I've been hunted many times. One man tracked me for three winters. After a while it was easy to stay just out of his range without really thinking about it. But one time, for fun, I walked into his camp while he was sleeping, shat in one of his boots, and took the other one away and tossed it in a pond.
You do silly things when you're young. You take risks without fully realising the odds. When you're older, maybe you get too careful, maybe you think too much. But the hunter who finally killed me was clever. He was slow and patient, took time to get to know me. I watched him once touch a twig I'd scratched my nose on and put it to his nose. I saw him pick bits of my fur from thorns and keep them in his pocket. He could track other animals just as easily, and had no problem surviving outside of those human zones, with their hard scentless tracks, their noise and blazing light.
I wondered if he could be one of the elder people my mother told us about, who lived alongside us, before I was born. They were like us, she said, we shared land and food. But this one wanted me dead, I knew it. I kept moving. At one point I almost ran headlong out into nowhere.
My last Winter came. The cold isn't a problem for wolves, it's just the lack of food.
