Bitterroot Valley taurus

the land is marked with movement.

herds traveling through. someone else, someone better, might have seen it as promising. instead he sees inconvenience. packs might come for hunting, the beasts might take offense to his crossing. he could find himself on the wrong end of hoof and antler alike.

not that it meant anything when one was already as battered as he was.

disgruntled, he cut across the valley terrain. a shadow snowed over by the light dusting that fell from the sky.

they crossed the taiga in a wave.

sulukinak ranged away from her uncle. their own numbers had grown and they were feeling more crowded now to the shadow girl; she preferred being alone, and found the harassment of the caribou preferential to the attention of her own kind.

there was no escaping it forever, though. a shadow cut across the valley against the flow of bodily traffic; she saw this, thinking it oddly conformed for a caribou - so she sought its path and came creeping through the snow. not a caribou, not a stray calf - but those would come with spring's arrival and there was much time yet to wait - but, a wolf.

he was thick like a brown bear but not hulking, and broad but not tall, although sulukinak did not get so close as to ascertain his health, he was initimdating; she did not make a sound as she now followed him doggedly, curious and aloof as she often was.