Julie of the Wolves

by Jean Craighead George

  “That way should be Fairbanks,” she said. “At least I know that much.”

  Picking up pebbles, she pounded them into the line to make it more permanent, and stood up. “That way,” she said, pointing in the opposite direction, “is the coast and Point Hope.”

  Amaroq howled. Nails barked. Then Amaroq slid into a musical crescendo that Silver joined in. Their voices undulated as each harmonized with the other. Jello’s windy voice barked out and, like the beat of drums, the five pups whooped and yipped. Miyax rubbed her chin; something was different about this hunt song. It was eerie and restless. It spoke of things she did not understand and she was frightened.

  The fog cleared again and she saw Amaroq, his hunters, and the pups running across the tundra. Even Jello was with them. Were they leaving her? Was this their day to take up the wandering life of the wolves? Was she now on her own? Picking up her red markers, she crawled around her frost heave and frantically gathered the leafy plants that the caribou eat. She stuffed mushroom-like fungi in her pockets, and bits of reindeer moss. She could no longer afford to pass up anything that might be edible.

  As she worked on her hands and knees, she felt a rhythmical beat, like the rumble of Eskimo drums. Pressing her ear to the ground she heard the vibration of many feet—a herd of caribou was not far away.

  The fog thinned more and Kapu came into view. As alert as an eagle, he was sniffing the wind and wagging his tail as if reading some amusing wolf story. She sniffed, too, but for her the pages were blank.

  The vibrations in the earth grew stronger; Miyax drew back, as out of the fog came a huge caribou, running her way. His head was out straight and his eyes rolled wildly. At his neck, leaping with the power of an ocean wave, was Amaroq. Nails was diving in and out under his legs, and at his flank dashed Silver. Miyax held her breath, wondering whether to run or dodge.

  Then Amaroq jumped, floated in the air for an instant, and sank his teeth into the shoulder of the beast. He hung on while Silver attacked from the side. Then he dropped to the ground as the bull bellowed. The fog closed in briefly, and when it thinned the caribou was poised above Amaroq, his cleaver-like hoofs aimed at his head. There was a low grunt, a flash of hoofs, and the huge feet cut uselessly into the sod; for Amaroq had vaulted into the air again and had sunk his teeth in the animal’s back. Snarling, using the weight of his body as a tool, he rode the circling and stumbling beast. Silver leaped in front of the bull trying to trip him or slow him down. Nails had a grip on one hind leg. The caribou bucked, writhed, then dropped to his knees. His antlers pierced the ground; he bellowed and fell.

  He was dying, his eyes glazed with the painkilling drug of shock; yet his muscles still flexed. His hoofs flailed at the three who were ending the hunt with slashes and blood-letting bites.

  After what seemed to Miyax an eternity, the bull lay still. Amaroq tore open his side as if it were a loaf of bread and, without ceremony, fell to the feast.

  Kapu and the little wolves came cautiously up to the huge animal and sniffed. They did not know what to do with this beast. It was the first one they had seen and so they wandered curiously around the kill, watching their elders. Amaroq snarled with pleasure as he ate, then licked his lips and looked at Kapu. Kapu pounced on a piece of meat and snarled, too; then he looked at Amaroq again. The leader growled and ate. Kapu growled and ate.

  Miyax could not believe her good fortune—an entire caribou felled practically at her door. This was enough food to last her for months, perhaps a year. She would smoke it to make it lighter to carry, pack it, and walk on to the coast. She would make it to Point Hope.

  Plans racing in her head, she squatted to watch the wolves eat, measuring, as time passed, the enormous amounts they were consuming—pounds at each bite. As she saw her life-food vanishing, she decided she had better get her share while she could, and went into her house for her knife.

  As she crept up toward the bull she wondered if she should come so close to wolves that were eating. Dogs would bite people under similar conditions. But dogs would refuse to share their food with others of their kind, as the wolves were doing now, growling pleasantly and feasting in friendship.

  She was inching forward, when Kapu splintered a bone with his mere baby teeth. She thought better of taking her share; instead she waited patiently for the wolves to finish.

