Jennifer Dance - White Feather 3-Book Bundle: Red Wolf / Paint / Hawk

The Algonquian Wilderness
Ontario, Canada
1885

The men slowly reached for their rifles, eyes searching through the lengthening shadows. They appeared calm, almost serene, but the moment they set eyes on the wolves, fear had tainted their sweat. Tall-Legs had discerned the change. He signalled Tika and the pups to drop to the ground. The Uprights he had encountered in his six years of life were not a threat to him, or he to them. They didnt have the teeth, claws, and speed of his kind, or the formidable antlers and hind legs of the moose or elk. But these Uprights were different. Their pungent odour burned his nostrils. The hackles rose along his spine and his heart beat faster. However, hunger gnawed at his stomach and the meat that lay on the trestle table was tempting. He crouched low, his sensitive nose taking in every detail.

The big ones mine, the lumberjack drawled, his hand inching toward the rifle that was propped at his side. Nice and slow. Dont scare em off.

Tall-Legs turned to flee.

The bullet caught him in the ribcage, the impact arcing him into the air. He yelped and thudded to the ground, legs twitching. With explosions reverberating around him, one pup whirled and bolted. He had covered a hundred yards before he realized he was alone. He crouched to wait for his family, peering back toward the camp. Everything was still, but his nose and ears told him that something terrible had happened. His paws wanted to flee, but he needed his mother. Taking advantage of the tree cover, he slunk toward her.

Tika lay on her side, her head turned toward him, her yellow eyes demanding that he not approach. He flattened himself on the forest floor, his coat melding with the underbrush, one of his ears pointing skyward in a triangle, the other folded in half. He rested his head on his paws and whimpered softly.

One of the Uprights moved warily toward Tall-Legs and kicked the big wolf in the ribs. The pup cringed, but Tall-Legs made no movement and no sound.

Theres a good pelt on this one. Ill set to skinnin him after supper.

The smallest pup of the litter lolled with his head resting on his sisters hindquarters. The third pup lay alone. An Upright approached them and kicked each one. The pup with the crooked ear flinched, but his siblings didnt leap up and run away. They remained still and silent.

The pelts on these young uns wont be worth much. Theyre too small, not worth the effort to skin.

We still need the tails for the bounty.

Yeah, just cut the brushes off.

Crooked Ear heard the crunch of blade on bone then his sisters tail flew through the air, landing with barely a thud on the ground by the tents, the smell of her blood mingling with the choking scent of gunfire.

Another Upright warily approached Tika. This ones still alive! he shrieked, leaping away like a frightened hare.

Tika was gazing into Crooked Ears eyes when the final bullet tore through her body, lifting her slightly from the ground. Crooked Ear turned and fled.

Theres another one!

The lumberjacks unleashed a hail of bullets.

Crooked Ear raced into the darkness of the forest.

All night he ran, instinct leading him to the protected places where the moon barely reached the forest floor. He no longer ran with the playfulness of youth. His puppy days were over. By daybreak his pads were sore and his muscles ached. With heaving flanks, he quenched his thirst at a stream. A tree had blown over, wrenching a large bundle of roots from the earth, leaving a sandy hollow in the ground. He collapsed into it, tucking his nose to his flank and encircling his body with his tail. But even as he slept, his legs still ran, and he whimpered and yelped.

When he awoke, the day was done and darkness was once more settling over the forest. Bounding onto the trunk of the fallen tree, he threw back his head and howled, straining to hear any far-off reply from his pack, but only the hoot of an owl answered his call.

He was alone.

Softly jumping back to the forest floor, he paced in circles, head to the ground, nose urgently snuffling through the dried needles. He scrabbled at a rotting log until it disintegrated and beetles scurried in all directions. He pounced on one, then another, his indecisiveness allowing each to get away. Probing the remainder of the log, he unearthed a nest of plump white larvae. He curled back his lips and daintily picked up a fat grub in his front teeth. Deciding they were edible, he devoured all of them.

The hollow under the fallen tree still retained his odour and warmth, and he stayed there for some time. He heard the squeak of a mouse, but it flew through the sky clutched in the talons of a red-tailed hawk. Settling on the limb of a nearby pine, the raptor thrust her beak into the mouses skull, then delicately peeled the skin from the flesh and ate the body in a single gulp. The scrap of fur fell through the pine fronds. Crooked Ear pounced on it and swallowed. Then suddenly he was running again.

With each rise of the moon his pace slowed. Grubs and small rodents did not stave off his hunger. He inhaled the different scents, separating one from another, identifying them, judging their distance. One made him drool. His paws followed his nostrils until he saw a mallard in the wetland. He crouched in the rushes and advanced on his belly, but when he lunged, the duck rose up on beating wings, its webbed feet treading the air, and Crooked Ear sank into the shallows with nothing more than a mouthful of feathers.