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26 - Kazan by James Oliver Curwood · Kazan

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  Speaker 1: Chapter twenty six, an empty world mile after mile, Kazan
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  Speaker 1: went on for a time. He was oppressed by the
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  Speaker 1: shivering note of death that had come to him in
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  Speaker 1: Sandy mc trigger's cry, and he slipped through the banskins
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  Speaker 1: like a shadow. His ears flattened, his tail trailing his
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  Speaker 1: hind quarters, betraying that curious slinking quality of the wolf
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  Speaker 1: and dog stealing away from danger. Then he came out
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  Speaker 1: upon a plain, and the stillness, the billion stars in
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  Speaker 1: the clear vault of the sky, and the keen air
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  Speaker 1: that carried with it a breath of the Arctic barrens
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  Speaker 1: made him alert and questioning. He faced the direction of
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  Speaker 1: the wind. Somewhere off there, far to the south and west,
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  Speaker 1: was gray Wolf. For the first time in many weeks,
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  Speaker 1: he sat back on his haunches and gave the deep
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  Speaker 1: and vibrant call that echoed weirdly for miles about him.
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  Speaker 1: Back in the banskins, the big Dane heard it and
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  Speaker 1: whined from over the still body of Sandy mc trigger.
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  Speaker 1: The little Professor looked up with a white, tense face
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  Speaker 1: and listened for a second cry. But instinct told Kazan
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  Speaker 1: that to that first call there would be no answer.
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  Speaker 1: And now he struck out swiftly, galloping mile after mile
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  Speaker 1: as the dog follows the trail of its master home.
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  Speaker 1: He did not turn back to the lake, nor was
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  Speaker 1: his direction toward Red Gould City as straight as he
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  Speaker 1: might have followed a road blazed by the hand of man.
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  Speaker 1: He cut across the forty miles of plain and swamp
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  Speaker 1: and forest and rocky ridge that lay between him and
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  Speaker 1: the mac farlane all that night. He did not call
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  Speaker 1: again for grey Wolf with him, reasoning was a process
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  Speaker 1: brought about by habit, by precedent, and as grey Wolf
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  Speaker 1: had waited for him many times before, he knew that
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  Speaker 1: she would be waiting for him now near the sand bar.
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  Speaker 1: By dawn, he had reached the river within three miles
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  Speaker 1: of the sand bar. Scarcely was the sun up when
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  Speaker 1: he stood on the white strip of sand where he
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  Speaker 1: and gray Wolf had come down to drink. Expectantly and confidently,
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  Speaker 1: he looked about him for grey Wolf, whining softly and
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  Speaker 1: wagging his tail. He began to search for her scent,
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  Speaker 1: but rains had washed even her footprints from the clean sand.
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  Speaker 1: All that day. He searched for her along the river
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  Speaker 1: and out on the plain. He went to where they
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  Speaker 1: had killed their last rabbit. He sniffed at the bushes
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  Speaker 1: where the poison bates had hung. Again and again he
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  Speaker 1: sat back on his haunches and sent out his mating
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  Speaker 1: cry to her. And slowly, as he did these things,
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  Speaker 1: nature was working in him that miracle of the wild,
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  Speaker 1: which the Crees have named the spirit call. As it
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  Speaker 1: had worked in gray Wolf, so now it stirred the
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  Speaker 1: blood of Kazan. With the going of the sun and
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  Speaker 1: the sweeping about him of shadowy night, he turned more
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  Speaker 1: and more to the south and east. His whole world
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  Speaker 1: was made up of the trails over which he had hunted.
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  Speaker 1: Beyond those places, he did not know that there was
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  Speaker 1: such a thing as existence. And in that world, small
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  Speaker 1: in his understanding of things, was Gray Wolf. He could
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  Speaker 1: not miss her. That world, in his comprehension of it,
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  Speaker 1: ran from the MacFarlane in a narrow trail, through the
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  Speaker 1: forests and over the plains to the little valley from
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  Speaker 1: which the beavers had driven them. If Gray Wolf was
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  Speaker 1: not here, she was there. And tirelessly he resumed his
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  Speaker 1: quest of her, not until the stars were fading out
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  Speaker 1: of the sky again, and gray day was giving place
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  Speaker 1: to night. Did exhaustion and hunger stop him. He killed
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  Speaker 1: a rabbit, and for hours after he had feasted, he
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  Speaker 1: lay close to his kill and slept. Then he went.
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  Speaker 1: On the fourth night, he came to the little valley
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  Speaker 1: between the two ridges, and under the stars more brilliant
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  Speaker 1: now in the chill clearness of the early autumn nights,
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  Speaker 1: he followed the creek down into their old swamp home.
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  Speaker 1: It was broad day when he reached the edge of
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  Speaker 1: the great beaver pond that now completely surrounded the windfall
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  Speaker 1: under which Gray Wolf's second born had come into the world.
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  Speaker 1: Broken tooth and the other beavers had wrought a big
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  Speaker 1: change in what had once in his home and Gray Wolf's.
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  Speaker 1: And for many minutes Kazan stood silent and emotionless at
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  Speaker 1: the edge of the pond, sniffing the air heavy with
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  Speaker 1: the unpleasant odor of the usurpers. Until now his spirit
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  Speaker 1: had remained unbroken. Footsore, with thin sides, and gaunt head.
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  Speaker 1: He circled slowly through the swamp all that day. He searched,
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  Speaker 1: and his crest lay flat now, and there was a
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  Speaker 1: hunted look in the droop of his shoulders, and in
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  Speaker 1: the shifting look of his eyes. Gray Wolf was gone.
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  Speaker 1: Slowly nature was impening that fact upon him. She had
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  Speaker 1: passed out of his world and out of his life,
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  Speaker 1: and he was filled with a loneliness and a grief
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  Speaker 1: so great that the forests seemed strange, and the stillness
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  Speaker 1: of the wild a thing that now oppressed and frightened
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  Speaker 1: him once more. The daw lug in him was mastering
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  Speaker 1: the wolf. With Gray Wolf, he had possessed the world
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  Speaker 1: of freedom. Without her, that world was so big and
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  Speaker 1: strange and empty that it appalled him. Late in the afternoon,
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  Speaker 1: he came upout a little pile of crushed clam shells
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  Speaker 1: on the shore of the stream. He sniffed at them,
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  Speaker 1: turned away, went back, and sniffed again. It was where
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  Speaker 1: Gray Wolf had made a last feast in the swamp
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  Speaker 1: before continuing south. But the scent she had left behind
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  Speaker 1: was not strong enough to tell Kazan, and for a
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  Speaker 1: second time he turned away. That night, he slunk under
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  Speaker 1: a log and cried himself to sleep. Deep in the night.
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  Speaker 1: He grieved in his uneasy slumber like a child, And
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  Speaker 1: day after day and night after night, Kazan remained a
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  Speaker 1: slinking creature of the big swamp, mourning for the one
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  Speaker 1: creature that had brought him out of chaos into light,
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  Speaker 1: who had filled his world for him, and who, in
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  Speaker 1: going from him, had taken from this world even the
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  Speaker 1: things that Gray Wolf had lost in her blindness. End
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  Speaker 1: of Chapter twenty six of Kazan by James Oliver Kirkwood.
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  Speaker 1: Recording by Leonard Wilson of Springfield, Ohio.