Runt by Marion Dane Bauer

looked for a long time at the dead animals scattered in the dewy grass. "Is it true?" he asked at last. "Do humans really contaminate all they touch?"
    "Not all," Raven replied. "But enough."
    Runt thought about that. "Tell me," he asked finally, "what should I do? Where should I go?"
    "Home," Raven replied. "Your father is waiting for you. Go home."
    Runt shook his head. "My father
named
me," he said. There seemed to be nothing more to say.
    "Your father loves you. Perhaps more than all the rest."
    "
Puh!
" Runt let out an explosion of disbelieving breath.
    "King watches you." Raven spoke gently. "He worries about you. He wants desperately for you to survive. If that's not love, I don't know what is."
    But Runt could only shake his head again.

22
    After Raven flew away, Runt sat for a long time, surrounded by the carnage. When several crows, a skunk, and a young badger showed up to feed, he warned them of the poison. Badger, apparently certain that Runt was trying to keep the entire feast to himself, moved off only as far as the underbrush on the other side of the fence and squatted there belligerently, waiting for the wolf pup to go away.
    Runt did finally, leaving stubborn Badger to his fate. He lowered his head and plodded away without taking note of the direction he chose. Since he had no place to go, the direction hardly mattered.
    He couldn't return to his family bearing no gift except news of Bider's death. And that was hardly a gift. Letting them know that he
himself had faced death and survived, as Raven said his father had always hoped, wasn't enough of a gift, either. Merely surviving gave nothing to his family.
    He could, of course, go back and tell his father, "You were right. Humans mean death." But somehow that didn't seem to be the point. Not the whole one, anyway. It remained equally true that humans had helped him and that they would have helped Thinker, too, if he had stumbled upon them as Runt had. Perhaps the truth was that humans were a mixture, aggressive and kind, greedy and generous. Like wolves.
    Runt wove his way beneath the birch trees, their leaves as gold as a wolf's eyes. He pushed through a stand of pine, heavy with cones. He plodded, without paying particular attention to what lay before him, into a small bower created by overhanging limbs. And there he found the moose.
    It was the old bull his family and Bider had pursued, the one they had wounded.
    The colossal animal lunged to his feet and stood before Runt, swaying like a tree in a strong wind.
    Take me,
the beast's eyes said.
My time has come. You may take me.
    Runt's heart pounded; his breath came in ragged bursts. Was he really brave enough to take this huge animal and bring the good meat home to his family? It was as though this moose were the gift he had been waiting for, for so long. And here the old bull stood, practically giving himself to Runt.
    The wolf pup began to dance, first to one side, then to the other. But if the moose was ready to die, he clearly wasn't going to do it without a fight. Whichever side Runt chose, the bull lowered his head and swung his enormous antlers in Runt's direction. The antlers were at least six feet across, and after a few futile attempts to get close, Runt backed away.
    He considered leaping up and grabbing the beast's nostrils, the way Helper had done, but he remembered what had come of Helper's grabbing on there. And he remembered, too, what it felt like to fly off the fellow's hind leg.
    There seemed to be no way ... unless size could be an advantage. Not being big, but being small. Small and young and quick.
    The beast snorted and pawed the ground.
    Moose were notorious for their bad eyesight. And this fellow had clearly lost blood from the wounds left by his first encounter with the pack. He was growing weak and wouldn't be able to do anything very quickly. So if a small pup moved in fast and low to the ground, then leapt for his throat—
    Wouldn't King be—What would he be?