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Lone Wolf

Lone Wolf

Titel: Lone Wolf
Autoren: Kathryn Lasky
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pup!
    She looked back at the poor little thing as they made their way to the den. He was completely exhausted, wobbly to the point of staggering off the narrow path. He was most likely too tired to even cling to her hump while riding. Well, she thought, smart or dumb, I'm all he's got. She turned around and picked the little pup up with his head  in her mouth and the rest of his body dangling, the way she would have carried a one-moon-old cub. At least two moons had passed since Faolan had fetched up, and he was still small enough to be carried carefully in her mouth.
    Tomorrow they would make their way an even longer distance to forage for the squirrel caches of white bark pine. The white bark that squirrels used to line their nests was one of the most nutritious of the foods available in spring. And with luck perhaps they would find a squirrel. The spring diet was mostly grasses, roots, nuts. Meat would come later, but they could always hope for carrion of an old animal who had not made it through the winter. Even as the grizzly led the pup back to the den, she swung her head constantly to sniff, scanning for the distinctive smell of rotting flesh.
    ***
    The grizzly had found a new den for spring and summer, one of the loveliest ever. It was in a thicket of alders on the river near a back eddy that would soon be busy with trout. Just outside the den's entrance, glacier lilies nodded their pale yellow heads. The steep bank down to the river was stippled with wild blue irises.
    By the time they entered the den, Faolan was asleep. But he never slept so soundly that he couldn't nurse. The grizzly sat upright with her legs stuck straight out in front of her. While Faolan nursed, she watched the lavender twilight fall softly on the land. The river reflected the clouds on its glassy surface. It was different from the stormy night Faolan had arrived. She looked down at the pup, who was drunk with milk now.
    She wondered about him more and more. The splayed paw was not that odd, but the faint tracery of swirling lines on the pad intrigued her. The swirls were so dim, but there was something almost hypnotic about the pattern of lines. What did it mean? Where had Faolan come from? Why had the river given him up to her? Was he lonely? Wolves were pack animals. Bears solitary. How could she be not just a mother but an entire pack to this wolf? "Urskadamus!" she muttered quietly.
    The grizzly wondered all sorts of things. She knew wolves could not sit up like bears. So they must nurse their young in a very different way, perhaps lying down. But she was always worried about rolling over and crushing Faolan accidentally. He was so small and she so huge. And wolves could not stand up on their hind legs, let alone sit up. This seemed especially unfortunate. She saw  so much standing up. She learned so much. It troubled her that Faolan could not do this. Would it, she wondered, be possible to teach a wolf to stand up and walk just a bit on his hind legs? She might try it. She looked down at him again and gave him a cuddle and a nuzzle. She loved him so. It was very odd, she knew. Other bears would look at her suspiciously. But she didn't care. She simply didn't care.
    ***
    Faolan squirmed a bit and settled deeper down into his milk-laced sleep. He had grown accustomed to the percussive sounds of the grizzly's innards -- the windy drafts of her gut as she digested, the bellowing inhalations and exhalations of her breathing, but most of all, the epic thumpings of her heart, that huge majestic heart. The sound wove through Faolan while he slept like a song for his milk dreams. The grizzly was no longer simply the Milk Giver in his mind, but Thunderheart.

CHAPTER FIVE
    ***
    DEN LESSONS

    IT WAS DURING THE FIRST SLIVER of dawn that Thunderheart unceremoniously dumped Faolan from her lap and gave him a gentle butt with her nose on his muzzle. "Watch me!"
    She left the den and he followed her down the banks of the river to the rock slab that slid into the water. It was his first fishing lesson. The trout at this time of the moon's cycle would begin schooling in the back eddy by the rock. Fishing took patience, and Thunderheart knew that wolf pups, like bear cubs, were short on patience -- especially Faolan. But he was a quick learner. She hoped he was ready for the very practical lesson of fishing. He just had to fatten up. She worried incessantly about what she perceived as his smallness.
    Fishing of course would be easier in the fall
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