The Wolf's Boy Read online

  With my mother and the little ones, my wolf and I waited in the darkness.

  The hunters were gone until just after daylight. When they returned, four men carried the dead leopard between them. It had been wounded. They had followed the trail of blood, by torchlight, up into the highlands and cornered it against a cliff. They had lashed its feet to a pole. The head hung limp, staring eyes clouded over now, with the tongue clenched between its huge teeth. Dragging heavily along the ground, the tail made a snake mark in the dust. People gathered silently, eyes wide, whispering, pointing.

  “That’s the cat we saw cross the river last spring.”

  “It’s so big!”

  “Almost as big as a cave lion.”

  “Did it have a mate?”

  “No. It traveled alone.”

  That was some relief.

  I swallowed. I held Suli up so she could look. “See, it is dead. There’s nothing to be afraid of now.” Uff approached the leopard on stiff legs, hackles raised, growling. She sniffed it carefully until she was sure that it would not move.

  Uli and Hani’s mother had been killed, her neck snapped like a hare, when the cat burst through the wall of their takka. She had tried to shield their Bu, who still lived, but he had not escaped the terrible claws. Moc-Atu was working over him now, but everyone knew it was hopeless. Before midday, there were two corpses to bury.

  Moc-Atu mixed the bloodstone and painted the faces of the dead. Ama held Hani as if she were her own child. Uli stood bravely beside his father, but I could see he was biting his lip. The women placed a few late flowers in the grave, and the men covered the bodies. There was nothing more to do.

  I wondered if I had somehow caused this to happen, when I touched my brother’s keerta. But these things always happened. Who could stop a big cat from clawing its way into the takkas of the People while they slept?

  Fires burned. People kept watch, but still, the great beasts sometimes had their way.

  On a white morning of frost, the cry came at last. Fin ran down the cliff path, leaping from rock to rock, calling out, “The reindeer come!” Men scattered for their keertas. The women began setting up the drying racks. Children were sent for armloads of willow twigs for the smoke fires.

  We stood on the knoll above the river crossing to wait. I shivered in the cold morning, watching my older brother uneasily. Sen seemed nervous as he checked his hunting things. His laughter and jesting were louder than usual. Had he noticed anything odd about his keerta? He and Apa had brought the weapon to the shaman and it had been purified with bitter-leaf smoke and much chanting.

  Now Moc-Atu danced a prayer to the deer spirit. We gathered to watch. Wearing a headdress of a skull with antlers still attached, he whirled in a circle, his strange eye rolling wildly, his braids flying. The rattles he wore clicked at his ankles and wrists. He chanted the ancient words in his ancient voice:

  Mind of the herd, come to us!

  Body of the herd, come to us!

  Spirit of the herd, come to us!

  Nnnnn-gata!

  In the distance, I saw three of the lupta trot to the top of a rise, noses to the wind. Closer at hand, I spotted a big, golden wolf with a handful of followers. Shine and the imnos.

  Suddenly Uff leapt to her feet. Black specks appeared in the sky. Ravens! Now, on the far side of the river, came the cloud of dust, closer and closer until I could see the forest of antlers, hear the clicking of their ankle joints, smell the mossy scent of them. They plunged into the river and began swimming.

  Moc-Atu sang his song, high and thin, over and over. Men shook their keertas. Women held their work blades to the sky. They had become a hunting pack, like the wolves. Suddenly Moc-Atu stopped. The headman, Rhar, raised his fist. There was a great cheer.

  It was time.

  Uff circled, hackles up, panting. My stomach lurched. “Nah, Uff! You cannot!” I grabbed her by her neck fur. She fought to get away.

  I couldn’t hold her much longer. With one hand, I unfastened my jahs from my waist and tied an end around her neck with a knot that would not choke her. She threw herself sideways, shook her head.

  “Give her this, Kai!”

  It was Vida, carrying the foreleg of a deer. “They’re starting to bring in the first ones,” she panted.

  Uff leapt for the deer leg. She did not see me tying the other end of the jahs to a small tree, but settled down to eat. Vida ran a hand over her fur. Uff waved her tail.

