Free Spirit Wolf by Gary D. Svee Page B

about the coulee, about the tracks he had seen. He did not tell his father about the incident in the brush.
    Uriah had spent most of the day carving himself into the landscape, trying to disappear into the bush where he was hiding. Only his eyes moved as they searched the landscape for some sign of the wolf. When he breathed, he let the air go so slowly the vapor was not visible. He had been sitting for more than an hour, wriggling his toes to keep the blood flowing through them.
    He watched only the upwind course of the coulee. Nothing would be wandering across the plateau to his back. It was too open, too exposed, too dangerous. Besides, any animal downwind would catch his scent and avoid the ambush.
    He had been watching the deer for some time. She was meandering slowly, stopping to browse on sage and buck brush poking through the snow. He might not have shot her, but she continued to walk ingenuously toward the bush where he was hidden. It was inevitable that she would catch his scent on the breezes playing through the coulee, and when she did, she would spook. And that would spook any other animals in the vicinity. So he shot her. The slug broke her shoulder, coursed through her lungs and lodged under the rib cage on the other side. She fell immediately, struggling quietly in the snow while the life leaked out of her. Uriah didn’t watch. Instead his eyes searched the walls of the coulee, looking for animals that might have been frightened into flight by the crack of the rifle. But there were none, so Uriah walked over to the stricken doe. She kicked just a little as he cut her throat.
    â€œIt was a good thing it took you so long to come up that coulee, Nash,” Uriah said.
    Nash looked quizzically at his father.
    â€œWell, I was thinking, Uriah said.” I was eating a piece of jerky and thinking about how cold it is today, and all at once it came to me. The only thing wrong with our plans so far is that I get cold. You do a great job of stumbling around in the brush and chasing the game up to me. That doe was so interested in the racket you were making that she didn’t even notice me, but I was a little uncomfortable sitting up here waiting for you.
    â€œI know your daddy’s comfort is of the utmost importance to you, so I sat here trying to figure out how we could best take advantage of your brush-bucking ability and my penchant for sitting.
    â€œI think I’ve got it worked out. Maybe tomorrow I’ll just stay in camp by the fire and send you out to chase the wolf back to me. That way I won’t get cold. What do you think of that?”
    Nash worked hard to nip the grin that was trying to take root in his face. “Well, Dad, I think that’s a good idea,” he said. “But I hate the idea of you sitting out in the cold with just a fire to keep you warm. Maybe you should just stay in bed and leave the flap to the lean-to untied. I could drive the wolf in to you, and you could run your socks under his nose until he passed out.”
    â€œI like your thinking, boy, but maybe I should carry a stick, just in case the socks don’t work.”
    â€œI’ve been in the lean-to at night,” Nash retorted. “The socks will do just fine.”
    Uriah whooped, and the two rode away from the coulee with the sound of their laughter surrounding them. It was still light when they dropped off the ridge into the campsite on Dry Creek, but for a moment Nash thought they had come to the wrong place.
    The night before the camp had been full. This afternoon it looked like a gold camp after the color ran out. Bullsnake and Maxwell were still there with Flynn and three or four others, but fully half the camp had gone. Then, as though to fill the vacuum left by the others, there was a newcomer. He was sitting on a log at the edge of the camp, huddled in a dark blanket.
    Flynn walked up as the two reined in their horses near their lean-to. “Glad to see you back. Getting a