Midnight's Sun: A Story of Wolves

by Garry Kilworth

  ‘Where’s Pippa?’ said Lucky, panting.

  The dogs all lay panting between the piles of planks and bricks of the yard. They looked around.

  ‘Pippa!’ dogs began calling, until Rip told them to shut up.

  ‘You want to bring the whole human population out here?’

  No answer from Pippa.

  After that, those dogs who had bones began eating, as if everything was back to normal. Athaba was stunned, shocked by the suddenness of the loss.

  Athaba went over to Lucky.

  ‘Was it Pippa who was shot?’ he asked.

  Lucky looked up for a moment and his eyes said yes.

  ‘Why doesn’t someone say something?’ said Athaba.

  ‘We – we don’t mention those who leave us,’ said Lucky, his eyes not meeting Athaba’s. ‘It’s not done.’

  ‘She didn’t leave. She was blown to bits.’

  ‘All the same, it’s not good for morale to talk about it. She’s gone, and that’s that. Talking about her won’t bring her back. We’ll only start getting morose and scared and the next time we go out we’ll fall down on the job.’

  ‘Fall down on the job? You sound as if it was a well-planned raid or something. Lucky, all we did was run out there and rush in. What could go wrong with that? Or rather, what could go right with it? The only thing it’s got in its favour, is surprise.’

  Lucky didn’t look up.

  Athaba next went over to Rip.

  ‘That was your fault,’ he said. ‘You led the swarm into the yard.’

  Rip looked up from gnawing on his bone. He was clearly embarrassed because he only met Athaba’s gaze for a second before turning away.

  ‘Hey. No one’s responsible for anyone else, okay? The bitch didn’t have to go. She had a choice. Get off my ground, wolf. Find someone else to blame.’

  ‘You knew you held sway, Rip. You knew the others would follow you.’

  Lucky was beside him now. His voice was quiet.

  ‘Look, Athaba, leave Rip alone. He feels bad, can’t you see that? Listen, we’re not wolves. We’re not even thoroughbreds. We’re a motley bunch of scavengers doing the best we can to live in the only way we know how. If we could, we would go out there and bring down caribou, but we can’t. We know what we are. Scruffy strays is what we are. It’s all very fine for you to come in here with your “noble canids” image, but most of these dogs have been whipped or beaten until half out of their heads. You think they would be here if they could live in a comfortable home? Sure, one or two of us are freedom freaks, but the majority are simply ill-treated house dogs, either tossed out or forced out.’

  Athaba looked around at the sorry crew of dogs, as they stared at this minor confrontation. His heart felt heavy.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, moving back to his place. ‘It’s nothing to do with me. I’m an outsider.’

  The darkness became thicker as clouds moved over the area. There was a sleet coming down which froze on contact with the ground. Everyone lay around as close as possible to keep warm. Athaba wanted to get back out in the wild country again before they came for him with more guns.

  Poor little Pippa. Her hair had been matted. Her ears had been full of tics. Now she was dead, cut in half by buckshot.

  When the feast was over, the dogs left the yard one by one, intending to take up residence for a while in some other part of town. They had no doubt the man with the gun would be out with his cronies, armed to the teeth and looking for revenge.

  Rip bid a gruff goodbye to Athaba and told Lucky he would see him again soon. The mostly-borzoi then left the yard. Only Lucky and Athaba were left.

  ‘Where will you go?’ asked Lucky.

  ‘Up into the hills beyond the town for a while. Want to come with me?’

  Lucky shook his head. His eyes were wide. Athaba knew the dog would refuse the offer to join him. It was an impossible arrangement, a dog and wolf travelling together. Or was it? A wolf and a man had done as much, though by accident rather than design. Still, he could see by Lucky’s eyes that the thought of leaving the swarm and going alone with a wolf was a terrifying one. Exciting, but terrifying. Athaba was sure that it was not the danger which would deter the feral but moving out of his environment into an unknown land. An animal might face an army on his own stamping grounds but quake before an inferior opponent elsewhere.

  Lucky said, ‘What will the other wolves think? You bringing a dog along with you? Even if I am a mostly-airedale – a superior breed.’

