“Stop that.” I pushed away her little body, her ribs as sharp as my own. “You’ll get me in trouble.” I expected a wolf parent to arrive at any moment.
Again the gray pup attacked my boot. Again I pushed her away. She began to howl. I sprang to my feet, sure the mother would come running. But still nothing. The wolves in my land always left one grown animal to guard the litter, but perhaps these southern wolves were more negligent parents.
With no adults nearby, this pup and her siblings were completely at my mercy. Little meat padded her bones, and her soft fur would provide scant warmth. But my belly growled anyway.
She stopped howling and cocked her head at me, as if listening to the sounds of my hunger. I moved carefully toward the den; she scrabbled at my legs in an effort to play.
“I apologize for entering your home, wolf,” I said in the angakkuq tongue. No response. Afraid to stick my hand into the dark trunk, I pulled off a mitten and waved it inside. Sure enough, I felt a tug. The gray pup grabbed the mitten on my end, helping me pull. When I withdrew the mitten, two more pups came with it. A small black female, her eyes screwed shut, clamped needlelike teeth onto the thumb; a larger white male with one bent ear worried the palm.
“I’ve only got one set of mittens. Bad puppies! Get your own!” I pried open the wolves’ jaws, then looked down to examine the three forlorn specimens at my feet. Their coats were strangely colored for wolf pups, but much was strange in this land.
Then the small black female opened her eyes. I caught my breath at her dark brown gaze. A dog’s eyes. Not a wolf’s. Warm and rich as summer loam.
I dangled a stick of driftwood in front of the pups. The gray one with the white paw gamely swiped at it, leaping back and forth. The other two, weaker, followed it with their eyes, their straight tails wagging hesitantly. I tossed the stick. The gray puppy ran after it, her tracks in the thin snow staggered like a dog’s, not single file like a wolf’s. She trotted back with the stick in her mouth, flopped to the ground, and began to gnaw.
A new whimpering floated from the den. Deeper and longer than the pups’ cries. Very slowly, I felt inside with the blunt end of my spear. The whining turned to a low, weak growl as I hit something soft and yielding. The mother.
Using my knife, I widened the opening in the log until a dim shaft of sunlight pierced the den, illuminating the pale form of a dog. She turned weakly toward me. Grizzled black fur covered her face.
“Black Mask!”
Tossing aside my knife, I pulled Ataata’s dog from the tree. Her puppies gathered around her, eager to nurse. A long gash ran along her flank, oozing blood and pus—an animal bite. From her own prey, perhaps. More likely, the wolves she’d joined had attacked her when she gave birth. No pack would tolerate more than one litter at a time.
Only the force of her will could’ve kept her alive long enough to raise her pups. She followed me with the same warm brown eyes that had watched me lying half-dead on Issuk’s sled.
The puppies sucked noisily, although such a ravaged dog could provide little milk. A shudder passed through Black Mask’s body. I placed a hand on her head and tried to stroke away her pain and fear. She choked; a trickle of blood slid through her jaws.
“Go, run with Ataata. Pull his sled amid the stars. May you guide me from the sky as you did upon the ice.”
I drew my knife across her throat swiftly, ending her pain.
I let the puppies nurse until the milk stopped flowing. They curled up next to their mother’s still-warm flank and fell asleep. One by one, their heartbeats fluttering against my hands, I placed them back in the driftwood trunk. I didn’t want them to see me butcher their mother.
When I’d cut her flesh for eating and stretched her fur for drying, I turned back to the puppies. They’d never survive alone, and I didn’t have enough meat for myself, much less for three hungry wolfdogs.
I reached into the tree for the gray female with the white paw. I pressed my knife under her soft chin.
“You’ll be spared death by starvation and cold,” I murmured to her. “And I’ll have meat. It’s a fair trade. I can offer you no better.”
She looked up at me with Singarti’s yellow eyes, guileless and wise at the same time.
I put away my knife.
I placed the pup in the small hood of my man’s parka. Her wet nose brushed the nape of my neck. I slipped the other two puppies under the hem, next to my skin. Their wriggling subsided as they fell asleep against my heart.
