The Pack

The Pack

It was dark when we both wearily pushed ourselves up from the ground and stretched our aching legs. I looked around and saw nothing but rolling hills in every direction. It must have been about 2 weeks since we got separated from the pack. You lose track of time out in these hills. We had given up hope of finding them by now. They could have gone in any direction, and we had pushed on following the moon. But tonight, the moon was nowhere to be seen. A very light snow had covered the ground during the night and Floe and I had huddled together against the cold under a small bush, what little cover we could find.

Floe always looked up to me to lead so it was now up to me as to which direction we should go. I remembered the last sliver of moon had been on our left shoulder as we approached the bush, so I chose to walk towards the bush, turn left, and keep going in that direction. It didn’t matter either way I guessed because we were finding enough food along the way and had found a couple of water holes with clean enough water.

I was worried about Floe though. I could always find something to keep my spirits up, but she has always relied on her little sisters to keep her company. Without them, she seems lost and very worried. I turned to her and told her my plans confidently. She seemed to perk up a bit at that. I always wondered if she regretted choosing me but since we wolves mate for life she was stuck with me. To do otherwise would go against tradition so old we had long since stopped worrying about where it came from.

I was born in a different pack. As soon as I became mature enough my family let me know I was not welcome and needed to strike out on my own. I just never seemed to fit in and could never live down a hunting blunder. The pack was just about to take down a huge elk, but I didn’t know that and howled a greeting as I approached and scared the elk off. My dad insisted I did it on purpose to discredit him and take over the pack. I never really cared for all of the pack politics so the last thing I wanted was to be king, but he wouldn’t believe that and began badmouthing me all of the time.

I didn’t think I was seasoned enough to be setting out on my own, but I didn’t see a choice. And, despite what my father thought I did care for the pack and thought they would be better off with me gone because of all of the tension. I waited until a dark night, much like this one, and off I went. The first couple of nights were a bit scary, but once I had caught a couple of meals and fought off a coyote attack, I was confident enough.

In fact, I was starting to plan on just being a lone wolf, no pun intended, until I stumbled across Floe. I heard snarling and could tell as only another wolf could that it was the snarls of a very scared wolf. I ran to the sound and saw the most beautiful wolf ever created facing off against a pretty decent-sized Hisser. I think you call them Mountain Lions, but we call them Hissers. Anyway, it was big enough to do serious damage to this beautiful female wolf but not a real threat to me. I had gotten pretty big by now and had been in plenty of fights since leaving my old pack.

I didn’t hesitate and hit the Hisser as hard as I could from the side. It knocked the wind out of it and I was able to grab his throat and clamp down with everything I had. Since the wind was already out of him, he stopped moving pretty quickly. I would have normally left after knocking him silly but wanted to impress this beauty and hopefully win her over. She looked me over for a minute and said, “That was quite a show! What’s your name, hero?”. Luckily, I’m covered in fur so she couldn’t see me blush, but I smiled and said, “Duncan, at your service my lady, and I would have taken on a Crusher for you!”. I think you call them Grizzly Bears, but we call them Crushers.

She smiled and “Well, I don’t think you would have faired as well against a Crusher, but I believe you, and by the way I’m Floe”. We both stood there looking at each other like lovestruck teenagers. Probably because we were lovestruck teenagers! We gave each other a good sniffing over and I could tell she was healthy and not from any family line I had come across. We get a lot more out of a sniff than you folks realize. Anyway, she gave me a playful little slap on my head and started running. I caught her easily enough and pulled her down on the grass. We both laughed, and she playfully said, “OK, you win big boy”.

As we walked back to her pack I looked her over really good. She was pretty dark, which is good for camouflage, and since she also looked very strong, I realized she probably would have handled the Hisser just fine. As I moved back alongside her she grinned and said, “Well I know you were checking me out, so what do you think?”. I grinned back and said, “I think you’re the most beautiful wolf in the world!”. She just laughed and took off running again and I knew I had found my mate for sure as I pulled her down in the grass again. We were still looking at each other when I heard a very gruff voice, “There you are! We’ve been looking all over for you!”. Then Flow looked up at her very large and very intimidating father and said, “This is Duncan, he saved me from the biggest Hisser I’ve ever seen and even killed it for me”. She looked and me and winked so I would know she was exaggerating.

