Watch Wolf

never found it in all the years he’d been there.
    To add to all this was the problem of completing the rescue before war broke out between the wolves and the bears. Edme felt her marrow melt whenever she thought of it. But the anguish in Faolan’s eyes was worse. She knew that to go to war with the bears would destroy Faolan in a way no foaming-mouth wolf or even the crushing blow of a grizzly bear could.
    They traveled at attack speed as long as they could, then slowed to press-paw and ran on through the night. Just as the first rays of dawn peeped over the horizon, they arrived at the rim of the Pit. Faolan scrambled to the top of an outcropping and looked straight down. He saw the foaming-mouth wolf staggering along the east wall of the ravine, but there was no trace of the cub.
    Then, after several anxious minutes, they saw a smudge of something emerge from the sheer rock wall. It was the cub.
    “No name!” yelled the cub.
    “Name!” screeched Old Cags and gathered himself to charge. But the little cub did not even flinch.
    “Amazing,” Edme whispered.
    “It’s a standoff.” Arthur alighted on the outcropping. “I’ve been hovering here for a while. It’s strange. There’s a slot in the stone wall, just big enough for the cub to squeeze into.”
    “And not Old Cags?” Edme asked.
    “I think he could if he was able to aim true for it. But you see how he staggers about. Something’s wrong with the way he sees. But the strangest thing of all is how he keeps asking the cub his name. The cub won’t tell. Just comes out and shouts, ‘No name!’ and this sets Old Cags off. The cub doesn’t seem that scared. And every time he comes out, I can see that he’s scanning the rock walls for the trail out.” Arthur paused. “And I think I’ve found it.”
    “You have! Arthur!” Faolan exclaimed.
    The Spotted Owl led them to a snarl of brambly bushes. “If you can slither under those on your bellies, a path widens out and then pitches almost straight down. Be careful.”
    “Let’s think this out,” Faolan said. “It might take us a bit of time to get down there. But once we do, we’ll need to distract Old Cags.”
    “I can do that,” Arthur quickly offered. “I can fly in. Go for a few kill spirals. Back loops. It’ll drive him crazy.”
    “It’s hard to think of him any crazier,” Edmemused softly.
    The trail was steep even for animals with four legs. They slid down the last part, causing a small avalanche of pebbles and loose rock. Old Cags heard this and came trotting over in anticipation of another pup or perhaps a bloody offering of fresh meat delivered by the wolves who worshipped him.
    He stopped short and snarled as Faolan and Edme appeared. “Whazz name?”
    Faolan and Edme were trembling. They had never been so close to a diseased animal, an animal with the foaming-mouth sickness. They split off in opposite directions as planned. Old Cags stood bewildered. He did not know which way to turn, and suddenly the wolves didn’t seem to be wolves anymore. They were leaping and spinning in the air. For when Arthur had said he would distract the sick wolf with kill spirals, the two young Watch wolves immediately came up with the idea of running a series of scanning jumps. This they hoped would distract the wolf, and the less time they spent on the ground with Old Cags, the better.
    The plan seemed simple. When the sick wolf’s attention was sufficiently engaged, Faolan would race to the crack in the rock wall to fetch the cub while Edme and Arthur continued to distract Old Cags with jumps and fantastic flight maneuvers.
    Old Cags’s head was spinning as he tried to keep track of what appeared to be missiles of fur and feather streaking through the air. Faolan raced to the slot in the rock and stuck his head into the dim light. The damp shining eyes of a cub met his. Toby looked up, shocked. “Are you here to kill me? Drag me to Cags?”
    “We’re here to rescue you. Follow me. Be quick.”
    “You came for me?”
    “Yes, quick now while Edme distracts Cags.”
    The two raced from the slot in the wall. The little cub looked up in time to see an owl dive straight down upon Cags and then see his old wolf playmate, Edme, leaping in somersaults.
    “Edme!” Toby shouted. He couldn’t help it. The name just burst out of him.
    “Name!” shrieked Old Cags and swung his head in the direction of Edme. At last he had found his target — a real wolf.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
D RUMS OF W