Julie

A wolf howled. He began on a note lower than a bear’s growl, then climbed the scale to the highest pitch of the wind and help it there.

The cry traveled across the snowy tundra and was heard by a young girl standing at the door of a small green house. The wooden structure sat on the edge of an Eskimo village on the bank of the frozen Avalik River in Alaska. She pushed back the halo of fur that framed her lovely face and listened. The wolf was telling her to come with him. She did not answer.

Julie Edwards Miyax Kapugen knew the wolf well. He had shared food with her when she had been lost on the endless tundra. He had run and played with her. He had rested in her tent while she had nursed him back to health from his bullet wounds. Now he was trying to locate her. He must not find her. He must go away, far away. After many years of separation, Julie was going home to her father, Kapugen, and he, she knew, would kill the wolf.

“That is how it is,” she whispered to the howler. “If you come near Kapugen, he will shoot you. He is like all Eskimo hunters. He will say, ‘The wolf gave himself to me.'”

The howl rose and fell.

Julie squinted toward the distant caller. “Stay away, beloved Kapu. I am going home.”

She waited. The wolf she had named Kapu after her father, the great hunter and leader, did not call again. Quickly she opened and closed the first door that led into Kapugen’s house. She walked into the qanitchaq, and entry room designed to kepp out the cold. Its walls were hung with parkas and boots, and on the floor stood paddles, guns, and gasoline cans. She put down her pack, took off her sealskin parka and maklaks, or boots, and hung them on pegs. She stepped to the second door, which opened into the living room, and hesitated.