“Where do you think she came from?” Mej asked, seeming to be after an ally.
The last thing I heard along with Demik’s heart was Ondrog’s slow, rough voice, unused much to speaking, seeming to come from far away and fading out.
“She came from the river, which she reached by departing the logging camp, presumably in some rush or she would not have taken to water. How she arrived there remains unclear, as she left no ground trace in or out. We know only that she was lost from her family and in poor condition. Before that, she came from a clan who could be twenty or two hundred miles from here. Before that, she came from Moon. We may traverse the Yukon for a thousand phases, for untold seasons, and never sniff her clan. With our hunt lost at the camp, we are at her mercy to either remember, or give the whole matter to Moon’s keeping. She possesses enough of herself to know what she wants: a new home and mate. While you desire a mate and greater diversity of blood in your clan. It will be up to her if there is anything left to quest after. Until she makes such a choice, it seems only logical to assume you have received a blessing. Be that by Moon, Earth Mother, God, fate, chance, or dumb luck, it makes not the slightest difference.”
Chapter 9
Night 7
We traveled that night in fur, sleek and swift, alert and alive. They had the rifles and packs to carry so some combination of two males stayed in skin all the way, jogging after. The rest of us danced.
Demik kept close all that night. Each did, yet Demik remained the most attentive, the shortest-tempered with the others for seeking my favor, and never played tricks or teased like Komu or Mej. I wished he would.
While he walked in skin I tripped him and tried to get him to chase me. Demik only stumbled, apologized for not being more careful, and asked if I was all right. Both in fur, I rolled and spun and danced for him. Then he would chase and nuzzle, circle and mount me, but he would not roll or snap at leaf shadows or twirl. He would not dance.
A fox too serious to dance? I could not believe my own senses. It was something about me—his worry for me, his attention to me. Demik could not let his guard down enough to dance. I must do something about this. I just could not think what.
I was only hungry enough to accept a single mouse from Mej. When Demik saw and soon brought a marmot, I had to apologize. After the venison of twenty-four hours before and a jumping mouse, and nibbles of berries and grasses along the trail, I could take no more.
I rolled before him, wriggling pleasurably in my own skin, feeling the scratching earth and lumpy roots and stones. I kissed his cheeks, licked his nose, and took the marmot to cache.
I bounded away with fresh earth streaked across my muzzle, Demik trotting happily after, and left Mej to dig up the warm body.
Only for the few hours of darkness did we break and sleep, or play. Those in skin did not have good enough eyes in the dark to travel safely. We had not brought so much as a candle, much less a lantern. With hardly any dark, there was no need for such a thing on our journey.
With sunset, everyone put on fur to curl up.
It was too warm to nest into the gray wolf’s ruff. I curled against him and snapped when all three dog-foxes tried to pile against me.
Komu dug a cool scrape in the earth beside Ondrog, then Mej took it over so Komu had to continue to make a second for himself. I’d have screamed in Mej’s face and bitten his whiskers for such thieving. Komu seemed to expect no more, or less, from his teacher. He only yikkered and growled to himself as he dug another scrape. Beside him, Mej was already smugly bedded down, thick orange brush below him.
I woke in my nest against Ondrog to find the sky pale, the sun lingering below the horizon before rising. Demik breathed gently through fur fringes behind my cheeks. I nestled into him and watched the sky. Deep lavender, and more colors besides gray, I knew, but I could not see them properly in this form. Red in particular eluded me. What a shame for total foxes to never see their own true beauty. I knew from skin that Demik’s coat in particular was a stunningly dark red. In fur he looked brown, while Mej and Komu were lighter browns, all with white and black, or umber accents. At least I did not have to miss myself—being nearly pure black in summer coat, with no more than bits of white flecking and a white-tipped brush. It did not matter which eyes beheld me.
I licked Demik’s fine, strong muzzle, broader than my own, and nibbled his fluffy ears.
Demik did not mind being woken. He groomed my throat and neck with little nips of his incisors and licked my whiskers smooth along my face—making them tingle and hum with the touch like the fingertip caress of a lover.
