Белый клык / White Fang

Part II

Chapter I. The Battle of the Fangs

It was the she-wolf who had first caught the sound of men’s voices and the whining of the sled-dogs; and it was the she-wolf who was first to spring away from the man in his circle of dying fire. The pack followed her.

A large grey wolf – one of the pack’s several leaders – directed the wolves’ course on the heels^[14] of the she-wolf. She went near him, as though it were her appointed position. He did not snarl at her, nor show his teeth, although he snarled at the younger wolves. On the contrary, when he ran too near it was she who snarled and showed her teeth. She could even slash his shoulder sharply on occasion. He showed no anger.

On the other side of the she-wolf ran an old wolf, marked with the scars of many battles. He ran always on her right side – perhaps because he had only one eye, and that was the left eye. Sometimes he and the grey wolf on the left showed their teeth and snarled across at each other. They might have fought, but now they were too hungry.

Also there was a young three-year-old that ran on the right side of the one-eyed wolf. When he dared to run abreast, a snarl sent him back. Sometimes he even edged in between the old leader and the she-wolf, but was stopped by three sets of savage teeth (the leader’s, the one-eyed wolf’s, and the she-wolf’s).

The situation of the pack was desperate. It was lean with hunger. It ran slower than usual. The weak members, the very young and the very old, ran behind. At the front were the strongest. Yet all were more like skeletons than wolves.

They ran night and day, over the surface of the frozen and dead world. They alone were alive there, and they looked for other things that were alive to eat them and continue living.

Finally they came upon a moose. It was a short and fierce fight. And after that there was plenty of food. The moose weighed over eight hundred pounds^[15] – fully twenty pounds of meat per mouth for more than forty wolves of the pack.

There was now much resting and sleeping. The hunger was over. The wolves were in the country of game.^[16]

There came a day when the pack divided and went in different directions. The she-wolf, the young leader on her left, and the one-eyed elder on her right, led their half of the pack down to the Mackenzie River and across into the lake country to the east. Each day this remnant of the pack became smaller. Two by two, male and female, the wolves were leaving.

In the end there remained only four: the she-wolf, the young leader, the one-eyed one, and the ambitious three-year-old. The she-wolf had by now developed a fierce temper. Her three suitors all had the marks of her teeth. But they never defended themselves against her.

The three-year-old grew too ambitious. He caught the one-eyed elder on his blind side and ripped his ear into ribbons.^[17] The third wolf joined the elder, and together, old leader and young leader, they attacked the ambitious three-year-old and wanted to destroy him. Forgotten were the days when they had hunted together. The business of love was at hand – a crueller business than food-getting. And the three-year-old yielded up his life for it.

In the meanwhile, the she-wolf, the cause of it all, sat down on her haunches^[18] and watched. She was even pleased. This was her day.

The younger leader turned his head to lick a wound on his shoulder. With his one eye the elder saw the opportunity. He jumped low and closed his fangs on the other’s neck. His teeth tore the great vein of the throat.

The young leader snarled terribly, but his snarl broke into a cough. Bleeding and coughing, he sprang at the elder and fought until life left him and the light of day dulled on his eyes.

And all the while the she-wolf sat on her haunches and smiled. This was the love-making of the Wild, the sex-tragedy of the natural world that was tragedy only to those that died. To those that survived it was not tragedy, but realization and achievement.

When the young leader lay in the snow and moved no more, One Eye went to the she-wolf. For the first time she met him kindly. She sniffed noses with him, and even leaped about and played with him in quite puppyish fashion. And he, for all his grey years and experience, behaved quite puppyishly and even a little foolishly. The fight was forgotten the moment as he sprang after the she-wolf, who was leading him a chase through the woods.

After that they ran side by side, like good friends who have come to an understanding. The days passed by, and they kept together, hunting their meat and killing and eating it in common. After a time the she-wolf became restless. She seemed to be searching for something that she could not find. The caves under fallen trees seemed to attract her. Old One Eye was not interested at all, but he followed her good-naturedly in her quest.

