White Wolf

We first meet the eponymous white wolf as a cub held in captivity by yellow-haired Jesse and his father Jim. He is, however, no ordinary pet, for a white wolf has special powers in the eyes of North American tribespeople, and Jim who is a trapper and a trader realises that in white wolf he has a valuable commodity and a possible protection against harm from marauding tribes. Despite this Jim is killed by raiders who capture Jesse and his lupine companion. In captivity Jesse's courage saves the white wolf whose sacrificial death is required by the tribe to waken their sleeping dead. Freed, the wolf learns to fend for himself and meets other wolves, but during the years in which he meets his mate and fathers cubs he is tracked by Drums-Louder, a young tribesman, and a sense of danger is always present. The story unfolds from the perspective of the white wolf, and as far as is humanly possible the reader sense what it might be like to inhabit the form of a creature of the wild. The rhythm of the language matches the rhythms of the seasons and of the natural environment producing an empathy with animals who hunt and who are hunted, and whose sensitivity to the least change in the wind or in the ground underfoot is essential to survival.