  ‘What other wolves. I haven’t got a pack. I can’t just join up with any old bunch of wolves, you know. We’re not all great friends and allies. We respect each other’s territory – mostly – but keep to our own packs. If I tried to force my way into another pack, or maybe even just approached them on a friendly basis, I might be killed. I would certainly be driven away, unless they were desperate to recruit new blood, which doesn’t often happen. An old wolf like me? They’d laugh me out of the den.’

  ‘I see,’ said Lucky. ‘Anyway, ho thanks, just the same. I’m a mongrel. I belong in the suburbs. I wouldn’t know what to do with myself out in the wilderness. Just the thought of it fills me with apprehension. Thanks, but no thanks. I’ll stay here and work something out. I need a bit of order around me, the smell of humans and things human, like houses and cars and streets. This is my world. I guess once a townie, always a townie.’

  ‘As you wish. Goodbye, dog.’

  Lucky’s square jaw dropped open. The wiry hair on his head was catching the drifting snowflakes: white amongst the grey curls. His eyes were bright and he lifted his head.

  ‘Goodbye, wolf.’

  They parted and went their separate ways, one going south, the other, north.

  As Athaba travelled over the snowpacked foothills which led to the mountains, he thought how fortunate he had been during his life. Yes, there had been a great deal of distress, tragedy even, but for a wolf he had known much. From amongst his two main enemies, men and dogs, had come two friends. From amongst his friends and relations had come several enemies. The world was obviously not just this and this – sometimes it turned upside down, to become that. It was a strange thing, this memory-scent of things past. He had forgotten some of the names and smells of those close to him in his family pack in the early years: wolves he should have remembered. Yet he knew he would never forget Koonama, or Lucky, both of whom would remain part of his olfactory recall for the rest of his life.

  The light snow became heavy and the wind increased in strength until a blizzard was in progress. Athaba dug himself a hole in a drift and curled inside where he was soon warm. One thing was certain, the man with the gun would not follow him in such weather. He hoped it was the same back down on the outskirts of the town whose lights he could still see. That way the dogs would be safe, too.

  What an adventure that had been. It was one he could never tell to another wolf without either being derided as story-teller or losing their interest because there would be no comprehension of what had actually happened. He could imagine such a conversation.

  ‘So, you entered this human place?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘By force, of course. You were caged, or netted?’

  ‘No, I went in – to steal scraps.’

  (A funny look enters the other wolf’s eyes.)

  ‘You went in? How? Don’t they have wooden barricades at the entrances to their dens?’

  ‘We didn’t go right inside, only round the back of the dwelling.’

  ‘We?’ (Narrowed, suspicious eyes.)

  ‘Me and the dogs – feral dogs – that’s domestics gone wild again. There were fifty of us.’

  ‘Dogs.’

  ‘Yes, ferals.’

  ‘You like dogs?’

  ‘Yes, no, not necessarily. It was an act of defiance, don’t you understand? We were trying to take the fight to man himself. It was a great victory, a canid victory, fought by dogs and a wolf, against men. They should sing about it in songs.
There should be a howl, a fox chant, telling future generations that not all the fights were back in the era of the Firstdark.’

  (A knowing nudge.)

  ‘You see yourself as a hero then, leading this group of mongrels against the guns.’

  ‘There was a gun there. It was aimed at me, the trigger pulled, but it failed to fire. And anyway I wasn’t the leader. That was a mostly-borzoi named Rip. An irresponsible hound.’

  ‘You braved men’s weapons to get, what is it, scraps?’

  ‘Yes, I suppose so.’

  (A shake of the head.)

  ‘You must really like burned meat.’

  ‘And you have the brains of a marsh toad.’

  (A stiffening.)

  ‘Is that necessary? To insult me simply because I refuse to take your wild imaginings seriously?’

  ‘Yes, absolutely. The most necessary thing in the world.’

  ‘Well, I …’

  Oh, yes, he could see it all. This was something he was going to have to keep to himself for the rest of his life. He wondered if he would even tell Ulaala and his cubs – if he ever found them again.

