I begin my day following the trail of an elk. I catch the scent along the outskirts of the Crags and track him all the way to the Fields. I could have taken him as he crossed the Valley, but I don’t like to hunt there. I prefer to take my meals in seclusion. A warm elk, bleeding out in the open like that…it would attract too much attention, from wolves and other things, as well. So I wait. And I follow. His path is jagged and his hooves are unsure, but I’m patient. Finally he leads me to the river, only to go down in the water. I can’t say I’m surprised; he wasn’t getting along very quickly to begin with, and I suspected he was unwell. I had just hoped to take him down somewhere more private. But he’s done the hard work for me, and it’s still more than a fair meal – I’ll just have to eat and run.
I give him some time to die, waiting in the grass beyond the shore, but before I decide to move forward I catch another scent. Wolf. I’m not alone. Perhaps I never was. I sink to my stomach, perk my ears, and watch for movement. It isn’t long before the first figure appears, and there’s even less time between the first and the second. A third. My nostrils are overwhelmed by the scent of wolf, and before long there’s a veritable crowd around the river, around the fallen elk. There’s no way I’m going out there now, so I uncoil my muscles and settle in to see what happens.
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