Firstborn (20 page)

The brothers slid back down into the sinkhole and returned to their task. I'd flown up to watch but now settled back on my perch.

“Well done, Ben,” I said.

He gave me a bloody grin.

A whole haunch was an ambitious undertaking, and watching the two of them drag it out of the sinkhole was pretty comical: Lamar scrambling backward, pulling from the top, while Ben pushed from below. Lamar slipped back down several times before they finally got the haunch out, by which time it was caked with mud. Dragging it along through the grass cleaned it off some, but it got filthy again on the slog up the promontory.

On the ridge trail we had to make pit stops so Lamar and Ben could rest their jaw muscles. And there were other delays. Lamar may have been a full year old now, but his curiosity was undiminished. He had to pause on the side of the trail to examine a snakeskin, and a verbena with little starry flowers. He had to gawk at a streak of lightning brightening the gloom to the west. He even chased a small, furry animal with round ears across a stretch of frost-shattered stone, calling out to ask what it was. Of course the terrified creature dove into a crevice without answering. When Lamar got back to the trail, I told him I thought it was called a pika.

“They're so cute!” he cried. “I can't wait to tell . . .” His voice trailed off.

“Frick?” Ben guessed.

Lamar grunted and clamped his jaws around the haunch. I suspected he was trying hard to ban Artemis from his thoughts so he could do his duty by his father and the pack.

It was almost dark by the time they got their prize home. After sticking a choice chunk in the den entrance, Lamar chewed some up for his father. Blue Boy made a face when he sniffed his portion.

“Sorry, it's not elk,” Lamar said.

“Pronghorn's splendid,” Frick said. “Easier to digest.”

Frick and Hope dug in, and so did Lamar and Ben. In time Blue Boy took a few grudging nibbles, muttering between bites that this would be his last meal of baby food. More jagged streaks of lightning tore the fabric of the sky, and as Blue Boy headed up the hill to stand sentinel, it started to rain. I flew up to the poplar sapling to keep him company. Tired as Lamar must have been from his hunting and hauling, he climbed up there too. Of course Ben followed him.

“I'm not sure you need to stand watch anymore, Father,” Lamar said through the pattering drops. “We saw Raze and Lupa today.”

“What happened?” Blue Boy said

“They ran like field mice,” Ben said. “I can't believe I ever fell for them.”

“Hmp,” Blue Boy said. “Sounds like you deserve a good night's sleep, Ben.”

Something in Blue Boy's tone told Ben to detach himself from his new hero and turn in. Once he was gone, Blue Boy cleared his throat.

“I think I can handle things now,” he said.

“I never thought you couldn't,” Lamar said.

“What I mean is, feel free to go back to that silly coyote of yours, if you've a mind to.”

“She's not silly, Father.”

Blue Boy sniffed. “Get some sleep, Lamar.”

Lamar sighed and trudged back down the slope in the rain.

THE RAIN TURNED INTO A
downpour. Neither the poplar sapling nor my aspen were fully leafed out yet, so I took refuge in one of the lodgepole pines. I slept fitfully, for even there I got dripped on. But at some point after midnight the clouds finally pulled up stakes and cleared the field for a glittering army of stars.

We all woke to a glorious sunrise. As I flew back to my aspen, everything on the slope above Slough Creek seemed to be lit from within: blades of grass, dandelions, even rocks. So did Blue Boy. The rain had washed his coat clean, and as he descended the slope in the slanting sun, his bluish fur had a fine sheen to it. Then Blue Boy did something he hadn't done in a long time: gave the call of the hunt.

“For heaven's sake, Blue Boy,” Frick said.

“We're all still stuffed, Father,” Hope said.

“I'm in the mood for some elk,” Blue Boy declared.

“But you were up all night,” Ben said.

“Give your teeth another day off,” Frick advised.

“My teeth are fine,” Blue Boy said, lifting his head proudly. “If nobody wants to come with me, I'll go alone.”

But before he could trot off, Hope squealed. A floppy-eared pup came bumbling and blinking out of the den. Four others quickly followed, not a runt among them. When Alberta appeared in their wake, she seemed to have an inner glow, too.

The pups wagged their tiny tails, yipping and sniffing one another's noses and ogling the blossoming world around them. But when Blue Boy knelt down they all fell silent and filed up in an orderly manner to do obeisance, touching the bottom of his snout with theirs. There were three females and two males.

“The firstborn?” he said, eyeing the biggest of them.

“Isn't she a beauty?” Alberta said.

The firstborn really was gorgeous—and she had a bluish tinge to her fur!

“She takes after you, Father,” Hope said.

“What shall we call her?” Frick said.

“Bluebell?” Hope suggested.

“Sounds more like a flower than a wolf, doesn't it?” said Frick.

“Other ideas?” Blue Boy said.

He looked at Alberta, but it was Lamar who spoke.

“How about Maggie?” he said.

“Maggie,” said Blue Boy. “You know, I like that.”

