Timber Wolf
Caroline Pignat
Copyright © 2011 Caroline Pignat
ePub edition copyright © November 2011
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Published by Red Deer Press, A Fitzhenry & Whiteside Company
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Published in the United States by Red Deer Press, A Fitzhenry & Whiteside Company
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Edited for the Press by Peter Carver
Cover design by Alan Cranny
Text design by Daniel Choi
Printed and bound in Canada
5 4 3 2
Fitzhenry & Whiteside acknowledges with thanks the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Ontario Arts Council for their support of our publishing program. We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund (CBF) for our publishing activities.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Pignat, Caroline
Timber wolf / Caroline Pignat.
ISBN 978-0-88995-459-5
eISBN 978-1-55244-301-9
I. Title.
PS8631.I4777T54 2011 jC813’.6 C2011-905853-7
Publisher Cataloging-in-Publication Data (U.S)
Pignat, Caroline.
Timber wolf / Caroline Pignat.
[ 224 ] p. : cm.
Summary: Jack Byrne, eager for adventure, sets out into the Canadian wilderness to prove himself, but instead wakes up alone, injured and completely lost with no memory of what happened, how he got there, or who he is. At the same time he meets, is terrified by, and eventually guarded by a young wolf who appears out of the woods early in his ordeal - and also stumbles into a relationship with an aboriginal family whose young son’s own stormy coming of age coincides with Jack’s developing awareness.
ISBN: 978-0-8899-5459-5 (pbk.)
eISBN: 978-1-55244-301-9
1. Adventure fiction – Juvenile literature. 2. Adolescence -- Fiction. I. Title.
[Fic] dc22 PZ7.B546Ti 2011
For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf,
And the strength of the Wolf is the Pack.
– Rudyard Kipling
For the Crannys, Jacksons, Flemmings, and Pignats.
My pack.
CHAPTER 1
The howl wakes me, calls me from one darkness to another. My right eye opens but my left is a throbbing slit. Bare branches. Twilight beyond. I’m on my back. Outside. Somewhere. I’m alive. Barely.
What happened?
My head pounds. I raise my hand to it but my frozen fingers feel nothing. Their grazed and swollen knuckles tell me numbness is probably a blessing. Was I in a fight? I roll onto my side, gasping small clouds of steam as pain stabs my ribs.
How long have I been lying here? A thin layer of snow covering my legs shifts as I move. Bruised, but not broken, thank God.
Sitting up, I blow into my hands. The heat of it stings my reddened fingers and I shove them into my pockets, surprised to find a pair of woolen mittens that must be mine. I slip them on. Shivers wrack my body. Whatever happened to me, it hasn’t killed me, but sitting in this frigid snow surely will.
Standing takes more effort than I expected. I stagger a few times and when I finally get to my feet, everything spins around me. Gripping a nearby birch trunk, I close my eyes and take shallow breaths. After a few moments, the spinning slows and I glance around the clearing. A gorge of sorts, with a fifteen-foot cliff rising up behind me and a mild slope ahead. A river bed, perhaps. Yet, none of it seems familiar.
“Hello?” I call. The yell clangs in my head like a spoon in an empty pot.
No tracks lead in or out of the clearing. Not even mine. Odd. The dusting of flakes wouldn’t have covered them completely. My boots crunch in the snow as I turn.
Surely, someone is looking for me. Must know I am missing.
“I’m here!” The ache in my side grows stronger with every breath. I don’t want to yell again, but it might help them find me. Holding my bent arm tight against my aching side, I squeeze out the sound like an old bagpipe. “It’s me, it’s ...”
The steamy words dissolve before me.
Who am I?
Panic grips me. I look around for help but the oak, birch, and pine trees stand in cold silence. How is it I know their names, but not my own?
Slumping to the ground, I scan the wide sky as the cold truth settles upon me. Lost, I am. Completely lost. I know neither where I am nor where I’m from.
Homeless. Nameless. Hopeless. Yet, try as I might, nothing comes to mind but the fat flakes drifting down from the endless winter black.
CHAPTER 2
“Careful now,” he says. The glow of the fire flickers across his face as he gives me his knife. It seems huge in my tiny hands. How long I’ve wanted to hold this red wooden handle. To wield its metal blade like him.
Night after night, I’ve watched. I know every curve of his hand, every scar, every callus. I can do this, for I’ve done it a million times in my mind. Setting the stick in the crook of my arm, I grip it just short of the whitened tip where he’s started to whittle, hold the blade like he would. It glints in the firelight and I pause, flash it a couple of times. It feels good.
“I’m just like you, amn’t I?” I say.
“That you are, wee man.” He tousles my hair. “Go on now, give it a go.”
I attack the wood with all my force. I’ll show him how well I can do it. The blade bites into the bark and snags. I saw it out and try again, only to have it catch in another notch. This isn’t how it’s supposed to happen. I grit my teeth and try again, grunting as I push harder.
“He’s too small,” a girl’s voice says from the shadows. Her laughter makes me want to take the knife and stab the stick into smithereens.
