The Wolf's Boy Read online

  I did not want to live, but I did not have the courage to die.

  I made myself a new fire kit. Fire was first. Then, with a guilty heart, I took three good cores from Apa’s store of flint, and a suitable tine of deer antler for shaping edges. If my work blade broke, I would need a new one. Flint was life, too. I gathered my snares and tied them into a tight bundle. I made new needles for my sewing kit. I found a bark das that could serve for both cooking and eating. I took my osa too, but my bearskin sleeping cover was too heavy to carry. I would have to leave it behind.

  I packed travel cakes made for winter hunts. I had worked as hard as anyone pounding dried berries, nuts, and meat together to make them. Still, something inside me hurt. Sen might never hunt again, or at least not this winter. I was taking food from my family.

  Last of all, I ground a chunk of bloodstone and tucked the powder into my pouch of sacred things along with Uff’s baby tooth, the stone shell I had found by the river, and the little rainbow stone my mother had given me long ago. Bloodstone paint was used for the death ritual. If Uff were to die, I could help her find the spirit world by painting her face with it. If I were to die…well…if I knew that I would die…I could use it for myself.

  There was little need to be secret. When Ama was not busy with the work of the reindeer and Bu and Suli, she was cleaning and wrapping Sen’s wounds. There were lines in her face that I had not seen before. She scarcely saw me. To my father, I thought I was already gone.

  Once I heard him say to my mother in a harsh tone, “It is my fault.” For the smallest moment, his eyes slid to me. Then they fled back to my mother’s. She shook her head. The muscles around her mouth tightened. She looked away.

  So.

  She should not have taken me back from the wolves. He should not have let her do it. That is what my parents thought. They were frightened. Of me.

  Another time, when we were alone, I said to my brother, “I’m sorry.”

  He said nothing for a long time. One hand went to the wrapping over his eyes. In a halting voice, he said, “Kai, I think…it was not your fault. Remember the times I let you play with my keerta…when we were small? No tabat thing happened then. A hunter can be hurt in many ways. I was afraid…I think this time I was not steady. My aim was not sure.”

  I reached for Uff where she lay beside me. I stroked her head. She rested her chin on my knee. Then I said very low, “Maybe my friendship with a wolf angers Tal.”

  My brother put out his hand. For the first time, he felt the softness of Uff’s fur. Stroked her head. Rubbed her ears. She licked his fingers. “I have wanted to touch her and to be her friend…as you are. I was…Kai, I had envy…envy for you!” There was amazement in his voice. I swallowed hard. Sen continued, “Maybe Tal gave her to you because of your foot,” he said. “Maybe you needed a friend. I haven’t been a friend to you for a long time.”

  I looked at him. He could not see the tears in my eyes.

  Then he said, “I remember when you said that Tal gives us two arms, legs, eyes, and ears, in case one is broken or hurt. That the other grows stronger. That maybe Tal is trying to make you stronger. But what if both my eyes are gone? I would no longer be a blood-hunter. I would not have Mir. I do not think I’m strong enough to live like that.”

  “You have to be strong enough,” I said. “In the wolf pack, each wolf has a place.”

  I wanted to believe my brother—that it wasn’t my fault—but I was filled with terror of the danger I might be to my family. Rhar wanted me and my wolf gone. Would he kill Uff when I wasn’t looking? I beat my fist against my useless leg. Why did it have to be like this?

  I knew what I must do.

  On the day of the reindeer moon, the day that Sen and Mir were to have been joined, Ama took the binding from Sen’s wound. We watched in silence. He blinked in the light. His right eyelid was thick with the new raw, red scar, but with the help of Ama’s gentle fingers, it opened. Three raised lines from the lion’s claws raked his forehead and down the side of his face.

  Apa sat back on his heels, watching. His eyes showed no feeling, but over and over, his fingers worked the small bundle of magic things he wore around his neck.

  Sen’s eyes watered. He squinted, turning away from the sun. He put his hands in front of his face and moved his fingers. At last, in a voice so low that we could barely make out his words, he whispered, “The right one blurs, but I can see.” He did not smile. Then he was weeping. My father looked away so as not to see my brother’s tears. He drew a great breath and put a hand on his shoulder. “You will hunt again,” he said.

