It was new this morning… different. Stick Hunter looked large in his layers of false fur. After the Lesser Salt changed direction, so did the wind, and there was a scent reminding me of somewhere I had never run: a place of endless white, where you could roam forever and never cross the horizon.
I fell into this memory, my breath becoming a cloud, Stick Hunter faded into the wind’s cold caress and my stifling coat revealed its true reason.
All was perfect until I came to a place where the path hurt my paws and the Lesser Salt lay far below me. Shiny boxes rushed past, until a loud bark stopped them, and there was Hunter, holding up his hairless paw, making them sit.
Somehow, he always finds me.
Now, I am back by the trapped fire, and as I lie in my bed, I feel that white place drawing near and I wonder how to tell my furless pack.
I rise and climb the steep hill of dead trees, looking for Hunter. He is sitting up and slapping his forepaws against a clatter board, his eyes staring at a lit box.
The only way to cure his sickness is to make noises and pull him away. He makes noises in turn, but they make little sense. I know the sounds “walk” and “dinner,” but this “later” is useless in my world of now, as he pushes me away and looks out the small hole that doesn’t open.
Now, he’s up on his hindquarters, and walking to the bigger hole by the bed that I’m not supposed to jump on. Wait… now he wants me to? Okay! This is fun! I can bite the soft furry skins and when he tries to pull them from me, I’m sure to win! … no, not that? Hunter wants me to look outside…
… and it’s here! It’s falling from the sky! How can this be? Hunter, be quiet. I don’t know that sound and I’m trying to listen…
… It’s Boss! Boss is coming! I hear my four-legged pack singing as they come up the stone hill in Boss’s long shiny box.
Hunter and Quiet Voice are agonizingly slow in layering on their false fur, but at last Hunter makes the “truck” sound, and we follow Boss’s shiny box through the swirling white. Quiet Voice has made Hunter’s “snow” sound so many that I’m beginning to think that’s what the white is.
Trees go by in a blur; their branches heavy with the white. Ahead are more shiny boxes, squatting on the sand. We join their pack and Hunter growls when I hop out and run away from the magic vine that makes me listen.
I raise my muzzle to understand: the great salt is nearby; a teat that feeds it is just a short run away. Closer still, is the sharp tang of trees fighting to take root in a low rise where grass mutes the restless sound of the Great Salt. There is a damp place where the Great Salt and Earth Mother’s struggle for dominance. I remember the days that the water sleeps, and I can see my eyes reflecting the two colors of their endless battle.
Today, all the pack is here: Addi the Quick, our fastest runner who never tires. Angel the White - tiny like the pieces of shedding sky, but she’d try for Alpha if not for our furless Boss, who speaks the language of our ancestors. Bow-Legged Cooper and I exchange a friendly growl-bark, and I see that Dutch is here. He always thinks he’s been invited. Perhaps Angel will challenge that assumption, or maybe I should. Dutch doesn’t know his place. Even Shyla could beat Dutch in a growl-bark, but Shyla insists on hiding behind Angel.
More shiny boxes crack open as the descendance of the Great Wolf tumble onto the white ground.
There as so many new ones that Angel and Boss can’t maintain control. Boss normally breaks things up, but she and Hunter are making noises with a furless hindleg walker who dens by the Great Salt. He keeps pawing at a lifeless image of Grey Cousin. Why? It is scentless and uninteresting, but the white is new and exciting.
All is a delightful confusion of waving tails in our newfound world, but then a scent wafts over our swelling ranks and suddenly the ancestors of the wolf form a heaving restless pack, their tails alert, snouts high, and paws trotting sideways.
We are not the only carnivores here.
Gray Cousin approaches.
A great struggle ensues while we investigate and the cliffs echo with shrill whistling as our hairless companions imitate birds, calling the pack together.
Boss keeps Addi close, and howls to recall Angel, Cooper, and Shyla. I could track them, but Hunter’s magic vine has hold of me.
Suddenly, chaos descends. Hairless paws bite fur and vines catch hold as one upright female makes a sound loud enough to hurt, her blunt snout points to where the Great Salt meets Earth Mother.
I feel Hunter’s great weight shifts as the vine releases me and he barks loud the hunting call, “Echo, GET THAT THING!” …
… snow billows in a joyous cloud and at last we are running, hunting again: he makes a single birdcall and turns toward the Great Salt. I veer away into the high grass, running down Angel’s scent with a speed that only Addi can best.
Gray Cousin’s scent grows stronger…
… but why has he come to the Great Salt? … unless… the sharp tang of his new pups fills my snout, juxtaposed by a void not that far ahead, where small creatures silently shiver and Gray’s pack waits.
Hearing Cooper’s rasping bark, I cut towards the sand and explode from the grass. Gray is dragging his hind leg in a show of narrowly escaping Angel.
Shyla has him flanked.
Cooper is nearly spent.
I leap from the bluff, letting the ancestors guide my rage, and target the instant before Gray miraculously heals and his pack bursts from cover.
Bite.
Roll.
Tuck your legs.
Don’t ever let go.
Every morning, as the day warms, I eat, play, and hunt… the memory of stone and unbreakable twigs fading. Now, I am ready, and the ancestors watch as Gray is forced to share my momentum, his body leaving the ground with my jaw buried in his spine…
… and we are spinning…
… must not let go…
… slamming down onto the rocks…
… must not…
… night falls…
… and I sleep at the foot of the bridge a moment, waking to find Angel licking my muzzle.
Cooper darts forward, barking at Gray’s still body.
Shyla whines that we really should be running away...
… but I think I’ll just lie here and watch the snow fall.
Hunter always finds me.