Robbed once of the joys of parenthood by the murder on the Sun Rock,
both Gray Wolf and Kazan were different from what they would have been
had the big gray lynx not come into their lives at that time. As if it
were but yesterday they remembered the moonlit night when the lynx
brought blindness to Gray Wolf and destroyed her young, and when Kazan
had avenged himself and his mate in his terrible fight to the death with
their enemy. And now, with that soft little handful of life snuggling
close up against her, Gray Wolf saw through her blind eyes the tragic
picture of that night more vividly than ever and she quivered at every
sound, ready to leap in the face of an unseen foe, to rend all flesh
that was not the flesh of Kazan. And ceaselessly, the slightest sound
bringing him to his feet, Kazan watched and guarded. He mistrusted the
moving shadows. The snapping of a twig drew back his upper lip. His
fangs gleamed menacingly when the soft air brought a strange scent. In
him, too, the memory of the Sun Rock, the death of their first young and
the blinding of Gray Wolf, had given birth to a new instinct. Not for an
instant was he off his guard. As surely as one expects the sun to rise
so did he expect that sooner or later their deadly enemy would creep on
them from out of the forest. In another hour such as this the lynx had
brought death. The lynx had brought blindness. And so day and night he
waited and watched for the lynx to come again. And woe unto any other
creature of flesh and blood that dared approach the windfall in these
first days of Gray Wolf's motherhood!
But peace had spread its wings of sunshine and plenty over the swamp.
There were no intruders, unless the noisy whisky-jacks, the big-eyed
moose-birds, the chattering bush sparrows, and the wood-mice and ermine
could be called such. After the first day or two Kazan went more
frequently into the windfall, and though more than once he nosed
searchingly about Gray Wolf he could find only the one little pup. A
little farther west the Dog-Ribs would have called the pup Ba-ree for
two reasons--because he had no brothers or sisters, and because he was a
mixture of dog and wolf. He was a sleek and lively little fellow from
the beginning, for there was no division of mother strength and
attention. He developed with the true swiftness of the wolf-whelp, and
not with the slowness of the dog-pup.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account