Free The Last Wolf by Jim Crumley Page A

Chisolm in Gleann Chon-fhiadh, or the Wolves’ Glen, a
     noted retreat of these animals in the sixteenth century.
    The animal in question had made her den in a pile of loose rocks, whence she made excursions in every direction until she became the terror of the country. At length, the
     season of her cubs increasing her ferocity, and having killed some of the neighbouring people, she attracted the enterprise of the Laird of Chisolm and his brother, then two gallant young
     hunters, and they resolved to attempt her destruction. For this they set off alone from Strath Glass, and having tracked her to her den, discovered by her traces that she was abroad; but
     detecting the little pattering feet of the cubs in the sand about the mouth of the den, the elder crept into the chasm with his drawn dirk, and began the work of vengeance on the litter. While
     he was thus occupied, the Wolf returned, and infuriated by the expiring yelps of her cubs, rushed at the entrance, regardless of the younger Chisolm, who made a stroke at her with his spear,
     but such was her velocity that he missed her and broke the point of his weapon. His brother, however, met the animal as she entered, and being armed with the left-handed
lamhainn
     chruaidh
, or steel gauntlet, much used by the Highlanders and Irish, as the Wolf rushed openmouthed upon him, he thrust the iron fist into her jaws, and stabbed her in the breast with his
     dirk, while his brother, striking at her flank with the broken spear, after a desperate struggle she was drawn out dead.
     
    Gasp.
    So, you get the gist. It’s a run-of-the-mill example, with echoes of Skye, although I admit I did not see the stuff about the left-handed gauntlet coming. My inquiries on that particular
subject drew a total blank. Whatever the
lamhainn chruaidh
may have been, it was far from ‘characteristic of the Highlanders and Irish’. Indeed, it is far from clear what
practical purpose it might have served other than the one in question – jamming into the open jaws of a wolf that happened to be running at you with its mouth open.
    And then there was Sutherland. To this day, a cairn by the side of the A9 near Helmsdale lays claim to the killing of the last wolf in Sutherland, a deed done in Glen Loth, although there are
rival claims from Assynt and Strath Halladale, all of them in the decade between 1690 and 1700. Inevitably, none died a natural or even a vaguely credible death, but if you believe in the notion of
a folk mind that gathered and articulated these stories, it finally took leave of its senses in Glen Loth. Glen Loth is a bit-part player in the pageant of east Sutherland’s mountainous
landscape. Here, all the great valleys that drain into the North Sea are straths – Strath Fleet, Strath Brora, Strath of Kildonan – and in that company, Glen Loth is a skinny and unsung
thoroughfare, unsung apart from the Pythonesque madness of its contribution to Last Wolf Syndrome. Its story is this (and see if you can spot the now familiar ingredients):
    A Helmsdale man called Polson, his son, and another local lad, found a wolf’s den in a small cave with a narrow entrance. Polson sent the boys in. Bones and horns, feathers and eggshells
littered the floor. Then five or six cubs were found inside. The boys had been told what to do. Soon Polson heard the death cries of the cubs. Enter the female wolf ‘raging furiously at the
cries of her young,’ according to one of a number of graphic accounts. It goes on:
     
    As she attempted to leap down, at one bound Polson instinctively threw himself forward and succeeded in catching a firm hold of the animal’s long and bushy tail, just
     as the forepart of her body was within the narrow entrance of the cavern. He had unluckily placed his gun against a rock when aiding the boys in their descent, and could not now reach it.
     Without apprising the lads below of their imminent peril, the stout hunter kept a firm grip of the wolf’s tail, which he