"Wen Spencer - Ukiah 2 - Taintet Trail" - читать интересную книгу автора (Spencer Wen)

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Tainted Trail

by Wen Spencer




ROC books
First Printing, June 2002
To Carol Larkin, who always believed in me.
 Many thanks to the people who helped me with this novel, from answering technical questions to
helping me work out plot problems: D. Eric Anderson, Ann Cecil, Jeff Colburn, Amy L. Finkbeiner, Kevin
Geiselman, Nancy L. Janda, Dr. Hope Erica Ring, June Drexler Robertson, Thomas Rohosky, Diane
Turnshek, Larisa Van Winkle, and Aaron Wollerton.
 CHAPTER ONE


Continental Flight 5373: Pittsburgh to Portland, Oregon
Tuesday, August 24, 2004


He was cold because he was starving. The early winter had brought deep snow, and hunting
had been scarce. The wolves of his pack eyed him often, as if judging his weakness. Perhaps his
years of running among them would have kept him safe from being pulled down and eaten as the
gray ones grew thin. Still, he stopped sleeping among them, climbing pine trees to sleep above the
ground, far from their reach. Finally, the Wolf Boy trusted them no longer, and he ran by himself.
He knew the metal box was a trap. He had seen others like it, sprung, holding wolves fast.
There was, however, the dead rabbit inside, just beyond his reach. The sharp stick he stuck between
the box's bars moved the rabbit's head about, but the body seemed stuck. If he wanted to eat, he
would have to enter the box.
He had never been so hungry and cold, not in all his long vivid memories of countless
seasons. A wolf howled far off, and then again, closer. If he stayed outside the box, the wolves
would find him and perhaps kill him. If he left, one of them would get the rabbit.
Did he want to stay cold and hungry? Could he stand being trapped by those that walked on
two legs like he did? The Wolf Boy had a deep, nameless, formless fear of them. What would they do
to him? They put the wolves in their large, smelly vehicles and carried them away.
The wolf howled again, a minute's quick run away. He had to choose quickly. Food and
entrapment, or starving freedom? It was a decision that could mean life or death. Which one was
death, though, and which one was life?
For the first time in his life, the Wolf Boy chose the unknown. He would let himself be
caught. He would eat and then, maybe, escape . . .
"Ukiah?"
Ukiah Oregon woke, shivering, face pressed against an oval Plexiglas window. The endless muted
roar of the jet engines vibrated against his senses.
"You okay, kid?" Max Bennett, Ukiah's partner, had been making notes on his PDA in the aisle