in temperature. She looked up to see Flint pad quietly over, awestruck and proud.

“Oh…my…” He gazed at his new pups for a few long seconds before shaking himself. “It’s a riot out there. The whole pack wants to get in here and murder you. Linder, Quicksilver, and Blake are guarding the entrance, but three wolves against fifteen aren’t going to last long. We need to move quickly.”

He bent down and gently snatched up the white male by the scruff of its neck just as a wolf managed to barge past Blake, creating a gap for the rest of the wolves to slip through.

“C’mon!” Linder shouted in exasperation. She knocked the wolf to the ground and grabbed up two pups in her teeth. “ ‘o, ‘o!”

Aleu struggled to her feet and swayed. Linder steadied her and tried to step quickly to the back wall where Flint had gotten in by knocking a hole into the thinned earth. Aleu craned over her shoulder and picked up the last two pups.

Blake was thrown at Aleu’s feet and the mob raced into the cave. Quicksilver tried to stop them by wounding them any way he could, but it wasn’t enough. Still, he held his post while Blake got to his feet and saw one wolf headed in Flint’s direction. He hesitated, but then he saw the white puppy Flint carried in his teeth. Immediately Blake knew what to do.

Aleu watched with horrified eyes as the wolf leaped into the air to come down on Flint…but Blake cut in front of the attacker and got the slice of a wound into his neck. He fell with an agonized moan and lay still.

“Blake! No!” Aleu cried as best as she could through the puppy skin and fur in her teeth.

Flint froze in astonishment, then smashed his paw into the attacker’s head to send him keeling, and sprinted out of the cave into the cold night.

Linder pushed Aleu through the hole and they raced across the field, fighting thoughts and feelings as they plunged through the grasses. Flint’s bobbing black form showed up in front of them, and the three ran until they reached an unfamiliar overhanging of stone nestled by a nearby stream.

Aleu dropped the two puppies beside her and flopped down by the stream, splashing water on her face and choking back sobs. The cold droplets hung in her fur and slowly were chilled, but she didn’t care.

After awhile Aleu calmed down enough to notice something strange about the place they were in. There was no wolf scent anywhere. She gave Linder a questioning look, and the wolf said, “We’re in what humans would call ‘no man’s land.’ This is the space between two different pack territories, which no wolf can cross or enter without invitation…I know we’re not supposed to be here, but we’ve got so many wolves after us I figured we’d better find a place where they wouldn’t think of looking.”

“Where WILL they think of looking?” Aleu asked tiredly.

Linder shrugged. “Probably the old pack cave, or farther out on the edge of our territory. You do know we’re unofficially Rejected now, right?”

Aleu nodded slowly, but a pitiful whimper returned her attention to the two pups squirming beside her. She carefully picked them up and stepped over to place them on the ground next to a cracked gray boulder with their two other siblings, which Linder had put there and been trying to keep warm for the past few minutes. She counted them and said, “Flint had the other pup. Where is he?”

Soft, muffled cries echoed from a dark corner in the shadow of another big rock. Aleu glanced back at Linder, and the gray and white wolf nodded in consent. She curled around the pups as Aleu darted over to the rock and found Flint camouflaged against the night’s darkness. His shoulders shook. At his feet lay a tiny white body Aleu recognized as the missing pup.

She scooped the pup up and drew him close to her, crying, “Have you gone nuts? Or just plain stupid? You’ll freeze him to death!”

“Death…” Flint whispered. He swallowed and started shaking his head fiercely. “I couldn’t keep him warm…Other pups had a sibling to be warmed by…But not mine, not mine, dang it…Aleu, he’s dead. He died.”

In that instant Aleu felt the limp form of the little body against her. She was speechless for a second, then laid the body on the ground. The white pup didn’t move; he was only a pack of skin and bones.

Aleu felt the dagger of grief burrow deep into her, deep down until it left a raw, grating scar that would never heal. It was too much for one night.

She buried her face into Flint’s thick fur and screamed and sobbed and shrieked until her throat could make no sound. Flint held her, and the hot tears that fell from his eyes bathed Aleu in sadness. She felt those tears enter her heart and crystallize, locked into her until something miraculous caused them to melt.

