December 5th, 2012

The winter frosts made the ground hard and the few plants above the snow stiff. White snow lay four inches thick speckled by tall dried grasses as far as her bluish purple eyes could see. The silver she wolf trotted along tail held low in pursuit of the slightest scent of cloved footed animal. Seeing no visible creature as such in the area Narimé continued along through the once beautiful meadow.

Clearly remembering the bloodred and orange flowers that had covered this field Narimé was surprised at how much more barren it looked now during winter. At first galnce it would seem as though nothing was living in the landscape covered in ivory cold. However upon closer inspection among the glittering snow the wolf could spot small trails dug out by meadow voles zig zagging throughout most of the field. Plus the occasional shift or hole in the snow betrayed the successful hunting of an owl catching a vole.

As she padded through the bright white the young hunter also spotted various tracks of other animals. A sure footed fox with its straight as a line track had crossed her current path surely searching for a meadow vole or mouse of its own. The larger slightly more sloppy tracks of coyote were spotted by the gray wolf upon first arriving in the rise.

Then there were some very large tracks that Narimé had no identification for. The scent of something was still clinging to the tracks meaning whatever had made those tracks had made them recently. Narimé was nervous, picking up her head and searching the area for something large. Then she looked at the tracks again. They were oddly rounded,like that of a cat, but they were huge tracks. She knew not only from the size of the tracks but the length of the animals stride that whatever this animal was, it wwas a lot larger than her.

With a wise attitude Narimé quickly decided to leave the area in the opposite direction those tracks had been headed. Even though the young wolf had never encountered or even learned about mountain lions, she knew this animal was dangerous. The scent would be remembered and prehaps she would learn about the creature in the future. However for now the young wolf was lucky that she had arrived soon after the big cat had already left.

(Exit Narimé)