Glass stared at the calf and the wolves, his mind turning quickly. The calf had been dropped in the spring. After a summer of fattening on the prairie, it weighed close to a hundred and fifty pounds. A hundred and fifty pounds of fresh meat. After two weeks of catching his food by the mouthful, Glass could scarcely imagine such bounty. Initially, Glass had hoped that the pack might leave enough for him to scavenge. As he continued to watch, though, the bounty diminished at an alarming rate. Satiated, the alpha male and his mate eventually wandered casually away from the carcass with a severed hind quarter in tow for the pups. The four other wolves fell on the carcass.
In growing desperation, Glass considered the options. If he waited too long, he doubted whether anything would be left. He weighed the prospect of continuing to live off mice and roots. Even if he could find enough to sustain himself, the task took too much time. He doubted he had covered thirty miles since beginning his crawl. At his current pace, he would be lucky to reach Fort Kiowa before cold set in. And of course, every day of exposure on the river was another day for Indians to stumble upon him.
He desperately needed the certain strength that the buffalo meat would give him. He did not know by what Providence the calf had been placed in his path. This is my chance. If he wanted his share of the calf, he would have to fight for it. And he needed to do it now.
He scanned the area for the makings of some weapon. Nothing presented itself beyond rocks, driftwood, and sage. A club? He wondered for a moment if he could beat back the wolves. It seemed implausible. He couldn’t swing hard enough to inflict much of a blow. And from his knees, he forfeited any advantage of height. Sage. He remembered the brief but impressive flames created by dry sage branches. A torch?
Seeing no other option, he scurried around him for the makings of a fire. The spring floods had tossed the trunk of a large cottonwood against the cut bank, creating a natural windbreak. Glass scooped a shallow pit in the sand next to the trunk.
He took out his bow and spindle, grateful that he at least had the means for quickly creating a flame. From the possibles bag he removed the last of the patches and a large clump of cattail cotton. Glass looked downriver at the wolf pack, still ripping at the calf. Damn it!
He looked around him for fuel. The river had left little of the cottonwood beyond the trunk. He found a clump of dead sage and snapped off five large branches, piling them next to the fire pit.
Glass set the bow and spindle in the sheltered pit, carefully placing the tinder. He began to work the bow, slowly at first, then faster as he found his rhythm. In a few minutes he had a low fire burning in the pit by the cottonwood.
He looked downriver toward the wolves. The alpha male, his mate, and their two pups huddled together about twenty yards beyond the calf. Having taken first dibs at the calf, they now were content to gnaw casually at the tasty marrow of the hindquarter. Glass hoped they would stay out of the coming battle. That left four wolves on the carcass itself.
The Loup Pawnee, as their name implied, revered the wolf for its strength and above all for its cunning. Glass had been with Pawnee hunting parties that shot wolves; their hides were an important part of many ceremonies. But he had never done anything like what he prepared to do at that moment: crawl into a pack of wolves and challenge them for food, armed only with a torch of sage.
The five sage branches twisted like giant, arthritic hands. Smaller twigs extended from the main branches at frequent intervals, most of them covered with spindly strands of bark and brittle, blue-green leaves. He grabbed one of the branches and set it to the fire. It caught immediately, a foot-high flame soon roaring from its top. It’s burning too fast. Glass wondered if the flame would last the distance between him and the wolves, let alone provide a weapon in whatever struggle that lay before him. He decided to hedge his bet. Rather than lighting all of the sage now, he would carry most of the branches unlit, backup ammunition to be added to the torch as needed.
Glass looked again at the wolves. They suddenly seemed larger. He hesitated for an instant. No turning back, he decided. This is my chance. With the burning sage branch in one hand and the four backup branches in the other, Glass crawled down the bank toward the wolves. At fifty yards, the alpha male and his mate looked up from the hindquarter to stare at this strange animal approaching the buffalo calf. They viewed Glass as a curiosity, not a challenge. After all, they had eaten their fill.
At twenty yards, the wind shifted and the four animals on the carcass caught scent of the smoke. They all turned. Glass stopped, face-to-face now with four wolves. From a distance, it was easy to see the wolves as mere dogs. Up close, they bore no relation to their domestic cousins. A white wolf showed its bloody teeth and took a half step toward Glass, a deep growl pouring from its throat. It lowered its shoulder, a move that seemed somehow both defensive and offensive at the same time.
The white wolf fought conflicting instincts—one defensive of its prey, the other afraid of fire. A second wolf, this one missing most of one ear, fell in beside the first. The other two continued to rip at the buffalo carcass, appreciative, it seemed, of the exclusive attention to the calf. The burning branch in Glass’s right hand began to flicker. The white wolf took another step toward Glass, who remembered suddenly the sickening sensation of the bear’s teeth, ripping at his flesh. What have I done?
Suddenly there was a flash of bright light, a brief pause, and then the deep bass of thunder rolling down the valley. A raindrop struck Glass’s face and wind whipped at the flame. He felt a sickening churn in his stomach. God no—not now! He had to act quickly. The white wolf was poised to attack. Could they really smell fear? He had to do the unexpected. He had to attack them.
He grabbed the four sage branches from his right hand and added them to the burning branch in his left. Flames leapt up, hungrily swallowing the dry fuel. It took both hands now to hold the branches together, which meant he could no longer use his left hand for balance. Excruciating pain extended outward from his wounded right thigh as weight shifted to his leg, and he almost fell. He managed to stay upright as he lurched, hobbling forward on his knees in his best approximation of a charge. He let loose the loudest sound he could muster, which came out as a sort of eerie wail. Forward he moved, swinging the burning torch like a fiery sword.
He thrust the torch toward the wolf with one ear. Flames singed the animal’s face and it jumped backward with a yelp. The white wolf leapt at Glass’s flank, sinking its teeth into his shoulder. Glass pivoted, craning his neck to keep the wolf off his throat. Only a few inches separated Glass’s face from the wolf’s, and he could smell the animal’s bloody breath. Glass struggled again to keep his balance. He swung his arms around to bring the flames in contact with the wolf, burning the animal’s belly and groin. The wolf released its grip on his shoulder, retreating a step.