My wild - The White Wolf

My Wild

It was a hard winter that year. There was barely enough food to go around and the snow fell in heavy storms that turned the world white in minutes. The forest echoed with the yips and growls of rival wolves and the cold wind blew strongly. I huddled closer into my siblings who lay snuggled in our mother's den. The snow couldn't get in here and the leaves we lay on had long since dried from the Autumn rain. I was the runt of my mother's litter. My sister Naledi and two of my brothers Adri and Adali had coarse silver, brown fur much like my mothers. My eldest brother Ezra had smooth black fur the colour of the night sky and mother used to describe my coat as the colour of freshly fallen snow. I was smaller than my brothers and sister and was the youngest of us all. My name is Aztec.

Ezra was definitely the brave one out of us, he acted like he was big and strong but really he was just a big softy. Adri and Adali were boisterous and were constantly getting themselves into trouble. Naledi was strong minded and confident, just like our mother. I was the little one. Our mother was always making extra time for snuggles with me and was always fussing over me. On one particularly cold day in late February when we were about 3 months old , our mother went out for her usual morning hunt. Several hours passed and she still did not return. We all started to whine for her but there was no howl in response. No matter how loud or long we cried for our mother she did not return.

Eventually, my oldest brother Ezra, a large jet black pup with a long, bushy, black tail with a white tip that was so small you could barely see it, got up and stumbled out of the den. The snow was up to his shoulders but he kept going. We all called after him but it was no use. Over the next day or two, Adali, Adri and even Naledi all left the safety of the den and ventured outside into the open world. Only I was left behind. I stayed, curled into a little ball in the very corner of the den shivering. I had watched each of them go, I had called desperately for them to come back and now I was alone. About a day later I was curled up in the den waiting patiently for my mother to return when I saw something rustle the leaves in front of my nose. I stood up, suddenly alert.

I bowed in front of the leaves, elbows on the floor, hind feet poised for take off, tail in the air swishing back and forth then... Bounce! I landed on the thing. Under my front, right paw there was a tail, and attached to that tail there was a small ball of beige fur. I let go in surprise as it moved to reveal two small, beady eyes and long whiskers that tickled my nose. It ran straight for the entrance to the den and I bounded after it. But each time I pounced I came up with a mouthful of mud instead of mouse. I pounced up and down until one time I came up with a mouthful of snow. I spat it out in surprise; then I suddenly noticed, I wasn't in the den anymore! In my excitement to catch the mouse I hadn't been looking where I was going and now I stood cold and wet in the middle of a large, unfamiliar world.

I looked up and realized how big the world was. There were tall trees that seemed to go on forever and there was snow everywhere. The whole world was covered in a huge white carpet. Annoyingly, this deep white carpet was taller than me. The other pups were bigger than me so it was up to their shoulders but it was right up to my chin. I held my nose high to smell for danger and carefully waded through the cold wet stuff that surrounded me. After a long while, my sensitive nose picked up something familiar, and then my ears pricked up as I heard something that made me quicken my pace..... Whining. But not just any whining, Ezra's whining. Then I noticed something else, his tracks in the snow. They were faint because he had left nearly a week ago but I could still follow them to him.

I practically flew through the snow leaving a little snow trench behind me.. Eventually, the smell grew stronger but as I got closer I smelled an unmistakable underlying scent. A scent I had only smelled once when they came by my mother's den when I was only 3 weeks old. They had walked by and my mother had suddenly gone tense. They spoke in deep voices and carried sticks that my mother called, fire-sticks. This was a scent that only ever brought death and destruction. Humans! 

I jumped out of my snow trench and onto a nearby rock. From this vantage point I could see Ezra. He lay there in the snow not too far from where I was standing. Then I noticed that his right hind leg had been grabbed by jaws that I didn't recognize. They were grey and I could see another wolf trapped inside (my reflection). It kept copying my movements and I disliked it immediately. I sniffed around to find a scent on the jaws but they were cold and I could not find a heartbeat. I also could not find the owner of the jaws, for it appeared to have no body. Not finding any answers to my questions about the strange jaws, I trotted over to Ezra's face. I nuzzled his neck to let him know that I meant no harm and he looked up at me with fear and longing in his eyes. He was glad of my presence and he let me touch him, so I gravitated over to his foot. 

The jaws had bitten through his flesh and he must have been pulling at it because the wound was deep and bleeding profusely; the white snow stained a deep crimson. I began to groom him, starting with his muzzle and slowly working my way down towards his hind legs. When I reached his wounded foot I began to lick off the blood. He flinched but did not show any reluctance to let me continue. So I licked and licked until I was satisfied that it was clean. Then I moved on to the jaws. I chewed at them but they didn't budge. I barked at them but they would not listen. In the end, I decided to dig them out of what appeared to be the ground. I was not convinced, jaws don't just come out of the ground! It worked, and I helped Ezra to stand while I carried the jaws in my mouth. We eventually came across a den under a tall spruce tree. I smelled around but this den hadn't been occupied for a long while. I settled him at the very back and supported his foot and the jaws on a pile of moss and leaves. He slept and I kept watch just the way my father Callisto used to.