Wolf Road, page 5
Tuuli came in, carrying the pup in her arms.
‘Please,’ said Tuuli. ‘She’s so good. You can touch her.’
Starra sighed but she reached out and stroked the pup’s fluffy neck.
‘She’s very sweet.’ Kuba and Wren hugged their mother.
For three more nights, while the tribe remained in the camp under the cliff, Tuuli and her wolf pup stayed with Starra, Wren and Kuba. Starra reluctantly agreed to help them keep the pup a secret from the rest of the tribe.
‘I’m not going to lie,’ she told Tuuli. ‘But I won’t say anything unless someone asks me.’
Each night, Tuuli would curl up with the pup, and each day, she’d head off downriver with Wren and Kuba. They dodged any other hunters going out to find food, while managing to hunt a few small prey for themselves. Tuuli and the pup became inseparable. She started calling her Lupa, after the word they all used for wolves.
They still heard the wolves in the hills from time to time, howling to each other in the night. Lupa would sit up and prick up her ears at the sound. But she showed no sign of wanting to leave Tuuli’s side. After being given plenty of meat to eat and bones to gnaw, and having her ears rubbed, the little pup seemed to have entirely forgotten her distrust of humans. She had found a new pack.
After the fourth night at the cliff camp, Tuuli left Lupa with Wren and Kuba while she went to find her parents and prepare the ground for introducing them to her new friend. She found her father by a campfire, scraping a deer skin.
‘Hi, stranger,’ said Remi, amicably, as she approached.
‘Hi, Papa,’ she replied. ‘I’ve got something to tell you.’
Remi looked at her quizzically. ‘What have you been up to with your cousins?’
‘Well, it’s not them. Really. It’s something I’ve done.’ She took a deep breath and dived right in. ‘Remember you told me your papa once caught a wolf pup?’
‘Yes,’ replied Remi, pausing with his flint scraper in hand.
‘Well, I’ve done that. I have a wolf pup. She’s called Lupa. Would you like to meet her?’
Remi was much more accepting of the little wolf than Tuuli had expected. When he picked Lupa up to have a good look at her, she licked his face, which made him laugh. Jutsa was less enthusiastic, but she acquiesced.
‘Why don’t you keep her until we’re at Spring Camp,’ she said. ‘Then you should let her go, before she gets too large and wild.’
‘Introduce her to the rest of the camp,’ said Remi. ‘But remember, she’s your responsibility.’
Tuuli took Lupa to meet everyone in their camp that day. She was good at making friends. She played with the two little children, rolling around with Vinta and Numil in what was left of the snow, occasionally nipping them, but never hard enough to draw blood. The little wolf was useful on a hunt, too, helping to flush out birds and hares for Tuuli to bring down.
That evening, they were all sitting round the campfire. Lupa sat just beyond the circle, as if she sensed that she was on probation – which she certainly was, with the adults. Tuuli sat between Jutsa and her mother’s younger sister, Aski. The tribe felt small, especially assembled in a circle like this, with Kussa, Leon, Poz and Skire missing.
‘Do you think that those four will come back to us at Spring Camp?’ Tuuli asked Jutsa, quietly.
‘I have no idea,’ said Jutsa. ‘But we’ll find out their intentions then. Anyway, it’s too complicated for you to worry about. You stick with your cousins and your wolf and leave the Wayfinding to me.’
Tuuli felt as though she’d been brushed aside.
Jutsa quickly changed the subject, addressing the whole group.
‘This is a good camp, but it’s time for us to move on now,’ she said. ‘We’ll pack up tomorrow and leave.’
There was a general murmur of assent.
Tuuli turned to Aski on her other side.
‘Are you okay?’ she asked kindly, thinking how worried Aski must be about Leon.
Aski smiled sadly at her, cuddling the sleeping Nika.
‘Yes, I’m all right,’ she replied. ‘I’ve got your mama and Starra, and Garan too, of course.’