They did not stay in one place, but travelled across country until they came to the Mackenzie River. One moonlight night, running through the quiet forest, they heard the sounds of dogs, the cries of men, the sharper voices of women, and once a cry of a child. Little could be seen save the flames of the fire. But to their nostrils came the smells of an Indian camp, that was new to One Eye, but every detail of which the she-wolf knew.

She was strangely worried, and sniffed and sniffed with an increasing delight. But old One Eye was doubtful. A new wistfulness was in her face, but it was not the wistfulness of hunger. One Eye moved impatiently beside her; and she knew again her pressing need to find the thing for which she searched. She turned and trotted back into the forest, to the great relief of One Eye.

Chapter II. The Lair

For two days the she-wolf and One Eye hung about the Indian camp. He was worried, yet she didn’t want to depart. But when, one morning, a bullet passed several inches from One Eye’s head, they hesitated no more and left.

They did not go far – a couple of days’ journey. The she-wolf’s need to find the thing for which she searched had now become urgent. She was getting very heavy, and could run but slowly. Her temper was now shorter than ever; but he had become more patient.

And then she found the thing for which she looked. It was a few miles up a small stream that in the summer time flowed into the Mackenzie, but in winter it was frozen down to its rocky bottom – a dead stream of white from source to mouth. The she-wolf examined it and entered inside. For three feet she had to crouch, then the walls widened and rose higher in a little round chamber nearly six feet in diameter. It was dry and cosy. She inspected it with painstaking care, while One Eye stood in the entrance and patiently watched her. Then, with a tired sigh, she curled, relaxed her legs, and lay with her head toward the entrance. One Eye, with pointed, interested ears, laughed at her, and she could see his tail wagging good-naturedly. She was pleased and satisfied.

One Eye was hungry. He crawled over to his mate and tried to persuade her to get up. But she only snarled at him, and he walked out alone. He had found game, but he had not caught it, so he returned.

He paused at the mouth of the cave with a sudden shock of suspicion. Strange sounds came from within. They were sounds not made by his mate, and yet they were remotely familiar. He bellied carefully inside and was met by a warning snarl from the she-wolf. But he remained interested in the other sounds – faint and muffled.

His mate warned him away, and he curled up and slept in the entrance. When morning came, he again looked for the source of the sounds. There was a new note in his mate’s warning snarl. It was a jealous note, and he was very careful in keeping a respectful distance. Nevertheless, he saw five strange little bundles of life, very helpless, making whimpering noises, with eyes that did not open to the light. He was surprised. It was not the first time in his long and successful life that this thing had happened. It had happened many times, yet each time it was as fresh a surprise as ever.

His mate looked at him anxiously. Of her own experience she had no memory of the thing happening; but in her instinct, which was the experience of all the mothers of wolves, there was a memory of fathers that had eaten their new-born and helpless children.

But there was no danger. Old One Eye was feeling an instinct that had come down to him from all the fathers of wolves. He knew he should turn his back on his new-born family and look out for food.

Half a mile from the stream he saw a porcupine. One Eye approached carefully but hopelessly. But he knew that there was such a thing as Chance, or Opportunity, and he continued to draw near.

The porcupine rolled itself into a ball with long, sharp quills. One Eye knew it could be dangerous, so he lied down and waited. But at the end of half an hour he arose, growled at the motionless ball, and trotted on.

His awakened instinct of fatherhood was strong. He must find meat. In the afternoon he managed to catch a ptarmigan. As his teeth crunched through its flesh, he began naturally to eat. Then he remembered, and, turning on the back-track, started for home,^[19] carrying the ptarmigan in his mouth.

Then he came upon large tracks and followed them, prepared to meet their maker at every turn of the stream. And he saw it. It was a large female lynx. She was crouching, as he had done before, in front the same ball of quills.

He lay down in the snow, put the ptarmigan beside him, and watched the waiting lynx and the waiting porcupine. Half an hour passed, an hour; and nothing happened.

