Take Wing Part Two: The Second Key

The hills glowed a luminous blue beneath the wolfdog as he followed his lupine guide up the steep mountain face.  Breathing out, Juneau watched his own misty breath sweep back over him as a cloud in the pre-dawn stillness.  Just in front of him, Pawnee, his guide, muttered, "Not too much longer, yet.  Only a couple more hours."  Juneau, who was wont for lack of sleep, grumbled.  "Now, now," the wolf consoled him.  "We'll stop in a bit."

Several stubbed toes later, wolf and wolfdog sprawled in the cold sunshine beneath a rocky incline.  Desperate for some kind of food, Juneau got to his feet with some difficulty and wandered out of the shelter.  "I'll be right back," he called over his shoulder.  Pawnee, suspecting trouble, followed.  Juneau might think he can hunt food, but it's harder than he can imagine.  He's six months old and has never had to hunt for his own meat before.  Pawnee knew this thanks to Balto, the pup's uncle and his caretaker, who lived on a washed-up fishing boat on the outskirts of Nome, Alaska.  Once an outcast himself, half-wolf Balto had saved the town from a devastating disease.  So great was his success that even the wolf clan at the top of this very mountain had heard of his plight. 

The deceased leader of the Northern Heights pack, Bering, had been Balto's brother and Juneau's father.  Because the clan's current leader, Shonee, was corrupt, they had sent Pawnee to retrieve Bering's son closest to the mountain.  They had once abandoned the son because of his half-breed heritage-Juneau.  Now they hoped that he'd be able to overthrow Shonee.  Well, they're in for a surprise, thought Pawnee, the corners of his mouth quirking up.  Just ahead he could glimpse the half-grown hybrid sniffing eagerly at the mouth of a fox den.

"Hey!  Come look!"  Juneau didn't seem to mind that his wolf guide had followed him.  "There's a fox in here!"  Pawnee trotted up with mild interest.  Sniffing, he replied, "No.  See, the fox has already left.  There his tracks are, behind that old bush."

"Oh."  Juneau shuffled his large, creamy paws in the dust.  Poor kid, Pawnee sympathized.  He's starving, and doesn't know how to survive.  "Oh, all right," the wolf conceded, "we'll catch you a possum or a hare or something, but not that fox.  They're tricky to catch."  The pup bounced up and down, then winced as he looked down hatefully at a large, dusty bandage wrapped around his right foreleg.  Just four short days before, he'd jumped off a rooftop in an effort to escape the clutches of Caliber, the biggest and meanest puppy in Nome.  He figured that he must have bruised or even fractured something, but that wasn't about to stop him from going on a new journey.  Juneau was determined to unlock more keys from his past.

After Juneau caught (with a LOT of help from Pawnee) and ate a thick-coated hare, the duo trudged higher and higher up the craggy mountain.  Eventually, sounds could be heard in the distance.  Faint snarling, snuffling, and howling were only about a hundred feet away.  Juneau paused nervously.  "What if they don't like me, after all?"  He choked back a helpless whimper.

"You'll be fine.  I'll back you up."  Pawnee was becoming more and more attatched to this pup.  On their two-day trek together, they'd slept together and eaten together.  Now, as they entered the shadowy pass into the clan's cavern, he curved himself protectively around his young charge.

"Hey, Pawnee!  You're back!"  A large, milky-white wolf with dark brown bands winding around his legs stepped forward.  After that, a swarm of lupines crowded around them, almost overwhelming Juneau.  They spoke in hushed yet urgent whispers, fearing that Shonee would soon return from his solo hunt.

"Did you get him?"

"There he is!  Why, he's still small!"

"Son of ol' Bering, eh?"  This last statement belonged to an elderly dark gray wolf with a smattering of silver about his muzzle.  He peered at the newcomer with surprisingly strong golden eyes.  Juneau, summoning his courage, stared straight back at him.  "Well, well!  Bering's son you certainly are!"  The elder's eyes glinted with approval.  After that, two females led them to a small, hollowed-out covering of rock.  "Shonee won't see you here," one of the she-wolves assured Pawnee.

"Why don't we want him to see us?"  Juneau spoke hesitantly to her.