  Amaroq left the kill first, glanced her way, and disappeared in the fog. Silver and Nails departed soon after and the pups followed at their mother’s heels.

  “Ee-lie!” Miyax shouted and ran to the food. Suddenly Jello came out of the fog and leaped upon a leg of the kill. She drew back. Why had he not eaten with the others? she asked herself. He had not been baby-sitting. He must be in some kind of wolf disgrace, for he walked with his tail between his legs and he was not allowed to eat with the pack.

  When he too had feasted and left, she walked over to the caribou and admired the mountain of food. Impulsively, she paid tribute to the spirit of the caribou by lifting her arms to the sun. Then, scoffing at herself for being such an old-fashioned Eskimo, she sharpened her man’s knife on a stone and set to work.

  The skin was tough and she marveled that the wolves tore it so easily. Even as she peeled it away from the flesh with her knife, she was surprised how difficult it was to cut and handle, but she worked diligently, for the pelt was almost as valuable as the meat. Hours and hours later, the last bit of hide came free and she flopped on her back to rest.

  “Such hard work!” she gasped aloud. “No wonder this job is given to Eskimo men and boys.” With a sigh she got to her feet, dragged the skin to her house, and laid it out to dry. Scraping and cleaning the skin was something she knew more about, for that was a woman’s job, but she was too busy to do that now. It was time to carve and eat! She cut open the belly and lifted out the warm liver, the “candy” of her people. With a deft twist of the ulo, she cut off a slice and savored each bite of this, the most nourishing part of the animal. So rich is the liver that most of it is presented to the women and girls, an ancient custom with wisdom at its core—since women give birth to babies, they need the iron and blood of the liver.

  All during the wolf sleep Miyax stayed up, cutting off strips of caribou and hanging them over the fire. As she worked, a song came to mind.

  Amaroq, wolf, my friend,

  You are my adopted father.

  My feet shall run because of you.

  My heart shall beat because of you.

  And I shall love because of you.

  She stood up, peeked around the heave, and added, “But not Daniel. I’m a wolf now, and wolves love leaders.”

  The umbrella of fog had lifted and Miyax ran up the side of her frost heave to see how her family was. They were sleeping peacefully—all but Amaroq. He shot her a glance, lifted his lips, and spoke with his teeth.

  “Oh, all right. Ee-lie, Ee-lie.” Miyax got down on all fours. “But how am I going to follow you if you won’t let me walk? I am me, your two-legged pup.” She stood up. Amaroq lifted his eyebrows, but did not reprimand her. He seemed to understand she could not change. His tail banged once and he went back to sleep.

  Hunts came and went. The smoke curled up from Miyax’s fire, and caribou strips shrank and dried. One night she watched the dipping sun, trying to guess the date. It must be the second week of August, for the sun sat almost on the rim of the earth.

  The wolves had no doubt about the date; they were using a calendar set by the pups, and today was the second day of exploration. Yesterday, Silver had taken them out on the tundra to chase caribou and now they were bouncing around her, ready to go again. Kapu dashed off a few steps, came back, and spun in a circle. Silver finally gave the signal to go, and led him and the others down the hill and out behind the pond.

  Miyax watched them trot off to learn about the scent of caribou and the joy of chasing foxes. She wished she could learn such things, too. Shouldering her pack, she wandered through the grasses in search of fuel, a much less exciting assi
gnment. About an hour later she saw Silver and the pups and paused to watch them chase a lively young buck. Kapu ran with a skill that almost matched his mother’s. Miyax waved to them and started home.

  As she rounded the pond she squinted at the sun again, for it had not climbed up the sky but was still sitting on the horizon. This worried her; it was later than she thought. Autumn was almost here. A glance across the barrens reaffirmed this. The flowers were gone; the birds flocked in great clouds, and among them were eider and old squaw ducks that kept to the rivers and beaches except when they migrated south. Finally, she saw, like hundreds of huge black fingers, the antlers of the caribou beyond the turn of the horizon. They were moving to their wintering ground ahead of the deep freeze and the snow.