For one more night, I camped beside Black Mask’s den. With the puppies warm against me and my belly full of meat, I finally conquered the cold.
I awoke to a wet nose snuffing my ear. The short night had given way once more to dawn, and the gray puppy was already awake. I rolled over to look at her, careful not to crush the two other wolfdogs curled inside my parka. I offered her a finger; she began to suck ravenously, her teeth like shards of slate. I pulled her away and dropped her back in my hood.
As I packed up my rough camp, White Paw—for so I’d begun to call her—whined next to my ear. The other puppies soon joined in. The little black female, with her striking brown dog eyes, wriggled her way through the neck hole of my parka, licking my throat and chin with more hunger than affection.
I chewed some dog meat for my own meal while the puppies whined and snapped, trying to get a piece for themselves. I’d thought to share—chew the meat until it was a soft pulp as I’d once done for Black Mask—but when it came time to feed them their own mother’s flesh, I balked.
“I can’t, little ones. I know your mother would want it—she gave her life for you once already. But it would break an agliruti even I dare not flout…”
Dogs had no aglirutiit, of course, and wolves followed their own unknowable laws, but eating the flesh of a fellow man was an unpardonable crime. I suppose I’d begun to think of my little wolfdog pack as nearly human even then.
So I set off, Malina’s yellow rays guiding my steps ever southward while I looked for possible prey to feed my new family. The white and black puppies settled into my parka, whining occasionally when I moved too suddenly, but little White Paw kept me company, her forepaws planted on my shoulder, her twitching ears soft on my cheek. She’d ceased her own crying, intent on scanning the desolate beach around us from her high perch. Every time a bird chirped in the distance, her ears swung toward the sound. Her nose followed. Sniff sniff. Tongue out. Taste the air. Pant. Sigh. Sniff sniff.
“Are you trying to help me hunt?” I teased. “You’re too little.” I felt like Ataata, reminding his grandchildren not to grow up too fast.
Another sound caught White Paw’s attention. Her jaw snapped shut, and her tiny body tensed against my shoulder. I followed her gaze to a large, rotting log of driftwood. I could hear a slight scratching from within.
I pulled the wolfdog from my hood so I could reach my spear. White Paw tensed, ready to spring toward the log, but I placed a hand on her back, pressing her into the ground.
“Stay,” I whispered firmly. She couldn’t understand me; it took months to train a puppy to listen to such commands. But White Paw turned her yellow eyes toward me, listening, then stood motionless, nose pointed once more at the log, stubby legs tensed.
The log was too small for a wolverine, much less a bear. What other land animal could be any threat to me? I crept up to the opening in the near end of the driftwood, cursing the crunch of dry seaweed beneath my feet. The scratching stopped.
Now it’ll never come out. I couldn’t break the sturdy log, and its massive length meant the animal could easily avoid my spear point. It need only stay inside to escape my clutches.
A blur of gray flashed past the corner of my eye. White Paw dashed toward the far end of the log, barking maniacally, and scuttled inside. Just in time, I readied my spear—our prey hurtled toward me from the other end of the trunk.
I hurled my weapon before I even recognized what we’d caught.
The animal stumbled at my feet but kep
t coming. I drew my knife and slashed downward. Its dying yowl matched my own scream of pain.
I snatched back my hand, leaving my knife planted in the animal’s ribs.
The strange creature lay in a pool of its own blood like a large brown sea urchin, its back and tail covered entirely in spines. Five slender black needles, each only a little shorter than an arrow, protruded from my palm. I flexed my hand against the pain; the spines wormed farther into my flesh.
Now wide awake, the puppies inside my parka struggled to get out. With my uninjured hand, I spilled them to the ground in a tumble of white and black. They headed toward the spiny carcass, smelling fresh blood.
“Hoa!” I shouted, commanding them to stop. When they ignored me, I grabbed them both by their ruffs, groaning with the increasing pain in my wounded hand. A growl rose in my throat—a sound I hadn’t made since I’d run with Singarti across the tundra. The two puppies looked at me sharply, the white male tilting his head in disbelief. I stared them both down until they lay on their backs, soft bellies exposed. “Good. Stay,” I added.
