu’s night wrapping. It was not a hunter’s work, but it was one less task for Ama. When my pack was nearly full, I straightened up. I looked at the autumn world.

  My wolf stood motionless beside me, sniffing the air. Her head came nearly to my waist now. She turned to look at me—serious, gentle, and wise all at the same time. The puppy clumsiness was gone. Her legs had grown long and slim. Her paws did not seem too big anymore. “If Apa makes me take you back to your pack, I will always know you,” I whispered.

  Uff bowed, asking me to play. She snatched the clump of moss I was holding. Then she raced in a wide circle, teasing me to chase her. My pup was back.

  All day now, wherever we went, Uff hunted mice—behind the takkas, along the river, in the long grass of the open land. Her belly was a pit that could not be filled.

  Snares do not kill every time. One day I found a big marmot caught only by a foreleg. Uff usually took great interest in helping me check my snares, but she had stopped to sniff and dig at its burrow. The marmot thrashed and growled when I came close. There was terror in its eyes. I had never killed anything so big. “I’m sorry,” I said. I looked for a rock. A streak of yellow fur hurled past me. With several hard shakes, Uff snapped the marmot’s neck.

  “It is very nearly big game,” I told her. “You will have a piece for yourself.”

  Apa and Sen had not been so lucky on their hunt. The marmot was welcome. The night was cold, and we cooked inside. The scent of the sizzling fat, as it roasted slowly, made our mouths water.

  Waiting, watching the fire, I followed the shifting flames. The coals broke apart and made pictures in their shapes: a mammut with a tiny blue eye raising its great humped head and shoulders out of a bog, a rocky hillside with sparks that were ibex grazing, a waterfall tumbling out of a cliff. I could never grow tired of watching fire.

  “Tell me about Moc-Atu,” I said to my father.

  He raised his head from his work and stared at the fire a moment. “Moc-Atu was old when I was a boy,” he said. Sen and Ama and Suli looked up, listening. “He was like you, Kai—touched by the dark one—tabat. Even his mother could not look into his eyes without dropping her own. They say he can start a flame from cold ashes with those eyes. Like you, he was not meant to live. But his father was a shaman. He would not let him be killed.

  “His name was just Moc then, the crazy one. He was violent. He fought anyone who spoke to him. They say he tried to jump from a cliff and fly, that he tried to live underwater like a fish, that he walked through a fire pit and was not burned. One day he disappeared on a journey to the south. He was gone for three years. On the day we painted his father’s face with bloodstone to return his body to the spirit world, the one called Moc came back with his own face painted to be our new shaman. He did not tell anyone what had happened to him or how he knew to come back. He only said that his name was now Moc-Atu—the crazy one who is changed. He never hurt anyone again, but he has healed many.”

  When the meat was cooked, my father said, “Since you helped kill it, Uff, you may eat, too.” He tossed her a juicy morsel. Uff caught it in midair. Apa laughed and tossed her another. Hope swelled in my heart.

  But the next night there was trouble.

  My mother was working a basket by the light of a stone lamp. Sen was visiting Mir. I took out my osa and played a few notes. Uff’s ears twitched as she lay sleeping by my side.

  Suddenly Uff leapt to her feet, knocking over the lamp. In another moment, there was fire. The flames traveled fast, lighting bundles of herbs and running up toward the roof.

  My father grabbed a waterskin, slashed it open with his work blade, and splashed it on the flames. I threw dirt and ashes over the burning fat from the lamp. Snatching up the little ones, Ama ran outside. Uff spooked into the dark. People came running, but the fire was already out.

  Burnt fur, smoke, a wet, smoldering mess. One whole piece of the takka wall was ruined—the one with Sen’s handprint and the picture of the aurochs he had killed.

  “Kai,” my father said, “at daybreak, take her.” His voice was hard, but his eyes were filled with pain. My pain.

  My brother had come with the others. His chest heaved in anger. “See, it’s true. Kai is tabat and his wolf also is tabat!”

  But in the morning, my father found the marks of a big cat, nearly a hand-span wide, not ten paces from the outside fire pit. Only Uff had known. Apa was silent a long time. Then he looked at me. “Alright, Kai. She can stay,” he said, “until winter.”

  Ama and I replaced the ruined section of the takka and Moc-Atu came to make a new painting. He took packets of ground stone from his pouch and put them into my hands. “You have seen how it’s done. Make the colors.”

  I stared at him. I could not refuse.

  Then, after he had traced the shape of Sen’s bull, he said, “My eyes are tired. Finish it.”

  My mouth opened. I tried to say, “Nah! I cannot!” but nothing came out. Slowly, with trembling fingers, I picked up a das of color and began. First, the white of the eye and nostrils, the spots, then the black—but not solid black. I rubbed white into the belly, so that it seemed to swell with life, made darker lines where the legs joined the body, made shadows showing muscle and ribs, made the blood.

  When I was finished, I looked at Moc-Atu. His eyes settled together on my work. He smiled. “So,” he said, stroking Uff’s head.

