by Asta Bowen
Now she stood below Gray Wolf Glacier, light flakes falling from the blizzard above. All day, something had been pulling her up this slope. The trail was solitary, for one thing; no hunters got this far from the road. For another, she had never been here and had no picture of the land that lay on the other side of the pass.
Her feet tingled as she stood on the shore of the lake, looking toward the glacier. Clouds boiled over the ridge, and from above Marta heard an occasional clatter of stones, partly muffled by snow. The traveling urge was strong, but a cold smell in the air was stronger. This storm carried the weight of winter on its back.
If she stayed much longer, the flakes now falling in a cape around her shoulders would cover the ground. It would reach her knees, making traveling difficult; much higher, and traveling would be impossible. She could be swallowed in a tree well and suffocate or freeze to death. For this season, Gray Wolf Pass would have to wait.
Marta took a long look at the high country. As she looked, a curve of wind swirled down the cirque, sweeping past her in a flurry, and she lifted her head to answer. The wolf howl joined the first howl of winter.
Marta sang as the snow coated her ruff and the ridge of her back, icing her black silhouette in a layer of white. Flakes crusted her eyelashes and stuck to her whiskers, and she continued to sing. She sang into her own echo, changing tones as the sound came back from across the lake. An arc of winter wind merged with an arc of winter song, and as the echoes played into one another, it almost sounded like she was howling with her pack.
Marta stood for a moment, then shook bravely, spattering flakes into the whitening landscape, as one last arc of wind groaned after her. By dark, snow had covered the single line of wolf prints threading downward through the forest.
Thirty-Four
Hunting the Hunted
Driven from the high places by weather, Marta spent the first weeks of winter hunting and trying not to be hunted. People with guns traveled the back roads at all times of day, and sometimes night. Marta continued exploring, using the roads when she could and the trails when she could not, making long-distance loops across the southern Swan Valley.
Throughout her travels Marta remained, as was her wont, unseen. Weeks in the busy Flathead Valley had made her an expert in elusion. She saw, but did not let herself be seen. She kept to the edges wherever she went, a shadow that never traced the same path twice. One moment she was a glimpse by the rocky Swan River, another, a dot on a hillside; one moment a shape behind a tree and the next, another piece in the jigsaw puzzle of night.
Though rarely seen, she was sometimes heard. From ridge tops and valleys, at full moon and new, came a song that had not been sung here for years. The deer heard, and the hide prickled on their backs. The lowland elk and moose heard, and swung their great racks high in surprise. Lions heard, and swished their long tails. Bobcats heard, and crouched warily at the sound. Coyotes heard, and sometimes sang back, a yodel skating high above Marta’s chestier tones. When dogs heard they panicked, setting off a storm of barking. Few humans heard, except hunters and wood gatherers; those who did paused to listen to her song, and touched their chins in wonder.
Autumn had ended in a rush, and it was time for Marta to find a wintering ground. With no pack, she needed the best possible habitat: a place with running water, game, and shelter from the weather; a place where she could press hunting circuits into the snow; a place without much competition. Coyotes were all right to sing with, but Marta didn’t need them scaring off her prey.
As Marta hunted for her meals, she hunted for a winter home. She tried the far side of Swan Lake, but was startled from her bed by early-morning fishermen. She tried Bond Creek, but the creek bottom was too tangled; she preferred a mix of meadows and forest. On several small lakes that dotted the center of the valley, Marta found the summer homes deserted, but the human presence was still strong. Farther south, Salmon Lake had one huge house on a tiny island, and even it seemed abandoned—but the meadows there were too swampy and close to the road.
The road was the Swan Highway, a two-lane bar of asphalt that split the valley from north to south. Here the highway paralleled the Continental Divide, which ran wild and unbroken by roads for more than a hundred miles. Vehicles needing to cross that crest drove up or down the Swan, and the traffic was fast and unpredictable. No longer desperate enough to hunt bones from its ditches, Marta kept away from the highway.