  I crouched, jabbing the end of my stick into the dust. Vida knelt beside me. Suddenly I felt her hand over mine, holding it still. “Why are you so angry, Kai?” she asked.

  “They will never let me take part in the hunt,” I said.

  “Kai, you do have a part—use your eyes!” she answered. “Your mother showed me the aurochs that you painted. Look at the living deer—how beautiful they are. See those two that have crossed safely and are browsing—how the bull reindeer licks the nose of the cow. You could draw that, Kai! You could do that for the immet.”

  I stared at her.

  She cast her eyes down, cheeks flushed. “I should go now. If my mother sees, she’ll be angry.” Vida got to her feet and sped away.

  Before nightfall, the blood of the deer stained river and bank, and still the herd kept coming. I watched as other hunters besides those of the People began to gather at the crossing. The air grew black with circling ravens and vultures. We worked until dark.

  The big cats, wolves, hyenas, foxes, even stoats and weasels would move in now. And still the herd kept coming.

  Apa and Sen returned to the fire long enough to eat much of the sizzling haunch Ama had ready. “I have killed nine deer,” Apa told us, “but Sen has killed ten—ten!” My brother grinned. “It was just luck,” he said. “Nnnnn-gata! I have a lucky keerta.”

  My mouth went dry at his words.

  Now the dangerous part began. The herd could be gone by morning. There were still killed deer to bring in. It might seem like plenty, but winter was long. Nothing could be wasted.

  Carrying torches, Apa and Sen headed back to the crossing with the other hunters. The moon gave little light. Under the stars, our hunters and their flickering torches looked very small. I watched as they built fires. In the red glow, they stood guard over and fought for the remainder of our winter meat.

  Ama put Suli and Bu to bed. Then she came back outside to sit with me. “I cannot sleep,” she said. Her voice was low and tense. I flexed my shoulders, trying to ease my aching muscles. Together, we listened to the shouts of the hunters and the surly snarling of hungry beasts. It would be a long night. Beside me, Uff slept uneasily. Now and then, her ears moved, listening to the sounds. The men shouted and banged sticks together. Moc-Atu thudded on his drum. Out in the open land, hyenas shrieked their anger. Foxes yapped on the hillsides.

  Suddenly there was a roar followed by a scream made by no animal. Shouting. Uff leapt to her feet. In the wavering light of our fire, my mother and I stared at each other.

  Then Ama cried out, “Someone is coming!” Together, we peered into the dark, in the direction of the river crossing. Two men stumbled up the pathway to the immet carrying a third. As they came closer, I could see that it was Apa and a man named Reo. The one they carried was my brother.

  They brought him inside and laid him on his bed. His face was blood and torn flesh. My mother knelt beside him, moaning as if she felt the wound herself. I crouched in the shadows, with Uff. Ama pressed moss against Sen’s forehead to try to hold back the bleeding.

  My father was beside her. “It was a cave lion.” His voice choked. “Sen’s keerta split…the beast took him down. The keerta should not have broken—it was a good keerta.…” He stopped speaking and stared at me. Then he turned back to my mother. Several other hunters now stood by the opening. A chill wind had come up. I could feel it sweeping in around them.

  My father spoke again in a rasping whisper. “The keerta was cursed! Kai…the tabat one…he disobeyed. He was never to touch a weap
on….”

  I could not speak. My father’s words cut like flint. Ama pressed her face into Apa’s shoulder.

  One of the men placed the broken keerta carefully beside Sen. “We’ll ask Moc-Atu to come,” he said very low. They went back into the windy night. Some of them would return to the river crossing. My gaze fell on the aurochs-horn mark near the end of the keerta. The pitch and clay repair had fallen out. Uff’s deep tooth mark was clearly visible.

  It is true. I have done this. I have killed my brother.

  I was about to say this to my father when he got to his feet. He took up Sen’s shattered weapon, staring at me with hollow eyes, as if he were seeing me from a great distance. “I was a fool to think it could be cleansed.” His voice broke. He flung the keerta into the fire. I watched the shaft burn to gray ash. The beautiful blade split in two. My father did not look my way again.