The porcupine had at last decided that its enemy had gone away. Slowly, cautiously, it was unrolling its ball. Not quite entirely had it unrolled when it discovered the lynx. The lynx struck. The blow was like a flash of light. The paw with sharp claws went under the tender belly and came back with a quick movement.

Everything had happened at once – the blow, the counter-blow, the cry from the porcupine, the big cat’s cry of sudden hurt and astonishment. One Eye half arose in his excitement, his ears up, his tail straight out behind him. The lynx sprang at the thing that had hurt her, but squealed again. In her nose there were quills, like in a monstrous pin-cushion. She brushed it with her paws, put it into the snow, and rubbed it against twigs and branches, and all the time leaping about, ahead, sidewise, up and down, in pain and fright. Then she sprang away, up the trail, squalling with every leap she made.

When One Eye approached, the porcupine managed to roll up in a ball again, but it was not quite the old compact ball; its muscles were too much torn for that. It had been ripped almost in half, and was still bleeding.

One Eye saw the bloody snow, and chewed it. Then he lied down and waited. In a little while, One Eye noticed that all the quills drooped down, and the body relaxed and moved no more. It was surely dead.

One Eye took it carefully with his teeth, then recollected something, dropped the burden, and trotted back to where he had left the ptarmigan. He did not hesitate a moment. He knew clearly what was to be done, and this he did by immediately eating the ptarmigan. Then he returned and took up his burden.

When he brought the result of his day’s hunt into the cave, the she-wolf inspected it and lightly licked him on the neck. But the next instant she was warning him away from the cubs with a snarl that was less sharp than usual and that was more apologetic than menacing. He was behaving as a wolf-father should.

Chapter III. The Grey Cub

He was different from his brothers and sisters. Their hair already betrayed the reddish hue inherited from their mother; while he alone took after his father.^[20] He was the only grey cub of the litter. He was a real wolf – in fact, he was like One Eye himself.

The grey cub’s eyes had not been open long, yet already he could see clearly. And while his eyes were still closed, he had felt, tasted, and smelled. He knew his two brothers and his two sisters very well. And long before his eyes had opened he had learned by touch, taste, and smell to know his mother. She had a soft, caressing tongue that calmed him when it passed over his soft little body, and that made him sleepy.

Always, in the beginning, before his conscious life began, he had crawled toward the mouth of the cave. And his brothers and sisters did the same. The chemistry of the life that created them demanded the light.

Later the grey cub discovered that his mother also had a nose and a paw and could push and hit. Thus he learned hurt; and he learned to avoid hurt, first, by not risking; and second, when he had risked, by retreating. These were conscious actions, and were the results of his first generalisations upon the world.

He was a fierce little cub. So were his brothers and sisters. It was to be expected. He was a carnivorous animal and came of a breed of meat-killers and meat-eaters. His father and mother lived wholly upon meat. The milk he drank was transformed directly from meat.

But he was the fiercest of the litter. He could make a louder growl than any of them, and it was he who first learned many things. He was always going to the mouth of the cave – and was always stopped by his mother. To him the entrance of the cave was a wall – a wall of light; it attracted him as a candle attracts a moth. The life that was within him knew that it was the one way out, the way he must choose.

Though never allowed by his mother to approach that wall, he had approached the other walls, and felt a hard obstacle on the end of his tender nose. This hurt. And after several such adventures, he left the walls alone.

In fact, the grey cub did not think – at least, not like men. Yet his conclusions were as sharp as those of men. He had a method of accepting things, without questioning ‘why’. In reality, this was the act of classification. He never asked why a thing happened. How it happened was enough for him. Thus, when he had touched back-wall a few times with his nose, he accepted that he would not disappear into walls. In the same way he accepted that his father could disappear into the wall of light. Logic and physics were no part of his mental make-up.

Like most creatures of the Wild, he early experienced hunger. Hunger came unexpectedly. At first, the cubs cried, but for the most part they slept. It was not long before they were in a coma of hunger. The cubs slept, while the life that was in them was dying down.

