Snow Valley, Southern Alaska: 1977
The rangy gray she wolf, still thin from the passing winter, paused at the edge of the tree line above the valley. As she lifted her nose and sniffed the air, the hair on the back of her neck rose. She could smell the danger. Every instinct she had told her to turn and run, but the pup beside her had needs she couldn't provide.
At that moment the pup whined. When she turned and licked its dusty face, it wiggled with pleasure. As much as she would like to lie down, time was not on her side. She nudged the pup gently until it latched on to her pelt. With a single whine of reassurance, she started forward, confident that it would follow as she started down the gentle slope into the valley below.
* * *
The spring sunshine in Snow Valley was a welcome respite from the bitter Alaskan winter and the months without sunlight. It took a special kind of people to be at peace with a world that had months without sunlight, then months without darkness, but ...
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