Free Summer of the Wolves by Polly Carlson-Voiles Page B

thrown by a giant’s hand. She wondered about the bear the boys had talked about and felt uneasy.
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    The sky began to clear when Nika was nearly halfway across the Big Island, going along the shore. Just as she was beginning to relax, she heard a crash in the woods. A large blackish animal with no tail raced away. It was kind of chubby and ran with a rocking motion. In an instant, she knew. She froze. But it was racing away from
her,
as though she were some Tyrannosaurus rex in jeans and a sweatshirt! After some minutes of taking deep breaths to control her fear, she continued on. The bear seemed to be headed toward the center of the island. She didn’t know much about bears, but there were plenty of scary stories about them, enough to keep her hyperalert, watching for shadows in the trees. Her comfort in this new place was shaken.
    One way to avoid watching for bears every minute was to distract herself by thinking of a name for the pup. She thought of her favorite photograph of a wolf, one she had cut out of a magazine at home and put in a scrapbook. The wolf looked regal, his chin held high; he looked proud, strong. Princely. But Prince was too corny. A dog’s name. A royal name would be good, though. She remembered last year in English class when they read a legend about Shan Yu, the Blue Wolf of Mongolia, and how the great Genghis Khan was called the Blue Wolf.
    â€œKhan,” she said, stopping for a minute to speak out loud to the rocks and trees and lapping water. “I’m going to call him Khan.”
    Aiming for the flattest rocks, she began to hop along again, excited to tell Ian about the name. Ahead a smooth rock jutted out, like a giant’s arm resting in the water. There were footholds in the steep side, and she soon found herself surrounded on three sides by water, high and dry and far from trees. There was one boulder on the top of this rock shelf, as though dropped there by someone. It might make a nice backrest. She plopped down, leaned, and watched Randall’s boat disappear behind an island on the far side of the lake. She felt the sun on her skin. The rock reassured her. There were no more crashing sounds. Confidence trickled back into her body.
    Down from her rock and just ahead a small yellow band of beach nestled in a cove. It looked private and protected. This must be the Big Berry swimming beach Claire had talked about. Maybe she’d go there and get her feet wet.
    When she looked out at the large lake again, three clouds hung in the bright blue sky, as if they’d been stuck up there with tape. In the distance a couple of fishing boats were dots on the water. She lay back, feeling the sun’s warmth seep up from the rock into her body. The sloshing sounds of the water made her sleepy.
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    Nika awakened to the sound of a hollow metal banging, as when oars hit the sides of an aluminum boat. A motor coughed and died. She heard a man’s voice swearing. Ugly knifelike words. Words she didn’t expect to hear lying on this rock, but words she’d heard before. She sat up to see a man standing unsteadily in the back of a fishing boat. He seemed to be about to land at the small beach. His words slurred, he shouted something like “Good for nothing animal, I’ll kill her when I find her . . .” The man had a long untrimmed beard and shapeless tan clothes. He held on to a pole. Suddenly he spotted her, lost his footing, and sat down hard on the aluminum seat. For a minute he just stared.
    Nika stood up and yelled, “Get out of here!” In moments her feet moved so fast she was hardly aware of sprinting across the broad surface of the rock and bounding into the woods. She kept running until she was out of breath. When she stopped to listen, she heard a motor start up. She continued breaking through the woods until she found the center path, looked quickly for bears, then jogged the rest of the way back to the sand spit that linked