Firstborn (11 page)

ANOTHER WINTER CAME
, driving the tourists and the less hardy birds out of the park. But for Lamar the frost heaves and the pressure ripples on the icy lake and the snout-prickling air were marvels. He'd put on quite a bit of bulk—he was every bit as big as Raze—and his coat had thickened nicely. If his nose got cold when he was curled up at night, he simply covered it with his tail. He arranged a schedule for him and his siblings to take turns sleeping up against Frick's furless backside.

On one of his non-hunting days Lamar coaxed Frick back to the hot springs, convinced the place would warm Frick's bones. In the icy weather the basin looked like a gigantic steam bath, but Frick stopped stubbornly on the edge of the steam.

“Come on, the smell's not so bad,” Lamar said.

“You go ahead,” Frick said.

Maybe Frick suspected intense heat would trigger painful memories for him. But I followed Lamar in, and the steam felt good to me, even if visibility was lousy. Stumps, boulders, tufts of grass—everything was a blur till we were right up to it. We weren't the only ones escaping the cold. Lamar nearly stepped on a ground squirrel, which took off like a shot, and he terrified a black-tailed deer. Then a blast of wind cleared the air for a moment, and I spotted a pair of coyotes out ahead of us.

“Look at the funny little wolves,” Lamar said, and before I could correct him, he called out, “Good morning!”

The coyotes shrieked. One bolted to the left and disappeared into the steam. The other bolted to the right and disappeared entirely, like a prairie dog into a hole.

“I didn't mean to scare you,” Lamar apologized as the steam enveloped us again.

There was no response. Lamar felt his way tentatively to the right and came to a bubbling pool. He lowered his head and gaped. Something furry was floating there. He reached for it and pulled his paw back with a yelp. One of the coyotes had landed in the scalding water and been boiled alive!

Lamar fled the phantasmagoria in horror. I was right behind him. As we came out into the open air, Frick rose to his feet.

“You did some spooking,” Frick said, amused. “You should have seen the deer light out of there—and that coyote. Must have been a nasty shock to see you.” He paused, seeing the sick look on Lamar's face. “Did the vapors get to you?”

“A coyote?” Lamar said.

“A young female.”

“A
coyote
? Oh, Frick. I think I killed one!”

“How is coyote anyway? I've never tasted it.”

“I didn't eat him!” Lamar paced back and forth, his moist fur steaming in the cold. “I didn't mean to kill him. I thought they were young wolves. He jumped into a bubbly pool.”

Beside himself, he dashed back into the steam.

I followed. There was no doubt about it: the unlucky coyote was dead. Lamar was crushed. A coyote howl was one of his first and fondest memories, and now he was responsible for a coyote's death. But on the way home Frick advised against mentioning his remorse to Blue Boy and the others. Mourning a coyote wasn't very wolflike.

It was Ben's turn to keep Frick warm that night, so Lamar curled up by Libby. But just as I was dozing off I saw Lamar get up and go over the hill. I flew soundlessly to a poplar sapling near him. There was a breathtaking view to the south: ridge after snowy ridge, like the whitecaps the wind whipped up on Yellowstone Lake, lapping against great, jagged peaks under a nearly full moon. A coyote's howl broke the stillness, beautiful and sad, coming from the southeast. Lamar howled back. It was his first howl, I think—and I'd never heard one charged with such contrition. But all he got in reply was silence.

The next night Lamar took his Frick-warming shift. The night after that I was asleep in my aspen when I heard my name. I pulled my head out from under my shoulder feathers to see Lamar looking up at me.

“Could you do me a favor, Maggie?”

“What?”

“Find out where that coyote is?”

I could hear her howl. But as I've said, I'm not crazy about night flying, and I doubted very much Blue Boy would have approved of such a mission. However, he was curled up asleep by Alberta—and Lamar's upturned eyes were imploring.

The moon was so bright that it actually threw my shadow onto the snowy landscape as I flew along. I didn't have much trouble locating the coyote, on a rocky knoll a few miles away. She was perched atop a little cliff at the very summit, howling her poor heart out.

When I got back to my aspen, Lamar was right where I'd left him. I described the knoll, though I warned him the coyote probably wouldn't stick around if he approached her.

“But I have to apologize for what I did,” he said. “What can I do?”

I thought a moment. “Most creatures respond well to gifts,” I said.

He must have remembered what Frick had told him about a coyote's diet, for after the next snowfall he tracked down a weasel with snow-white fur. He caught a nice, plump vole as well. With both victims in his mouth he trotted off to the southeast before daybreak. There was no sign of the coyote on the knoll, but Lamar left his offerings in a shallow cave under the topmost cliff. Two mornings later he went back with a shrew and two mice. The earlier offerings had disappeared. It was impossible to know if they'd been taken by the coyote or another critter, but he kept making these errands for three weeks, always getting back from the knoll before the other wolves woke up. Blue Boy's territory was so secure that the pack didn't bother posting a sentinel at night, but one morning Blue Boy was up when we got back, awakened by the distant roar of a mountain lion.

“Where were you?” Blue Boy said, narrowing his eyes.

“I couldn't sleep,” Lamar said, “so I went for a walk.”

“And you?” Blue Boy said as I landed in my aspen.

“Just out stretching my wings,” I said.

I was no more fibbing than Lamar was. He hadn't been able to sleep and had gone for a walk, and in following him to the knoll I had stretched my wings. But the little half-truth made me uneasy. Since throwing in my lot with wolves, my first loyalty had always been to Blue Boy.

Later that day, while the others were taking their post-hunt naps, Lamar managed to catch a rabbit, which he buried in a snowdrift. That night he was so exhausted, he slept in till well after sunrise, but the following night he went over the hill again. When he heard the haunting howl, he howled back. This time, after a long silence, the coyote resumed her howling.