  There was a scuffle in the long grass and a sharp bark. “What is it, Uff?” Suddenly a big rabbit burst from its hold almost under my feet. She chased it in a great circle. In its terror, it ran nearly into my legs. I stood like a stupid person. The rabbit had escaped. Uff looked at me as if to say, Why did you not do your part?

  “My part?” I asked aloud. “I can’t hunt. I can only set snares. It’s tabat for me to touch a weapon.”

  I had seen boys throwing sticks to kill small animals. It was not easy, but it could be done. Was a stick a weapon? It was not much of a weapon. “Well, then,” I said to Uff, “we will find another rabbit.” I took a dead branch and smacked it across a rock until I had a stout, short piece to throw.

  I followed Uff back across the open grassland. Soon she tore off after a second rabbit. This time I was ready.
She brought it in a circle back to me. I flung the stick hard in a sideways motion, catching it as it ran, stunning it. I fell on it before it could recover, and snapped its neck. Then I looked up into the expectant eyes of Uff. “Eya, it’s half yours!”

  I cut the rabbit apart with my blade. “It’s your kill and mine, too. We are small-game hunters now.” I whispered these last words. Uff ate. I looked at my half. I had snared many small animals, but I had never killed one this way. My heart thudded hard. This was hunting.

  “Here.” I held out my share. “Fill your belly.”

  Uff was strong and sleek. Winter would come, but my wolf pup was becoming a hunter. She could survive.

  Still, she had not given up chewing.

  That afternoon, I came into the takka looking for her. She was curled up on my bed, chewing a stick. She held it between her paws. Her eyes were half-closed, her head tilted to one side, as she ground her teeth into the wood. A scattering of splinters lay on my sleeping fur.

  My heart seemed to stop inside my chest.

  It was not just any stick. It was long and white and smooth. Sen’s new hunting keerta.

  “Nah!” I yelled, grabbing it from her. “Bad! You’re bad!” Uff dodged out of my way, tail between her legs. She had never heard my voice like this. Suddenly I realized that Sen’s keerta was raised in my hand as if I were going to strike her. She was afraid of me. My stomach heaved. I lowered my arm.

  What had she done? The end of the keerta was a mess of splintered wood. I stood staring at it. There was a deep tooth mark right through Sen’s sacred sign. I could feel drops of sweat on my forehead. Nothing could be unluckier. Please make this not have happened. But there it was. I could not undo it.

  Or could I?

  The damage was only to the end of the keerta. The rest of it was unharmed. What if I were to carve off the chewed part and shave it smooth again? Do it quickly, before Sen and my father returned…With shaking hands, I gathered tools from Apa’s work place—this too was forbidden. But I had watched my father and brother making weapons all my life. I knew what to do.

  My first thought was to go to my hiding place in the old wolf den, but there was no time for that. I ducked into the takka, leaving the kep pushed aside to let in light so I could work. Uff followed me. She was uncertain, ears down, tail half-tucked. She knew she was bad, but she didn’t understand why. My heart felt sad for my wolf. Still, I could not speak to her.

  Carefully, I put the keerta between my knees and began shaving away the damaged wood with Apa’s curved scraper. My hands were shaking so that I dropped it, nearly hitting a hearthstone. Tal, do not let me break my father’s best scraper, too! I took a deep breath to make myself still. Then, a small bit at a time, I shaved off the shredded wood. Was it possible that my brother would not know? It would be just slightly shorter now. Would he see? Would it feel true in his hand? If Uff had chewed much longer, I could not have repaired it.

  Eya, that was better. I worked until all the tooth marks except the deep one were gone. I ran my fingers over the smooth wood, touched the perfectly shaped point. So sleek. Beautiful. Deadly. A blood-hunter’s keerta.

  Again and again, a thought pushed its way into my mind. What would it feel like to use this keerta—to send it whistling through the air, clean and hard—to hunt like a man? I shoved the thought away.

  I looked at the deep mark through the twisting aurochs horn. How could I possibly fix that? Could I fill it in somehow? With pitch? Yellow clay?

  I hurried to the riverbank for the clay. On my way back, I pried a bubble of oozing pitch from a spruce tree and warmed it in my mouth. I worked a bit of clay into the pitch. Then, very carefully, with the tip of my blade, I pressed the mixture into the tooth mark. With dry sand, I rubbed the freshly carved wood until it was as smooth as the rest of the keerta. I peered at my work. Maybe, just maybe, Sen would not see.

  I checked again to see if anyone was coming. No one yet. I took down a pouch that Ama kept hanging from one of the support poles. It held the last of the reindeer fat. There would be no more until the fall hunt. I opened it, dug out a bit with my fingers, and quickly rubbed it into the wood. Eya. It looked very nearly, very nearly, as good as new. I was turning to set the keerta near Sen’s sleeping place, when the thought wriggled again. What would it be like to throw a keerta—just once?

  Before I knew what I was doing, I had stepped back outside. I dropped my stick and placed my feet in a wide stance. Then I raised my brother’s keerta. There was nothing wrong with my arms. Surely I could throw a keerta. I sighted on a patch of soft moss many steps away. Then I snapped my arm forward, and let the weapon fly.

