The Wolf Pack

The Wolf Pack by Ridgwell Cullum

The Wolf Pack opens with the Steele family returning by train to their mission at Lake Mataba. Luana, the half-breed nurse devoted to little Ivan Steele, resents his mother Helen’s renewed attention to him and longs to resume sole care of the child. The defective Sisselu Northern train runs away down a gradient and plunges into the Sisselu River. Arthur and Helen Steele perish, while Luana survives with Ivan. Claiming him as her own child, she escapes the authorities and makes an arduous journey to her outlaw half-brother Pideau Estevan’s mountain refuge. Pideau, a cattle thief, has just lost his wife Annette to mountain fever and briefly considers killing their infant daughter, also Annette, rather than bear the burden of raising her. His attachment to the child prevents him. Luana’s arrival solves both their needs: she raises Pideau’s daughter alongside Ivan, whom Pideau calls the Wolf, while Pideau continues his criminal trade. Eleven years later, the Wolf and Annette have become inseparable, quarrelsome companions. Luana is dying of mountain fever; Annette resents her harsh treatment, while the Wolf loves her as his mother. The Wolf discovers Pideau hiding a huge stolen herd in a secret clearing. Two Mounted Police officers arrive, and Pideau murders both. The Wolf nearly shoots one himself, then helps Pideau conceal the crime by disposing of bodies, clothing, equipment, and horses. Pideau fears the Wolf’s knowledge and considers killing him, but the Wolf forces a partnership between them, arguing that Pideau must abandon cattle theft and turn instead to liquor-running across the American border. Returning home, the Wolf finds Luana dead. Pideau cruelly reveals that she stole him from his white parents, but Annette unexpectedly sides with the Wolf. Together they bury Luana, while the Wolf openly defies Pideau and establishes himself as his equal. Ten years later Pideau and the Wolf operate a store at Buffalo Coulee while secretly producing illicit liquor in a hidden still at Spruce Coulee. The Wolf is prosperous, capable, and still deeply devoted to Annette, who has become a beautiful, wilful woman. Pideau hates and fears the Wolf because of the old murders, but depends on him. Annette is involved with Constable Ernest Sinclair of the Mounted Police, to the fury of both men. Doctor Alec Fraser warns Pideau that Sinclair is dangerous with women and that the Wolf Pack’s homebrew trade may bring imprisonment. Annette tells Sinclair she is carrying his child and demands marriage. Sinclair sees an opportunity for promotion: he promises to marry her if she reveals the still and enables him to arrest Pideau and the Wolf. Though appalled at betraying them, Annette gives him the location, the existence of five hundred gallons of liquor, and the time of the planned shipment. Meanwhile the Wolf confronts her possessively, declares that she belongs to him and will marry him, and threatens to kill Sinclair if he harms her. Annette pretends to reject Sinclair and persuades the Wolf to take part in the shipment himself rather than leave it to Pideau. Sinclair enters the cave at Spruce Coulee, confirms the still and the stored liquor, and waits to capture the smugglers. He is shot dead by an unseen figure. Another furtive visitor finds the killer standing over his body, recognizes the murder, and flees. The Wolf later brings Pideau to the cave, claiming he found Sinclair dead. Pideau assumes the Wolf killed him and is delighted, believing the crime makes them alike and removes Sinclair from Annette’s life. The Wolf denies it, but Pideau remains suspicious and triumphant. After Sinclair’s disappearance, Doctor Fraser alerts the Mounted Police. Superintendent Croisette sends Sergeant Stanley Fyles to Buffalo Coulee to investigate. Fyles interprets an anonymous, spiteful letter as the work of a woman connected to Sinclair and suspects violence. Before reaching the town, he is intercepted by Annette, who admits writing the letter and declares that the Wolf killed Sinclair. She offers to show Fyles the body and the hidden still, driven by grief for Sinclair and by her desire for revenge on the Wolf.

By Ridgwell Cullum · First published 1914 · Genre: Western, Adventure Fiction, Frontier Fiction · 26 chapters · 86,704 words

First lines

The ancient train was laboring heavily. It was climbing, and stated the fact vociferously to the wilderness of echoing hills. Its speed was little better than that of a weary team of horses on an outward journey.

It was passing through a broken, tattered world of wind-swept, stunted northern forest. There were bald crags, and open, water-logged flats. There was snow, too; melting snow, for the Canadian spring was hungrily devouring the last remnants of a fierce winter. The sun was brilliant. The cloud-flecked sky was a steely blue. And the crisp, mountain air even contrived to refresh the superheated atmosphere within the passenger coaches.

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Canadian frontier fiction · early 20th-century adventure novel · Rocky Mountain wilderness · northern Canadian setting · springtime railway disaster · train wreck · survival after catastrophe · stolen child · maternal obsession · jealous nurse · half-Indigenous characters · missionary family

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