Her father looked me over for a minute and said, “Well I’m James, Floe’s father and I thank you for saving her”. Her mother, Henrietta, had been listening to all of this and just wanted to know where we had left a perfectly good meal. So, we led Floe’s family back to the dead Hisser and everyone had a good meal. As we ate, and the evening progressed I got a good sniffing from everyone in the family, and they all seemed impressed with me and seemed to approve. We never talked about it or anything we just began to act as mates and that was that.

Floe’s pack was living in a small cave hidden by bushes and trees with a clearing a few yards in front of it. Whenever danger or uncertainty came about the smaller and weaker ones could retreat into the den and James, Billy, and I would stay in the clearing and defend the pack. Billy is Floe’s older brother and big and strong like his father. It felt like I had fallen into heaven.

I guess I made a pretty good impression by saving Floe and all because it seemed like I never had to prove myself or anything. James was very big and very much in charge so there was never any question of trying to take over or anything, so we all got along well. Floe had an older brother and a little sister, so it was a well-rounded group. Even though this area was new to me it seemed a little strange there were not any other wolves around and for that matter not many other animals at all. I asked James about that one day when we were on a scouting walk together. He had taken me under his tutelage and was showing me the ropes about leading a pack and making the big decisions.

James said that he didn’t want to tell the others, but he had seen a big group of Softies, that’s what we call you, making a huge settlement nearby and scaring the other animals off. I wanted to go see it, but he sternly said, “We never go near the Softies if we don’t have to. They are too dangerous”. I had more questions about that, but he didn’t want to talk about it, and I figured that anything that scared James was worth fearing. I asked him what we could do about it, and he said, “We have to move away, and with Shelley so young I’ve been hesitant but with you here I think we’ll be OK”. Shelley was Floe’s little sister. I was honored that James saw me as worthy to defend the pack.

That night James called a pack meeting, and everyone gathered in the little clearing near our small cave. Floe and Henrietta were pacing and nervous, so I knew James had already been talking to them about moving. James wasted no time and spoke up, “As I’m sure you all know by now, the softies have moved in and have scared everyone off”. James continued, “We need to get ready and move before they start scouting around out here and find us because you all know what happens then”. For ages, the stories had been passed down of the softies killing whole packs and running everyone else off. The softies were no match for us one-on-one, but they had things they carried that could kill anything, so we never challenged them.

There were growls and grumblings at first, but everyone agreed we needed to go. If nothing else there wasn’t much food to be found anymore. Billy and I walked over and stood on either side of James and began to howl. James added his voice and soon the whole pack was howling for everything we were worth. When the ritual was finished it was understood that the pack was moving. Luckily because of the stress the pack had been under none of the girls had come into season and none of them were pregnant. So, we had James, Billy, and I to fight and defend. Then there was Henrietta and Floe to keep morale and order although Shelley was pretty big by now too. We only had Jill and Freddy, Floe’s newest little brother and sister who would still be vulnerable.

Everyone slept through the night and most of the next day. James and I went out alone for a hunt to let everyone else keep their strength. We had not gone far and spotted a pretty big female Runner, you call them deer, and started creeping up and flanked her. She spotted me first and started to turn but James was on her before she knew what hit her. He had her by the leg and I went straight for the throat and just like that we had the biggest meal the pack had seen in the 2 months I had been there. James and I lay next to it and caught our breath and he looked and me and smiled. We both knew this was a sign from the ancestors and we were going to be fine.

James left me on the food and went back and called the pack down. There was plenty for everyone, so we feasted until we were all full. We went back to the den and rested a little while longer since we knew the food might attract attention. Then we all started getting up, stretching, and moving around. We could feel the nervousness of everyone but that slowly became excitement, at least for me anyway. No one had to say anything, and it is always like that we just started walking and fell into order. James came up to me and said, “I want you to take the lead, and Billy and I will be in the back”. We had already talked, and I knew the general direction we were going to go and since I had been on my own recently, I would be keener to danger, we hoped.

