The Winter Wolf (7 page)

“
A
melia! Amelia! Are you there?”

Amelia felt Frost wriggle on her lap and she sat up, groaning. She was stiff all over and so cold that she could hardly feel her fingers. But they were safe! They had slept through the snowstorm together, and there was sparkling snow-white light glowing round the edges of the blanket now.

“Amelia! Frost!”

“Oh, Noah!” Amelia leaned forward, and tried to pull back the blanket. Perhaps he couldn’t see where they were.

It was stuck, and she had to shift the sleepy, grumpy wolf mostly off her knees to yank at it. And then the blanket came away, all at once, and quite a lot of snow came with it, crumpling down on top of the grey wool. Even so, there was an awful
lot of snow left. A wall of it, built up in front of the hole in the tree, white and rippled and slightly glittery. Amelia gaped at it. The hole in the tree was at least a metre tall, and it was almost all covered up. There was just a patch of light coming in at the top. Had all that snow fallen in one night?

Frost whined anxiously, and clawed at the snowdrift with a cautious paw.

“I think we’re going to have to dig our way out,” Amelia agreed, pushing at the wall of snow with her mitten.

“Amelia! Is that you?” called Noah.

Amelia giggled suddenly. “How many other friends have you got buried in snowdrifts out in these woods?”

There was a scuffling, and the patch of light got larger as two grey-gloved hands
dug into it. “Very funny. I was worried about you! Real worried. I tried to come and find you last night, but Pa wouldn’t let me leave the house in the snowstorm. I imagined you freezing to death out here. And then… Well, I wondered if you’d gone back to wherever it was you came from.”

Amelia smiled up at him. “Hopefully that won’t happen until we’ve taken Frost back to his mother. And you didn’t need to worry about us, we kept each other warm. Warmish, anyway.” She rubbed Frost’s soft head thoughtfully. “It would have been worse for him if he was all on his own. The snow would have blown in and swamped him.”

“You did well to pin the blanket up,” Noah told her gruffly, as he worked away at the wall of snow. Frost and Amelia helped from the inside, scrabbling and digging, until at last Frost could scramble out into the clearing again. Noah then hauled Amelia out and they watched the little wolf race around, sinking chest-deep into the soft new snow and yelping like a mad thing.

“I don’t think he liked being shut up,” Amelia said, laughing.

Noah grimaced. “It’s good he’s got some life in him. He’s going to need to make a trip. The Wrights came by our cabin early this morning, to warn us. I’d have been here before if I hadn’t stayed to listen to what they were saying. They heard a wolf around their house last night.”

“Frost’s mother!” Amelia gasped.

“I think so.” Noah nodded. “There can’t be two lone wolves hunting around here all of a sudden, can there? Samson Wright says he thinks he knows where she’s hiding out. There are some caves along the bank of the river, like I told you yesterday. Mr Wright reckons she’s there, too. He came by to see if we’d heard her. He said he was going back home to…”
He swallowed. “To melt down some lead and make more bullets for their guns. And then he and Joshua are setting off to follow her tracks – they say it shouldn’t be too hard, with the fresh snow. I think they wanted Pa to go with them, but you know he’s not sure there even is a wolf.” Noah glanced sideways at Amelia. “They’re going to shoot her.”

“No!” Amelia whispered. “We can’t let them.” She crouched down as Frost came skittering up to her, tail whisking delightedly, and brushed the snow crystals from his muzzle. “I don’t care if it’s dangerous, Noah. Surely if we take Frost back to her, she’ll know that we aren’t mean like the Wrights? She’ll be too pleased to see her pup even to notice us.”

“Let’s hope so,” Noah said grimly.
“But we have to get going now, Amelia. Look, you eat these.” He handed her some pancakes, wrapped in a cloth. “And I’ve brought some scraps for Frost, just to give him the energy for a long walk. As soon as he’s eaten, we’ve got to go. The Wrights could have set off already. They mustn’t find his mother first.”

