The overhead sky is the same blue white shade as Hickory’s eyes, and he watches a distant eagle soar across the open air of the crater. There are no clouds on this bright summer day, and it is not quite hot enough to be uncomfortable, thanks to the breeze that ruffles the longer guard hairs on Hickory’s red and black coat.

A scurry of tiny feet causes his head to turn quickly to the right, his dark nose pointed in the direction of the noise. He tilts his head to the left at an almost comical angle, but it allows his flopping left ear to look almost normal, and to function perfectly. There’s a groundhog there, his nose tells him, munching on the soft leaves that grow from the foot-high saplings. The wolf turns, quiet on his striped legs, and takes several steps closer to his potential lunch.

He cannot pinpoint the location of the groundhog’s den (probably somewhere up in the hill) and he can only hope that he can pounce before it has time to dive back underground. Hickory flattens his body, creeping up a few inches at a time toward the plump little animal. Fortuantely for him, it is making quite a racket in the leaves, enough noise to hide the occasional misstep of his own. The groundhog sees him a moment before he pounces, and Hickory’s teeth grasp down on one of its left legs rather than square in the center. It’s not enough to keep it from pulling out of his grasp, but it cannot run, and Hickory soon has it pinned down again. He breaks its neck with a quick shake of his head, and carries it back to the small clearing from which he had been watching the eagle.

A few minutes later, he is full enough to feel drowsy. He lies down on a soft patch of grass and stretches his front legs out in front of him, licking them more out of habit than out of any real need for cleanliness. As sleepy as he is, he doesn’t miss the quiet pad of paws in the woods to his right, and Hickory turns his head in time to spot a stranger coming out of the woods. He doesn’t stand up, but rather thumps his tail on the ground a few times, clearly not disturbed by the company.