One Eye was desperate. He ranged far and wide, and slept but little. The she-wolf, too, left her litter and went out in search of meat.

When the grey cub came back to life and again took interest in the far white wall, he found that only one sister remained to him. The rest were gone. And soon she was gone, too.

Then there came a time when the grey cub no longer saw his father appearing and disappearing in the wall or lying down asleep in the entrance. The she-wolf knew why One Eye never came back, but there was no way by which she could tell what she had seen to the grey cub. Hunting herself for meat, she had followed a day-old trail of One Eye. And she had found him, or what remained of him. There were many signs of the battle, and of the lynx that came back to her lair after having won the victory. The she-wolf found this lair, but the signs told her that the lynx was inside, and she did not dare to come in.

After that, the she-wolf avoided hunting there. She knew that in the lynx’s lair there was a litter of kittens. It was quite a different matter for a lone wolf to fight a lynx – especially when the lynx had a litter of hungry kittens.

But the Wild is the Wild, and motherhood is motherhood, and the time was to come when the she-wolf, for her grey cub’s sake,^[21] would dare to go there.

Chapter IV. The Wall of the World

By the time his mother began leaving the cave on hunting expeditions, the cub had learned well the law that forbade him to approach the entrance. Not only had this law been impressed on him by his mother’s nose and paw, but in him the instinct of fear was developing. Fear! – that legacy of the Wild which no animal may escape.

In fact, the cub merely classified the things that hurt and the things that did not hurt. And after such classification he avoided the things that hurt in order to enjoy the satisfactions and the remunerations of life.

When his mother was absent, he slept most of the time, while during the intervals that he was awake he kept very quiet. Once, lying awake, he heard a strange sound in the white wall. He did not know that it was a wolverine, standing outside. The cub knew only that it was something unclassified, therefore unknown and terrible. The cub was terrified; he lay without movement or sound. His mother, coming home, growled as she smelt the wolverine’s track, and licked and caressed him more than ever. And the cub felt that somehow he had escaped a great hurt.

Another power within him was growth. Instinct and law demanded of him obedience. But growth demanded disobedience. His mother and fear made him keep away from the white wall. Growth is life, and life is always reaching for light.

So once he entered into the wall.

It was astonishing. He was going through solidity. Fear called him to go back, but growth drove him on. Suddenly he found himself at the mouth of the cave. The light had become painfully bright.

A great fear came upon him. He crouched down in the entrance and looked out on the world. He was very much afraid. Because it was unknown, it was hostile to him. Therefore the hair stood up on end along his back and his lips wrinkled in an attempt at a snarl. Out of his fright he challenged and menaced the whole wide world.

Nothing happened. He continued to look, and in his interest he forgot to snarl. Also, he forgot to be afraid. For the time, fear had been driven away by growth.

Now the grey cub had lived all his days on a level floor. He had never experienced the hurt of a fall. He did not know what a fall was. So he stepped boldly out upon the air. His hind-legs still were on the cave-lip, so he fell head downward. Then he began rolling down the slope, over and over. He was in a panic of terror. The unknown had caught him at last, and he gave a loud ‘ki-yi’ cry. And then he ki-yi’d again and again.

When at last he came to a stop, he gave one last ‘ki-yi’. Also, as though in his life he had already made a thousand toilets, he licked himself well.

Now that the terrible unknown had let go of him,^[22] he forgot that the unknown had any terrors. He was aware only of curiosity in all the things about him. He inspected the grass, the plants around, and the dead trunk. A squirrel, running around the trunk, gave him a great fright. He cowered down and snarled. But the squirrel was scared as well, so it ran up a tree.

This helped the cub’s courage. He met a woodpecker, and then a moose-bird. It pecked him on the end of his nose.

But the cub was learning. His little mind had already made an unconscious classification. There were live things and things not alive. Also, he must watch out for the live things. The things not alive remained always in one place, but the live things moved about, and there was no telling what they might do. He must be prepared.