He pulled out a little tin pan, full of breakfast scraps, and set it down in front of Frost, who started to gobble them up eagerly. Amelia leaned against the tree and watched the pup, frowning worriedly. He was still so young. Would he be able to manage the long walk to the river? Would she?

“I have to,” she whispered. “We have to get you both away safely. I’m not leaving you, or your mother, to the hunters.”

“
H
ow far is it to the river?” Amelia asked, as Noah kneeled in the snow, fastening on the snowshoes he had brought for her. “I don’t know if I can walk in these things.”

Frost sniffed curiously at the strange contraptions strapped to Amelia’s boots, and she sighed and wriggled her feet. The snowshoes looked like a cross between a basket and a tennis racket, and they felt huge and heavy on the ends of her legs.

“The snow’s too new and soft to walk on without them,” Noah explained. “They spread your weight out. They’re odd to walk in at first, but you’ll get used to it. You have to take big steps, that’s all. If you come after me, the snow will be squashed down a bit, anyway, so that’ll make it easier.”

Amelia looked at him doubtfully and then at her feet. But she didn’t have a choice. The snow was so deep if she tried to walk in it without snowshoes, she would sink up to her knees. She put her hand on Noah’s sleeve. “How far is it?” she asked again.

Noah fiddled with the straps a little longer and then he sighed. “A few miles. It’s not really that far…”

Amelia nodded. “It’ll be all right,” she said. “We’ll get there. We’ll be in time.”
She had her fingers crossed inside her mittens, hoping that it was true.

“We should stay quiet,” Noah murmured, taking her arm. “The Wrights will be on their way over to the river, too. We don’t want them hearing us.”

Before long, Amelia had no breath to talk anyway. The snowshoes felt like lumps of lead, and the muscles in her legs were aching. But she kept on going, plodding after Noah, determined that they would reach the river.

Frost had started off the walk
bright-eyed
and bouncy, but after an hour of ploughing through the snow his tail was drooping, and his ears were laid flat against his head. When the path started to slope, and the drifts got deeper, he let out a miserable whimper and stopped.

Amelia balanced herself carefully on her snowshoes, and made a slow, wobbly turn. “What’s up, Frost?” she whispered, gently stroking his ears. There were ice crystals on the fur round his muzzle, where his breath had frozen. He looked worn out.

“I don’t think he can go much further,” Noah said anxiously, crouching down to
look at the little wolf. “He had a couple of days with no food at all before I found him, I reckon. It made him weak.”

Amelia bent down to put her arm round Frost’s thin shoulders, and he leaned against her gratefully. “I know how you feel,” she muttered. “My legs hurt, too.”

She looked up at Noah. “Do you think we could carry him?”

But Noah wasn’t listening. “Hush a minute,” he breathed. He was standing like a hunter, Amelia thought, half crouched, ready, his head slowly turning from side to side. She waited, her heart suddenly thudding against her ribs. What was it? Had the mother wolf been tracking them? Or maybe Noah’s father had come out looking for him? She didn’t dare move, she just crouched there,
scanning the snowy whiteness. Even the darkness of the trees was half hidden now, with a fresh layer of snow over the branches.

“What is it?” she whispered at last, when she couldn’t bear it any longer.

“Can’t you hear?” Noah mouthed back, pointing. “Voices.”

Amelia pushed back her fur-lined cap a little, and tried to listen. He was right! She could just about hear them, filtering through the trees, a word here and there.

“…Broken?”

“Stupid…”

“Who is it?” she whispered.

“The Wrights.” Noah nodded fiercely. “I’m sure. I recognize that whining tone in Joshua’s voice. Besides, who else would be out here?” He looked around.
“I can’t see them. But they sound angry, don’t you think? Maybe something’s wrong. Come on…”

He led the way through the trees, shuffling quietly over the snow, until they were close enough to hear Samson and Joshua arguing. They could just see Joshua sitting in the snow, with his father leaning over him. Amelia shivered, as she saw the dark gleam of Samson’s gun under his arm.