  But Sen turned from him. “I am ugly now,” he whispered. “I am marked as Kai is. Mir will not have me.”

  My chest ached. I did this.

  The full moon shone brightly that evening, but there would be no joining ceremony, no wedding feast. Others celebrated the reindeer harvest. My family did not. I sat silent, one arm around Uff. I tried not to hear the drums and laughter coming from the great hearth. No one spoke to me.

  It was time for me to go.

  It was later that night, when I was alone with Uff and Sen in our takka, that the other boys came. Suli had begged, and Ama and Apa had finally taken the little ones to watch the hunters dance the Reindeer Dance. We were by ourselves. Not saying much, but not angry either. As we sat by the fire, I carved a small wolf from a piece of deer antler. For Suli. She would miss Uff. We would leave that night, after my family slept.

  Sen’s friends were disappointed that there had been no marriage celebration. We heard loud voices, laughter. Then Fin stumbled through the opening of the takka. Several others followed him. Uff leapt to her feet with a growl. She liked Fin, Uli, and Ptyr well enough. But she had not forgotten Xar. I held her back by the scruff. “Nah,” I said to her. I sidled toward the opening. Maybe I could escape.

  The boys smelled of drink. Uli still had a half-full skin of it. His hair was shorn for his mother’s death, and his eyes were still dark with grief. Fin took the skin from him and offered it to Sen, saying, “I saw your parents leave. It should have been a wild feast—your feast, Sen!” He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Help us drink this! My father made a lot of it for this night. He won’t miss it. He has already drunk so much of it himself that he sleeps like a winter bear!”

  “It will open your eyes to all the other girls,” said Uli. “Jyn doesn’t care how a boy looks. She likes us all.”

  I edged past my mother’s cooking things. Sen took the skin willingly and drank. He coughed. Made a face. Then he drank again.

  I was nearly outside, pulling Uff along with me, when Xar saw us. He lurched in front of me. “Where do you think you’re going, tabat one?” His words were slurred from the drink.

  “It wasn’t Kai’s fault,” muttered Sen.

  Xar raised his eyebrows. “That’s not what the headman says! It’s not what my father and I say.” He spoke to Sen, but his eyes never left mine. He swayed on his feet, and the firelight made his shadow loom over us—a huge, flapping thing. “Rhar says your keerta broke because your brother thought he would try being a hunter.”

  He pointed at Uff. “He says the wolf is tabat, too.”

  “Come,” I said to Uff, and tried again to leave.

  Xar slammed a foot in front of my stick. Smiling. Ugly. “The moon is full, a good night to hunt wolves! I will count to ten while you run, Kai.” Snorting over the word run. “Then the hunt begins!” He started to draw his long blade.

  Fin grabbed his arm. “Leave Kai alone!” But Xar threw him off. Held up the blade, gleaming in the firelight. “Perhaps I will skin your beast while she still lives!” A step closer. “Start running, Wolfboy….One…two…”

  Uff roared, broke away from me, and sprang for Xar’s throat. He put his arm up. She sank her teeth into it, shaking her head, furious—beautiful. Xar screamed. Fin and Uli helped me drag Uff away from him—the fire knocked apart, singed fur and leather, fighting all the while. I had to pry her jaws op
en. All of us panting.

  Fin laughed, shakily. “You deserved that, Xar!”

  Xar stumbled away, cursing. His arm was red with blood.

  Moments later, Vida and Cali came running.

  “Xar told my father that Uff attacked him!” Vida panted, fear in her eyes.

  “She was only trying to protect me,” I said.

  “Xar pulled his blade on Kai,” said Uli.

  “He was acting crazy,” agreed Ptyr.

  “Rhar says he will kill Uff at daybreak,” said Cali.

  “What will you do, Kai?” Vida was near tears. She knelt and put her arms around Uff.

  I heard Cali say very low to my brother, “We heard that your eyes have healed. I am glad.”

  He nodded, put a hand up to the scars, but he did not look at her.

  “Come, Vida, we cannot stay.”