  Numbly, I carried water and helped my mother bathe the wounds. The bleeding would not stop. The lion’s claws had ripped the flesh from Sen’s scalp, down across both eyes, to his left ear. Both eyelids were torn—one nearly off. We found deep tooth marks in his shoulder. I had to put my ear to his mouth to hear his breath.

  Moc-Atu came with rattles and incense. I shook all over as if I were freezing. I wanted to go away from my family in the night and never return. But Moc-Atu put a stone lamp into my hands. He did not look at me, but said in his rasping voice, “I need light for my work. See and know.”

  I bit my lip. I saw well enough. I knew what I had done.

  Ama sat, clutching Bu and Suli. I wiped away the blood so that Moc-Atu could see to work. My wolf curled herself up on my sleeping fur and lay there unmoving, but her eyes never left me.

  The shaman threaded my mother’s finest needle with a length of hair from a horse’s tail. I tried to keep my hand steady holding the lamp for him. I could not take my eyes away as he made careful stitches, one after another, slowly closing the wounds. There were beads of sweat on his forehead.

  Apa’s face was a mask. “I will track the lion and bring its heart for Sen to eat so that he will take its strength and live.” The ragged sound of his voice made me shiver.

  Moc-Atu nodded. “I have seen that save a hunter. Nnnnn-gata. It is a good magic.”

  My father lit a torch. Then he went out alone into the wind and dark.

  At last Moc-Atu finished. The light from the stone lamp flickered over my brother’s face. It shone on the shaman’s cheekbones and brow, making his eyes caves of shadow, and the lines in his face so deep that he seemed as old as the earth itself. I looked at my brother. Blood oozed through the stitches. The shaman wrapped Sen’s head in fresh moss and strips of clean, soft hide.

  Then he crouched beside him. I fed the fire, as if doing so would keep Sen alive. The dancing light shone weirdly on the shaman’s face, making the shadows behind him blacker. Moc-Atu’s voice began as a hoarse whisper. I had heard the words sung for others: for the little bah before Suli who left us, burning with fever, then suddenly gone cold and still on a frozen winter night. For the grandmother I could barely remember—except for the cough that was finally silent. For my mother on an endless day after Suli’s birth.

  Tal, do not leave us!

  Spirit, do not leave us!

  Far into the night, Moc-Atu chanted. He sang without stopping, until his voice was little more than a croak. I thought the old man might fall over with exhaustion, but he did not. The spell of the chanting seemed to hold me upright, too. I had no thought of sleep. My eyes seldom left my brother.

  Sen lay very still. He looked thin and strangely shrunken.

  Uff was pressed against my leg. My hand stroked her fur. My eyes watched my brother. It was me. I did this.

  Toward dawn, Apa returned, his face lined with dirt and sweat. He could barely stand. In his hands was the heart of the cave lion, still warm—red with its blood. With her sharpest blade, Ama quickly cut it into small pieces, anger and fear in each slashing cut. Then she boiled the meat into a strong broth.

  When at last Sen woke, his hands fumbled at the wrapping around his head. “It’s only a scratch,” Ama whispered. “Soon you will heal. Drink this. It’s made from the heart of your enemy. It will make you strong again.”

  Below the bandage, Sen’s face was so swollen that I did not know him. He spoke a few words then. “I struck…but I was afraid….It was not a good thrust. The cat…fell on my keerta. My eyes…” But Ama hushed and crooned to him, made him drink the heart broth, until he fell asleep again.

  Moc-Atu did not leave his side for three nights. I was sent for whatever he needed that could still be found growing: chaga fungus, keerta leaf, bristle-stem, moon root, sleep root, black seeds, sticky vine. These had to be fresh and perfect. He sorted through what I brought, grumbling and muttering to himself. The tiny shells in his braids whispered together. His blue eye rolled. He tossed anything shriveled or brown aside and sent me to find more. What was good, he made me grind and brew. Other things he had in his medicine pouch: dried roots, strange powders. He kept a poultice of these herbs on the wounds. Now wetness seeped through the moss and hide. The shaman sniffed carefully for the smell of death. Nodded.

  Again and again, he said to me, “See and know.” I saw the oozing, torn flesh of my brother’s face. I saw the fever burning in his body. I knew what I had done. Still, I stayed by Sen’s side. I could not leave. I watched Moc-Atu feed him sips of willow-bark broth and heart broth. I listened as he chanted until he had no voice left.