I slipped away from the wolf and padded on silent paws to the river for a drink, then a long stretch, front and back, sending the joy of motion to each claw. I shook and fluffed my brush, then licked down long guard hairs there that stuck out the wrong way.
Demik remained at my side all the time. He took only a quick drink, shook, yawned, and returned to licking my face.
The night was now crisp, the mosquitoes for once silent. The river was deep but slow here, allowing calls of the owls and every squeak or rustle to come through. The air burst with the smells of a million rooting, growing, darting, breathing, vibrant summer things from river slime to a distant moose; from birch to frogs, elk to blueberry bushes. Amidst all this, with the sun shy about coming into sight above mountains, I was the one most blessed. I was the lucky one. I was the one handed by Moon and Earth Mother and God these four gifts who joined me in our quest and made the adventure worth having.
I longed to sing but had no voice for it. I longed to throw my arms around Demik and thank him, express how blessed I was that his family had found me, but had no body for it. I longed to dance, to run, to show Earth Mother and my mate the joy that filled me by letting them seep down through my body—which was dance anyway.
Ready to burst with my own full heart, with joy like fire in my blood, I leapt into the air, whacked Demik in the shoulder with my own, and dashed from the river bank up to the birch forest, then through it. I ran southwest, away from the others, since my euphoria could not be contained enough to let them sleep should our paths cross. I ran and ran, weaved in and out of the slender, pale birch trees, leapt logs and dips, flew in circles and sped back in different directions.
Demik followed. He tried. I ran into him once or twice as I spun and dashed and he seemed to appear from nowhere. So fast was I sprinting that each time the impact sent us each tumbling. All part of the dance.
I ran until I was whirling around him, Demik chasing me, then me chasing him. I bit his brush. He didn’t run fast enough. Then I was off again, leaping and dancing.
Demik never flagged, never gave up keeping step with me, even as I turned and charged and tumbled when he least expected it.
I was panting, hot, my tongue curling toward the roof of my mouth, by the time I slowed to sniff out cool, damp grasses to nibble among the birch.
Demik joined me in several mouthfuls, then returned to nudging and licking me, flashing his brush, ears pricked to me. I pawed his shoulder, crooning to him, delighted he understood this joy, that he longed to be a part of it.
There was the sun anew, the golden edge just blinding above the peaks.
The summit…
If I had remembered my name, how to love, that camp, I would remember more. We didn’t need to hunt my past. When I needed it, it would be there. Like all of Earth Mother’s seasons and gifts. Like Demik. Demik, who made it so easy to be so joyful.
I touched my nose to his, turning to find his while he was busy licking my ears and I was panting at the light. He licked my chin instead, oblivious to lifting of our summer sun.
I rubbed my body along his—head, shoulder, hip—and swished my brush aside for him.
He sniffed eagerly around me, his own brush wagging, while I watched the half-sun with my eyes squinted almost shut. In a few minutes he had tied to me, then remained with his chest on my back as I had to shut my eyes entirely in the light. I suppressed a yelp,
only panting and relaxing with him as the quick pain subsided. Gradually, he slid to stand with his forepaws returned to the ground at my side. He resumed grooming my black coat and I turned my face to him, still panting in the sun while Demik caressed me.
Once we separated, we returned slowly to the others, still licking and touching, our whiskers tingling together.
After my own enthusiasm for the night and life, I’d expected them all to be awake, perhaps sniffing for us. Surely no one within miles could not be aware of this joy.
Instead, Mej and Komu slept soundly curled by one another in Komu’s scrapes. Ondrog still slept by them, his right side against the packs and rifles and our clothes.
Demik stretched and yawned, perhaps thinking of rejoining them.
But the mosquitoes were not out. The night was precious. If we pushed on we could be home in their den the next night. We could get Ondrog to stay with us in the stray den as well. The fourth dog-fox, Tweal, had moved to live with human miners in the gold fields by Dawson City. There was even an empty bed for Ondrog.
Yes, the night was lovely, and home would be just as rich.
I alarm-barked. It seemed silly to go about prodding everyone when one sound would do it. Yet it caused a bit of a panic.