  She wondered why they passed so close to their enemies the wolves, then recalled how swiftly they could run. The young and the healthy ones did not fear the wolves, and the sick and the old were doomed in winter. Her caribou had been so infested with the larvae of nose flies it had not been able to eat. A weakling, it had become food to give strength both to her and to the wolves.

  After storing her fuel she returned to the kill to cut off more strips to smoke. As she approached she saw Jello there and she felt uneasy, for the wolves had not touched the caribou since the night they had felled it. She liked to think they had given it to her.

  Jello snarled. “That’s not nice,” she said. “Go away!” He growled fiercely and she realized she had not seen him with the rest of the pack for several sleeps. He was not even baby-sitting now, for the pups went out with their mother at night. She shouted again, for she needed every bite of that meat. Hearing anger in her voice he stood up, the hairs on his back rising menacingly. She backed away.

  Hurrying to camp, she got out her man’s knife and began to dig. Every Eskimo family had a deep cellar in the permafrost into which they put game. So cold is the ground that huge whales and caribou freeze overnight, preserved for the months to come. Miyax dug to the frost line, then whacked at the ice until, many hours later, she had chopped three feet into it. This was not the eighteen-foot-deep cellar of her mother-in-law, but perhaps it would keep the rest of her food from Jello. Cautiously she went back to the kill. Jello was gone. Working swiftly, she chopped off the best pieces and dragged them to her refrigerator. Then she covered the hole with a large slab of sod.

  She was heating a pot of stew when Kapu came around the hill with a bone in his mouth. Miyax laughed at the sight, for although he ran like an adult on the tundra, he was still a puppy with games on his mind. She lifted a chunk of cooked meat from the pot and held it out to her brother.

  “It’s good,” she said. “Try some Eskimo food.” Kapu sniffed the meat, gulped, licked his jaws, and whined for more. She gave him a second bite; then Silver called and he trotted obediently home. A few minutes later he was back for another bite.

  “Maybe you’ll learn to like it so much, you’ll travel with me,” she said, and threw him another chunk of meat. “That would be nice, for I will be lonely without you.” Kapu suddenly looked at her and pressed back his ears. She understood his problem instantly and danced lightly from one foot to the other.

  “It’s all right, Kapu,” she said. “Amaroq has agreed that I can go on two feet. I am, after all, a person.”

  Unnumbered evenings later, when most of the meat was smoked, Miyax decided she had time to make herself a new mitten. She cut off a piece of the new caribou hide and was scraping it clean of fur when a snowstorm of cotton-grass seeds blew past her face. “Autumn,” she whispered and scraped faster. She saw several birds on the sedges. They were twisting and turning and pointing their beaks toward the sun as they took their readings and plotted their courses south.

  With a start, Miyax noticed the sun. It was halfway below the horizon. Shading her eyes, she watched it disappear completely. The sky turned navy blue, the clouds turned bright yellow, and twilight was upon the land. The sun had set. In a few weeks the land would be white with snow and in three months the long Arctic night that lasted for sixty-six days would darken the top of the world. She tore a fiber from the skin, threaded her needle, and began to stitch the mitten.

  About an hour later, the sun arose and marked the date for Miyax. It was August twenty-fourth, the day the North Star reached Barrow. Of this she was sure, for on that day the sun lingered below the horizon for about one hour. After that, the nights lengthened rapidly until November twenty-first, when the sun disappeared for the winter.

  In bed that evening, Miyax’s spirit was stirred by the seeding grass and the restless birds and she could not sleep. She got up, stored some of the smoked meat in her pack, spread the rest in the sun to pack later, and hurried out to the caribou hide. She scraped all the fat from it and stuffed it in the bladder she had saved. The fat was excellent fuel, and gave light when burned. Finally she crept to her cellar for the rest of the meat and found Jello digging through the lid of sod.

  “No!” she screamed. He snarled and came toward her. There was nothing to do but assert her authority. She rose to her feet and tapped the top of his nose with her man’s knife. With that, he stuck his tail between his legs and slunk swiftly away, while Miyax stood still, surprised by the power she felt. The knife made her a predator, and a dangerous one.

  Clutching her food, she ran home, banked the fire, and put the last of the meat on the coals. She was about to go to bed when Kapu bounced down her heave, leaped over her house, and landed silently by her side.