As a rule I'm surefooted, but somehow I lost my grip on my branch and had to beat my wings like an idiot to keep from tumbling to the ground.

“Come here, Maggie,” Alberta said.

The biggest pup galloped over to her and nuzzled her belly.

“What a bright little thing!” Hope gushed.

For the rest of the day I couldn't take my eyes off my namesake. Blue Boy couldn't tear himself away either, so in the end his teeth and gums did get another day of rest. All the pups were irresistible—and irrepressible. They frisked and cavorted, their tails wagging madly, their yips drowning out the best efforts of my feathered colleagues across the creek. Ben joined in their games as if he was still a pup himself. Lamar was a little more subdued, but the pups would have none of it. To entice him to play, they spanked the ground with their front feet, and if that didn't work, they nipped him. They never let up till dusk, when one by one they collapsed in furry little heaps. Young Maggie lasted the longest.

After Alberta carried the pups back into the den, Blue Boy, who hadn't slept the night before, conked out by the den entrance. Hope, her eyes on the den, let out a sigh.

“Oh, Frick,” she said, “wouldn't it be nice if we . . .”

“What?” Frick said. Then he seemed to catch her drift. “I'm afraid only the alpha pair mates, my dear.”

“But I heard you and Lupa had a litter,” Hope said. “You weren't the alpha pair.”

“That was an unusual situation.”

Blue Boy half opened an eye. “You never know,” he said drowsily, “when another unusual situation might crop up.”

He dozed off again. When a happy Hope and Frick followed suit, Lamar got up to stand sentinel, but Ben beat him to it, hurtling up the slope. Ben stationed himself on the crest of the hill, his ears cocked for the slightest noise. But after the way he'd thrown himself into the pups' sport I doubted he would last long, and sure enough by moonrise he'd collapsed in a furry heap himself.

Lamar climbed to the hilltop, and I flew to my poplar sapling. It was breezy up there, but the warmest night yet. Wolves were howling off to the east, where the moon looked like a big yellow wolf's eye on the horizon, and to the north as well, but I didn't pick up Raze's voice or Lupa's among them. Lamar turned his head regularly, listening to each quadrant, though he never looked directly to the southeast.

Still there was no missing Artemis's howl. She really was a musical creature. It was almost as if she had some bird in her. Lamar howled back. Wolf howls are haunting but rarely cheerful, yet this one was. Artemis replied, running a scale in a series of happy quavers. I'd never heard anything quite like it.

I must have been as enthralled as Lamar, for I didn't hear the approaching steps any more than he did.

“Unusual howl.”

Lamar's head whipped around. Blue Boy stopped directly under my sapling.

“I thought you were dead to the world,” Lamar said.

“Just checking on things.”

Lamar hung his head. “I guess I'm not much of a sentinel.”

“Better than some,” Blue Boy said, shifting his eyes to Ben's sleeping form. “Anybody can get distracted.”

Again Artemis's howl wafted through the night.

“Maybe I did hear it once,” Blue Boy said thoughtfully. “A year ago—the night you poked out of the den when you were still just a fuzz ball. It's kind of nice.”

“Nice?” Lamar cried, his head shooting up. “It's unique!” After a pause he added, “That means—”

“I know what it means,” Blue Boy said. “An example would be my firstborn son, eh, Maggie?”

What could I do but agree?

“By the way, I hope you don't mind our naming that pup after you,” Blue Boy went on, keeping his eyes on me. “We probably should have asked your permission.”

There was a time when I wouldn't have thought much of having an earthbound creature like a wolf pup named after me. But as I looked at the two pairs of glittering yellow eyes below me I realized that, wise as he'd been, Jackson had been wrong about one thing: some wingless creatures did have souls.

Ben's legs started scissoring against the ground, as if he was chasing something in a dream. When he hadn't taken the cue to hunt for the pack a couple of days ago, I'd figured he was in the doghouse for good, but he'd gotten another chance today in the sinkhole and redeemed himself. Sully had gotten a second chance as well, though in his case it had come too late. As for me, I'd done a lousy job with my first family on the Triple Bar T, but maybe I'd gotten a second chance too.

“Are you sure you want to saddle that adorable pup with ‘Maggie'?” I said. “It's such a dull name.”

“I like it,” Blue Boy said.

“I think it's beautiful,” Lamar added.

I almost fell off my limb again.

“The way I see it, Maggie,” Blue Boy said, “you saved me in Montana, and again in Idaho, and again here in Yellowstone. None of us would be here if it weren't for you.”

Now I lost my voice along with my balance. It was as if my heart had swollen so much, it had blocked my windpipe.

“You're not annoyed to have the firstborn named for you, are you?” Lamar said, giving me a look of distress.

I had to swallow twice, but I finally managed to speak.

“No, Lamar, I'm not annoyed,” I said. “Not annoyed at all.”

A
LSO BY
T
OR
S
EIDLER

MEAN MARGARET

THE WAINSCOTT WEASEL