![]() ![]() ![]() The cow headed for the river, as her kind often did when the wolves came. Her chocolate ears laid back against her head, her bouncing, ovoid rump the same shade of buff as the sedge poking up through the snow, she seemed an impossible quarry. For such an enormous animal-at least five times heavier than any of her pursuers-she was surprisingly fast and nimble. It was early winter, and the snow was not yet deep, offering the kind of footing that favored the elk. The elk had been one of many cows atop the butte now she was alone, hurtling pell-mell toward the broad valley below, dodging the lichen-covered glacial erratics-some the size of small cabins-that dotted the hillside, leaping over what she could, and exploding straight through the sage and juniper. Several yards back and struggling to keep up was a mature black male, his snout and withers gone silver with age. ![]() She was followed closely by her sister, a good-size gray. The one in the lead was almost pure white. The wolves drove an elk down the side of a steep, snow-covered butte under a sky close and gray. ![]()
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