Even Demik leapt and spun, his fur standing on end.
Ondrog sprang to his feet with a growl, golden eyes snapping open, ears instantly alert.
Most spectacular, however, were Mej and Komu. They catapulted from their scrapes in a single tangle of fox, each letting out cries of battle, and, in the mix, somehow mistaking each other for what had gone wrong. Apparently convinced in that flash that an unknown fox, possibly a total fox, had attacked while they were napping, they tore and shrieked at each other before making their crash back to earth.
They separated, both leaping away and staring around. Even with his fur on end, Komu was a lovely, delicate object, all long lines. Mej, however, was an impressive sight, matching Demik in his fluffy bulk of winter coat. After the leap, shriek, battle, and fall, they spun, seeing me, with Demik and Ondrog already staring at me, and began to subside. Still, they blinked and shook their heads as if they could not come to terms with what I had done.
They all needed a good shake and a dance. Even Mej and Komu, who might not seem tense like Demik and Ondrog, had not understood at first about the splendor of leaping from the waterfall. None of them ever laughed at the maze of enchanting leaf shadows with me.
I wagged and smiled at them, pranced my forepaws in place, wishing them good morning, then frisked off, heading downriver.
Demik joined me. The others went on staring in apparently shocked silence for some time before I finally heard them moving about to change and follow.
Chapter 10
Day 8
I dashed circles around Ondrog that night, nipped at his tail, showed him a wolf bow. Ondrog would not play. He wouldn’t even chase a few steps.
Through the day, after a long break by the river, when he’d put on his skin—Ondrog and Demik trading places with Mej and Komu—I kept to his heels, pawing his boots, gazing up at him.
What had happened? He hadn’t talked to me on the way out here either, not really. But he’d held my hand and I’m sure he wanted to talk. He just needed to warm up, how wolves do. He had a story in him that he had to tell to soothe his own loneliness. I would have told him my story—lowered my half of the bridge. I still would. Just as soon as I could remember it. Until then, we needed Ondrog to go first.
This day, our last day on the trail, I thought for the first time that Ondrog might not lower his side of the bridge at all, that he might not feel safe enough, might not be able to think of us as his pack.
He would not play in fur. He would not pick me up once he put on his skin.
Instead, Demik saw and lifted me in his arms from Ondrog’s feet. I made a snap at Ondrog’s hair as I was whisked past in Demik’s hands.
Ondrog turned to scowl at me. “No.” Voice flat, but perhaps angry as well. Only a little. Indifference flowed from him so painfully I was glad of more, yet I hadn’t meant to anger him.
What had I done? He wouldn’t carry me because he was mad at me? How? Why? He’d let me stand on his shoulders while we waited at the bridge where the men lived. What went wrong? He’d been cross about his hair later, but that had been a terribly long time ago. It would be like me still being cross with Demik for not wanting me to go to Dawson City. Seasons ago.
I smiled at him, ears loose and eyes crinkled up.
Still frowning, Ondrog walked on ahead of us with his long strides. He was ever so tall. We could all have ridden on his shoulders and in his arms in fur and Ondrog would scarcely have noticed our weight.
I sighed and rubbed my chin scent meditatively on Demik’s deerskin tunic.
What more could we do for Ondrog? Perhaps nothing on this trip. What he needed now was to be welcomed home with us—then he could have his time. I wouldn’t push him with more questions as I had tried when we’d first set out. Ondrog had showed me what he did want, hadn’t he? Not games, not dancing, not stories. He’d held my hand. He’d let me curl up with him every time we slept in fur, and sometimes when he was in skin. Perhaps a wolf did not need dance or talk. He just needed closeness.
I sprang from Demik’s arms, kicking off his chest and landing eight brush-lengths ahead. I frisked to the wolf’s side and kept pace at a slow trot with him while he strode forward on his two very long legs.
Ondrog frowned down at me and I smiled up, then looked ahead and merely remained beside him.
After a quarter of an hour like this, he paused in a wash of rocky scrub ground and bent to pick me up.
