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As they flew toward Malone Bay, A
“This goes any lower or we get any wind, we’ll have to head back,” came Jonah’s voice in A
A
An expanse of white unfurled inland from Lake Superior between the airplane and the cloud mass. “Siskiwit Lake?” she asked. Siskiwit was the largest lake on Isle Royale.
“Siskiwit,” Jonah confirmed. “Hey!” He banked the cub so suddenly that A
On the clear expanse of ice, seven black figures made a fan-shaped pattern like the wake of a boat behind a larger dot. A pack of wolves had chased a moose out of the trees and onto the open area of the lake, an old bull by the look of it. Jonah closed the distance quickly and flew low and to the side so A
“Chippewa pack, I think. I guess it could be East. Holy moly, look at the blood! You’d have thought the ticks would have drunk so much there’d be hardly enough left to fill a thermos,” Jonah said with more glee than A
Cha
“They’re going in,” Jonah shouted in her ear.
A wolf lunged, battening onto the narrow haunch of the moose. Trying to throw off the beast locked on its rump, trying to keep the pack in front of it where it could use its front feet to defend itself, the bull spun around, the center of a tornado of gray-furred predators. Blood spattered in a mutant circle thirty or more feet in diameter. In the trees, the moose would have slammed the wolf on its rear into rocks or tree trunks, tried to smash it with brute force. On ice, the moose was at a disadvantage.
Blood and beasts tangled in a macabre snow angel, then the moose broke off and bolted for shore, the wolf still hanging off his haunch. A second wolf drew down, long and lean, and streaked across the snow, then lifted into the air, struck the moose’s other rear leg, bit down and hung on. The moose, with this burden of death, fell to its knees. The rest of the wolves began to circle. To A
“Can we land?” A
“I don’t trust the ice. Nobody’s checked the thickness yet,” Jonah said. He brought the supercub lower for the last act of the moose’s life. Three wolves on its back, the others made side rushes, cutting at the tendons in its legs. The moose stayed on its feet another ten yards, then stopped.
As if he was not being savaged by wolves but had chosen, like Geronimo, to fight no more forever, he folded his long legs neatly beneath himself and sank onto the ice. Wolves closed in, tearing at the moose’s sides, ripping out entrails in a wild display of color on the white canvas of snow.
A
The cub banked and climbed, and A
“Damn.” A
“Greenhorn,” he said without malice. “We got to head back. Look at the horizon east there.”
The horizon had solidified into a dark wall. Clouds touched the surface of the lake. Both water and air were the color of slate. A mile or so out, whitecaps snapped to life on black water.
Jonah radioed Ridley to let him know about the kill and that they were returning to Windigo.
There was a moment without response, then Ridley came back: “Robin saw fresh tracks along the Greenstone Trail. It wasn’t Middle pack; they haven’t moved. If you’re looking at Chippewa Harbor pack, then it’s not them. It’s either East pack or a lone wolf. Could you swing by and check it?”
East pack was so named because the east end of ISRO was its territory. Wolves were warriors; they protected their turf, and the fights were vicious and often to the death. East pack that far from home would indicate a major disturbance in the population, proof of Ridley’s assertion that “something stirred them up.” A lone wolf wouldn’t. On ISRO, only the alphas mated. Maturing animals would often leave the pack to seek another lone wolf with whom to start a new pack. Occasionally they joined a rival pack. Most often, after a month or two, they came home humbled. Wolves, like other sentient beings, had their own minds. One female had been noted to move, apparently with ease, between all three packs.
“Roger. We’re nearly there,” Jonah replied to Ridley. To A
Jonah dropped the airplane down till they were flying two hundred feet above the Greenstone Ridge. They were traveling at airspeed of eighty-five miles per hour, slow for most airplanes but incredibly fast for humans, creatures designed to go no faster than a horse can canter. Trees and rock outcrops flashed by, their nearness enhancing the sense of speed. A
They followed the trail for three miles but saw no tracks, then a fist of wind rocked the supercub and Jonah said: “This bird’s for home.”
A
“Wait,” A
“Not today,” crackled back over the headset. “Pilots are a dime a dozen. Old pilots are rare as hen’s teeth.”
A
“What’d you spot?” Jonah asked.
“I don’t know what it was,” A
The shape, the black silhouette curled nose to tail, had looked like a wolf. A monstrous wolf, more than half again as big as the biggest alpha she’d ever seen.