In the last days of hunting season, Marta ranged cautiously through the foothills, searching for a winter home. Months had passed, and many sights and smells had filled her head since leaving Pleasant Valley. Nothing reminded her of it here. Now her hunt for home was not for a place she knew, but for a place where she could survive the deadliest season of the year. To find such a place, she had nothing but her own sense of direction. As her tracks through the Swan Valley showed, that pointed a different way every day.
Marta was exploring the foothills of the Mission Mountains, north and east of Gray Wolf, on the day she saw the deer fall over. It was a cold spell: record-breaking cold for humans and keep-moving weather for wolves. Marta had been on the move for a week, rarely stopping in her quest to keep warm and fed. That day she was running a logging road in the west Swan, on ruts packed hard by the loud machines that hunters sometimes rode through the snow. To stay alive in such weather, Marta had to hunt and eat often; earlier, in the hard air of that afternoon, she had picked up a promising scent on the road and had been pursuing it ever since.
The track was of a whitetail buck, big enough to feed Marta through the longest cold snap. His trail wove on and off the road, and where it went, Marta followed. The road passed among gentle ridges, some clear-cut and open for running, others well forested for shelter. A good feeling crept into Marta’s paws as she trotted across the crusty snow, and it wasn’t the cold. It was the land.
Marta’s step was strong as she tracked the buck, drinking where it had drunk and resting where it had rested. Under a crackling sun, Marta’s shape made a blue shadow on the bright snow, and ice gathered on her muzzle and ears. She heard snow machines far off, but gave them only a flick of the ear. She could disappear if the need arose.
Gradually she closed the distance on the buck. His sign grew fresher on the road, and the pulse in Marta’s chest grew warmer. She paused here and there to listen for a snort of his icy breath, but all she heard was the creak of frozen tree limbs and the distant drone of the snow machines.
The machines kept their distance, and Marta pushed on. The closer she got to the buck, the stronger the feeling grew in her stomach. Finally she glimpsed the gray-brown of its winter coat, and gave chase. The buck heard the scrape of her step and without turning to look, bolted down the road. Marta matched his pace for a quarter mile, then lost ground. She slowed to a lope, and the buck did likewise. Then she sprinted again, and he pushed ahead still farther. When Marta gave chase a third time, the buck did not stop for nearly a mile; puffing steam and blinking back ice, Marta gave up. This deer had passed the wolf test and, as often happened, it was not worth her effort to continue.
For a while she followed the deer at a distance, neither tracking nor ignoring him. Thirsty, she dropped off the road at a gurgling creek and broke a hole in the ice. Between drinks, she saw the buck trot ahead as the whine of snowmobiles grew noisier. Without warning, one of the sounds zoomed to a stop not far ahead of her. The buck froze. Marta looked up, staring, as water droplets crystallized on her chin. The deer fell over. One moment he was standing motionless, snorting puffs of steam, and the next he simply fell over sideways. Marta closed her mouth in surprise, and the briefest instant later, the crack of a bullet clapped in her ears.
Other shots broke the air, cracking like ice, and human shouts sang out into the dense, bright afternoon. Minutes before, the buck had eluded Marta’s best chase; now he had simply fallen in his tracks. His body jerked several times, followed by more cracks in the air. A taste rose in Marta’s mouth, and her nose angled toward the
smell of new blood. But her chest turned the other direction, away from the road. She followed her body, trotting beside the muted gurgle of the creek, deeper into the shelter of the trees. She would find her meal elsewhere.
Thirty-Five
Lindbergh Lake
Marta found her meal, and she did not have to travel far. She sacked a young of the year doe not far down the creek and ate heartily, steam rising from the carcass. She ate fast; in this cold, the meat would be frozen by morning. She ate till she hurt; there was no way to know when or where she would find her next meal. Marta sniffed appreciatively at the remains, then rested until the cold woke her.
She went on exploring, following her feet. Just before nightfall she discovered Lindbergh Lake, a huge arm of water that elbowed its way through the ridges of the lower Missions. Covered in ice and snow, the lake was the perfect winter highway for a wolf—and for the prey she sought.