I crooned in delight, startled and touched as his huge hands engulfed me. I rubbed my head against his chest with a din of scratchy noise in my ears. Then I remembered thinking like a wolf, not making decisions for him about when he was ready to accept us, and I only leaned comfortably into his chest, yawning as we went on.
We stopped in the warmest part of the day, when Ondrog finally set me down—not letting go until he’d let my paws come to settle—and we had a long drink from the river before finding shade from young aspens for our midday sleep.
Komu tackled me. I sprang after him, but yawned and found I could not run more than a few strides. Demik, still in skin, settled with his head on his pack. Mej stretched out on his belly, panting, and Komu soon joined him. I flopped at Demik’s shoulder. My coat soaked up sun and I decided after this it was time to return to skin for the rest of the journey. Perhaps Ondrog would hold my hand. For now, though, it was easier to rest in fur. This comfort was why Mej and Komu stayed furred, though both would be itching for a cigarette.
Only Ondrog sat up against the trunk of an aspen while the rest were asleep in minutes. I nearly joined them, but kept twitching my ears or blinking to follow him.
Ondrog broke and cleaned his rifle with oil and a long thing I should have known the name of. Like a net or a fork…
It seemed I wasn’t losing track of many things like that now. I knew a spoon from a fork and a squirrel from a marmot. As long as these common things flowed back, wouldn’t more begin to return with them? Like family? Did my family want me to find them also?
The thought gave me a new twinge, a fresh concern, almost alarm, that I hadn’t felt before. For the first time I wondered if we should have hunted harder around the logging camp…
Ondrog had lost his family as well. Thinking of both—my clan, his pack—a dark uncertainty clouded through me like cold autumn rain. With a sudden shiver, a feeling of doom like iron bars in my face, crushing me, I crept to my feet and over to Ondrog at the tree.
His skin smelled like gun oil. He was just checking his rounds, then closing the weapon with a careful click belying the great size and heft of the hunting rifle—like Ondrog, huge, deadly, but able to be gentle.
The smell of oil and metallic sound in my ears only made me feel worse—pressure building, pinning me down. Trembli
ng, I touched my chin to his knee, rolling my eyes up to his face.
Ondrog set the rifle aside and only gradually cleaned his hands on an oily cloth with his rifle tools and looked down at me. He frowned.
“What’s the matter?” Addressing me in Tanana and a whisper, cutting his eyes to Demik and back to me.
I leaned into his leg. What? I … couldn’t say… I couldn’t remember… The storm clouds, the iron, the walls closing in…
Ondrog felt my shaking and leaned forward, reaching to me. He stroked a massive hand down my back as gently as long grass brushing my fur, then gathered me into his arms.
“Have you heard something?” he whispered, sniffing, looking around. “Do you need to change and tell us? Should we move on?”
I tried to snuggle into his chest, no longer hot but craving his warmth. Ondrog held me back, hands sliding under my elbows as he had held me before so he could look into my eyes. His thick brows were drawn in and his mouth set in a firm line as he studied me.
I averted my gaze.
“Or did you remember something?”
I glanced at him, then away, muzzle downturned.
“You’re not sure?” The suspicion of his tone softened and he pulled me in, holding me to the firm muscles of his broad chest. “Was it the rifle? No… We’ve had them around the whole time. Some other trigger? Or none at all?”
With my neck arched down like a swan I leaned my shoulder and side of my face to his chest where I could listen to his voice and heart and lungs, smell his wolfishness, and feel his welcome warmth.
Ondrog stroked down my coat with a few fingers. He sighed. A raven feather in his headband made a soft scraping sound on the tree bark as he turned his head. It reminded me how nice it had been along with his hair to chew. Sagging in his arms, I also sighed.
“You catch a … vision, an aroma, a tingle on your skin, and you … know that sensation. You have experienced … this.” Ondrog’s voice remained a whisper, but he might as well have been speaking aloud by my ears, one free and clear to cup the sound.
Fox's Quest: A Foxy Reverse Harem Shifter Romance (Foxes of the Midnight Sun Book 2) Page 5
