Chapter 4: Rain

 

 

 Groggily, Akelah opened her eyes.  The last thing she could remember was running through the snow with her Pack, running from a sky monster with huge whirling wings.  Then, she felt a searing pain in her shoulder and the awareness of her sister near by.  After that, blackness had swept over her and muffled the feeling of human hands bundling her on a sled.  Shaking her head to dispel the dizziness that the sleeping drug had induced, Akelah stretched and surveyed her surroundings. 

 

She was in a small metal kennel.  The door had crossed bars, but the walls were solid metal.  There was a layer of straw and woodchips covering the floor and a bed in one corner.  A faint odor of disinfectant was almost completely overpowered by the stench of humans.  Akelah also picked up the smell of many other wolves near by. 

 

Loud footsteps and an increasing smell of human warned Akelah of a human approach.  It was a female, and she held a leash in one hand and a bag of meat in the other. At the other end of the leash was a small silver wolf.   The human opened the cage and dumped the meat out on to the ground.  Then, she nudged the wolf into the kennel and, after unhooking the leash, relocked the door. 

 

“Oh, Akelah, my sister, it is good to see you!”  The newcomer began to lick Akelah’s face in a friendly greeting.  Akelah recognized the playful manner and unusual silver eyes. Akelah's sister smiled. "After the humans separated us, I was afraid for you.  A wolf in the cage beside me said this place is called a reserve.  The humans take injured animals here and nurse them back to health.'

 

"But you're not hurt, Lunita.  I got hit on the shoulder though."  Akelah ducked her head.  “How come you are here?" Akelah’s younger sister laughed and answered, "Blackie, the wolf who told me what this place is, said that it was probably obvious that we were close siblings."  Akelah nodded. 

 

"I wonder why that human was shooting at us.  Maybe he owned the caribou we were trying to hunt."  Lunita shrugged. 

 

“Honestly, I don’t care.  I wonder when they are going to let you out to the courtyard.”

 

“The what?”

 

“The courtyard is where the humans let the wolves out to play and socialize.  You might be too injured.”

 

“Are you hungry?  The human left enough for two.”  Lunita nodded greedily.  After tasting the meat, she gagged.  “Eww.  It tastes like stale moose antler.  Metallic too.  Where’s the fresh caribou?”

 

“Probably back on the comyagona.” Replied Akelah, using the Alaskan wolf word for ‘home’ or ‘tundra’, which was home to all Alaskan wolves.  Alaskan wolves named their offspring using Ancienra, their system of ancient words.  Akelah meant ‘snow spirit’.  Lunita meant ‘little silver moon’.  Both the sisters had been named for their fur.  Akelah’s father was called Solrega, ‘sun-warrior’.  Aurorna, Akelah’s mother, was named after the northern lights.

 

“Well, this meat can wait until I starve to death.  I wouldn’t be caught dead eating that.”  Lunita turned her back on the meat and kicked straw on it.

 

Akelah feel back into the numbing darkness of sleep.  Human voices woke her, and the same female who had brought Lunita stuck a hand in and hooked a leash on to both wolves.  Then, giving Akelah tether to a nearby male, the human led them off through the vast halls of the reserve.

 

A door loomed ahead and when it opened, a flood of bright light and wolf scent washed over them and Akelah feasted her senses on it, eager to smell wolf scents and outdoors after days of confinement.  The male unleashed her and Lunita shut the door.  The wolves in the courtyard looked up and a blackish one leapt up and headed for Lunita.  Akelah judged him to be a friendly wolf, but a simple one.  All brawn, little brain, she thought.  He greeted Lunita in a drawling southernish voice.   

 

“Well now, me purdy silva’ pal, who’s yer friend?”  His speech was very rustic.  Lunita imitated his drawl as she answered.

 

“Akelah be’s her name.  She be me ol’ sis, shore ‘nuff.  Wot cha’ been doin’ wid yerself, Blackie?”  Blackie laughed aloud.

 

“Yer a cleva’ ‘un, Silva’.  So, that ‘un there be’s yer ol’ sis, eh?  I’ll jus’ call ‘er Snowie, I can’t ‘andle dose difficult names such as the names ye Upland wolves think up.  Gosh, what happened to Snowie’s shoulder there?”

 

“Jus’ a likkle bullet wound, it’s nutt’n’.”

 

“Nutt’n’?  That ain’t nothin’, that there is the reason yer sis be’s in this here place, I’d reckon.”  Lunita nodded ruefully.

 

“Aye, for true.  One o’ dem helicopters shot ‘er, tried to shoot me too, y’know.  An’ she be’s the reason I be in this here place too, to keep ‘er company.”

 

“Yer sis mute or somthin’?  She ain’t said nothin’ this whole here time, not a word.”  Akelah jumped in relived at the chance to get a word in edge-wise.

 

“No, Blackie, I am not a mute.  I simply found I had nothing to say.”  Blackie nodded.

 

“Well, ye be a well-spoken wolf, Miss Snowie.  Yer sis here was all high-faultin’ too when I first met ‘er.  She thinks it be’s funny to imitate me speech.”  Lunita returned to her normal speech as she made a serious inquiry of her new friend.

 

“Blackie, enough fun and games.  Have you heard of any more comyagona wolves come in with bullet wounds?”

 

“No, sorry.  And sure I couldn’t ask ‘cuz I couldn’t remember that there word, the ‘comyanago’ word.”

 

“It’s comyagona, not comyanago, and it means home in Ancienra.”

 

“In what?  I can’t pronounce that there word neither.”

 

“By the Climetota er wur Comyagona, every wolf has heard of Ancienra!”

 

“Well, this here wolf hasn’t!”  Akelah hastily interrupted before the argument escalated into a fight.

 

“No matter.  Wur comyagona is a special place, perhaps wolves elsewhere have forgotten Ancienra.  Blackie, have there been any newcomers at all?”

 

“Well, there was one.  He’s a dappled gray wolf.  I saw ‘im in the injured courtyard, wid a huge wound on ‘is head.  Couldn’t speak much, poor guy.  He was in shock and pain.  Jus’ managed to say that he came from the Valleys o’ the Fire Mountain.”  Akelah felt the hairs on the back of her neck prickle.

 

“Well,” she replied, “The valleys of the Fire Mountain aren’t anyplace in our packs territory.  Where is this dappled wolf now?”

 

“Probably inside—Wait, there he is!”

 

All the wolves looked up as the door opened once more and a dappled wolf tumbled out.  He stumbled over to a corner and stared at the observers through proud golden eyes.  Most of the wolves went back to their previous activities, paying the new-comer no notice.  Akelah and Lunita walked over to him and greeted him formally.

"Good day, he-wolf.  I am Akelah Solrega-ya, and this is my sister, Lunita Solrega-ya.  We come from the comyag-"  Akelah stopped herself, figuring that this wolf would have not heard of the comyagona.  "Err, the upland, the Artic tundra.  What are you called?"

"My given name is Rain, son of Lightning and Holly, the Alphas of the Forest Pack in the Valleys of the Fire Mountain!"

 

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