She chuckled softly.  "Because we want to be rid of him.  And between you and me" -she leaned down to speak in his soft, dark ear- "your father was a much better leader."  Smiling a little, she left the two alone.  No other wolves came to bother them, but the chaotic whispering continued.

"Well?"  Asked Pawnee with a sardonic grin.  "What do you think?"

Juneau wagged his shaggy tail.  "I like them."

Juneau sat up suddenly, blinking.  He must've dozed off...wait!  It was morning!  Pawnee was beside him, and appeared to be asleep, but then his luminous golden eyes opened quite suddenly.  "Get a good night's sleep, buddy?"  He yawned and flexed his long black claws.

"Sure did."  As Juneau pulled himself to his feet, Pawnee nodded approvingly.  He'd assumed that the rocky, bumpy ground would get the best of the pup, but he'd been wrong.  Juneau would adapt well to the life of a wolf.  "What do we eat?" asked Juneau, tail thumping.  "And when?"  Pawnee laughed.  "I don't know, and soon enough."  At that moment the same kind female wolf who'd spoken to them the night before appeared, seemingly out of nowhere.  Now that it was daylight, Juneau could see her dappled orange-gold coat and keen violet-blue eyes.  The only thing that marred her beauty was a rather large scar running down her left cheek, just about an inch below her eye.  She smiled broadly at them.  "Ready for breakfast?"

"Am I ever!"  Juneau licked his chops, and the other two laughed.  Then a serious look passed over the female's face.  "Then after that there's a secret meeting on the mountain's peak.  It's about an hour's good going from here, but the way's been cleared.  There shouldn't be any problems," she assured them, though even Juneau could read her concerned face like a book.  They all knew the danger of holding a secret meeting right under the alpha's nose.  If they were caught, the punishment would be dire. 

Juneau refused to think about the consequences and busied himself with thinking of home as they followed the other wolves into the cave for breakfast.  I wonder how Brite's doing.  He and his recently acquired friend, Brite, a Border collie/husky mix, had had an awkward goodbye, and he wished that he could go back and do it over.  But if she really was what she seemed, she wouldn't care about that.  Blunt and inquisitive, Brite didn't seem to care what others thought, especially when it came to her cousin, Caliber.  Juneau shuddered, remembering when he'd found out that she and the pup who'd caused him to jump off a roof were related.  But certainly, Brite disliked Cal at least as much as Juneau himself.  He couldn't help but chuckle to himself, remembering the last dirty trick that he and Brite had played on their young oppressor.  He could still hear Cal's scream when he'd gotten a mouthful of some horribly prickly burrs.  Suddenly, though, he was jerked to the side. 

Crouching and panting, Pawnee and the female lay in wait beside him.  "I...I don't think it was Shonee," murmured she.  "But it's always best to be on the safe side."

"I agree, erm..."  Pawnee trailed off lamely.

"Aspen," she supplied with a little grin.

"Aspen.  Right."  The wolf asserted himself and crept out of hiding.  Juneau could see he was embarassed.  The pup exchanged a wink with Aspen, and then they both slid out from behind the boulder, stifling bursts of laughter. 

Breakfast was cold and hasty, but that didn't stop the flow of questions directed at Juneau.  Finally Pawnee, Aspen, and the elder with the silver muzzle blocked up the ebb and suggested that they hurry up and get to the mountain top.  The curious wolves relented and began to trot up a nearby hill.  As they started off, it took Juneau a minute to realize where he'd seen that familiar gait before.  Then he remembered; almost everywhere they had gone, Balto had jogged in a similar fashion.  The young wolfdog strove to become a carbon copy of his uncle, and before long he was succeeding. 

Aspen accompanied himself and Pawnee, but nobody dared to speak openly.  Only the elder, who lead the procession, spoke in a normal tone of voice, to supply directions.  He could have saved his voice, for all the wolves knew how to get there.  A bumpy dip here, a gap in the cliffs there, and they were plunging into the sunlight.  Wolves swarmed around and into a large cave carved into the surface of the mountain.  Juneau shivered longingly.  That sun had felt good on his frosty fur.  But, he reminded himself, we must stay out of sight of Shonee in case he gets back early.  At first he wondered what was taking the others so long to start the