The bobcat heard the pad of paws and tried to run, but the dark one was on him before he took more than several bounds. The bobcat whirled, and the dark one slammed into him, shoulder against shoulder. Both went down in a tumbling, snarling, clawing melee. The dark one was bigger, but the bobcat was older and the veteran of many combats. Their fight was fierce. The female crouched ready to leap in, but she never had an opening. They rolled and raked with their claws and bit and snapped until a piercing cry rent the air.
All movement ceased.
The dark one was holding the bobcat by the neck, and the bobcat was limp. He let the bobcat drop and walked off without looking back. His body was a welter of cuts. The tip of his left ear had been bitten off and his throat was bleeding, but the wound wasn’t deep. He spent the next seven sleeps recuperating and was soon restored to vigor.
Spring arrived, and the forest pulsed with game galore. The female and the other two hunted and ate well.
In the evenings she would lie on the ledge with the dark one and the young female and listen to the sounds from below. One evening the sounds were unlike any she had ever heard. Curious, she rose and worked her way down the slope. Neither the dark one nor the female came with her. She skirted the meadow and went down the mountain to the edge of the flatland and beheld a sight that caused her skin to prickle. Scores of two-legged creatures were erecting high cones of buffalo hides and saplings. They had many of the animals that looked like elk but were not elk.
Unease filled her, and she rumbled deep in her chest. She did not like this. They were a distance from her den, but there were many of them, and she had not forgotten what they did to her young male that day in the snow.
Turning, she slunk away. She wanted nothing to do with them.
They became nuisances. During the day they were everywhere, riding their elklike animals or walking about. They never went anywhere alone but always in pairs, or more. They jabbered a lot and had an odd scent.
Once she was stalking a doe and a group of them rode near and scared the doe off. She was hidden in the brush, and they came close to her without realizing she was there. She could have leaped out and slain a few, but she remembered the feathered shafts and stayed hidden.
Another time she was following a stream and she came on a number of two-legged females who were dipping hides in the water and wringing them out. They chirped without cease and annoyed her considerably, but she left them be.
On a day not long after, a commotion drew her to the flatland. The creatures were taking down the conical hides and folding them and placing them on poles attached to the elklike animals. She didn’t realize they were leaving until they formed into a long line and made off to the east. It pleased her to see them go. The forest was hers again, hers and her remaining offspring’s.
The dark one had taken to hunting by himself. Sometimes he was gone for several sleeps. She would miss him, and pace.
The young female was always there. Sometimes they hunted together and at other times she went one way and the young female another.
Summer crawled into autumn and the aspens became splashes of bright colors. The beaver were busy with their dams and the bull elk were bugling again and bears were stuffing themselves.
On a morning when frost covered the ground and her breath formed tiny clouds, she and the female went hunting. They drifted apart, as had become their wont. She was threading through a stand of alders when her ears caught the crunch of teeth. Flattening, she stalked toward the sound and discovered a solitary doe, grazing. The doe was facing the alders, so she circled to come at it from the side. As it happened she turned into the wind and caught the scent of other predators that had the same idea she did: wolves.
She could not tell how many, but there was more than one. They were on the other side of the doe, converging. She remembered her mother, and before she could stop it a growl escaped.
The doe raised its head and pricked its long ears and looked anxiously around.
Simultaneously from out of the high grass sprang four wolves. They were on the doe at her first spring and brought her down in concert; one leaped at her throat and the others at her legs. The doe stood no chance.
The female was ablaze with rage. They had stolen her prey. They were four and she was one and that should have deterred her but it didn’t. She was on them in a whirlwind of teeth and claws. She drove them from the doe, but once they were over their initial surprise, they laid back their ears and snarled and growled, prepared to fight for their meal.
The bloodlust was on her. The largest male wolf leaped and she met him in midair and opened his shoulder. He opened her leg. No sooner did she set herself than two others came at her from both sides. She drove one off with a flashing paw, but the other ripped her flank open and sprang out of reach.
They circled her.
She had made a grave mistake. She was more than a match for any single wolf, or even two, but certainly not four. Their numbers would be her downfall. Unless she fled, they would overwhelm her and bring her down.
She stayed. A compulsion had come over her, a willingness to fight to the death even if the death was hers. She crouched and her snarls rivaled theirs in a savage din.
The large male came at her and she swung her front paw. He dodged. Pain seared her hindquarters. In a flash she whirled and caught the culprit across the chest. More pain in her side, and she spun and tore a female wolf. They didn’t relent. Again and again they came at her, and again and again she drove them off. But each time cost her and although she inflicted wound after wound, they were four and she was one. They were wearing her down. She felt it, and they sensed it, and they closed in for the kill.
The cat had been bitten and clawed severely. She was bleeding and torn. A leap would carry her over them, but she crouched and snarled and then they were on her, four at once, and they bore her down and tore at her undersides. Slavering jaws gaped to clamp on her throat.
Suddenly a dark fury was among them. Strong blows sent each of the wolves tumbling. The large male wolf tried to rise, but the dark one was on him in a bound and bit into the back of his neck. The
She let him. It was her kill, but she moved to one side and licked her many wounds until he was done. Then she ate her own fill. When they made for the den, she followed him.
She spent a restless night. Many of the bites and cuts were deep, and whether she lay on her belly or either side, the pain kept her awake. Toward dawn she dozed and was awakened a few hours later by the squawk of a jay. The dark one was on the ledge. She went and stretched out next to him and only then did she realize that the young female had not returned. It was to be expected. She gave birth to them and nurtured them and taught them, and eventually there came a day when they struck off on their own. Occasionally one wouldn’t want to leave and she had to persuade it.
The dark one showed no inclination to go just yet. That pleased her.
The next day she went to a stream for water, but that was her only excursion. That night she slept a little better.
Within five moons she was well enough to hunt. She was in no shape to try to bring down a deer, so she settled for an incautious squirrel. It did little more than whet her appetite. When she got back she found a deer haunch on the ledge and the dark one asleep. She ate until she was gorged and slept until the next day. When she woke she felt almost like her old self.
Another winter froze the land. The snow was deeper than most winters, and she and the dark one spent much of their time in the den.
One evening she killed a doe and cached it. She returned the next day to feed on the carcass only to find a wolverine had laid claim to her kill. It looked up and bared its fangs. It wasn’t as big as she was and barely half her weight, but she had encountered its kind before. Of all the animals in the wilderness, wolverines were the fiercest. Even grizzlies gave way for them. She bared her own fangs and then discreetly retreated.
The winter was long and hard. The cold froze the lakes and the streams were sloughs of ice. She and the