  “Oh, wow!” she said. “I’m so glad to see you. Jello scares me to death these days.” She reached into her pot for a piece of cooked meat for him and this time he ate from her fingers. Then he spanked the ground to play. Picking up a scrap from the mitten, she swung it around her head. Kapu leaped and snatched it so easily that she was startled. He was quick and powerful, an adult not a pup. She hesitated to chase him, and he bounded up the heave and dashed away.

  The next morning when she went out to soften the hide by pounding and chewing it, she saw two bright eyes peering at her from behind the antlers, about all that was left of her caribou. The eyes belonged to an Arctic fox and she walked toward him upright to scare him away. He continued to gnaw the bones.

  “Things are tough, eh, little fox?” she whispered. “I cannot drive you away from the food.” At the sound of her voice, however, his ears twisted, his tail drooped, and he departed like a leaf on the wind. The fox’s brown fur of summer was splotched with white patches, reminding Miyax again that winter was coming, for the fur of the fox changes each season to match the color of the land. He would soon be white, like the snow.

  Before sundown the temperature dropped and Miyax crawled into her sleeping skin early. Hardly had she snuggled down in her furs than a wolf howled to the south.

  “I am here!” Amaroq answered with a bark, and the distant wolf said something else—she did not know what. Then each pack counted off and when the totals were in, Miyax’s wolves yipped among themselves as if discussing the tundra news—a pack of twelve wolves to the north. So wild had their voices been that Miyax crept to her door to call Kapu to come and ease her fears. She started with surprise. There by her pond was Amaroq. The wind was blowing his fur and his tribe was gathered around him, biting his chin, kissing his cheeks. With a sudden sprint he sped into the green shadows of sunrise and one by one his family fell in behind, according to their status in the pack. Nails ran second, then Silver, Kapu, Sister, Zit, Zat, Zing, and finally, far behind came Jello.

  Miyax at last was sure of what had happened to Jello. He was low man on the totem pole, the bottom of the ladder. She recalled the day Amaroq had put him down and forced him to surrender, the many times Silver had made him go back and sit with the pups, and the times that Kapu had ignored his calls to come home to the den. He was indeed a lowly wolf—a poor spirit, with fears and without friends.

  Scrambling to her feet she watched the pack run along the horizon, a flowing line of magnificent beasts, all cooperating for t
he sake of each other, all wholly content—except Jello. He ran head down, low to the ground—in the manner of the lone wolf.

  “That is not good,” she said aloud.

  An Arctic tern skimmed low and she jumped to her feet, for it was flying with a determination that she had not seen in the birds all summer. Its white wings cut a flashing V against the indigo sky as it moved due south across the tundra. There was no doubt in her mind what that steady flight meant—the migration was on.

  “Good-bye!” she called sadly. “Good-bye.”

  Another tern passed overhead, then another, and another. Miyax walked to the fireplace and threw on more fuel.

  Amaroq howled in the distance, his royal voice ringing out in a firm command. Somehow, she felt, he was calling her. But she could not go on this hunt. She must finish smoking every morsel of meat. Hurriedly she picked up her markers and started off for more fuel.

  Several hours later, her tights bulging with caribou chips, she saw the wolves again. Amaroq, Nails, and Silver were testing the herd and Kapu was pouncing and bouncing. She knew what that meant; the hour of the lemmings was returning. Of this she was sure; she had often seen the dogs, foxes, and children hop and jump after lemmings in this same laughable way.

  “I’m glad to know that,” she called to her friend, and hurried back to the fire.

  As the chips glowed red, Miyax saw another Arctic tern flying the same route as the others. Quickly she drew its course across the mark on the ground to Fairbanks; then, peeling off a strip of sinew, she stood in the center of the X and held the ends of the thread in both hands. When one arm was pointing to the coast and the other was pointing in the direction the bird was taking, she cut off the remainder of the strip.

  “There,” she said, “I have a compass. I can’t take the stones with me, but every time a tern flies over, I can line up one arm with him, stretch the sinew out, and my other hand will point to the coast and Point Barrow.”