Medicine Road (9 page)

The third month passed and still the wolves did
not come. The cracking cold of deep winter was
upon the woodland now, the normal time for the
appearance of the Arctic killers, long past. The waiting became intolerable.

At last, early on a frosty morning in the fourth
month, a lone caribou sentinel far out on the barrenground tundra sighted the main pack of white
wolves traveling south. By the use of good snow
craft and the fine caribou art of moving unseen in
vast fields of white, the crusty old stag was able to
outrace the pack and come ahead of it to the borders
of the forest, thus bringing the warning to Awklet.

The latter at once departed for a well-hidden look out post above Blizzard Pass, from which he could
observe the approaching pack. Loki was in the lead
and the pack was at full strength, guaranteeing that
the wolves did not intend splitting up to attack from
more than one direction. They were entering the
woodland openly, boldly, and confidently. They
were not even moving fast, just coming on at a
steady jog trot.

Awklet's fierce little eyes snapped with excitement. Returning to the herd, he swiftly led it deeper
into the forest, guiding it carefully along the broad
open trail that ran from the base of Blizzard Pass to
the heart of the Hemlock Wood. Now he could make
his own defenses, secure in the knowledge of the exact direction from which the wolves would attack.

For his battleground he selected the very meadow
where, three years before, Loki had made the mistake of sparing a wobbly-kneed moose calf's life.
Driving the last year's fawns and young does into
the center of the clearing, he herded the older does
and the stags of all ages into a solid ring of protection around them. That done, he took his own position on the northern edge of the circle. He was
ready. On the basis of what he knew of Loki's movements, it was an excellent disposition of forces.
From the standpoint of what he did not know, it was a
possible deathtrap.

Loki had spent the preceding summer scouring
the Arctic for new recruits and had succeeded beyond his hopes. To the east of his own domain was a
polar waste of rock-girt ice floes ruled over by a
mangy outcast called Boron. This crafty old scavenger had a following of perhaps thirty wolves, the
outlaws and unspeakables of every decent wolf pack
in the Northland. Loki, accidentally crossing trails with Boron, saw in him the perfect ally for his
vengeful return to the Hemlock Wood. The skulking
renegade did not dare refuse to join his scabby pack
to the king wolf's powerful force.

So Boron, a wolf entirely unknown to the caribou,
was traveling far to the east of Loki at the moment of
the latter's entry into the Hemlock Wood. With
Boron coursed his outlaw pack. Only minutes after
Awklet had led the herd away from Loki and Blizzard Pass, Boron and his wolf scum poured, unseen,
from the mouth of Retreat Pass and into the forest
behind the caribou circle. While Awklet watched
only to the north for the approach of Loki, Boron
closed silently in from the south.

Loki struck first, from the north. He and his yammering followers attacked without warning, out of
the four o'clock blackness, slashing into Awklet's
side of the antler-lowered circle. But Awklet raged
at the front of his circled herd, bellowing and charging the surprised wolves with such successful fury
that the caribou took fire and fought like demons.
Coughing and grunting hoarsely, slashing and hooking with hoof and horn, the tough old does and stags
drove back the wolf pack's first howling wave.

Loki wisely called off the assault and ordered the
wolves to retreat a short way into the surrounding
forest. From this cover, an occasional wolf charged
the herd to keep it from resting, but the main pack
did not return to the attack.

Awklet sensed that something had gone wrong
with the king wolf's plans, but he could not guess
what. Neither could Loki. Loki had expected Boron
to strike the herd from the rear while he came at it
from the front, thus stampeding the caribou and finishing the killing quickly. But Boron had failed to strike, or even to appear. Now the herd, alarmed
and aroused to nerve-strung courage by Awklet's utter fearlessness, was going to be very hard to handle. Still, Loki would wait a while for Boron. He
could afford a little time, and the treacherous old
rascal would not dare to fail to show up.

The king wolf watched Awklet and narrowed his
lone eye uneasily. This great hulk of a moose bull
was giving bad signs of knowing which end of the
breeze carried the odor, and that was not a good
thing. Perhaps, after all, he had better not wait for
Boron. He looked about him for old Sukon. The old
wolf heard his summoning snarl and slunk quickly
toward him.

Boron, meanwhile, was in trouble. His way into
the Hemlock Wood was not so easy as he had expected. A small band of old stags under two tough,
experienced leaders, Horsa and Kajak, had been
bedded near Retreat Pass. This straying group had
heard Awklet's gathering bellows when the young
moose began calling in the caribou after sighting
Loki approaching by Blizzard Pass. The small band
had started to fall back toward the main herd just
before Boron entered the forest.

The renegade wolf and his pack were moving
with the wind; hence they did not scent the caribou
so close ahead of them. But the latter, being downwind of the wolves, scented them at once. Instead of
fleeing in panic, Horsa and Kajak halted their two
dozen seasoned fighters in a screening stand of
ground pine and waited for the white raiders. They
let the surprised wolves run right into them, then
charged point-blank into the pack's midst.

They trampled over and injured at least ten of
Boron's followers. Half of them were so badly hurt they were out of the fight for good. The caribou did
not slow their rush, continuing straight on into the
heavy timber toward Awklet and the main herd.
Boron and the remainder of the wolves, taken completely off guard, made no attempt at pursuit. Instead, they swung far to the south and circled
through the forest to come at the herd from the west.

Had Loki waited for them, the sun would have
been long up and shining before they could ever
have joined him. But the king wolf was not waiting.
Old Sukon had been eager for an immediate, all-out
attack on Awklet's antlered circle. So while Boron
skulked through the woods to the west, the attack
was being carried out.

