Lone Wolf

Thunderheart.

CHAPTER NINE
    ***
    A DIM MEMORY

    ON THE FAR EDGE OF THE BEYOND, the she-wolf Morag had been absorbed into a new pack. She had found a new mate and given birth to a healthy litter of pups. No one knew her history, and in fact, she herself had all but forgotten it. The minute the Obea had walked away with that pup in her mouth to deliver it to a tummfraw, the place for abandonment of malformed pups, Morag began to build up barriers deep within her. These barriers functioned like a kind of invisible scar tissue to toughen her so that she could go on, survive. Such was the way with wolf mothers who had endured the special anguish of losing a malcadh pup to an Obea. They quickly forgot. In the wake of forgetting, there was for a time a darkness deep within them where that pup had grown inside their bodies. But it soon faded until it became  merely a gray shadow of which they were hardly aware. They had to be this way if they were going to go on, find another mate, and bear more pups.
    Morag was now consumed with a rambunctious trio of red-furred pups. At nearly a moon cycle old, they were busy exploring the whelping den with their milk teeth. They were becoming bolder as well, and began to scramble closer to the white light of the den opening. Morag's mate helped keep them back. Soon, when the pups were just a bit bigger, Morag and her mate would let them out regularly to explore under careful supervision. At that point, the pups would begin to eat meat. Then they would be weaned, and finally a den must be found near the rest of the packs that made up the MacDonegal clan.
    Morag had decided that today she would leave her mate in charge and set out toward the heart of the MacDonegal territory to begin the search for an appropriate den. The weather was still blustery from the remnants of the storm that had blown in from the north, bringing heavy snows to the border between the Beyond and the Outermost. But here it was merely sloppy with rain and sleet. To the west, the sky was clearing and there was the promise of better weather.
    Morag ambled along a creek bed. Since the earthquake, it was as if the territory had been entirely  rearranged. Boulders that she had never seen before had tumbled from mountains and blocked up several parts of the creek, causing small pools to form. It was no longer a simple task to follow the creek to the middle of the MacDonegal territory. After several hours of travel, Morag found that she had swung far out of MacDonegal territory and skirted closer to the river that ran into the Outermost.
    It was not, however, a tumbled boulder that caught her attention, but a small creek stone polished to a gleaming black finish by the water. She had just set her front paws in a shallow pool when she spotted it. It sparkled like a dark moon in the water and when she looked closely, she saw a pattern of swirling lines. Like eddies in the creek, the lines spiraled around and around. There was something vaguely hypnotic about the spinning design. But more than hypnotic, it kindled a dim memory in Morag. It was disturbing. She turned stiff-legged in the stream with her tail pointing straight out and howled her alarm.
    But instead of a response from other wolves, a jagged sound cut the air. Kra! Kra! It was the call of a raven announcing the discovery of a carcass. This was not just an announcement, but also a summons for help. Without the ripping teeth of wolves, it was impossible for ravens to  penetrate the thick hide of a large animal. Usually, this sound would have excited Morag. But not on this day. If she had been in the company of her pups, the raven's call would have offered a lesson. But now she only shrank from the sound.
    As she stood in the creek her eyes were drawn back to the swirl of lines on the polished rock. What is this? What is it that so haunts me?
    The raven's kra kra again laced the air. The spinning pattern and the kras mingled in the deep recesses of her memory. Haltingly, she took a few steps toward the other bank.
    Almost as soon as Morag left the creek, she spotted two ravens circling a short distance ahead. In a clearing she saw the immense carcass of a grizzly. Her first thought was one of slight disbelief. Why would a grizzly come this far south at this time of year? It should still be winterdenning.
    She swung her head toward the north and west, the far reaches of the Beyond in the low mountains, where the grizzlies frequently lived and denned. She knew from