As I turned to examine the needles piercing my hand, I heard a familiar whine from the tree.
I bent to peer into the mouth of the log. A spine-covered face stared out at me. “Ia’a… You’re in even worse shape than I, White Paw.”
She cried as she crawled out, her every movement driving the needles deeper into her soft snout. Finally she was free and shaking her face.
“You’re making it worse. You look like a walrus!” I grabbed her firmly by the ruff and yanked the longest needle from her black nose. A good chunk of flesh came with it. White Paw yowled. The other puppies ran over, eager to help, but mostly getting in the way.
“It can’t be that bad! I’ll do it, too.” I yanked one of the spines from my own hand. I screamed.
The gray pup stopped howling. All three of them turned to me in amazement.
I laughed at their expression. Then my laughter slipped into tears, as if the pain had cracked open a shell I’d crawled inside the day Issuk tore me from my family. Kiasik would have warned me that a great hunter doesn’t cry. I let myself weep anyway. For him, for Black Mask, for Kidla and Nua. For myself. The tears were no shame with only wolfdogs to see them.
The black female raised her front paws to my knee and reached to lick the tears from my cheeks. In her familiar brown gaze, I saw Puja’s concern, Ataata’s love.
I wept until I realized that White Paw’s cries outmatched my own. I worked the rest of the needles from her snout before removing them from myself. With bloody red patches dotting our skin, we looked diseased. The other pups didn’t seem to mind. The white male, whom I decided to call Floppy Eared for his bent ear, set to work cleaning White Paw’s wounds with his overlarge tongue. The black female cleaned mine far more delicately.
“I hope you two aren’t just enjoying a meal,” I said as they lapped the blood with more hunger than solicitude.
Floppy Eared just kept licking White Paw’s snout, but the small black female stopped to stare at me, all wide-eyed innocence.
“I should call you All Black,” I said. We always gave our dogs such names. Descriptive. Practical. The puppy let out a tiny whine. “No?” She pawed at the air until I lowered my face, then reached up to sniff my cheek, pressing her nose against my own as I’d so often done to Puja in my childhood.
“You’re a sweet one, aren’t you?” I murmured. “Sweet One, then. Is that better?” A sloppy lick of agreement across my lips. I spluttered, pushing her away. “Glad you approve.”
I rolled our strange kill onto its back with the butt of my spear. No spines here, just dark brown fur. I sliced open its stomach, mashed the entrails in my own mouth, and let the wolfdogs suck the hot morsels of meat pulp from my fingertips.
You were right, Kiasik, I admitted. I do make a good mother.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Blue is the color of the summer sky. Of autumn berries. Of winter ice. But not of men.
In the late days of summer, when orange cloudberries and magenta fireweed swirled across the ground like oil in water, a fluttering stripe of brilliant blue danced on the horizon. White Paw’s low growl brought me from my tent. My three wolfdogs stood stiffly, ears pricked and guard hairs raised. I didn’t have to reach down to place my hand upon my lead dog’s head—White Paw’s ears reached my waist, and she grew taller every day, the pace of her growth beyond that of any normal wolf, much less a dog.
The blue apparition flapped like the wings of a great bird. Perhaps the red-eyed petrel-man had finally come to take me away. But as the figure climbed above the crest of the hill, I saw it was only a man, wearing a cloak the color of sky.
With the glaring Sun casting the man’s face in shadow, I allowed myself to imagine Kiasik had escaped his captors. Or perhaps Issuk’s ghost has come seeking vengeance. After so long alone, I’d welcome even his face, if only to have the pleasure of watching him die all over again. But I knew the truth: no Inuk would wear such a cloak. For three long, lonely moons, I’d followed every tortuous curve of the shore in my search for the strange giants who’d stolen my milk-brother. They had found me instead.
My fingertips pressed cold, damp palms. The southerly wind had hidden his scent from my wolfdogs; I’d had no warning.
Heart knocking against my ribs, I ducked into my tent. I pulled my heavy parka over my atigi, then retrieved my slate hunting knife, my last antler-tipped arrows, and Issuk’s bow.
Outside again, I called my wolfdogs close. Their tails wagged in apprehension—they’d never seen another person. Much less a giant.