Summer

Six weeks later, Aleu drowsily slouched to the stream one morning, only to be attacked by three of her four pups. “Whaaaa! Hey, take it easy, guys!” she cried cheerfully, rolling in the grass.

“Ha! We got you, Mom!” Shade, the black and brown-gray male, cried gleefully. His mother always referred to him as Shade, but his siblings preferred calling him ‘Dirt’, an observant reference to his fur color.

“Yeah! Did you see my pounce, Mom? I’ve been practicing,” Ruska yelled. She was the youngest, with multi-colored rustic patches patchworking her coat. “Yesterday I pounced on Dirt and rolled him in the mud, and I smashed him in so hard he couldn’t get up!”

“Yeah, well, you almost DROWNED me when you did that!” Shade shot back, “It’s kind of hard to get up when you’re busy drowning!”

“Ruska, I’ve told you not to play near the stream,” Aleu reminded her, “You know, you could’ve hurt Shade…and that’s not a good thing! Does anyone know where Remus is?”

“I think she’s sleeping,” Shaila said cheerily, pausing to poke at a bug in the grass with her nose. She was the second-youngest and quietest pup, with a white coat and a red mark on her forehead.

Ruska rolled her eyes. “She’s ALWAYS sleeping,” she complained, “She misses out on so much great stuff! Like mud fights!”

“Don’t forget about snowball fights,” Shaila piped, “We’ll be able to have those soon, right, Mom? You made them sound like fun!”

“I’ll tell you what’s fun,” Shade muttered mischievously. He eyed an area off in the distance. “Hey, Ruska. Look!”

There was an unusual silence as Ruska glanced away.

Shade jumped onto her, and together they tussled on the ground. Shaila laughed and cheered them on from a safe distance. Aleu placidly watched the two for a few seconds, then patiently came over and separated them. They strained against her paws, but she held them back. “Okay, break it up.”

“What’d I miss?” yawned a familiar voice. Remus, a black and white pup and the oldest of the four, haughtily made her way out of the ‘cave’ of pine branches stationed against the boulder that served as a makeshift home. She trotted over to the stream and drank thirstily.

“Well, well, look who’s finally up and about,” Aleu chuckled.

“How come you have to sleep all the time, Remus?” Ruska asked.

“Because I’m tired,” Remus snapped, “That’s why.”

Ruska stared at her older sister, then shrugged and found a stick to chew to pieces. Aleu let Shade crawl up her back and ride on her shoulders. She cast a worried look at Remus, who didn’t seem any more rested than if she hadn’t slept at all. “Are you okay, Re? You look really tired. I mean REALLY.”

“Mom, I don’t know what’s the matter. All I know is I go to sleep, and then I have these really weird dreams-”

“Dad’s home!” Shaila announced, and all the pups including Remus scrambled to meet him as he emerged from the tall scrub. Aleu smiled when she saw Flint, but her expression became more solemn when she saw he had brought nothing from his hunt. This was the third day they had had no fresh meat. What would happen when they ran out of stored food?

“Hey, everybody!” he exclaimed fondly, laughing as the pups danced around him, nipping at him and yipping for joy.

“Did you get any food, Dad?” Shade asked, wiggling all over.

“You’ll just have to wait and see,” Flint said mysteriously, then trotted over to Aleu and kissed her softly.

She nuzzled into him. “Morning. Where are Linder and Quicksilver?” Quicksilver had rejoined them a few days after the escape.

Flint grinned slyly and blew warmth through her fur. “You’ll see.”

Linder and Quicksilver emerged from the grasses dragging a small caribou behind them. The pups whooped in excitement and waited impatiently as the food was set down and Aleu and Flint settled in to their meal first.

“Aleu, I don’t know how this is going to sound,” Flint said in a low voice, swallowing, “But I don’t think we can stay here anymore.”

“What? Why?”

“Can’t you see for yourself? We have more to feed in our ‘pack’, but there’s not enough food for all of us to eat well. And we don’t even have shelter, or really a home. Those pine branches aren’t going to last long. And all we’re really doing is hiding from our