Medicine Road (2 page)

There was no sound in the Hemlock Wood. The
snow came to rest silently upon the forest's floor;
the wind lay noiselessly among the spruce and balsam boughs. No movement disturbed the vast, uneasy quiet to hint that life still stirred the frozen
pulse of the Arctic woodland-and yet it did.

So, too, did fear. The very silence smelled of fear.
It was in the staleness of the air, the unnatural hush
of the hemlocks, the slowing fall of the snow. Beneath its eerie spell the animals crouched waiting,
fearing the stillness, wanting it to end, yet fearing
even more the sound they knew must end it.
Presently the waiting was done, the frightening silence broken. From the north, borne on the cold
wings of an awakening wind, came the long, quavering, low-keyed and weirdly beautiful hunting
song of the white Arctic wolves.

Thus was Awklet born into a world of savage uncertainty. The cow moose Bera was his mother. She
was an old moose, gray with the snows of many winters. Awklet was to be her last calf, and that he
might live old Bera was prepared to die. The wolf
song was not new to her. She had heard it many
times before. Always it came as it did now, when the
animals were weak and thin from the wintertime's
lack of forage, when they could not run or fight.
They could only crouch in their hiding places and
wait, hoping the wolf pack would pass them by.

Quickly old Bera worked with her newborn calf.
Nosing the baby ever deeper into the alder tangle,
her red-rimmed eyes kept searching nervously from
right to left. The calf stumbled awkwardly on legs
that were yet too new. Time and again he fell, but old
Bera's great, humpy nose was always there to urge
him up and onward. Presently the old cow moose
found that for which she sought-dry ground, free
of snow and heavily grown with tough, acrid forest
grasses. She hesitated, sniffing and grunting eagerly, and was quickly satisfied. The dry ground
would not hold their scent overly long, and the
strong smell of the native grasses would confuse
what little odor she and the calf might leave upon it.

The time grew short now. Hurriedly Bera forced
the wobbly calf across the clearing and toward her
chosen goal-an overhang of scraggly cedars whose
branches were snarled in a thick, protective crown,
and whose fallen trunks and limbs formed a perfect
fortress-nest for her tiny young one. In the heart of
this cover she made him lie down to await her return.

The calf uttered little soft noises and touched his
velvety nose to that of his mother. He did not understand the reasons for the old cow's worried actions.
With his weak baby's vision he could scarcely see
the things about him. Even his mother was no more
than a big shadow that made reassuring sounds and gave forth a comforting smell. But in the wild a parent's orders are obeyed instinctively. Directions are
somehow comprehended and carried out at once,
and without argument. So it was that tiny Awklet
lay precisely as old Bera left him, although her reasons for having him do so were entirely beyond his
hours-old intelligence.

Loki paused on the crest of a high snowbank and
gazed down upon the silent Hemlock Wood. He
was a tremendous wolf, deep of chest, thick of loin,
heavy and powerful of flank. Great muscles rolled
beneath his magnificent coat. Every movement he
made was one of absolute power and certainty. He
knew no hesitation, no doubt, no fear. And why
should he? Loki was the king of the white Arctic
wolves.

He gazed long at the forest, his face without expression, his body without movement. Behind him
the crowded ranks of his followers were frozen images awaiting his signal. At length he turned to
them. They drew back, growling and muttering
among themselves. He gave no sign that he saw or
heard their uneasiness. His stumpy little ears lay
back close to his broad skull. The bands of muscle
along his jaws quivered only slightly. His face was a
scarred white mask from which only one eye glared
at his nervous followers. Where the other eye should
have been there was nothing save an empty slit.
Even in the remoteness of the Arctic, the price of
kingship is a heavy one.

Loki narrowed his one good eye. A low rumble
shook his chest. Like released springs the muscles of
the waiting wolves uncoiled. They went over the
crest of the snowbank in a silent wave, cascading down its steep face like a waterfall of white fur. They
melted into the forest below without a sound.

Old Bera listened intently. The hunting song of the
wolves had fallen away and she heard nothing. Satisfied, she gave Awklet a last nuzzle, turned, and
forced her way out of the cedar tangle. Stepping into
the open ground of the clearing, she moved with decision and sureness. Her baby was well hidden. The
wolves would not find him, and what matter her
fate? The calf was safe, that was the main thing. It
remained only for her to lead the wolves away from
his hiding place. That was as far as the wild mind
worked. The fact that the calf would surely starve
without her never occurred to old Bera.

Through the snow-deep aisles of the forest the
wolf pack coursed. Only the hush-hush of their feathery footfalls distinguished them from the ghosts
they resembled as they followed Loki in search of
game. In the rear of the pack, a little separated from
the others, three big dog-wolves ran by themselves.
They were One Ear, Bakut, and Scarface. Long dissatisfied with Loki's leadership, the three were
growling and bickering angrily. Presently One Ear
lagged even farther behind the pack's swift pace.
His two companions dropped back with him. Soon
the pack drew away and a turn in the trail hid them
from its view. At once the three deserters struck out
on their own, their course leading them at right angles to that of the pack.

They had not gone far before they blundered
across the fresh tracks of a cow and calf moose. Following this sign, their keen nostrils were suddenly
stung with the full body scent of their quarry. They
cut away from the tracks and headed across a small, open meadow directly toward the new, stronger
odor. Ahead of them was a thick stand of alder and
birch. They slowed their pace, their noses telling
them their prey lay just beyond the cover, their instincts warning them they must now proceed with
the greatest care. Loki was not far off and the law of
the wolf pack made no allowances for deserters like
themselves.

Luck held with them. As they broke through the
stunted trees, they stopped and dropped to their
bellies in the snow. Across a second small clearing
an old cow moose was putting the finishing touches
to an amazingly clever calf nest. Had they not surprised her at it, they would never have known the
calf was there. As it was, they would get two suppers for the effort of one.