  As they left, Vida turned and held out her hand to me in the friendship sign. I reached my hand to hers and clasped it. “Thank you,” I managed to whisper.

  Then I watched the two sisters, running back together in the moonlight. I wished I had said more to Vida. I wished I had said good-bye.

  The night was cold. Owls called their terror cries to their prey. A snow cat screamed. The imnos sang to the moon. Uff raised her head, ears pricked. Her body quivered.

  At last my family was all breathing deep and steadily. I rose silently and pulled on my clothing. Quietly I shrugged into my pack-basket and took up my stick. I could just make out the forms of the others in their sleeping furs.

  I will not ever see you again.

  I bent and tucked the little carved wolf into Suli’s hand. Touched her forehead. Tal keep you, little Bramble. She murmured something in her sleep. Her fingers closed around it, but she didn’t wake. Then I slipped outside.

  Uff bounded after me. We would have to move fast. Outside, the world was blue and huge. The tree branches were black bones. Only the river broke the stillness. I made my way down the steep path to the river trail, Uff close at my heels.

  One time only, I turned to look at the immet of the People. The dark shapes of the takkas huddled at the base of the cliffs. A few fires flickered.

  I will never return to this place.

  Always, the hunters went out to the east, the south, the west. Never to the north. The story was told of the grandfathers’ grandfathers who, in desperation, had once traveled north during a hungry winter. A band of Ice Men took them by surprise in a ravine, killing most of the hunting party. The fearsome men-who-were-not-men wore only shaggy furs. Their keertas were short and crude. They did not throw them, could not throw them as we did. But their strength was crushing.

  With so few of our hunters left, many of the People died that winter. North was the direction of fear. But I could not stay in the hunting grounds of my people. They would track us and kill Uff. I could not move fast enough to escape our hunters. She would not leave me. There was no other choice. The world was very big. There had to be a place for us.

  It was not easy going. The snow wasn’t deep, but there were patches of ice. After a time, a light wind began to blow. My path led up and out of the river valley, following a smaller stream. It was the one the People called the Forbidden River.

  Uff ranged ahead of me now, tail high. She seemed to feel no sense of dread, but bounded through the fine dry snow. Her nose worked the cold air. The thought came to me, What will become of Uff if I die?

  The night grew old. The moon was still a white disk near the edge of the world when the sky began to pale into morning. Wind stung my eyes, but I was glad. Our tracks would be swept away. Uff was safe—at least from Rhar’s keerta. My empty belly groaned. Apa-Da would not have eaten, but then Apa-Da would have let the cold kill him by now.

  At sunrise, I stopped without planning to. My hands reached into my pack-basket without my will. I ate a travel cake, sharing with my wolf. The strength of it spread through me. My thoughts were a confused tangle.

  My food won’t last long. I must hunt. Some beast may be hunting me. How can I hunt or defend myself? I have no weapon. My foot aches. But I have to keep going. I have to find game soon. But it is tabat for me to hunt. I am a curse to my people, my family. I should die. But Uff deserves to live. She did not mean to do anything wrong. I should find the imnos and give her back to them. But they might kill her. I have to live—Uff needs me….

  I sank my face into my open palms. Uff came then and leaned into me as I crouched in the snow.

  I slipped an arm around her shoulder. A new thought came. I did have something like a sign. A living sign—and it was Uff. I alone of the People had such a thing. I had a wolf who was my friend. And she alone of her kind had me. I belonged to her as much as she belonged to me. Perhaps I was not so much the wolfboy as the wolf’s boy.

  Moc-Atu had said that she was my power.

  My power.

  After what seemed a very long time, I raised my head. A fish eagle appeared high in the pale morning sky above us. Strange. It was very late in the season to be seeing one. It hovered over a deep, open place in the river. Balanced. Perfect. I thought I must look like a clumsy lump to it, sitting beside my wolf with my bad leg stretched out to ease the ache. I watched the big black-and-white bird. Its eyes were fixed on something in the river. Then it plunged. For a heartbeat it disappeared into the icy water. It was no longer in this world at all. Then it burst out of the river, a fish clutched in its talons.