Tuuli rested her head on her aunt’s shoulder. She was thinking about Maatu as well. He’d been moping like a lovesick teenager. Skire had gone off with her two cousins from her old tribe, and now Maatu was also left abandoned. Remi had been doing what he could to distract him, taking him off on hunting expeditions, sending him to fell larches and chop wood for the whole camp. But Maatu still looked like a wounded stag, beaten by another buck and estranged from his doe. Had Skire really left him? Perhaps she just wanted a different adventure for a while. Tuuli could understand that.
* * *
However much they all wondered about the missing four, the diminished talo had to get moving. The following morning, after the fifth night tucked in under the cliff, they began to pack up the camp. By now the river was running fast, swollen with the meltwater from the mountains where the sun rose, fed by the thaw all along its path. The water was deep and dark against the snowy banks. The group made steady progress downstream, making a new camp each evening, striking it each morning.
Two days after they’d left the cliff camp behind them, the tribe were dragging their pulks around a bend in the river when there was a sudden scream. Tuuli froze. It was Numil.
‘Vinta! Vinta!’ he kept screaming.
Tuuli’s heart was pounding. She quickly untied the reins of her pulk and plunged through the slushy snow back to Numil, right on the riverbank. Garan and Remi had got there first. Numil was lying on the snow, holding Vinta in his arms and sobbing breathlessly. They were just inches from the rushing water.
Garan and Maatu helped the children up the steep bank. Little Vinta was silent but wide-eyed. Garan scooped her up. Tuuli gave Numil a hug. ‘Well done,’ she said.
‘She slipped,’ he sobbed. ‘I… I thought she was going in.’
‘It’s all right,’ said Tuuli, wiping the tears from his cheek.
‘Come here,’ said Garan, folding Numil into an embrace.
‘Children,’ said Remi, sounding deadly serious. ‘You must stay away from the water’s edge.’
After that, Garan kept a very close eye on the two of them. Children had to be allowed to take risks, to learn from their mistakes. But that had been too close for comfort.
* * *
All sorts of animals were on the move with the change of the seasons. Two days after they left the cliff camp, a whole herd of bison came thundering through the valley, surging across the river when it crossed their path. All the small tribe of hunters could do was get out of the way. It was far too risky to try attacking such a herd, and anyway, there were plenty of other animals to eat.
The next day, Tuuli went off hunting on her own with her little wolf at her side. All that day, she couldn’t quite shake off the strange feeling that someone or something was watching her. Late in the afternoon, Tuuli was clambering around at the top of the cliffs when Lupa suddenly froze, head down and ears back, hackles up. Tuuli looked in the direction that Lupa was staring – down below them – and saw a beautiful young chamois. It had sensed them and stood rooted to the spot.
Tuuli was fast, raising and throwing her spear before the chamois had time to take flight, and the stone point found its target. Lupa went bounding in and seized the back leg of the goat, which tried to leap away – then fell. By the time Tuuli got to them, the chamois was already dead. She held its head and closed her eyes for a moment, in thanks to Ama. Lupa had backed off and she called her.
‘You’re a good wolf,’ she said, stroking Lupa’s head. ‘You’ll have some of this meat tonight.’
Even though the chamois was young, it was still quite heavy. Tuuli carried it back down the camp slung over her shoulders, like a massive cape. It was enough to feed them all that evening until they could eat no more. As it was her kill, she got the stomach to eat, full of delicious, sweet plant-mush. And she gave Lupa the ears and feet to gnaw on.
Just two days later, Remi and Maatu brought back the hind legs and shoulders of a horse, having butchered it where they killed it, eating their fill right there and then bringing the easily detachable joints of meat back to the camp.
But Tuuli was craving fresh, green things. She was always looking for the smallest signs of plant life sprouting, so that she could take her digging stick and winkle out crunchy bulbs before they’d had a chance to split and start growing. Each day, she would pack her skin bag with any handfuls of lichen or moss she could grab, to supplement the roast, boiled and dried meat and fat that formed the basis of their early-spring diet. She couldn’t wait for berries. Cloudberries, food of the gods! Their dried winter stores were long since exhausted. It would be moons and moons before she would get to taste the sweet, piquant, heavenly delights of berries again. The shrubs hadn’t even grown leaves or flowered yet.
