Mammoths in a Snowstorm, Zdeněk Burian, 1961
The calf was nervous. The wind howled, burned her eyes, and pushed sharply on her face. She ducked against her mother, rubbing her chilled head against those shaggy haunches. Trees bent. There was a frightening crack and an old, dry birch split in half—a mass of its branches spiraling on the ground like a giant, menacing tumbleweed. Eventually it caught against some of the pines and stopped, and members of the herd who’d sought shelter in the woods moved away.
Snow piled on the mother’s back. She had been in worse storms, though this was her calf’s first. She moved close to her, reaching her trunk around to pat her baby’s rump. If the wind wasn’t so loud, the calf could lean in and hear her mother’s deep, slow heartbeat.














