Devil Moon

Chapter Three

There was a twang. The young male leaped high into the air and screamed in pain. A feathered shaft jutted from his body. Even as he alighted, another shaft struck him.

Other two-legged creatures rushed from behind snow-covered trees and burst from hiding places.

The female whirled and ran. The dark one was her shadow. Behind them loped the smaller female. A feathered shaft sought them but missed. She did not stop to look back until she was on a rise well out of reach of the feathered shafts. The two-legged creatures had surrounded the fallen male and were poking him with a stick.

Now only the two were left.

The dark one and the young female grew in size and strength. The young female was not yet as big as the mother, but the dark one had surpassed her size and was still growing.

On a sunny day when the snow had melted away and the promise of warm weather was in the air, she was leading them along a ridge when the dark one suddenly broke away and loped down the other side. His nose was close to the ground and when she lowered hers she caught the same scent. She ran faster to catch up, but he was going full out and he increased his lead. She burst out of the trees, and ahead he was a black blur streaking toward the source of the scent.

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 crunch of bone was sharp and loud. Before the body fell, the dark one was on the others, slashing and snapping. Such was the force of his attack that all three turned and ran rather than fight. He stood glaring and growling after them. When the sounds of their flight faded, he turned and stepped to the doe and began to eat.

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 dark one had to range wide and far to find enough meat to sustain them, and at that it was barely enough.

A new spring restored their world. On a bright afternoon, she and the dark one were prowling a high ridge near the old den of a brown bear. A marmot spotted them and whistled. She didn’t stalk it. When she was young she had tried to catch them, but marmots always disappeared down into their holes before she could get close.

She and the dark one moved along a trail once used by the great bear. She came to a short piece of wood jutting from the ground and sniffed at it, puzzled by the faintest of vague odors. The dark one came and sniffed, too. He took a step past her and she heard a snap and suddenly he sprang into the air, screeching with pain. His left forepaw was caught in something that had been covered with leaves and dirt, and the paw was spurting blood. He snarled at it and twisted and pulled and wrenched, but his paw wouldn’t come free.

She was bewildered. This was new to her, and frightening. The thing that held him was hard like rock, but it was not like any rock she knew. To add to her bewilderment, it had sharp fangs that held the dark one fast. Small circles of the same hard material connected it to the short piece of wood. She tried to bite through but couldn’t.

The dark one renewed his efforts. He became near frantic. He snarled and screeched and leaped and pulled. She began to despair of ever freeing him when he threw himself up the bank and twisted his whole body, and suddenly his paw was free. Or half of it was. The rest stayed clamped in the hard teeth. He limped away and when she headed for the den he limped after her.

By the next morning the dark one’s leg was swollen and he could barely stand. A thick yellow pus oozed from the wound. He licked and licked, but it did his paw little good.

She thought she would lose him. For five sleeps he stayed on the ledge on his side. When she nosed him he didn’t move. His paw was a ruin. It was only half the size as before; only two claws were left. On the sixth day he sat up. She caught a grouse and shared it, but he ate little. She ambushed a fox and brought it back. The meat was stringy, but it was better than an empty stomach.

The dark one crawled to the stream. He drank and lowered his paw in and lay there the rest of the day. She stayed near, watching over him. When a pair of coyotes happened along, she chased them off.

That night the dark one limped back to the den. He slept until the sun was high in the sky the next day and limped down to the stream to drink and soak his paw. He did the same the day after. The pus stopped oozing and the swelling went down and he could move a little faster.

She killed a small doe and brought it to him. The dark one ate and then she ate and between them there wasn’t much left. The dark one slept some more. About the middle of the night she got up and went to the meadow and lay in wait until sunrise for deer to show, but none did. When she climbed back to the den, the dark one was gone.

The morning sun was warm, and she dozed. When it was straight overhead she rose and yawned and arched her back. The dark one still wasn’t back. She went to the stream, but he wasn’t there. She went to the meadow, but he wasn’t there. She roved wide, but found no trace of him.

That night she heard a grizzly roar and wolves howl and a lynx shriek, but she did not hear any of her own kind. She did not hear the dark one.

At daybreak she was on the move. No deer were at the meadow, so she ventured down the mountain to another. Half a dozen does were feeding. She got upwind and crept to within leaping range.

Suddenly the deer raised their heads and looked right at her. Or so she thought until a noise came from behind her. She was rising when there was a sharp pain in her side and she was jolted half around. For a few heartbeats she was rooted by the sight of a feathered shaft sticking out of her. Wheeling, she went to race off, but another pain shot through her and she pitched forward. The meadow and the sky changed places. She struggled to rise, but her front legs wouldn’t work.

Dimly, the female was aware of two-legged creatures with long black hair closing on her, and of their excited jabber. She raised her head and snarled at one and he held a bent limb and a feathered shaft toward her. A barbed tip was close to her eye. She tried to bite him.

A vast blackness consumed her.