“It
is
broken!” the boy wailed, and Amelia heard Samson snort in disgust.

“No such thing. Your ankle’s just twisted. How could you be so clumsy, Joshua? Come on, up with you! We need to get after that wolf. It could take us a while to track it down, and I don’t want to be caught out here in the dark.”

Joshua whimpered. “I can’t!”

Amelia heard Samson sigh loudly, and then he grabbed a half-broken branch, and yanked it away from the tree. He cursed and dodged as several armfuls of soft snow slithered down, just missing him. “Nearly went down my neck,” he muttered, shaking his coat. “Here, have this to lean on.” He flung the branch at Joshua’s feet.

Noah backed away slowly, leading Amelia through the dense trees until there was room to turn round in their bulky snowshoes. “We have to keep going!” he told her, as soon as they reached the path. “I know Joshua, he’ll whinge and whine, but he’s probably just making a fuss. And Mr Wright wants that wolf. He said so this morning. He wants a wolfskin to trade – they won’t rest for long. We need to get there before they do.”

Amelia nodded, and rubbed her aching knees. She could keep going. But what about Frost? The little wolf still looked exhausted – the short rest they’d had wasn’t enough.

“I kept this back,” Noah murmured, pulling a piece of dried meat out of his coat pocket. “Yes, you can smell it,
can’t you? A little bit now— Hey, not all at once, cheeky!” He chuckled quietly as Frost tried to snatch the whole piece. “It’s in my pocket, pup… Yes, you follow along.”

Amelia smiled as Noah set off again, this time with Frost’s nose practically in his coat pocket. Obviously the meat had been so good, Frost didn’t want to risk losing the rest of it. Noah was so natural with him, Amelia thought. He knew just how to tempt the pup along.

But it was me that helped keep him warm and safe last night,
Amelia thought.
Without me, he might never have woken up
.

They trudged on, with Noah stopping to tear off tiny pieces of dried meat every so often, and Frost dragging himself
wearily through the snow. But after another hour of hard walking, the wolf pup stopped, the snow halfway up his legs. He stood staring into the distance with his ears pricked.

“Come on, boy.” Noah patted his pocket where the last scrap of meat was waiting and glanced back anxiously to see if the Wrights were coming after them.

“No, I don’t think he’s tired,” Amelia said, seeing the eagerness in Frost’s twitching nose, the way the ruff of fur round his neck was rising. “He can smell something. Look at him, Noah! Are we close? Could it be his mother?”

Noah lifted his hand to shade his eyes. The clouds had cleared and bright sun was glinting on the snow. “Yes. See there,
Amelia? Up ahead, the trees are thinning out. We’re close to the river. We’d be able to hear it, if it wasn’t frozen over. He must have picked up her scent.”

Amelia watched as Frost danced excitedly ahead. “We’re going to find her!” she said, then hurried after him, floundering in the snow.

Noah followed them, frowning worriedly. “Amelia, stay back,” he murmured. “We have to be careful. She’s not going to trust us.”

But Amelia was too excited to listen. She was plunging after Frost, caught up in the wolf pup’s joy. He was skittering here and there, sniffing and giving little whines of recognition. Then, just as Noah was reaching out to pull Amelia back, they broke through the trees to the riverbank.

Frost stopped dead, staring across the great stretch of snow-covered ice below them.

On the opposite bank, a wolf had heard them coming. She was standing guard, tall and watchful on her rock, twenty metres away across the ice.

Amelia swallowed hard. She had been so scared of Frost when she first saw him, but she loved him now. Somehow, she had assumed his mother would be just like him – only a little bigger.

But the silvery wolf poised on the stone outcrop was lean and powerful – and terrifying. As she dropped down, bounding from rock to rock, Amelia could see the strength in every leap and spring. Even Frost seemed daunted by her for a moment, as she prowled out on to the ice. But then he squeaked, and half ran, half tumbled down between the boulders to meet his mother.