The good feeling in Marta’s paws grew stronger as she toured the ridges above the lake. The only tracks here were from wildlife; no snow machines came this way. The slopes were untraveled, and most of the streams ran free of ice. The deer were abundant, which would mean a hard winter for them but good hunting for Marta.
The days grew shorter, and after the intense cold let up, Marta found herself lingering in the area of Lindbergh Lake. It had the right combination of ridges and flats, thickets and clearings, running water and—most important—a boundless food supply. Shortly after she arrived, the whine of snowmobiles increased sharply for a day, then disappeared altogether. Marta had the hunting to herself.
Human hunters gone, Marta was at the top of the food chain. The bears were asleep for the season, and the few lions kept to themselves. Marta’s prey was easy to find. In the lowlands was a network of deer yards, winter gathering places where herds banded together for safety and warmth. Between the yards and the brushy places where they browsed, the deer’s hooves had worn good paths into the snow. This was a boon for Marta, now that she had no pack members to help break trail. The snowdrifts were coming chest high.
As the shortest day of the year approached, Marta picked out a system of trails between the deer yards and found places for resting and hiding. She had a lookout over the lake and knew shortcuts to and from open water. She was as well fed as a wolf could be, hunting alone in the middle of winter, which meant she skirted hunger constantly. When the turn of season finally came, that first extra moment of daylight, she was still healthy: she had no injuries, no sore spots, no wheeze in her breath or dimming in her eyes. That was good. Being strong in the middle of winter was a sign that she might survive until spring.
Not long after the turn of day, Marta made a startling discovery. At the eastern border of her hunting territory, she found a set of strange tracks. Wolf tracks! Marta had not seen the sign of another wolf since she left Nyack Creek. Here and there she had seen old marks, mostly in the deeper wilderness, but nothing recent—not within a year. These tracks, when she found them in fresh snow, had been made within the last day. They were huge. At first they didn’t seem like wolf, they were so big; the animal they belonged to could be twice Marta’s size. As an enemy or even a competitor, such a creature would be dangerous. Fortunately, whoever this strange wolf was, it had not touched her territory. He—the scent marks were definitely male—had come as far as her own marks, but not crossed the line.
Marta planted her hind feet and marked the stranger’s tracks with a furious stream. Then she cut loose with a howl. Stronger than any song she had sung in weeks, her voice resonated across the land. She sang “I was here first” and “this is my territory,” and ended each song on a clear warning note. Then she squatted again and marked her own sign decisively over his. NO TRESPASSING, the sign read.
Marta spent the rest of that day checking her territory. She did not hunt, though she was hungry; instead, she marked each of the scent posts that defined her hunting ground. It took until after nightfall, and she’d started at midday; she had nearly ten miles to cover, and the winter light made for a short day. She completed her task in the early hours of darkness, watched over by the half-carved orb of a crescent moon.
When Marta finally reached her bed on the ridge, she was exhausted. Too tired to hunt and nearly too tired to eat, she dug up a small cache of food. Choosing a leg from one of her kills, she gnawed wearily at the frozen muscle and hide. She fought sleep until she had eaten all the way to the bone, then dozed in the snow.
When she awoke the moon was down, and she had only the stars for company. Still tired from too much work and too little food, Marta did not stir from her bed. She lifted her head and lay quietly, listening to the lake below. The ice was shifting. A new crack announced itself with a hiss, and a plate of ice responded with a resounding boom. The tremor set off another crack, and a high-pitched whine sang straight down the middle of the lake. Marta listened drowsily, secure in her snow bed, as the ice made a symphony against the night.
Then suddenly, a different melody soared above the lake. Above the ice music Marta heard one plaintive, elegant wolf call rising from the ridge on the south side of the lake. She shook the sleep from her head. This call was for her.
It was the song of a traveler, a lone wolf announcing his presence, and Marta listened intently. This would be the visitor whose tracks she had seen, and his song might tell if he was staying or going, friend or enemy. In the dull scatter of light from the sky, only the tips of her ears moved as she bent toward the sound. Her nose twitched furiously, as if she could smell all the way across the lake. But the song, when it was done, answered no questions. It was just wolf music, which Marta had not heard in months, and it warmed her throat.
