Watch Wolf

had remembered how he and his brother, Burney, had played with the one-eyed wolf earlier in the summer. That wolf was much younger and so much fun. This wolf was fun for about one second, and then three others had charged from behind a large boulder. Before he could even squeal, something had clamped down on his muzzle. He’d felt as if he were being lifted up, and the ground was just a blur rushing beneath him.
    “All right, back off, Blyden,” Fretta commanded. “You don’t need to clamp his muzzle.”
    “She’ll tear off your heads!” Toby shrieked. “That’s easy for a grizzly. She’ll rip out your heart and eat it! No, she’ll just rip it out. She’d never eat such a foul heart.”
    Toby was a bright little cub and quite proud of his use of a fine word like “foul.” He was scared, but he kept talking. Sometimes his mom said he talked too much. Burney was quiet, quiet and thoughtful. Toby was thoughtful but, well, noisy and thoughtful. “Would someone kindly answer me?”
Kindly?
he thought. What a poor choice of words with these thuggish wolves.
    But at that moment, an owl swooped down with talons outstretched and started raking the wolves. Two of the wolves leaped up, taking swats at the owl, who quickly backed off. The wolves picked up Toby and streaked away.
    They were transporting the cub by the scruff of his neck now. He hung down, his hind legs barely skimming the ground. He couldn’t see the wolf carrying him, but four others ran alongside them.
I was just trying to have fun.
It was at that moment that he saw his own blood.
    “Hey, I’m bleeding! You made me bleed.”
    “Shut him up! It was hard enough getting down here with the wind against us. I swear his yapping is slowing us down as much as the wind.”
    The she-wolf’s jaws clamped down on Toby’s muzzle. Everything within him turned dark with terror. He hadto fight back somehow. They were bigger and stronger, but he had to do something even though he was scared. If he couldn’t fight back with muscle, he would with words. He wriggled his muzzle free. “It’s not just mymum who’s going to get you. It’s all the bears of the Beyond!”
    “Precisely!” one wolf answered him.
    Unbelievably, the wolves began to laugh.
    Toby growled. “You think it’s funny. It’s not going to be funny, you poop balls!”
    Toby was becoming more frightened by the minute. He had kept his eye on the sun as it sank toward the horizon and now his stomach clenched as they descended into a deep ravine that took a sudden plunge into a narrow pit. The wolf who had been carrying him dropped him in the middle of the pit and then scurried back to join the others, who stood on the embankment a fair distance off, watching with malicious anticipation.
What’s going on here?
Toby thought, and then from a crack in the stone walls, a wolf staggered out. Frothy bubbles dribbled from his jaws.
    Urskadamus!
Toby thought.
A wolf with the foaming-mouth disease! They brought me to a wolf with the foaming-mouth disease!
    He knew there was no hope now. He would die a maddened cub in the most painful death imaginable. It would go on for days. His muscles would lock, his eyes would roll up in his head. His fur would get so hot, it would steam. He knew all about this disease. One of the first things grizzlies taught their cubs was never, ever, to go near a foaming-mouth animal — no matter what. Even if the sick animal were a grizzly, even if it were his own mother — she wouldn’t recognize him and, in her madness, would only want to attack. What could he do? What could he do?
    “Have a pleasant stay in the Pit,” snarled one of his cubnappers.
    “Shut your muzzle, Donaidh,” snapped the largest of the wolves, who appeared to be their leader. He was a savage-looking creature with a horrible scar running down his face all the way to his neck. “I do the talking.” The scarred wolf turned toward Toby and said in a dangerously soft voice, “What’s your name, cubby?”
    Cubby?
The sound of the endearing word his mother often used when she nursed him made Toby want to puke. Toby remained silent. The scar-face wolf took a step toward him. “Your name?” His voice dropped and acquired an even more frightening edge.
    “If he doesn’t tell us his name, how will we —”
    The scarred wolf wheeled around and bit the wolf Donaidh on his rump. “Shut up!”
    But it was too late. Donaidh had given Toby an idea.
    “Again and for the last time, what is your