Running with Wolves by Summer Lane

Author:Summer Lane [Lane, Summer]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Writing Belle Publishing
Published: 2017-09-18T05:00:00+00:00

Eleven

“The key is to give them a name that they can remember,” Nathanial said. He and Marilyn sat on the front porch of the cabin. It was August, and there had been torrential rainfall for two weeks. But today, all was still. The sun was shining brightly. I smelled supper on the stove. I played in the grass with a white, fluffy-tailed puppy with dark eyes.

I stopped and gave the tiny, wriggling creature a good look. Today was my fourteenth birthday. This puppy was my present—a gift from Nathaniel and Marilyn, and a way to celebrate my first year living in Alaska.

“Lincoln,” I said with confidence. “He’ll remember that.”

Marilyn smiled. “I like it. It’s unique.”

The puppy crawled onto my lap, frantically licking my fingers and crawling up my skirt, trying to reach my nose. I laughed and cradled him in my arms.

He’s mine, I thought. He’s all mine and nobody can take him away from me.

I would protect him. I would train him. This was my job, my task. It gave me a reason and a purpose to exist, something greater and more exciting than working the land or helping Nathaniel around the stables. We had just one horse, and only Nathaniel rode him; his name was Canoe, and he took Nathaniel back and forth from the mines every day.

But Lincoln was mine. Lincoln was my ward.

“I hope he’s a good runner,” I said.

“He will be,” Nathaniel replied. “He is part wolf; he was born to run.”

“Part wolf?” I repeated, awed.

“Yes. His mother was a malamute, Dixie was her name. His father was a timber wolf. They called him Tiger in camp.” Nathaniel grinned. “He was sold to me by a fur-trapper, an Inuit man with many dogs.”

“A real Inuit?” I said. “Tell me about him.”

The natives of this place fascinated me. Unlike Mother—who was fortunate enough to pass as a Frenchwoman and not only obtain an education, but also avoid many of the abuses Cherokees had been subjected to—many of the Inuit here did not speak English, nor did they have anywhere to obtain an education. They were birthed from the cold tundra and raised in a type of wild freedom that I had only ever heard stories about. Even my mother, Cherokee though she was, had never experienced a life like that. Most of her younger years were spent traveling from town to town. She never truly tasted the forest and woods like her mother and father before her.

“He was old,” Nathaniel replied. “And a shrewd businessman. But he was very drunk, as is usually the case with most of the savages in town.”

I flinched, looking down at Lincoln, saying nothing.

If only you knew, I thought.

“You must admit,” Marilyn said, “ever since the bottle was brought into Dyea and saloons were built, the Inuit and Chilkat traders have had problems.”

That, at least, was true. Many of the natives in the boomtowns had never seen or tasted alcohol before—once they discovered its drug-like effects, many became addicted, as did

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