"Clayton Emery - Joseph Fisher - Inwardly Ravening Wolves" - читать интересную книгу автора (Emery Clayton)

and fear and a plea for pity, known a kinship. A lone
wolf driven from his pack, struggling to survive
without home or family. Like Joseph himself.

Men smoked and chewed. Opechee ignited
kinnikinnic rank as scorched manure. Joseph shared
his pipe while checking the sky. Though only
midafternoon, dusk was near, for it was March, or
Mozokas the Moose Hunter, on the Maine coast.
Grainy snow lingered under holly and hemlock, yet
the spring air was tangy with pine pitch and oak
tannin.

Mister Hopkins pointed his pipe stem at anvil-shaped
thunderheads. "Weather's makin'. Best turn for
home. 'Haps we'll try again tomorrow, if it don't rain
and the womenfolk'll let us."

Men muttered about missing chores, but hunting
wolves beat pushing a plow or jerking stumps.
Joseph doubted they'd see the wolf tomorrow. Close
to, he'd seen the beast was heavy-bellied, gorged to
his blood-flecked nose, and would den up. Idly, the
student wondered what the glutton had caught,
since a late spring after a hard winter made deer
and timber elk scarce.

Shouldering muskets sloppily, the villagers bashed
through puckerbrush like bug-mad moose. One man
fired at crows. Others yelled coarse jokes. Opechee
shook his head. "They wander like children picking
wild strawberries."

Joseph nodded. "I try to warn them, but they do not
listen. Mayhaps when the Arosaguntacooks or
Kennebecs pluck a few scalps they will attend. But
white men are like red. Stubborn." He enjoyed the
low lilting Abenaki tongue, which reminded him of
Greek. "Will you join us on the morrow, brother?"

"I think not, Monminowis." Silver Cat was Joseph's
Abenaki name. "The Sheepscots smoke shad at their
summer camp at Pemaquid. I was blood brother to
a Sheepscot once, his totem the same as mine.
Perhaps they will take me in. If you are Penobscot,
why do you live amidst the English?"

Joseph shrugged. "There are many trails in the
forest, yet a man can only walk one. I was captured
and raised by Penobscots, then given to the Jesuits