I was proud to be selected to lead the walk even though I knew that the very last in line was always the pack leader, so he could watch over the whole pack and keep pace with the stragglers. I knew to start out slow and listen to James’s directions. I quickly learned his sounds for speed up, slow down, and danger. As we continued to move with the big mountains on our right, James said he had scouted this way before and didn’t see any sign of softies and we began to get more scents from food, and other wolves. I kept us moving the way James wanted to go but we went further and further from the mountains as we kept away from the smell of other wolf packs.

We were finding more food as well though and had a couple of good meals along the way. James and I made a good team, and we hunted well together. As we kept avoiding the other packs, I realized I could not see the mountains anymore as we settled down for the day. James, Billy, and I walked a little way from the pack to discuss where we needed to go next. We agreed we were not strong enough to take over another pack area and we were slowly getting more into the open going in this direction. We decided we would try to move back toward where we thought the mountains were and hoped to move through the area where we thought other packs were through an unclaimed spot.

We walked back to the pack and James said, “The land we are getting into is not good for wolves, so we are going to try to walk back towards the mountains and get past the other wolf packs into an open land”. Everyone seemed nervous and Henrietta and Floe barred their teeth a little showing concern. I spoke up next, “Look I know it is dangerous but getting stuck out here with no cover or food is worse. If anything happens Floe and I will escape with Jill and Freddy and meet up when the danger is gone”. James and I had not discussed this, but he looked at me with pride knowing I had offered to risk my life for our family.

We decided to wait until light to move out since the other wolves would most likely be sleeping and laying low during the day. With the sun coming up behind us we set out to try to find our way back to the mountains and safety. We made pretty good progress, and I was able to keep us out of the way of other packs for a couple of days, the scent of other wolves was getting older, so we knew that although still on the edge of a territory were going the right direction. Then disaster struck!

Floe and I were on a little walk to stretch our legs and talk before we set out for another day when we saw dust and then heard an awful sound. Something we had never seen was coming at us faster than anything I could have ever imagined. Neither of us hesitated and yelled, “Run!” as loud as we could and ran back towards the way we had come to get this thing away from the pack. As we heard James yell, “Follow me!”, we knew he understood and was leading the pack the other way to safety. The loud fast thing kept coming and headed toward Floe looking like it would catch her, so I yelled, “Down!”, and she dropped to the ground and somehow it went over her without hitting her. I heard a different sound, and I realized it was a softie with one of their killing things in the loud fast thing. I looked at Floe and she was scared but still running and not hurt so I ran the way we did when running from Hissers and Crushers ran right at it. Floe followed but I heard her say, “I hope you’re right about this!”. We saw a space under the thing and laid down like Floe did before and it went over us.

We kept running like we would with a Hisser and hoped it could not turn fast enough to catch us. Then I heard a thump and the fast loud thing stopped making noise and flipped over. The softie was now howling and screaming. By now we had no idea what was going on, but Floe and I knew to just keep running. We ran until we were spent and laid under a big bush and collapsed. I don’t know how long it had been, but I woke up and realized we had fallen asleep, and it was dark. I looked over at Floe and she was having a bad dream, so I nudged her awake. She sat up and looked at me with total shock and then slowly looked around. I think it took her a minute to remember what had happened. We got up and slowly walked around checking ourselves out and we both seemed ok although she seemed to have a bit of a limp.

We didn’t need words and started walking back in the direction we had come. It was easy enough to follow our path because we had made huge tracks running like that. We saw the loud fast thing still lying where it fell and as we got closer, we saw the softie lying next to it. We very cautiously made our way up to it and as we approached realized the softie was dead and the thing was quiet. We sat down and looked at the softie for a while because we had never seen one up close before. I don’t know if Floe was thinking what I was, but I wondered if we could eat them. Then I remembered how scared of them James was and said, “I think we need to get out of here!”. We took off at a fast walk in the direction we had run the day before and then heard another loud fast thing in the distance. We ran as fast as we could to get away from them, but they went right to the other softie, and the loud thing anyway. We could hear them crying, I think it was crying anyway, and just wanted to get as far away as possible and find James and the pack.