“Easy, boyo. ’Tis no ax for hacking. Gently.” He moves his hands in that familiar motion as though he holds the stick and blade. His wrist rolls with the ease and strength of the tide. “Gently, now. Let it kiss the wood.”
Taking a deep breath, I try again. I will do it. I will, bedad. I angle the blade along the stick and draw it up to the point. This time it doesn’t hook. A small white curl begins to grow on the edge of my blade. The girl makes a kissing noise with every move of my knife. I tense at the sound and push harder. She giggles and continues until I can take her noise no longer.
“Hush up!” I yell, glancing at where she sits in shadow. But the moment my eyes leave the blade it slips and gouges my finger. At first, I feel nothing but a curious awe for the moon-shaped slit. But then the blood comes and, oh, the pain!
He’s on his knees, cradling my hand, as he examines the cut. “It’s a good one.”
“Don’t ... don’t touch it,” I whine, for surely my whole finger’s about to fall apart like a sliced sausage. I feel dizzy at the thought. But he pinches the cut together between his strong fingers.
“I told you he was too small. He’s only a baby,” that girl says.
“Get a bandage, pet,” he tells her, and she disappears.
Like magic, his touch lessens the pain. But I can’t stop the tears. They burn and boil over, no matter how hard I try to keep them in, for I know I’ve disappointed him. I know he’ll never let me touch his knife again.
“I can’t do it like you do,” I mumble.
“So, you made a mistake,” he says, but there’s no judgment in his voice. “You can let it beat you ... or build you.”
I don’t really know what he means.
“Did you learn anything?” he asks.
“Not to look away,” I answer, for I’ll not be doing that again.
“I did, too.” He points at the familiar scar, a white sickle between his thumb and finger, and then at one more at the tip of his index finger. “Eventually.” He chuckles. “I guess you’re a faster learner than me.”
The fire crackles behind him, outlining his dark form with an orange glow. Picking up the tiny shaving, he places it in my right palm. A tiny whorl of wood. Small, but perfect. I made that. I did it ... once. But I know I can do it again. Even better.
I want to tell him. To prove it to him. But before I can speak, he lays the small knife in my palm beside the shaving.
“This is yours, now,” he says, glancing over my shoulder. He looks at me and folds my fingers closed over the worn wooden handle. “Our little secret, right? Your mother’d only worry.”
The girl returns behind me, hands him the bandage. “I knew you’d cut yourself.”
“I didn’t do it on purpose,” I say. “’Twas a mistake.”
“A foolish mistake,” she adds.
“There’s no such thing.” I catch his eye and he winks. “As long as you learn from it.”
He keeps the pressure on my finger for a bit longer. My cut throbs, though I can’t tell if it’s his heartbeat or mine.
CHAPTER 3
I must have slept or passed out, for the dark sky is deeper now. The dream seems so true. I half hope that it is and that this is the nightmare, but the chills and aches in my body feel real enough. Too real.
Using the sapling beside me, I pull myself up and glance at the blackened sky. Even if they are coming, they’ll not be here tonight. A search party would soon need one of their own, were they out on a starless night when the moon is but a sliver. All I can do is make some kind of shelter and wait until morning.
I rub my arms, mindful of the dull ache in my ribs, and check inside my coat. My shirt is dry. No blood—a good sign. Being alone, lost in a forest on a winter’s night, is bad enough. I’m looking for all the good signs I can find. At least I have a heavy coat and scarf. A hat and mitts. Warm boots. Had I not, I doubt I would have survived this long, and they’d be finding a corpse and not a boy tomorrow.
I shiver as a cold winter wind bites through me. Warm coat or not, I have to find shelter. I scan the area. The best place seems to be against the rock wall just under the ledge. Drawing nearer, I notice the rock face is ridged like a bit of old bark, and one of the furrows seems just about big enough for me. I’d have protection from the cutting wind and snow. The starless sky makes me think there’s more coming. Picking up a stick, I poke at the mound of leaves and twigs piled in the crook of the crevice. It seems I’m not the first creature to settle here. The nest is empty, but it gives me another idea. Even if I am sheltered from the wind and snow, a nest of my own would save me from the bitter cold.
I circle the area for pine boughs, careful not to lose sight of the cliff, my only bearing. The thin branches break after bending them back and forth a few times, but the bigger ones take more effort. Effort I don’t have in me. Instead, I settle for the little ones. I have to stop many times just to catch my breath, for I’m wheezing like an old man. I still can’t take a deep draw of air without that sharp pain in my side stopping me short. Being only able to manage four or five boughs at a time means many trips, but it’s warming me, just the same. My fingers ache, but I try to celebrate the chilblains in their tips, for it means my blood is pumping. Another good sign.
What seems like hours later, I finally have a small pile of boughs at the base of the ledge. Just enough to line the floor of the widest cleft in the rock with a few left over for coverage. I drop onto the lumpy pile, heedless of the twigs jabbing in my back. The work has exhausted me. I just want to sit, to sleep. But I fight the tiredness to drag the last few branches over top of me as I lie down. The needles prick my face, their pine scent heavy in my nose. Through the thin limbs, I can just make out the bare trunks and bushy firs standing guard in the silent dark.