Loki's huge pack leaped forward, snarling. Awklet and the caribou fought back desperately until
Horsa and Kajak, with their excited band, raced in
from the south, fresh from their encounter with
Boron's wolf pack in the forest. Momentarily confused and for the first time shaken in his confidence,
Awklet began to retreat. Encouraged, Loki's pack redoubled its slashing attack, thinking that the old
panic had begun to break up the herd. It had not.
Nor had Awklet's confusion been more than momentary. As he saw the caribou hold firmly in their
determination to defend themselves, his own resolution returned twofold. Slowly and skillfully the
big herd, following its moose leader, continued its
retreat, the old does and stags keeping the outer circle closed up and unbroken. As the daylight hours
wore along, still with no hint of Boron's whereabouts, Loki again slowed the attack. He was now
content to follow the herd, meanwhile trying to determine where its young moose leader was headed.

At dusk that night, he found out. At first his lone eye lit up wickedly. Awklet had led the herd
squarely into one of the two entrances to Half Moon
Valley, and the old wolf thought that the herd was
now trapped. This valley was a steep-sided place
flanked on one side by Sleeping Bear Lake and on
the other by the impassable granite cliffs of the
Boulder Hills. The two outlets were Bear Tail Pass to
the south and, to the north, Ice Rock Canon,
through which Awklet and the herd were presently
crowding. It looked as though the wolves had only
to seal Bear Tail Pass at the other end and drive the
caribou in through Ice Rock Canon, bottling them
up in Half Moon Valley. Once this was done, the
pack could either cut them down or starve them out,
with no chance for escape either way.

But Loki was no inexperienced yearling cub. Suddenly the gleam of eagerness died out of his lone
eye. He knew he did not dare divide the pack and
send one part to seal up Bear Tail Pass. Instead, he
must keep the pack together, surrounding and holding the caribou right where they were. They could
not get away and the longer they hesitated, the more
surely they were lost. In the Arctic, it was the wolf
that always won the waiting game.

Loki was rounding up his pack with Sukon when
from the forest to the west came a sound that made
the old king's savage heart leap-the eerie, longdrawn howling of a trailing wolf pack. It was Boron.
The rascally scavenger had at last caught up. Now
everything was different. Now Boron and his
mangy ones could go south and watch Bear Tail
Pass while Loki and his full pack drove the herd on
into Half Moon Valley.

When Boron and his pack limped up out of the
darkness, Loki at once fell to snarling and growling at him. Boron was tired and his wolves were bruised
and footsore, but they were killers by trade, and this
was just the sort of hunting made to order for murderous outlaws. After a short exchange of growls
and snarls with Loki and Sukon, Boron led his pack
quickly off into the southern darkness.

The king wolf watched them go. When the robber
pack had disappeared, he flattened his stumpy little
ears, narrowed his cold yellow eye, and curled his
lip at old Sukon in a soundless snarl of cruel pleasure. Now, surely, the end of the orphan bull moose
was very near.

Shortly before dawn a mysterious movement began
in the caribou herd. Loki and Sukon, crouched and
waiting on the outer edge of the herd circle, could
not believe their eyes. The moose was leading the
caribou into Half Moon Valley, and without being
driven to it! But surely there was something wrong
here. Could it be as simple as it looked?

Cautiously Loki led the pack into Ice Rock Canon,
following closely in the tracks of the last bunch of
old stags guarding the withdrawal. There was no
need for hurry now. Boron would be coming up
from Bear Tail Pass, trapping the herd between his
pack and Loki's. After that, the only way the caribou
could move would be into Blind Canon and they
would never do that. The young moose was too
smart. He would know that there was no escape
from Blind Canon. Its tiny valley opened off the
main meadow of Half Moon. Its sheer walls were
naked ice and rock. No living animal could climb
out of it and there was no feed for the caribou on its barren, boulder-strewn floor. To enter it would be
only to destroy any slim chance the herd might yet
have of fighting its way out of the present trap. Half
Moon Valley was bad enough, but Blind Canon was
far worse.

Suddenly now, just as Boron and his outlaw ragtag pack broke into sight along the southern edge of
Half Moon meadow, Awklet gave a mighty bellow
and led the herd in a lumbering gallop straight
across the meadow and into the narrow, highwalled entrance of Blind Canon. Both Loki and
Boron at once gave chase, but again they had been
outwitted. The caribou gained the canon's mouth
and crowded through it before the racing wolves
could cut them off. As the two packs slid to a snowshowering halt, Awklet and a dozen old stags
turned to face them, crowded shoulder to shoulder
in the choked throat of the deep crevasse.

Although the main herd was for the moment safe
from attack, both wolf packs immediately set up a
growling, snarling yammer of excitement. The caribou were finally and forever trapped this time. To the
last frightened fawn and stumbling old doe, they
were crowded into Blind Canon. Their moose leader
had blundered. The king wolf had led his brothers
well and demonstrated his superior hunting craft.
This time there had been no mistake. Loki had more
than made up for the disastrous hunt he had led them
on last winter. Now all that remained was to drive the
caribou on up the canon and out into the bare rock of
its little valley. There a tremendous kill could be made
once the herd had been starved into weakness. But
the pack would make certain that plenty of seed stock
was left to breed an ample supply of meat for the following year, and all the years thereafter.

As soon as daylight broke, full and clear, the pack
would start the last drive. It would be a great hunt.
When it was over, the caribou herd would be broken
apart, its moose leader destroyed. With the great
young bull dead, the caribou would never again
gather to fight as they had the past, bloody day. It
was an exceedingly pleasant prospect. The three
huge dog-wolves-Loki, Sukon, and Boron-snarled
and bickered over it delightedly. To the east, the first
faint streak of coming day broke behind them.