  Outside his hole the wind cried, mourning the deaths of a thousand thousand wolves with a loud white voice.

  PART SIX

  The Manhunter

  Chapter Twenty Five

  Once more Athaba travelled into territories unknown, this time moving sharply westwards in the hope of picking up some information on the whereabouts of his pack. A small trickle of doubt was running through his mind at this time, as to whether the object of his mission was still in existence. There was, of course, the strong possibility that Ulaala and the pups were dead: killed by hunters, or by other wolves. As he crossed glaciers that rumbled down self-made chutes in the mountainside, travelled soft snowy wastes, walked through magnificent ice-walled canyons fashioned by nature into temples, he considered this possibility. Did it make any difference to his search? Not unless there was proof of such a tragedy. If someone he knew and trusted told him that they had witnessed the death of his mate and pups, well then, it might make a difference to the way he spent his time. It might have, but since there was no such information available he didn’t actually know whether such news would stop his feet from moving. He thought it might, but he wasn’t absolutely certain. Perhaps he would carry on wandering in the hope that the informant was mistaken? It could be that the dedication to travel was now so deeply ingrained that it was impossible for him to stop without there being a good reason. His body was now tuned to the rhythms of the walk, the trot, the run. Remaining still had his legs twitching.

  The land groaned under the press of ice. In the winter all is hard and brittle, slabbed, sheeted, layered. Even the wind seems to come in blocks to body-slam any creature that is foolish enough to stand in its path. The foxes have names for all the winds, even the small swirling gusts and the high whistling airstreams, but wolves have no time for such niceties as names. They, too, rely on the winds for information, but they know the wind can be a savage, destructive thing and their relationship with it is ambivalent.

  In the winter the land claims everything for itself, even lakes and rivers turn into part of the solid earthscape. They crystalise, stretch their shoulders, and form themselves into icy lengths or wide plains, their summer fish trapped deep below somewhere in the coldest regions of the underworld. They live a season of safety below the reach of wolf mouth-spearing, or bear paw-spearing. Athaba often wondered why wolves did not copy the bears and find some cave or earth-hollow in which to wait out the winter until the game was plentiful again and the fish were not icelocked beyond reach. Such a sensible way to treat that white season with its fangs of ice and talons of wind.

  One dark day, when he was travelling through a canyon being raked by the claws of a norther, he heard a howling.

  This was not an unusual occurrence. He often passed through territories of his brother and sister wolves, but this song stopped him dead in his tracks. He recognised it even though it was not a traditional howl. He recognised it as one of the songs he and Ulaala had composed together, that season long ago when the pair of them had set up the den.

  Athaba veered from his path to search the hills for the owner of that voice. There was only one: it had not been a chorus. He eventually found a small cave in the side of a mountain, large enough for a wolf. Standing outside this tunnel, he let out the same howl he had heard just a while earlier. For a long while nothing happened, then he heard the click of a stone being dislodged. He waited patiently.

  Finally, a face appeared, framed by the rock.

  ‘Who are you?’

  The speaker appeared to be a yearling or thereabouts and Athaba had no time for pleasantries.

  ‘Never mind who I am. Where did you learn that howl? Answer me quickly or I’ll rip you from tail to throat!’

  ‘What’s it to you?’ the speaker said boldly, but at the same time his face retreated into the darkness.

  Athaba was convinced he had found the member of a pack that had come into contact with Ulaala. If they had harmed her, this yearling was going to pay the price. He was in no mood for socialising. He wanted information. He was in urgent need of the truth.

  ‘I’m coming in there, wolf, so if you have something to say, say it now, before we fight. Do you hear me? Only one of us will leave this place …’

  A nose appeared and the voice said in an aggrieved tone, ‘Why do you have to be so hostile? I’m not harming anyone.’

  ‘Are you alone?’

  ‘I might be.’

  The yearling was obviously alone and afraid and trying to be brave about it.

  ‘Come out, NOW,’ commanded Athaba.

  The young wolf crept from the hole, shivering a little.