My home might well be just past them or a short ways up the ravine. Maybe my family is there, waiting for me by the fire, wondering what’s keeping me. No doubt, whoever they are, they’ll tease me terrible if I’ve gotten lost in my own backyard.
I roll to my side, aware of something hard beneath me, against me, inside my coat. I pull off my glove and, reaching into my coat, feel the small lump next to my hip. But it’s no branch. I know it, even in the night’s darkness as I pull it out. I know it.
The red-handled knife. The one from my dream.
No, not my dream. From my memory. From my father.
“Da,” I whisper, as though saying it makes it real.
But the same part of me that knows that man is Da, knows something else. Though I can remember neither who I am nor how I got here, something deep inside me, that knowing at the core, tells me that I am a long, long way from home. My side aches, or maybe ’tis my heart, but I won’t give in.
For all I have lost and forgotten, I have two things. I have one memory. And I have Da’s knife.
A good sign.
CHAPTER 4
I shiver in the harsh, morning light, wakened by the griping crows. It takes me a moment to remember where I am. The clearing. The bed of boughs. But I can remember no more. My body aches as I sit up, but ’tis the sharp pain in my side that has me most worried. I press against it and wince.
Broken rib? I can’t be sure. One thing I do know is my hunger. I check my other pockets, hoping I’d squirreled away some food before I left from ... wherever. In them, I find a flint and a length of twine. I slip them back into my pocket. In the other side of my coat, I find a bit of bread. It’s hardened around the edges but softens in my mouth when I slurp a bit of snow melted in my cupped hands. The morsel is just enough to goad my hunger. Still, the scrap of food gives me some hope. I can’t be that far from civilization. Not with bread on me.
Standing, I try to draw a deep breath. My side protests and my nostrils soon freeze shut, but the chilled air carries neither hint nor hope of a loaf browning by any fire. There’s no scent but the forest that sprawls as far my eyes can see. The sky spreads over me like a taut blue sheet. Yet from one tucked horizon to the other, I can find no thread of smoke upon it. If there is a cottage nearby, its hearth is cold. Maybe they’re out looking for me. I wonder how long it will take. Noticing how last night’s snowfall has buried any tracks I’d left in the clearing, I wonder how they’ll ever find me.
A fire would help, I think, remembering the flint. ’Twill keep me warm, send a signal, and maybe even cook my breakfast. If I can find any. My mouth slathers at the very thought. When my rescuers arrive, I’ll invite them to stop and have breakfast with me. I smile to myself, thinking about how surprised and pleased they’d be. Whoever they are.
After spending the morning snapping and dragging more dry branches, my body aches and my head pounds. The pain in my side has grown much worse; every movement hurts. I’m panting like an old dog on its last legs and I haven’t even started looking for food yet; I’m near dead.
I have my father’s knife, but, sure, what good is it now? There’s no way I can hunt in this condition. I can neither run nor throw, and even the deafest, dumbest hare would hear my haggard wheeze from a mile away. A rescuers’ breakfast? I scoff at my foolishness. Never mi
nd them ... what, in God’s name, will I eat? And what if my rescuers don’t come for some time? Panic rises like bile in the back of my throat. But before it chokes me, it’s quelled by the sight of a bit of green waving deeper in the woods.
In a spindly forest of naked trees, this brilliant shrub catches my eye. Leaving the last few bits of firewood, I edge deeper into the forest for a better look. I can no longer see the rock cliff I’ve been using as a bearing, but my footsteps are clear enough. Besides, it’s not snowing, so I’ll have no trouble backtracking.
The closer I get, the more berries I see. Small, red balls cluster in groups among the dark green leaves. Taking off my mitt, I pluck one and sniff it, roll it in my palm. It seems harmless. But why haven’t the animals picked this bush clean like they did the others? My stomach grumbles. Surely one or two berries can’t hurt me. I raise the tiny, red ball to my lips, but a crack and squeal nearby makes me jump and drop the berry.
I’d grown used to the sounds of the woods, the fa-whump of snow falling from branches, the snap of frigid twigs. But that was not a sound I’d heard before.
“Hello? Anybody there?” My words float into the deep woods and fade like steam.
I wield my knife, wave it before me. It won’t do much good against a wild animal, but I feel better holding it as my boots squeak and crunch with every step. Stopping to listen, I hear nothing more than my panting breath and pounding heart. I press on through the prickly fir branches, heading for the source of the strange sound. A flash movement catches the corner of my eye. There. Yes, something furry about shoulder level is definitely moving just beyond those bushes. I crouch among the boughs, unsure of my next move.
A rescue party would have answered my call. Whatever is shifting side to side beyond the branches isn’t human. An animal, to be sure, but how big? My stomach grumbles, urging me onward despite how ridiculously small my knife seems in my mitted fist.
It’s winter. Food is scarce. Whatever is on the other side of those bushes might be something I can eat.
Timber Wolf Page 1