“The Hard Year”
Daniel J. Cox (10/15/2013)
Late in the night
the wind gave one last, plaintive howl and blew on across the plains, leaving three
more feet of snow in a heavy blanket over the lakes and rocks and scrub of the
southern Black Hills. The Hunger Moon
hung low and heavy as the next day’s sun began to fade the eastern stars. Small birds were stirring, sending cloudy
cascades of wet powder down on the hunter standing below, sniffing the still,
crisp air. With an anxious brush of his
tail, Wolf moved slowly into the faint scent.
That smell was the
first bit of hope for Wolf in what had been a crushing year. Driven from his birth pack by the new Alphas
after both parents had died in a rockslide the year before, he had finally
found a territory to hunt. It had been
easier after he mated the female who had come proudly into the valley in the
early winter, herself cast from her home. His new mate proved to be a good hunter and
the pair established themselves in their valley. Because it was her first litter and came
after a lonely winter, she had given birth to only four pups—three males and a
female—at the time when the rivers rushed full with the melting snows.
By the time the
coneflowers had opened that spring, their new pack numbered five adults. Three other young outcast males had presented
their throats to the leadership of Wolf and his mate and joined the hunting
pack. They, too, proved to be good
providers for the pups and helped teach them the etiquette of the pack. When the early frosts burned the edges of the
aspen leaves, Wolf’s pack had established its first rendezvous and the pups were
learning hunting basics.
Then the first too-early
storm came raging down the valley from out of the mountains. The wind drove sleet that stung like porcupine
needles. The pack huddled together in
whatever lee shelter it could find, but the hunting had to go on because the
storm did not let up. Instead the air
grew colder and the sleet changed to blinding snow. It piled higher and higher against the rocks
and deadfalls, and it came so fast and packed so hard that it all but entombed
each wolf sleeping nose-to-tail. At the
height of the storm Wolf’s mate was crushed under a tree that came crashing
down in the gale and heavy snow.
The pack’s howls
of mourning and frustration were not the first it would sing that lean winter. In the Wolf Moon one of the males was too
weak from hunger to dodge a bull elk’s sharp hoof. As that month waned, one of the pups simply did
not made it through a cold, hungry night.
Wolf now had only two of the younger males and one of his pups
left. The snow was too deep and
hard-crusted to get to the mice and rabbits.
The trees had even been stripped of edible bark by the also starving herds
of elk, moose, and buffalo. He and his
pack needed meat if they were to live much longer, let alone have a chance of
making it to the thaw.
That faint,
tantalizing whiff in the air was either an illusion of his growling stomach or
the possibility of life for his pack. He
froze in place, perked his ears, and smelled eagerly. There.
Just a hint of blood—buffalo. Now
he heard the muffled sounds of struggle, and he picked his way quickly but
carefully through the snow and around the trees toward that dream of
sustenance.
Bull Buffalo had
led his herd a very long time. Year
after year he had thrown back the challenges of the younger bulls. He was still the biggest and strongest of
them all, but now he knew he was in trouble.
After the storm had abated, he had begun the herd’s move farther down
the foothills and out to the plains where the wind might have blown the snow
from some patches of grass. The shelter
of trees and rocks and the shoulders of the hills was good in its time, but
there was nothing to eat or drink. It
was time to move.
He had pushed the
cows and their few new calves and the young bulls down a familiar trail and
seen them safely out of the forest. Then
trotting around the stragglers, the crusted snow had given way under his right
rear hoof and his leg had plunged into what was probably a badger hole. The snow was too deep and the ice too
thick. He couldn’t get his leg out. The herd had moved on, milling aimlessly,
leaderless over the near horizon. He
could still smell them, but he couldn’t get to them. After several hours of struggle, he was
exhausted and bloody from the sharp edges of the icy rocks. Worse than that, his last great heave had
caused him great pain—he had probably dislocated his hip—and he had bellowed
his agony, the first real sound he had made, and he knew that soon the wolves
would come.
Wolf sat very
still just back and to the side of a leafless maple tree about fifty yards
downwind of the struggling bull. It had
taken only seconds for him to take in the scene and know Bull was trapped and
injured. The great buffalo was still
quite a dangerous beast. His horns were
long and sharp—each one almost as long Wolf’s tail, Bull was so large! Wolf and the pack had worried the herd often
and even managed to take a weakling calf once last summer, but Bull was a
formidable foe and Wolf had steered his pack clear of him most of the
time. But Wolf knew the beast was as
hungry as he was and weak from his struggles.
The snow around Bull was trampled with his efforts and, near the trapped
leg, stained with urine and blood. It
would not be long before he would be unable to even raise his head, let alone
twist around to rip and tear and gouge with those dangerous horns.
Wolf knew that
here was his pack’s salvation. They would
be able to feast here and take away meat and bones so that the poaching
vultures and eagles and coyotes wouldn’t get everything. It was time to move, however, to make that
claim on the prize.
Slowly Wolf
stepped toward Bull, downwind still, until he was only fifteen or twenty feet
away and then sat to watch. The Bull finally
turned to see and smell Wolf. He stopped
and stared. They knew one another. They knew this moment. For a few seconds they simply looked. Bull did not cry out. He was not afraid, and he knew there was no
saving himself. This was the way of
things. He knew which of the bulls would
take his place in the herd and was satisfied.
He knew the herd was, in the long run, safe from Wolf and his pack
mates. It had been a long, hard year.
Bull looked at the
jagged hills where he had spent his life, then turned to Wolf and lowered his
head as if to give permission. Rising to
all fours, Wolf marveled briefly at the great mass that was Bull Buffalo. He looked to Wolf like one of the hills, brown
and snow-covered. Bull didn’t even
shudder when Wolf sang his song of life and joy and greeting, calling his
little pack to join him as the sun lifted over the trees to glisten off of the
new snow.