  ‘I’m not afraid of you,’ it said. ‘My father taught me to fight and if I have to I’ll fight you.’

  ‘Your father?’

  The yearling drew himself up.

  ‘My father was a headwolf. I’m going to be a headwolf one of these days. He was a great fighter. He even fought Skassi once, and beat him. Skassi told me so himself. Skassi’s not ashamed of being beaten by my father. He says my father was one of the meanest utlahs that ever roamed the icefields of the east.’

  Athaba had begun to realise who this terrible father was.

  ‘Well, I’m a little sick of hearing about this father of yours. What about your mother. Is she still alive?’

  ‘My mother is the mate of Skassi and she’s a mean wolf too,’ said the youngster proudly.

  Cold jaws closed around Athaba’s heart.

  ‘Your – your mother is Skassi’s mate?’

  ‘When my father was killed by hunters, she had to find another mate …’

  ‘What’s your name, youngster?’

  Again the yearling drew himself up.

  ‘Yanthra, son of Athaba and Ulaala!’

  The jaws came together, crushing the organ in his chest. His Ulaala was now the mate of his old enemy. This was the cruellest bite from the teeth of fate he had ever received. Before him sat the fluffy creature he had left two seasons ago, no longer fluffy, but now a grown yearling. Yanthra.

  ‘What about your brothers and sisters?’

  ‘They’re part of the pack.’

  ‘Pack? You mean Skassi’s rogues? The mankillers?’

  ‘Freedom fighters, not rogues. Skassi doesn’t like them to be called that. Skassi says they’re going to wipe the existence of men from the face of the earth, so the wolf packs can live and roam in peace once again. He says that things are going to return to the way it was in the Firstdark, before men came out of the sea-of-chaos, before Groff stamped his foot on the land. Skassi says he’s been chosen as the wolf to herald in the Lastlight. Skassi says …’

  Athaba growled.

  ‘Damn Skassi! I’ll have his liver. Recruit my pups would he? On a suicide mission? Damn him, I’ll tear him open and spread his lights over the snow.’

  ‘Ha, you couldn’t …�
� then the yearling stopped. ‘What do you mean, your pups?’

  Athaba muzzled the yearling under the chin.

  ‘Youngster, I’m your father. It may take a bit of believing, but I am Athaba, the meanest utlah of the eastern icefields.’

  The yearling regarded him for a few moments, then scratched behind his ear. He did not seem to know what to do. Then he asked, ‘How did you meet my mother?’

  ‘I was an outcast when I met Ulaala and she was from another pack. She was caught in the fishing line of a native hunter and I helped her to get free. I fought one of her pack, a wolf named Agraaga, and killed him, in order that I could take your mother with me to the south.’

  Yanthra’s jaw fell open, then suddenly pounced on Athaba and gripped him by the jowl, rocking his head to and fro for a moment. When he let it go, he cried, ‘You are my father! You’re alive. No wonder you knew the secret howl. Only mother and my brothers and sisters know the howl. She said you two made it up together and no other wolf would know how to do it.’

  ‘Calm down, youngster. Let’s go inside your little cave and you can tell me all about everything.’

  Yanthra nipped him again and again.

  ‘My father,’ he howled, the sound echoing along the canyons. ‘My father’s back …!’

  ‘Mother never really believed you were dead,’ said Yanthra, once they were inside the small but relatively warm den. ‘I could tell. She only said that to us because we kept asking where you’d gone. Even now one of us catches her looking out from the highlands, over the valleys, watching for you coming home.’

  Athaba said, ‘Well, I’ve had a long and weary search for both your mother and yourselves.’

  With that he proceeded to tell his son all that had befallen him since leaving the den that day long ago. The youngster listened, wide-eyed, to the stories of his father’s travels, occasionally asking a question or two, but in the main just listening.

  When Athaba had finished, he saw that Yanthra was drooping and could hardly keep awake. The excitement of finding each other had taken its toll of both of them. He was disappointed because he wanted to hear the tale of what had happened to his mate and her pups after he was captured. However, he knew that Yanthra could not give a coherent account in the state he was in, so he decided to let the yearling rest first.