  It was a thrashing pike. The bird flew with its burden to an outcrop at the bend of the river. It stumbled when it landed, fought with its wings for balance. Suddenly I saw that the great fish eagle had only one foot. It held the fish with just the one set of talons. It had to stand upon the stump of the other while it fed.

  “The Dark One has touched you, yet you hunt and live,” I whispered aloud. It had to. The bird had no foot at all. Yet it was still proud and strong.

  It came to me that I had no people now to whom I could bring misfortune. I was not in their hunting grounds. Why should I not make a weapon? The fish eagle hunted and lived. Why should I not do the same? The bird lifted its head to glare over the distance at me with fierce eyes. Then it bent to feed again, shredding the pike with its hooked beak.

  I moved faster, continuing along the Forbidden River. Through the afternoon, I searched for a campsite. Tail high, Uff plunged her muzzle into drifts, snuffling for mice. She turned to look back at me with a clump of snow on her nose. The sense of blackness had lifted from my heart. Uff will live! I do not have to die!

  I saw many tracks in the snow: ptarmigan under a birch tree, the straight line of a fox, the sweep of an owl’s wing where it had plunged after a mouse—whose tracks ended in that place.

  But nothing that looked human.

  I would need fuel, a fire to keep night beasts away, shelter from the wind. Not enough snow here to burrow into. I would have to build a brush takka. There were plenty of willows along the stream that I could cut. Already the light was fading.

  The way narrowed. There was just enough room to walk along the graveled edge where a spring flood had cut under the overhanging bank. Dead trees had fallen, crisscrossed—a tangle of branches and roots.

  I almost did not see the cat.

  She was young and hungry—careless. Still, she was big enough. There was a skittering of pebbles and ice. I turned to see her launch herself from the rocks above. I raised my stick and dodged sideways so that she carried me down with her weight alone. No tooth hold. Snarling, she writhed, trying to grasp me with claws and teeth while I beat at her with my stick.

  Uff flung herself at the cat. Dodged, slashed, snarled like a grown wolf. Eyes wild. Teeth snapping. A cat will lose heart. Do not give in to a cat—my grandfather’s voice in my head. The cat seeking a hold on Uff’s throat. Claws scrambling. Gravel flying. Fury I had never known before. “NAH!” I screamed. I swung my stick over and over at the creature’s head. Suddenly, she turned and leapt away down the riverbank. Flowed over the rocks like a great
tawny, speckled ghost.

  I lay back panting. The surrounding hills seemed to echo silence after the sound of the battle. Did that really happen? Uff came to me, licking my face, whimpering. I sat up. She was bleeding from a foreleg and a cut across her muzzle. My anooka was shredded with long slashes down one shoulder, but the double layers of reindeer hide had saved me from a mauling. Blood ran from my nose. I couldn’t remember bumping it, but I must have. That was all. The sturdy hornbeam stick that Apa had made for me was not broken.

  It was some time before I could breathe easily again. I held a fistful of snow against my nose while I checked Uff’s injuries. “You helped to save me,” I whispered to her. “This will heal. You’ll have a scar, I think, to tell of your courage.” A lick and a quick nip to my sore nose. She had not lost her humor.

  Before dark, I found a campsite at the base of a boulder. I cut willow saplings and bent them into a small shelter. It took much time to weave the branches so that I could stuff leaves and moss between them for warmth. I gathered fuel. Kindled a fire. Darkness was coming.

  Now. My fist tightened on the handle of my stick. I studied the cluster of trees around me. Most were bent by the wind. But in the distance, there were a few straight ones. Keerta wood.

  Slowly, with my work blade, I cut through the wood. Hands shaking. I am doing this. I watched it fall with a thump and puff of snow. Then, crouching by my fire, I did the thing that I had watched many times before, but had never done myself.

  I made a keerta.

  After trimming off the top of the sapling, I peeled the bark and scraped and smoothed it. I cured it in the hot ashes, turning it when it began to smoke. I shook the weariness from my head and kept working. I would have a weapon when the sun rose.

  I heaped dry wood on the fire. Then I reached into the bottom of my pack and brought out one of Apa’s flint cores. I looked closely at the grain, trying to feel the way that it would break open when struck. Apa would know where to tap to work the best pieces from it.