Lone Wolves Read Online Free PDF Page A

how much Denny loved the peace and quiet of the wilderness. Besides, Denny always took one of her school books to read at night.
    Denny packed a knapsack with food she’d need for the trip: a couple of moose sausages to roast over a campfire for lunch, a can of chili for dinner, and bacon and biscuits for breakfast. She tossed in a pack of matches, a roll of toilet paper, and a couple extra candles, just in case the oil lamp was empty. On top of everything, she carefully set her diary, along with Anne Frank’s Diary of a Young Girl, which Ms. Stevens had assigned them to read over the weekend for English and history.
    When she was ready to leave, her grandfather handed her the pack.
    â€œI’ll come check on you ‘round suppertime. Make sure you got a hot pot of tea ready,” he said in his grandfatherly tone.
    â€œBut, Grandpa, I don’t need anyone to check on me.”
    â€œI know,” whispered the old man, glancing over his shoulder at Delia who was sitting beside her mother on the worn sofa sewing and doing beadwork. “But you momma worried about you. I promised to go check on you. That the only way she let you go.”
    He winked. He knew she would be safe at the cabin, but Denny’s mother worried about a young girl hiking up into the mountains all alone, especially after the wolf attack on the teacher.
    â€œHere, take my rifle,” he said, handing it to her. “You know how to shoot it. I got another one in the closet. Here’s a few extra bullets.”
    Denny put the bullets in her parka pocket and slung the rifle over her shoulder.
    â€œThanks, Grandpa,” she said and gave him a hug.
    She turned toward her mother when she opened the door to leave.
    â€œSee you tomorrow.”
    Her mother never looked up from her sewing.
    Denny loved the long trek into the hills, the solitude, where the only sound was that of her snowshoes and the wind in the trees. Along the way, she saw deniigi , a bull moose, far up on a hillside nibbling thin alders and willows. She shot two ggax —rabbits—which during winter turned totally white to hide from the many predators that hunted them.
    Life was hard at the bottom of the animal food chain.
    It took Denny almost three hours to snowshoe to the cabin, which was as cold inside as was the whitened world outside its door. She quickly got a fire going in the belly of the wood stove. While it roared, she unpacked her knapsack. Then she went outside and filled a large pot with packed snow, which she sat on the smoking-hot stove surface. It was only after completing these chores that she sat down at the little table by the small window and began to read Anne Frank’s diary.
    She got up after reading thirty pages to put another log in the stove and to check on her water. All the snow had melted, leaving only a few inches of water in the bottom. She stepped outside and added more snow to the pot. It was a slow process, melting snow for drinking and cooking water, but it was less strenuous than hauling water at eight pounds a gallon. After poking the fire to settle the hissing and popping logs, Denny finally took off her parka and sat down to resume reading. Several pages in, something outside the window caught her eye.
    A wolf was in the front yard snuffling in the fresh snow around a deadfall. He was jet black, except for one gray-white ear. Denny had seen wolves before, and she knew that while most wolves were gray and mottled, some were all black. But for this black wolf to have one discolored ear was rare—one in a million.
    Suddenly, it stopped, gazed intently at the ground, pricked its ears, and pounced, catlike. It didn’t catch whatever it was chasing. She watched as the wolf spun about, snuffled in the snow and pounced again. After several failed attempts, the wolf finally caught a small mouse. From where she sat, she could see the thin tail hanging from the wolf’s mouth. She leaned closer to the window,