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Spiritual Stones
(Special Addition)

Contents:
PART I
OTO, THE ALPHA
PART II
HANK, THE STRANGER
PART III
DIAMOND, THE NEW ALPHA




PART I
OTO, THE ALPHA

The wolves of the Ohu River ran in and out among the musk oxen. Their ruffs rippled like banners. Ice crystals danced up from their feet. The pack swirled like a twist of wind-blown snow. Their yellow eyes flashed and dimmed in the coming and going of ice mist. Like snow, they made now sound.
The musk oxen stopped and stared at the enemy. Then they lowered their shaggy heads and pawed down to the new grass growing under the snow.
Their breath rose in steamy clouds and froze on their brows. Oto, the young leader of the wolf pack, reared on her hind legs, leaped to point the way, and led her clan to a turquoise-blue rise on the treeless Arctic tundra.
She carried herself proudly, with her chest forward and her head high. Her crystal silk fur was brushed to a shine by the wind. Her body was cutely muscled. She was the leader of the wolf pack that had saved the life of a young Eskimo girl Mistery, whose English name was Jess Edwards--- when she was lost on the Arctic tundra. She, in turn, had saved them by leading them to a new food source during the great caribou famine.
The Yupik and Inupiat Eskimos of Kangik called them “Mistery’s wolf pack.”
Oto was keenly aware of Mistery. She was not far away. She whisked her tail. She (Mistery) had read her (Oto) message to the oxen, for she (Mistery) was no longer afraid to kill one. The villagers collected the wool from these sturdy animals to weave into light, warm clothing, and they zealously protected them.
“We are not hunting you,” Oto had said to the oxen with her body movements. “We chase you for the joy of it. We are wolves of the caribou.”
Oto and her followers were having fun. The shaggy herd deciphered this and returned to their grazing. Mistery deciphered it and told her father, Kapugen. He chuckled and slipped his arm around her shoulders. The two walked quietly home.
Oto wagged her tail. Chasing the oxen was a fine wolf joke. Her rime red brown mate, Takeru, playfully spanked the ground with his forepaws, her rear end in the air. Hunter--- the beta, or second in command--- enjoyed the joke even more than Oto. His (Hunter) breathing came faster, and the pupils of his eyes enlarged ever so slightly. Takeru smiled by lifting his lips from his glistening teeth. Pearly-white Pearl, Oto’s mother and her ill-tempered new mate, Bear, also smiled. But, Diamond, Oto’s
Shiny sparkle blue shiny coat daughter did not get the joke. She was not old enough to know that her pack preferred caribou to musk oxen. Nor did she know that some packs harvest only deer and ignore moose and caribou and ignore deer. Others take elk; few take musk oxen. When the Ohu River Pack had a choice, they were wolves of the caribou. Wolves have their cultures.
The adolescent Amy studied the curled horns and bony brows of the musk oxen, and then looked at her regal mother. If she thought the chase was fun, then she did, too. She (Amy) wagged her tail.
Amy could not possibly know that her pack were caribou wolves, she had been born in a caribou famine. These big Arctic deer had failed to come to Ohu territory for many years. The pack had taken what food they could find--- a musk ox killed by a grizzly bear, rabbits, and lemmings. Late in the fall they were able to add an occasional moose to their diet, but by March of her first year Amy’s pack was starving again. The moose were gone. The wolves grew thin. They tired easily. When the breeding season arrived that month, her parents did not mate. Oto, her mother, was undernourishment. There had not been enough food for her to develop healthy puppies. The rangy, self important Bear knew well that the pack had not had enough to eat for years. Nevertheless, he approached Pearl to start their family. Oto rushed to him. Hair rising on her back, ears erects and pointed forward, Oto talked to him in the wolf language of posturing. Then she lifted her head above him and rumbled a dark authoritative growl that said plainly, “No pups.”