Lamar raced back to where he'd buried the rabbit, dug it up, and carried it, stiff as a bone, to the knoll. He deposited his gift in the cave and retreated a short distance away. The snow glistened around him till a cloud covered the moon.

Soon a sweet voice came out of the darkness.

“You want to lure me down to kill me?”

“No!” Lamar said. “Not at all.”

“Then why are you bringing me food?”

If she could make him out in the moonless conditions, it didn't sound as if she recognized him from her brief glimpse in the hot springs. I could understand his not wanting to fess up and turn that sweet voice bitter.

“Your howl sounded so sad,” was all he said.

“If you're not out to kill me,” she said, “would you mind proving it?”

“How?”

“By leaving.”

Lamar left.

Two nights later he returned to the knoll with another offering—a creature he'd killed that looked like a weasel but with a bushier tail. He laid it in the cave and again waited a short distance away. There wasn't a cloud in the sky, and when the coyote appeared at the top of the cliff, her golden fur and delicate snout and shining eyes were plainly visible.

“I hope you like marten,” Lamar said.

“I suppose I should thank you for the food,” she said, making no move to descend from her citadel. “I haven't felt much like hunting lately.”

“Where do you like to hunt?”

“This time of year Kyle was partial to the hot springs. Have you ever been?”

“The hot springs?” he said uneasily.

“If you go, be sure not to stay too long. The pools give off a gas that makes you woozy. Once we even saw a buffalo stumble to his knees. Kyle liked to pretend the gas had killed him and lie there like a corpse. One time a badger came snuffing up to him, and he grabbed it.”

“Very clever. Is Kyle . . .”

“He was my mate. But he's dead.”

“I'm so sorry,” Lamar said.

After a while he asked her name, but she didn't reply.

“I'm Lamar,” he said. “Where's the rest of your pack?”

“We don't have packs,” she said, and with that she vanished.

When Lamar and I got home, he collapsed under my aspen.

“Oh, Maggie,” he groaned. “She has no pack. Thanks to me, she's all alone. She has no one!”

I didn't say it, but it occurred to me that, in a way, she had
him
.

Two nights later he took her a field mouse. He retreated to his usual spot, and it wasn't long before the coyote appeared at the top of the cliff.

“My name's Artemis,” she said.

Artemis! Another wonderful name my parents hadn't thought of. Lamar repeated it aloud, clearly enthralled by it.

“You're kind of a strange wolf,” Artemis said, cocking her head to one side.

“Frick says I'm not very wolflike sometimes,” Lamar admitted.

“Is that your father?”

“He's in my father's pack.”

“The pack belongs to your father?”

“My father's the highest-ranking wolf,” Lamar said, sitting up a little straighter. “Frick's . . . I suppose he's at the bottom.”

“You're in a hierarchy?” she said.

He looked blank.

“That means some wolves are ahead of others,” I told him.

“Oh,” Lamar said. “Don't you have hierarchies, Artemis?”

“Coyotes don't believe in them,” she said. “We just have couples.”

The next morning Hope suggested Lamar go ahead of her on the way to the hunt, but he shook his head.

“It's time,” Hope said. “You're much bigger and stronger than I am now.”

“She's right,” Blue Boy said.

But Lamar obstinately refused to go ahead of her. Artemis's views on hierarchies must have made an impression on him.

When I joined Lamar on the south side of the hill that night, Artemis's howl sounded a little less mournful, more like the musical howl we'd first heard back in June. But as he was about to howl back there came a crunching sound in the snow.

“Hope I'm not barging in,” Frick said, casting a glance at me as he sat beside Lamar. “Isn't that a coyote?”

“Is it?” said Lamar.

“Not as yappy as most, but I think so. I don't suppose you know where she lives?”

Lamar hesitated before admitting he did. “Though please don't tell my father,” he added.

“It's between you and me and Maggie,” Frick said. “Do you know this coyote's name?”

“Artemis. She's the one who ran out of the hot springs. I killed her mate.”

“Ah.” Frick listened to the distant howl. “Did you apologize?” he asked.

Lamar shook his head.

“Well, I don't suppose it matters. After all, wolves and coyotes don't mix.”

Two nights later Lamar took Artemis another vole. When she appeared atop the cliff, he asked if she thought it was true that wolves and coyotes don't mix.

“Of course,” she said.

“Why is that?” he asked.

“It's a rule of nature.”

“Couldn't we be friends?”

“You want me to be friends with a wolf?”

“Well, with me. Though . . .”

“Though what?”

After studying the snow at his feet for some time, Lamar blurted out, “I'm the one who accidentally scared you and Kyle at the hot springs. I'm so sorry.”

He must have decided that apologizing did matter. Or maybe living a lie had eaten away at him. But when he lifted his eyes Artemis was gone.

The next night he returned her howl, but she didn't answer. Two nights later he took her a shrew. He waited till dawn, but she never appeared at her cliff top. Night after night Lamar took her offerings and waited hopefully for her to appear. But it was always some other creature—an eagle or a badger or a raven—that eventually showed up and grabbed the food.

Finally Lamar went three straight nights without taking her anything. On his next non-Frick-warming night he slipped away from the others and slumped under my aspen.

“No more trips to the knoll?” I said.

“It's not fair to her,” he said forlornly. “If I go, she stays away. It's her home.”

The leafless aspen was swaying gently, but after a while the breeze died away. Lamar stared off into the distance, his ears cupped. All was snow-muffled silence till a sigh escaped him.

I was stunned by the pinch that quiet sigh gave my heart.