There was no need for a signal. One Ear, Bakut,
and Scarface knew their business. It wasn't as if this
was the second or third, or even the tenth or twentieth cow moose they had stalked. Bakut would slash
the great tendon in her right rear leg, Scarface that in
her left. As she went down, One Ear would leap for
her throat. It was that simple, and it would all be
over very quickly.

Loki brought the pack to a halt in the big meadow
that formed the center of the Hemlock Wood. Here,
as they had since the oldest of them could remember, the wolves would separate into small bands and
work the forest in an ever narrowing circle. By
nightfall they would have closed the circle and completed their work of destruction.

Like the well-trained hunters they were, the various pack leaders took their followers and departed.
Zor and Bigfoot were first, then Lukat, Split Lip, and old Sukon, the greatest hunter of them all save Loki
himself. Watching them go, the king wolf's single
eye narrowed suddenly. The meadow was empty
now, the last wolf gone, yet he had not seen One Ear,
Bakut, or Scarface with any of the departing packs.
Loki growled, deep and ugly, in his throat. Unless
his one eye was tricking him, the three must have
left the main pack before it entered the meadow. Still
growling angrily, he turned swiftly along the back
trail, following the broad snow track the pack had
made in reaching the meadow.

Old Bera speeded her ungainly gait as she came
across the clearing away from the cedar tangle. She
must not be seen leaving her calf. The wolves must
find her before they found her baby. She must play
the old wilderness mother's game of leading danger
away from her helpless young. Suddenly she froze
in mid-step. Was that a movement there in the snow
ahead of her? Just at the edge of the clearing, where
the forest began? She reached out her huge, humped
nose, peering uncertainly toward the alder and
birch clump.

The snow moved again, took sudden, frightening
form. Wolves! Three of them. Crouched to their bellies in the snow, their furry haunches gathered under them, their almond-shaped, yellow eyes
fastened upon her. Grunting hoarsely, she wheeled
to face them.

They came at her in a silent rush, and, as they
came, old Bera was ready for them. She braced herself, easing her great weight back upon her
hindquarters so that her razor-sharp forehoofs
would be free to lash out at her attackers. Nostrils
spread, small, red eyes rolling wickedly, heavy lips laced with nervous froth, she presented no reassuring picture to Loki's three deserters.

One Ear hesitated understandably. Bakut and
Scarface broke their charge, sliding to a stop at the
same time. This was not going to be so easy as it had
looked.

Presently One Ear slunk off to the right, circling
around to get behind the old cow. Bakut and Scarface followed him. Bera turned with them, step for
cautious step. There were no beginners here. All
four animals were veterans of dozens of such encounters. None wasted so much as a single breath or
motion as the endless, silent circling went on. But
old Bera had only two eyes-and there were three
wolves.

The circle was broken without warning. Suddenly
Bakut charged straight in. As Bera reared to meet
him, he sidestepped and dived in under her, slashing for her rear leg. She was forced to whirl and tuck
the leg high to her side so that Bakut's fangs would
strike only the tough muscles of her outer haunch,
missing the inner, soft part of the leg for which he
aimed. In doing this, she had to turn her eyes from
One Ear and Scarface. They closed instantly, both
leaping for her unprotected throat.

At the same instant, Bakut's teeth closed on her
haunch. The pain of the wound caused her to rear
suddenly higher, making both One Ear and Scarface
miss their aims and bury their fangs in the bone and
sinew of her shoulder. The hurt of the new wounds
forced an explosive grunt from the old cow moose.

It was the first sound of the unequal struggle. It
echoed like a pistol shot in the still air, startling
Awklet to his feet within the cedar tangle. His action was purely nervous, could not be controlled. His mother's deep grunt had been too loud, too
close, too instinctively frightening. Then, before he
could move again, he heard another, more terrifying
sound-the guttural snarling of angry wolves. It
was a sound as fascinating as it was frightening,
and the young moose could not resist the strange
excitement and curiosity it called up within him.
Stretching his thin neck toward the source of the
fearsome noise, he blinked his weak eyes in infant
wonderment.

Loki traveled fast. Shortly he came to the spot where
One Ear and his two companions had left the pack.
Pausing only a moment to sample the freshness of
their tracks, he swung off after them. He moved
with the tireless gait peculiar to the hunting wolf,
ears back, red tongue lolling, lone eye burning.

Before long the trail of the deserters joined that of
a cow moose and her day-old calf. Loki lengthened
his stride. The scent was very fresh now and he knew
his followers could not be far ahead. They were not.
Within the next minute he heard their snarling.

Swiftly the king wolf changed his course, racing
toward the birch and alder thicket from beyond
which the snarling came. As he ran, a new odor
struck his nose-fresh blood. Then, suddenly, a
fourth smell, strongest and deepest of them all,
came to him.

Loki trembled as he bellied into the snow and
crept through the thicket. He always trembled at
that smell. He loved it. It was in his very sinews. He
knew its harsh scent as well as he knew his own,
and the excitement of it never failed to set every
fiber of his great body on sudden, tingling edge. It
was the smell of death.

As Awklet's straining eyes focused on the clearing, he saw his mother, gaunt old Bera, thrusting
and slashing with her cloven forehoofs. First One
Ear attacked, feinting and dodging, leaping and
snarling. Then, when One Ear pulled away, Bakut
and Scarface raced in, retreating swiftly when One
Ear attacked again.

Suddenly Bakut slipped beneath old Bera as she
turned to thrust One Ear away from her flank. With
invisible speed his fangs slashed across the tendons
of one rear leg. At the same instant, One Ear leaped
in and severed the sinews of the other. The old
moose staggered and went down as Scarface found
her throat with merciful speed.