I motioned them to sit. They obeyed instantly, ears swiveling between me and the approaching stranger. White Paw’s tail lowered slowly; her upper lip drew back from her fangs as she sensed my fear. Floppy Eared raised a hesitant paw, as if unsure whether to lunge forward or run away. Sweet One whimpered between her panting breaths.
“We stay,” I told them. “If we cower—if we hide—I’ll never find Kiasik.” I nocked an arrow to my bow and pointed the sharp tip at the approaching form. Let there only be one of them, I prayed. A single giant perhaps I could manage to wound or capture. Then I would make him lead me back to his camp.
The figure paused at the crest of the hill—paralyzed, I hoped, by the sight of my wolfdogs and my bow—but he didn’t stop for long. He glanced over his shoulder, then stumbled down the hill toward me, favoring one leg. The rocks skittered beneath his feet as he floundered, and the hood of his blue cloak slipped from his head. His hair and beard glowed in the afternoon light, orange as the clouds in a long summer sunset.
I knew this giant.
He’d sheltered his wounded companion the day the other strangers murdered Issuk’s family. I remembered the long knife in his hands. Its blade glinted more like water than stone, yet it had struck Patik’s head from his shoulders in a single blow.
I took a deep breath, willing my arrow point to steady.
“Stop!” I aimed my arrow at his throat.
White Paw growled, her snout furrowed above her teeth. My pack formed a loose arc before me.
The giant ignored the warning, but the earth itself protected me: he slid on the wet moss and lost his footing, falling awkwardly on his injured leg. With a grunt of pain, he hit the ground. The long knife flew from his hands and landed many paces away. He twisted awkwardly, looking not toward his fallen weapon or toward me or even toward the wolfdogs but behind him once more—to the crest of the hill. I followed his gaze.
Silhouetted against the sky stood a brown bear, its long neck stretched forward to sniff its prey. This stranger had led it straight to my tent.
For a moment, I froze, uncertain which threat to face first. I’d seen a few of these animals from afar on my journey; they seemed far tamer than their white cousins, eating berries and fish where Uqsuralik hunted seal.
As if to protest my assumptions, the brown bear rose onto its hind legs, opened a mouth full of long, yellow teeth, and roared. Crash
ing back down on all fours, it swung its massive head toward me, then back to the stranger, snuffling wetly.
The giant pulled himself across the moss toward his fallen knife, dragging his injured leg uselessly behind.
The bear lumbered toward him, lifting one massive paw at a time. I could see its claws now. White and curling and impossibly long. It snorted and chomped its jaws, teeth clacking.
“This giant is mine, great bear,” I said in the angakkuq tongue, keeping my voice as firm as the grip on my bow. “You cannot have him. Not until I have followed his trail to my brother.”
But whatever power I’d once had to speak with wild animals had disappeared with Taqqiq’s curse. Only my wolfdogs would listen to me now.
“Go!” I ordered them. “To the bear!”
With Sweet One and Floppy Eared blurs of black and white at her heels, White Paw galloped up the hill. My pack surrounded the beast, growling and snapping. The bear took a step back, clearly cowed.
I moved toward the fallen giant, who’d continued his desperate crawl toward his long, gleaming blade. “Stop,” I insisted, deepening my voice.
He glanced toward me but kept up his struggle. My arrow whistled past his ear, pinning the hood of his cloak to the ground. I was close enough now to hear his sharp intake of breath, close enough to see that his hand still crept toward the weapon. I slung my bow over my shoulder and dashed forward, snatching the long knife away from his reaching fingers. The tip of the blade, far heavier than I’d expected, dragged on the ground for a moment before I could lift it properly.
“I said stop.” I pointed the blade’s tip at his throat.
His eyes, wide with fear, glinted the same bright blue as his cloak, and his face, burnt pink above his heavy beard, was as young and unlined as my own.
One of my pack yelped in pain, and I turned to look. I barely glimpsed a whirl of motion on the hillside, the bodies of the wolfdogs leaping and lunging around the now fast-approaching bear, when I fell to the ground with the giant’s hand around my ankle.
The Wolf in the Whale Page 21