* * *
After five days on the move, the cliffs that had hemmed them in on the narrow left bank of the river pulled away sunwards, and the bank widened into a broad plain. They were very close to Spring Camp now. They’d lost sight of the tribe on the other side of the water. But from the occasional skeins of smoke they spotted in the distance, it seemed those people may have headed up into the hills steeply rising to the north of the river.
One beautiful sunny morning they decided there were enough salmon in the river now to give fishing a try. The salmon seemed to congregate in knots, their writhing backs, fins and tails breaching the surface of the water. Tuuli spotted a patch of red blood on the snowy bank of the river, where an eagle must have been fishing.
Jutsa was the first in, and had harpooned a salmon before anyone else had even taken their leggings off. She yelled with joy, splashing back to the bank with the fish held aloft on her harpoon, thrashing and flailing.
Tuuli had a few years’ experience behind her and she was just as useful fishing with a harpoon as she was hunting with her stone-tipped spears. She loved fishing – the salmon were utterly delicious – and such easy prey. But it did mean taking off her warm, cosy reindeer boots, and her leggings – to wade into the river.
Tuuli stood on the bank – the first time this year her legs had seen the light of day. She looked down at her feet on the silty bank, wriggling her toes in the mud. A trail of five-starred otter prints ran close to her toes. She took a deep breath and then stepped into the dark, icy water. Here at the edge, it barely covered her feet, but its chill made her gasp and she staggered a little before regaining her composure.
‘It’s… just… cold…’ she insisted to herself, between clenched teeth.
There was still a great raft of ice in the middle of the river, and as she stepped into the water, she could see a flurry of fins and tails as salmon raced to hide beneath it, swimming strongly against the flow. She waded in until she was almost knee-deep. She dared not go any further – the current, full of meltwater, was strong, tugging at her ankles. Now she just had to wait.
Lupa watched her from the edge of the bank. She whined a bit, then gingerly extended a paw into the water – and withdrew it in a flash, leaping back. Then she sat back on her haunches, lifted her little head and howled her high, puppyish howl at the unfairness of it all.
Tuuli steadied herself, finding two large rocks to plant her numb feet on. She couldn’t feel her toes at all now. She glanced at Lupa, howling, on the riverbank.
‘Lupa!’ she hissed. ‘Be quiet! You’ll scare the fish away.’
Remi, who was fishing a little further up the river, swivelled round to glare at Lupa and then at Tuuli. He rolled his eyes but said nothing, turning back to the job in hand.
Tuuli tried to ignore the plaintive howls from the riverbank. She raised her harpoon and waited, staring down at the ruffled surface of the water, ready for action. She didn’t need to wait long. A long, fat salmon swam right between her ankles and she thrust her lance down, catching it cleanly. The salmon didn’t stand a chance. The barbs sticking out of both sides of her carefully carved bone harpoon tip meant there was no escape. She strode ashore, holding the weapon with both hands, to bear the weight of the plump salmon. She pulled out the harpoon, leaving the fish to thrash out its last on the shore, while Lupa darted at it – too scared to actually bite it, but too excited to leave it alone.
Tuuli rubbed her numb legs and feet dry with a reindeer fur then pulled on her leggings and boots. Then she was ready to eat her catch. She used a sharp little stone knife, held tight between the bent knuckle of her index finger and her thumb, to slice through the skin to the flesh. Then she carved pieces of the fish-meat away from the bones and ate them straight away, raw and tender and delicious. Meanwhile, Lupa had found her courage, biting the tail of the salmon and trying to drag it away.
‘Lupa!’ Tuuli scolded the pup again, pulling the salmon away from her foundling wolf. She held Lupa between her knees while she gutted the salmon she’d begun to eat, then released her to devour the slippery mess of intestines. Fish guts never appealed to Tuuli, but Lupa clearly found them delicious.
After finishing one salmon and sharing some of the flesh with Lupa, Tuuli threw the well-cleaned fish skeleton into the river. She wanted to make sure that Lupa wouldn’t try to crunch up those bones and end up with a fish rib stuck in her throat.
After a good morning’s fishing, most of the diminished tribe gathered around a campfire. Remi had settled down to carve a long piece of antler that was resting across his knees.
‘What’s it going to be this time, Papa?’ enquired Tuuli.
