My wild - The White Wolf

My Wild - Part 4

When we were about five months old I was out on one of these morning hunts when I came across another lone, male wolf. He was quite large but I could see by his gait that he was young; too young to leave the pack. He stood with slackened shoulders, his tail hung down and his head was held in a relaxed position. His ears stood up and swivelled from side to side but he did not appear threatening. His fur was silver brown in colour and it looked like he hadn't eaten much lately. I felt pity for this stranger and approached with cautious steps. When he noticed me coming he snarled at me and bared his teeth. I lay on the ground in submission and he perked his ears in surprise. He came over and sniffed me from head to toe and when he was satisfied he sat on his haunches and watched me. He had that funny look on his face as if he was contemplating something. I gradually rose onto all fours and stepped closer to him. I had smelled him from afar and his scent was laced with something familiar, but good familiar this time. I gingerly went over to him and his scent confirmed my suspicions. This was my brother Adri. I yelped in excitement and bounded around in circles. Luckily he was also excited to see me and exchanged my affections. I took him back to our den and showed him to Ezra. Ezra was very excited to see Adri and they rolled around together in the grass for a full 10 minutes. The next morning I decided to take Adri out hunting with me. Adri had never concentrated when our mother was teaching us how to hunt. He had always been chasing some butterfly or barking up a tree at a bird. It didn't look like he had had much luck with hunting in the past 3 weeks. I had been wanting to try and catch something bigger like a rabbit for a while and I thought that with Adri's help it might be easier. First, I went over to a mouse hole and demonstrated how I had been hunting. I lay down next to the hole and he joined me. I almost closed my eyes and waited. He kept fidgeting and I growled at him to lie still. He obeyed and lay still, copying me. A mouse emerged and Adri suddenly pounced forward and scared the mouse back into its hole. I growled and rolled my eyes at him. He looked puzzled but followed obediently until I found another hole. I lay outside and repeated my technique. He mirrored my movements, lying still, even when the mouse emerged. The mouse shot back inside, but after a few tries decided it was safe. He scampered out and Adri stared at it longingly but he didn't move. I swatted it and clamped it between my jaws, killing it swiftly, and dropping it proudly at his paws.

It took a few tries but Adri eventually got the hang of hunting mice. I decided that it was time to try something a bit bigger. We went out in search of rabbit holes and came across one not too far away. We waited outside the burrow and when the rabbit poked out its nose we both lay perfectly still. It was more wary then the mice but eventually it plucked up the courage and hopped out. It didn't work for the first, 6 or 7 tries but eventually we made our first kill. We took it back to Ezra to find he was missing. We both panicked and called for him. We waited for a reply and finally there was a distant howl. We tracked him down to find him rolling around with a female wolf. The female had wounds down her hind legs and she looked fairly young. She snarled when she saw us. Me and Adri bared our teeth at her and told her to back off. Ezra interrupted and barked at the female to stand down. She respectfully stepped back and watched calmly. I went over to Ezra and inspected him for any sign of injury while Adri kept his eyes locked on the female, snarling. I was reassured to find no injuries and stepped back in confusion. Ezra then explained that he had heard a distant howl and had hurried to it thinking it was us. When he arrived he had found her lying on the ground whimpering. She had let him clean her wounds and had told him about what had happened to her. She had been attacked by an adult wolf from the rival pack while she was out looking for food. This female wolf was Naledi. Me and Adri both yelped in excitement and greeted her with lots of affectionate licks.. We showed her back to our den and we all tucked in to the rabbit that me and Adri had caught earlier. Luckily Naledi had already taught herself how to hunt so it was much easier for her to get into me and Adri's routine. Ezra's foot healed nicely, although, he will always have a slight limp so he started to come on hunts with us making it much easier to catch more food to feed our growing pack.