By now we were not sure which direction to go and had no idea if the pack was safe and where they might have gone. I tried to remember which way we had been going before all of this happened and knew the mountains, which I could barely see again, were on our right front, I think. Anyway, we set out that way because we figured the pack would keep going that direction since with all the noise and how long we had been gone I figured they would think we were dead. I wanted to lay up for the night, so we didn’t run into other wolves, but knew Floe would not rest until we found her family. By morning we had not had a single scent of the pack and Floe was limping for sure now. I said, “I know you want to keep going but we need to rest, and you are hurt”. She tried to be brave but admitted she was hurting so we found good cover and laid down.

We slept through the night and when we woke up, we looked at each other both knew we were in trouble now. We had no scent of any other wolves around at all and with the run-in with the softies I had a bad feeling that we were going the wrong way. I looked at Floe and said, “I think we are heading into danger and your dad would have thought the same thing”. She looked at me for a minute and realized I was right. I had no idea which way James would have taken the pack, but I knew we had to turn. Heading to the mountains had brought a wolf smell and with the mountains on the right had found the softie so as crazy as it sounds, I figured we needed to head out away from the mountains again.

Floe looked at me like I was crazy at first but then lowered her head and said, “I think you are right, and it is our only chance to see Daddy again”. So, we headed out away from the mountains and took turns sniffing the ground and being on the lookout. We had seen the moon ahead of us and started following it night after night. This is where Floe and I found ourselves waking up under the bush in the snow. We shook the snow off and continued stretching. “How’s the leg?” I asked Floe. She stretched again and said, “I had forgotten it was hurt it’s ok now I think let me check” and ran a little circle. She suddenly stopped at attention, and I looked around quickly to see where the danger was coming from, but I couldn’t see anything. She was huffing and scratching at the ground. She yelled, “Daddy!” and kept sniffing at the ground. I figured she had lost it, but I walked over to where she was, and sure enough, it was the unmistakable smell of James.

I walked the scent to get the direction and which side was stronger to tell which way they were going just like I would to catch dinner and figure out which way it had gone. We started moving but Floe was trying to run, and I reminded her we had to keep our strength, so we compromised on a slow trot. The scent was slowly getting stronger, and I could smell the rest of the pack now as well. The way the smell was slowly getting stronger indicated they were still a little way off and had probably been through here a day or 2 ago. Floe was so excited I was worried she was going run off or wear herself out because she would run ahead a bit and circle back to me.

After another day of trying not to wear myself out so one of us could fight but still keep up with Floe, I had it and yelled, “You have to calm down or we are going wear out before we ever find them”. Off to our right, I heard, “She always was a bit high-strung; I don’t know how you put up with it”. It was James! We had found the pack!

After Floe was finally able to stop running in circles James and I talked about what had happened. I told him about the softie and how it died, and I wasn’t sure if the loud thing attacked him or not. James said when he watched the settlement before he saw the softies get into the loud things and move fast so he wasn’t sure either, but we agreed to stay as far away from them as possible. He said that after we ran off and the thing followed us, he led the pack to safety and laid low for a while. When we didn’t come back, he figured we were dead or lost so he tried to think like I would and went away from the mountains too.

We didn’t realize how far we had run and then when we went back to check the loud thing the pack had a head start but since we were moving faster, we had finally caught up to them. James led us back to where the rest of the pack was hiding, and we had a great reunion. James, Billy, and I walked off a way to talk since we still had to find a new territory. We all decided that all of the hiding and running had not done any good and almost got us killed so we decided to head straight up towards the mountains.

As we got closer to the mountains the scent of other packs got stronger but finally died out as we started up a valley and into the mountains. As we continued up the valley, we saw plenty of food and clean water. We moved around the valley for a couple of days and found a cave a lot like our old home and it even had a clearing near it too. We kept our eyes, ears, and noses open for a while, but we didn’t see any other wolves and didn’t even see or smell any Hissers or Crushers. The valley was a bit small for a large pack but perfect for our little family, at least for now. As we settled in James pulled me aside and said, “I knew things were going to be ok when we had the sign from the ancestors before we left but I was pretty worried there for a while”. I replied, “I wasn’t so sure when Floe and I were running from that softie thing, but you’re right it all turned out ok”.

I looked over and saw Floe walking into the forest looking back over her shoulder. I started to follow and then looked back at James to see a huge grin on his face. I knew then that everything was going to be fine, and we were finally home.