He travelled very awkwardly. Sometimes he overstepped and stubbed his nose. Quite as often he understepped and stubbed his feet. Then there were the stones that turned under him when he stepped upon them; and from them he learnt that the things not alive were not all in the same state of stability. But with every mistake he was learning. The longer he walked, the better he walked.

He had the beginner’s luck.^[23] Born to be a hunter (though he did not know it), he found meat just outside his own cave-door. It was a ptarmigan nest. He fell into it, in the midst of seven ptarmigan chicks.

They made noises, and at first he was frightened. Then he understood that they were very little, and he became bolder. They moved. He placed his paw on one, and its movements were slowered. This was a source of enjoyment to him. He smelled it. He picked it up in his mouth. It struggled and tickled his tongue. At the same time he felt hunger. His jaws closed together. There was a crunching of small bones, and warm blood ran in his mouth. The taste of it was good. This was meat, the same as his mother gave him, only it was alive between his teeth and therefore better. So he ate all the ptarmigan. Then he licked his chops^[24] in quite the same way his mother did, and began to crawl out of the bush.

There, the mother ptarmigan was in a fury and tried to hit him. He became angry. He no longer was afraid of anything. He was fighting. He had just destroyed little live things. He would now destroy a big live thing. He was too busy and happy to know that he was happy.

But he lost the battle with ptarmigan. She pecked on his nose, again and again. A rain of pecks fell on his ill-used nose. So he released his prey, turned tail and made an inglorious retreat. But, while he was lying in the bush, he saw a terrible hawk that caught the mother-ptarmigan and carried it away.

Live things were meat. They were good to eat. Also, live things when they were large enough, could give hurt. It was better to eat small live things like ptarmigan chicks, and to let alone large live things like ptarmigan hens.

He came down a bank to the stream. He had never seen water before. The surface looked good. He stepped boldly out on it; and went down, crying with fear, into the embrace of the unknown. It was cold, and he gasped, breathing quickly. The water rushed into his lungs instead of the air. Like every animal of the Wild, he had the instinct of death. To him it was the greatest of hurts.

He came to the surface, and the sweet air rushed into his open mouth. He did not go down again. He fought frantically, going under water from time to time, but finally he reached the bank. He crawled from the water and lied down. He had learned some more about the world. Water was not alive. Yet it moved. Also, it looked as stable as the earth, but was without any stability at all. His conclusion was that things were not always what they seemed to be.

One other adventure was destined for him that day. He had remembered that there was such a thing in the world as his mother. And then there came to him a feeling that he wanted her more than all the rest of the things in the world. Not only his body and brain were tired with the adventure. So he started out to look for the cave and his mother, feeling lonely and helpless.

He was going through some bushes, when he heard a sharp cry. He saw a weasel leaping away from him. It was a small live thing, and he had no fear. Then, before him, at his feet, he saw an extremely small live thing, only several inches long, a young weasel, that, like himself, had disobediently gone out on an adventure. He turned it over with his paw. It made a strange noise. The next moment he received a sharp blow on the side of the neck and felt the sharp teeth of the mother-weasel cut into his flesh.

Then the mother-weasel leaped upon her young one and disappeared with it. The cut of her teeth in his neck still hurt, but his feelings hurt more.

He was still whimpering when the mother-weasel reappeared. She approached cautiously, and the cub had full opportunity to observe her lean, snakelike body. She came closer and closer. The next moment she was at his throat, her teeth deep in his hair and flesh.

At first he snarled and tried to fight; but he was very young, and this was only his first day in the world, and his snarl became a whimper, his fight – a struggle to escape. The weasel never relaxed her hold. She hung on, trying to press the great vein with her teeth. The weasel was a drinker of blood.

The grey cub would have died, and there would have been no story to write about him, had not the she-wolf come through the bushes. Then her jaws closed on the lean, yellow body, and the weasel knew death between the crunching teeth.

His mother’s joy at finding him seemed even greater than his joy at being found. She caressed him and licked the cuts made in him by the weasel’s teeth. Then they ate the blood-drinker, and after that went back to the cave and slept.