  Deep into the third night, Sen began to thrash. A sound came from deep in his throat. Suddenly he screamed. He sat up, tried to stand, clutched at his head, fell back, gasping. Then he was very still.

  I couldn’t breathe. Moc-Atu leaned forward and put his ear to Sen’s chest, a hand to his cheek. Then he turned to me. In terror, my eyes met his. Both the blue and the brown held mine steadily. Slowly, he smiled. “The fever has left,” he whispered.

  Sen would live, but he was thin and weak. I could not leave his side, and Uff never left mine. When my mother changed the wrapping over the wound, she averted her eyes. The healing wound was ugly. Many people came with gifts and kind words. The hunters came to show him honor. They stood about uneasily in the cramped space of our takka.

  “You made a good scratching tree for the lion,” Reo tried to jest. The others chuckled, but there was no heart in it.

  Apa unrolled the pelt of the lion. It was huge. Beautiful. He had strung the fangs and claws of the cat. Firelight glittered on them as he put this carefully around Sen’s neck, saying, “The beast was dying from the wound of your keerta when I found it. It is no shame for a hunter to be scarred. These claws will help you track the lion’s brothers to mark one of them as this one marked you.”

  Fin came alone. He had no jests. He squatted by Sen’s side and said nothing. If he had spoken, he would have cried. Finally, he got up and turned to go. “Get better, friend,” was all he could manage.

  Vida and Cali came. Uff greeted Vida. I saw that Cali wore her ordinary clothing, but her hair was combed back and she had bone rings in her ears. She gave Sen a das filled with choice bits of deer loin, roasted with herbs. “My mother made this…” she started to say, until Vida interrupted, saying, “Nah, Cali, you…” But Cali shook her head to tell her to hush.

  They told stories of her brother. “Bim lost his tooth, but he swallowed it, so he could not show it to anyone. He roared until my father gave him a deer tooth to hush him,” said Cali.

  “Kai, you must eat, too,” Vida said, turning to me. “It’s very good.”

  I shook my head. I hoped that she could not see the storm of blackness inside me.

  Day after day, never even once did Mir come to see my brother.

  Rhar visited alone. The headman was like the sun when it rises. He glittered with the teeth of his many kills. He did not look at me, but his eyes rested on Uff for many heartbeats. I felt more than heard the low rumble in her throat. She eyed him, head low. “Hush,” I
whispered to her.

  The headman pulled a long blade of white flint from his pouch. “Here is a new keerta point for your next hunt,” he said roughly. Sen could only feel with his fingers the deadly edge and perfect shape. He whispered his thanks.

  Rhar turned to my father and motioned to speak with him. They went outside. Uff got up and stalked to the opening. I watched the two men move off to where their talk would not be heard. The headman looked my way once and made a gesture with his hands. Apa stood very still, staring at the ground. Then Rhar pointed to my wolf. I saw my father shake his head. Rhar growled a warning and strode away.

  Later I stood beside Uff and gazed at the cold world. The first snow was falling. Winter.

  When grandfather knew that his place by the fire was worth more empty, he had walked out into the winter night and never returned. I had been marked at birth by the Dark One. I could see it clearly now. I had nearly killed my own brother. Rhar could not know what Uff had done. But I was tabat. I was the wolfboy with the twisted foot and I had handled my brother’s keerta.

  I knew now what I must do. I put my hand on Uff’s head. I did not know how much longer she would be safe with the People. But still, I could not leave my brother. “We will go as soon as I know if Sen can still see,” I whispered.

  Days passed.

  For long spells my brother sat near the entrance to our takka, brooding under the darkness of his bandages. His hands hung limp between his drawn-up knees. He spoke little. Suli tried to put her ah-bah into his arms, saying, “Here, Sen, you can have her,” but he pushed her away.

  “It was a good present,” I told her, stroking her tangled hair. “Sen is too sad now, even for gifts.” Uff licked her cheek. “See, Uff knows.”

  Secretly I gathered what I would need. I was ashamed. I did not have the courage of Apa-Da. He had walked without pack or blade, without even clothing, into the cold to end his life.