"They can if they're hungry enough," Nash says grimly. "And if they're smart."
A howl splits the air. It comes from the sky, not the valley.
I look up. Silhouetted against the blinding blue, standing on the very edge of the vertical cliff face three hundred feet above us, is a wolf.
Then another. Then three more.
They look like gargoyles, dark, silent shapes perched on the rim of the world.
"They flanked us," Nash says. "They knew the herd would go to the box canyon. They didn't chase them in. They waited above."
"What are they doing?" I whisper. "They can't get down. It's a sheer drop."
"They don't need to get down," Nash says. "Watch."
The lead wolf, the massive gray male we saw in the valley, steps to the edge. He looks down at the herd trapped in the bowl.
Then he starts to bark.
It's not a howl but a sharp, aggressive bark that echoes off the canyon walls like gunshots.
The effect on the caribou is instant. Panic rips through the herd. The box canyon amplifies the sound. To the herd, it sounds like the pack is right on top of them. They spin in circles, eyes wide, hooves clacking.
"They're confusing them," Nash says. "Panic makes them stupid."
Waldo tries to take command. He runs at the cows, trying to herd them toward the chute, the only exit.
But the young bull is terrified. He breaks. Instead of running for the chute, he bolts toward the back of the canyon, toward the steep scree slope at the base of the cliffs.
"No!" I yell, forgetting that I'm supposed to be hidden. "Don't go that way!"
The young bull hits the loose rock. He scrambles up, hooves seeking purchase on the shifting shale. He gets ten feet up, twenty …
And then the rocks give way.
A landslide starts, small at first, just a trickle of gravel, then larger rocks, then a cascade of snow and shale. The bull loses his footing. He falls, tumbling backward, legs flailing.
And from the cliff above, the wolves drop.
They don't jump the full three hundred feet. They launch themselves onto the narrow ledges and snow chutes that stripe the cliff face. It's a controlled avalanche of predators. They slide and scramble and drop from chute to chute, faster than anything that size has any right to move.
"They're coming down!" I scream.
"Aris, move!" Nash yells. "Get to the wall! We're in the open!"
He grabs my jacket and hauls me toward the cliff face we were crawling along. We scramble back into the shadows just as the first wolf hits the basin floor.
He lands in a spray of snow, rolls once, and comes up running. He ignores us, ignores Waldo, and goes straight for the fallen young bull who is struggling to rise from the debris of the landslide.
It's brutal. It's fast.
Three more wolves land. They're a gray blur of teeth and coordinated violence. They swarm the young bull.
Waldo watches for a split second. He sees the young bull go down, sees the chute still open. He makes the call.
He turns and drives the cows toward the exit, running right past our hiding spot.
"He's leaving!" I yell. I fumble for the release button. He's close now, thirty yards, sprinting through the snow.
