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A Lone Wolf

Larry Chizak

    A lone wolf sniffs the trail meandering between the white birch trees as a steady snow falls. She was here, he could tell. He smells her scent, her aroma, and her fear. She has gotten away, away with her little one, hurt in the first encounter, hurt but not dead. The wolf will not be denied. When he finds her, he will call for the others, but it will be his kill, his gift to the pack. He puts his snout into the snow, eager to pick up her trail before the storm buries it. The black nose and gray whiskers push deeper as his blue eyes scan the horizon. The gray and white tail falls out of sight, but the ears stand up. He glides silently around stumps and under branches.
    He stops around the giant oak tree that guards the entrance to the meadow. The snow is deeper here, softer, unsheltered by the forest. The wolf sees a shallow rut, almost invisible near the woods, but more evident as it moves into the clearing. She is dragging something, maybe her little one – too hurt to walk and too heavy to carry. She must be hurt herself. He sees where she had stopped.
    When he first spotted her, she stood alone in the forest with the little one close beside her, a male. He could smell the scent of aggression, not possession; young, big enough for a meal, but not able to fend for himself.
    She looked weak, small for her sex – must be her firstborn. Why was she alone in the woods, the wolf thought? Must be lost, separated, he concluded. He had scanned the area looking for others - no one. She was alone. The wolf could take both, and the pack would eat for a week. It would be his prize, the best kill of the winter. They would respect him again. He crouched down and watched them. The snow almost covered him, and the white/black of his back resembled a drift with black tree twigs resting on it. He waited.
    She looked anxious, searching the trees as if expecting someone, or just on guard. He scented her fear. Her head turned to a rustle beyond the thicket, and she went to investigate - wrong move. She left her little one sitting on the ground, alone. The wolf got up from his crouching position and shot forward as smooth and silent as the wind. The dried grass flattened to let him through. He had just dug his teeth into the little one’s limb, to drag him off for the kill, when she turned and emitted a sound shaking the remaining autumn leaves from the trees. He dropped his prey and ran. When safely away, he regretted his action. What frightened him? He had his yelping dinner in his mouth. Why did he drop it? What a stupid thing to do, he thought to himself – scared off by a weak female. No one must know. He will have his revenge; he will get back his dinner.
    Soon, he finds her trail again. It leads across the meadow to a grove on the other side. She must be seeking shelter in the caves by the rock wall. Her trail sinks deeper in the new snow as it moves through the meadow. As he reaches the edge of the wood, he eyes her at the in the grove across the meadow. She is gathering pine moss for a bed. The little one is not with her. She must have hidden him. No worry. Once he finishes her, the little one wouldn’t be difficult to find. He has no time to call the pack. He doesn’t need it for a scrawny female. This will be his kill, his revenge. The little one will be his dinner, the rest he will take back to the pack. He proceeds slowly, with no tall grasses or bushes to hide him. His head lowered, shoulders hunched, and legs ready to spring. The wolf is almost into the grove when she senses him. She turns and faces his approach. Her blue eyes are ablaze, red with anger; her ears are up catching the sound of his breathing. The gray/black hair on her back lays straight, and her tail is stiff. She bares her canines and, before he could take another step, lunges at him. He could only put up one claw which catches her cheek before she rips out his throat.
    Night falls, and the snow illuminates the grove. New flakes peck at the gash in her cheek. Shivering from the cold, her hunger, and the encounter, she drags the dead wolf through the grove, avoiding obscure stumps and black low-hanging branches to where she has hidden her little one. The wolf’s blood leaves a red trail through the snow. Tonight, she and her little one will be warm with full stomachs.

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