Something pulled Marta to her feet. It pulled like a string from the tip of her nose all the way to her tail, pulled her upright in one fluid motion, aligned her bones and closed her eyes and opened her jaws and, oh, the song she sang. It was a star song and a lake song and a song of plenty; a song of good wintering grounds and long, healthy nights, a song of the strong feeling in her paws. A song of wolf ways. A song of survival. Marta sang, and stopped. No call returned across the frozen lake.
All was still again, and Marta sniffed at her mostly eaten leg bone. The silence of the strange wolf, whoever he was, meant one thing: for now, he posed no threat. Marta pawed her bone close, lay down, and pulled the marrow end toward her. For a long time she lay absorbed with it, drawing out the rich center with her teeth and tongue. When she was finished she curled in the snow and slept, deep and dreamless, until morning.
Thirty-Six
Solitude
Snow came again in a few days, covering the strange wolf’s tracks. No new tracks appeared, and Marta was again the only wolf in her winter range. There was never a lack of deer to hunt, though some were harder to catch than others. Some weeks she went hungrier, other weeks fuller. Through it she stayed warm at night, and her muscles barely burned when she ran. Her fur was bright and her nose moist. She remained without a pack for companionship, but at Lindbergh Lake she was never entirely alone.
Marta came to know the other winter residents of the drainage. She learned the habits of the different deer herds, the elk, and the moose that lived nearby. She kept an eye on the rabbits, otter, and beaver, too, but more for interest than food; deer kept her well fed.
As for competitors, there was one lion in the area, but her territory barely overlapped with Marta’s. Bobcats kept small game on the run and couldn’t really compete for large animals. Marta grew accustomed to the hoarse shriek of the lynx, and it became a natural part of the winter night. Coyotes sometimes dug into her food caches or cleaned up a kill before Marta was done, but were only a nuisance, never a danger. There was plenty of hunting to go around.
In one part of the lowlands, Marta had the company of a pair of red foxes. Sometimes she would stop to rest nearby, just out of sight, and watch them hunting their part of the food chain. Another time she might see them playing tag as she and Calef once had done. The foxe
s’ tails swept magically through the air, flowing behind them as they darted under and around the stumpy brush of the old logging areas. Healthy and in the prime of life, like Marta they had found Lindbergh Lake a good place to survive the hardest season of the year.
Of all the animals, Marta was closest to the ravens. Throughout her life, she had kept company with one or more of these big, talkative birds. Raven and wolf were unofficial allies in the forest; they listened for each other’s calls and led one another to kills. Just as the ravens had helped Marta, she helped them. If the birds seemed hungrier than usual, she might leave extra scraps of meat on a carcass, and if the birds pecked at it while she was chewing on a separate bone, she did not chase them away.
Marta was closest to the ravens, but she knew the deer best. They were her livelihood, and she studied them closely. Along her snow-packed hunting circuits, she came to know their tracks and scents as well as their different pairings and groupings. Some individuals she picked out as potential meals, and others she admired for their speed or grace. That winter, there was one animal she watched for yet another reason. It was an old buck, a leader of one of the herds.
As soon as she arrived in the area, Marta had noticed his scent. She could always pick it out from others on the trail. Something was special about him: not just the regal tilt of his shoulders or the authority in his voice; not just the graceful way he carried his antlers through the firs or the way other deer looked at him. The buck was a survivor. He had lived to an old age, leading his band through many seasons. Though the old deer was pitifully slow on his feet, it never occurred to Marta to chase him. This buck was not food.
In the company of these and others, the black wolf wintered peacefully in the shadow of the Mission Mountains. The days grew longer, and ice melted from the streambeds. Snow dissolved on the surface of the lake and sometimes fell from the sky warm and mixed with rain. These days, Marta’s fox neighbors held their tails higher when they played. The deer traveled more and rested less, seeking out hidden patches of browse to take them through the last bony days of winter.