"Where Wolves Don't Die" by Anton Treuer Chapters 13-17

We used ratchet straps to cinch everything down.

I drifted off into deep and unencumbered sleep.

I knew the eggs and pork chops wouldn’t last long while we were out here, and I was famished.

I looked down, feigning interest in my boots.

I gazed at the lakeshore to the top of the escarpment.

“We know these things because our ancestral knowledge has been passed on for millennia, just like I am passing it to you right now. We don’t need white scientists or archaeologists to tell us. We have our own knowledge and our own ways of knowing. For eleven thousand years, an alpha timber wolf has made that ridge the center of the pack’s territory. That’s why we call it Chief’s Ridge. The chief isn’t a human. It’s the alpha — the leader of the pack. He’s more powerful than any human.”

“The fisher is the most ferocious animal in the forest,” Grandpa Liam laughed.

She made me haul a full five-gallon pail of sap in each hand, admonishing me not to spill a drop, then throwing snowballs at me, knowing I couldn’t set them down.

I whispered, “Buster, you’re a fickle traitor. You were supposed to sleep with me!”

The snare wire was taut, but I couldn’t see any animal until Grandpa Liam gave the wire a firm tug, pulling the frozen form of a large lynx from the snow.

The skinning and stretching of hides were slower and more meticulous.

One party tried to track him, but as huge as he is, he is just as wily as he is mean.

I felt a surge of adrenaline as I moved with determined precision through the mundane tasks of brushing my teeth and donning my hunting clothes.

It got bigger as we went, a crescendo of vermilion jets unmistakable in the pure, white snow.

There’s either a creek or portage between each one, so go slow there.