  “Kai!”

  My father’s voice was a harsh bark. I turned quickly. Apa stood behind me. His eyes blazed. My brother was beside him, face white, eyes wide—not so much with anger as with fear. My father put a hand on his arm to hold him back.

  “Give it to me,” Sen said between clenched teeth. With my eyes on the ground, I hobbled to the keerta, aware as never before of each lurching step. I tugged it from the ground. The point was unharmed. Carefully, I wiped the earth from the flint, made sure the binding was clean. The silence pressed on my ears as if I were underwater. I closed my eyes for a breath. Then I carried the keerta back to my brother. Without looking at it, he wrenched it from me.

  “You knew you were never to touch a weapon!” There was pain in Apa’s voice, but also ice. The muscles of his jaw were tight, the hand that gripped his own keerta clenched and unclenched.

  I stared at the ground. Something was in me—my own anger working. All this. All my life. Why? Suddenly it burst from me. I met my father’s eyes and let my words fly. I wanted to hurt him. I wanted to hurt Sen. “My arms are strong! My eyes are good! I only want to be a hunter and do my part. I don’t even have a name or a sign like a real person. You treat me as dirt! As less than dirt!”

  I thought my father would strike me then, but he did not. I saw a great sadness in his eyes. He stepped toward me and tried to put an arm around my shoulders. “You are lucky that you live,” he said.

  “I am not lucky, I am tabat! There is no worse luck! You left me for the wolves to kill. You should have had the courage to do it yourself! I hate you both!” I spat the words out. Sen did not answer. He grabbed a handful of sweet herb. Furiously, he scrubbed the shaft of his keerta all over with it, as if he were trying to disguise the human scent on the parts of a snare.

  “We will take it to Moc-Atu,” my father whispered to him.

  Neither of them spoke more to me. When Ama returned with the little ones and learned what had happened, she began to weep. She looked at me with sad, reproachful eyes. Only Suli, Bu, and Uff seemed not to know what had happened.

  That night, I sat hunched on my bed. They only knew that I had handled Sen’s keerta. They had no idea what my wolf had done to it. Uff crept to my side. I pulled her close, rubbing her shoulders until she was easy again, but my thoughts spun. It was bad enough that I had thrown my brother’s keerta. What if they saw Uff’s tooth mark? Would they drive her away? Would they kill her? I cupped her face in my hands.

  “I won’t let them hurt you. If they make me send you away, I will go with you,” I whispered to her. But I did not know where it was that we would go.

  I was grateful for the comfort of my wolf curled beside me. I listened to the sounds of my family breathing. With all of us inside, our takka was not a very big place. But on this night, I felt far from the others. I longed to be able to sleep as Uff did now, and to forget.

  Sometime deep in the night, we were awakened by shrieks coming from the direction of Uli’s takka. Uff sprang to her feet, neck fur bristling, snarling. Apa was up just as quickly, keerta in hand. He kicked at the outside fire to waken it and lit a torch. Sen and I threw on dried dung to make it blaze high. In the red light I saw that one side of their takka had been ripped away, slashed by great claws. A huge leopard was dragging someone in its teeth. Uli and his father were fighting it. “The
re may be another—guard them!” Apa shouted to Sen, and ran to help. They hacked at the cat until it dropped its burden, screaming its rage, and disappeared into the night.

  Sen gripped his keerta, panting, searching the dark all around. “What is it?” Ama called. She crouched, clutching the little ones. Their eyes were those of creatures caught alive in snares. Shouts now, and wailing.

  It was Hani, her voice a raw keening that made my skin crawl. Someone was hurt or dead. I fought back panic. Sometimes the big cats hunted in pairs. Suli. Bu. My eyes flew to the walls of the takka, expecting claws to slash through any moment. They were only thin reindeer hide. I will not let… I fumbled for my work blade. Slid it from its sheath.

  Rhar’s horn sounded, two short blasts followed by a pause. All the hunters must come now. Sen, too. He hesitated. Then my brother looked at my half-grown wolf standing at the entrance of our takka. She was braced on stiff legs, her great white teeth bared. The growl that rumbled from her throat was not that of a pup. A strange look of appreciation came over Sen’s face. Ama put Bu into my arms. She took up one of my father’s keertas and went to stand guard at the opening beside Uff.

  Suli attached herself to my leg. She was too frightened now to make a sound, but I could feel her shuddering. “Hush, little Bramble, we won’t let anything happen to you,” I whispered, stroking her head.

  “It’s alright,” Ama whispered. “Rhar would not signal all the men to come if it were not safe to do so. The cat must have been killed or wounded.”

  But there could be a second one. I had never felt so worthless. Surely I was at least as strong as my mother, cripple or not. “Let me take a keerta,” I said through clenched teeth.

  She shook her head. She would not look at me. “It is tabat.”

  I gripped my work blade harder. Well, then. If that was all I was allowed to fight with, so be it. I looked again at my wolf. “Suli, Bu,” I said, “see Uff’s teeth? She will protect you.”