‘Something useful, but beautiful as well,’ Remi replied.
He got started by drilling into the antler at one end with a large stone awl, sharpened to a mean point.
‘A killing baton?’ Tuuli asked.
‘I think so,’ said Remi. ‘I like harpoons, but these work just as well. Sometimes even better. Good for eels as well as salmon.’
Tuuli tried to settle down to make something too. She took out a small piece of antler and whittled away at it absent-mindedly, without having decided what she was going to make. Perhaps another talisman for Aski’s special cloak, which was already heavy with amulets made from bone, ivory and antler. Aski was the shaman of the tribe, their cosmic traveller. Whenever she did a shaman flight, she would always put on her cloak – a beautifully made thing, with stripes of fox and wolverine fur sewn together, and amulets in the shapes of fish, birds and mammals – to help her commune with all the spirits of nature. But Aski’s shaman cloak had stayed rolled up for many moons. She’d been so busy with baby Nika these last few moons, and now she was forlorn, with Leon gone. The absence of the missing members of the tribe was weighing heavily on them all.
Tuuli was feeling uninspired. She scratched the outline of a horse’s head into the antler, then changed her mind and began the outline of a salmon, those contours so fresh and vivid in her mind. She loved making these pictures real, but it wasn’t working so well today. She ditched the scrap of antler and went off to find Wren. Lupa followed her.
She found Wren and Kuba down by the riverbank.
‘Good fishing?’ she asked.
‘It’s BRILLIANT! I got one!’ Kuba was characteristically cheerful and enthusiastic.
‘I got one too. It’s lovely to have salmon again, isn’t it? The first spring salmon,’ Wren reflected. But she sounded sad and stared out at the middle of the surging river. Tuuli knelt beside her in a patch of slushy snow and hugged her cousin.
‘Fancy a foraging expedition?’ she asked gently. Wren looked round at her.
‘I’m so full I can hardly move!’ she said, then brightened. ‘But – yes. I’d like to get away for a bit.’
She glanced at Kuba. He was looking at them expectantly, eyebrows raised pleadingly.
‘All right,’ said Tuuli. ‘You can come too. If you’re not too annoying, though. First sign of craziness, Kuba, and we send you back home.’
‘I’ll get my kit,’ said Kuba, delighted, leaping up and running back to his tent to grab his child-sized spears and darts. Lupa caught his excitement, jumping around in anticipation.
Wren stood up, brushing wet snow off her tunic and leggings.
‘Let’s go and see what we can find.’
THE SHADOW
The four of them set off into the woods, going with the flow of the river, scouting out the next day’s trek and looking for good things to gather to eat – and hunt if the opportunity arose. The earthy smell of spring was heady and delicious. The birches were signalling spring with clusters of catkins at the tips of their branches. Tuuli occasionally picked those young catkins and ate them, the taste bitter and fresh in her mouth. There were green leaves of small willow and the tight curls of ferns too. Purple saxifrage flowers were just appearing – small morsels of sticky sweetness. Spring was full of new tastes. They ate as they foraged. One for the mouth, one for the bag, thought Tuuli – just as her grandmama used to say.
Kuba was quiet, padding along just behind them. He’s growing up, thought Tuuli. And he’s better without Poz around. But as soon as she thought that, she regretted it. None of them really knew where – or how – Poz was. He could be a pain and unkind, but she didn’t really wish him any harm. It was like Kuba had read her mind.
‘I wish Poz was here,’ he said, running up beside Tuuli and Wren. ‘It’s not as much fun without him. We just hunt and forage and eat and sleep and put up the tents and take them down. We don’t have games!’
‘Oh, Kuba,’ said Wren, being genuinely kind. ‘We can play some games with you. And Poz will be back soon. We’re only a day or two away from Spring Camp, and he’ll be there waiting for you. With lots of tall stories about his grand adventure, no doubt!’
‘Do you want to run ahead and hide, and we’ll try to find you?’ suggested Tuuli. ‘If we can’t find you, you can jump out and scare us. You have my permission.’
‘Okay, wait here,’ said Kuba. ‘You count to… seventeen!’ he yelled, plucking a number out of the air before haring off among the larches.
