by Sonja Bair
So right now, besides the werewolves’ overall problem of going crazy and the Elders’ very low opinion of my leadership, everything was okay. Or at least good enough.
“So Pedro and Philip, correct me if I’m wrong, but neither one of you have experienced this werewolf madness, right?” I asked.
“Nope,” said Philip in a muffled voice, his head almost buried in the white take-out box. “And seeing as we all live with David, I think he can vouch for us as well.”
“Gina and Rex, you saw the madness form in your old pack. Could you tell what was triggering it?” I knew the answer already, but I had to ask.
They both shook their head.
“What in the world is causing it?” I asked, mostly to myself.
“Wild hogs,” David answered.
“Wild hogs are causing the werewolves to go insane?”
Placing his food down quietly, Pedro answered. “There must be a pack around.”
My utter bafflement continued until David took pity on me. “We are smelling wild boars in the area. Shall we go on a pack hunt?”
The lightbulb clicking on, I nodded. I hadn’t ever done anything like this before, but I was game. “They’re causing massive trouble on the ranch. I’ll scout from the air. But be careful, everyone; they can be nasty animals.”
David smiled at me. “Yet we werewolves are red in tooth and claw, as well.”
I rolled my eyes, “Sorry, but I think quoting Tennyson negates all animalistic nature.”
“Freya is right, however. Nobody take on the boar alone. You can easily get killed. This is a pack hunt.” His stern frown focused on the twins, but we all nodded in agreement.
Stripping off my confining shirt, I released my wings and was airborne in seconds. I pushed down on my wings, gaining altitude rapidly. Stretching out my arms, I raised my head to the heavens. Stars were appearing in the darkening sky and I took a minute to revel in their beauty, a sight I didn’t get to see as often as I would like.
“Dude, that’s so cool.” A muffled voice came from below. I had forgotten that Rex was with the pack and had never seen me fly before. I smiled slightly and stretched to my full wingspan but didn’t bother to respond. He was right. Alva in flight were a wonder to behold.
The rest of the pack was in the process of changing. David completed the transformation first, shook himself brusquely, and then put his nose to the ground.
I snapped back to the task at hand, assessed the wind speed and direction, and searched in the area where David indicated the wild pig scent was coming from. These wild pigs were a mixture of escaped domesticated pigs and wild boars that were brought over by one misguided rancher in an attempt to increase the local hunting options. The animals had reproduced rapidly, and their foraging was destroying local flora and outcompeting the native fauna. Because of their way of rooting through the soil with their snouts, whole hillsides could be stripped clear and then eroded to bare rock from wind and rain. Cattle also stumbled into holes created by their digging and often would break legs. All told, the wild pigs were causing millions of dollars of damage in California. Drew and the ranch hands would hunt them to reduce their numbers, but the wild pigs seemed to reproduce quicker than they could be controlled. Drew and Elin would be thankful for a little help in culling the herd.
The werewolves had indicated that the scent was coming from the northeast direction, but there was nothing there but some rolling hills and scrub grass—no sleeping place for the pigs. I didn’t know much about the lifestyle of these nuisance animals, but remembered that they generally bedded down at this time of day. Flying low over the hills, I searched for any sign of them. The werewolves had all changed by now and were nose down on the trail, following David’s lead. I flew higher, and my view broadened. To the east, the land dipped and then flattened and to the north, the hills condensed into tighter and taller folds. That’s where I’d guess they were hiding for the night.
Heart pounding with excitement, I felt the fine hair over my body and wings bristle straight. I had never hunted before, but the thrill of the chase was on me. Part of the excitement felt foreign, since much of the feeling was coming through the connections of the pack bond. It was an odd sensation, but not off-putting. Instead, it created a sense of deep belonging and cohesive teamwork. The pack’s power made me more than I could ever be as an individual. I whistled gleefully but softly into the wind; I was big now.
A feeling of being watched crept over me and I looked down. David was still running, but was studying me at the same time with a mirthful look in his eye and his mouth drawn back in a lupine smile. From that look, I guessed my happiness and sense of belonging were reciprocating down to the pack as well. Good, I thought. This little pack needed some joy and lightness, and I was glad to share.
David ducked his head back to the trail and then abruptly stopped. The other werewolves stopped as well, and they all examined something. I flew on toward the golden hills. Small stands of short, stubby trees grouped together in pockets of the hills. Pulling back, I swept my wings in a small figure eight, maintaining my height, and scanned through the trees. The ground was undisturbed, so I flew on to the next thicket.
This hillside looked as if it had been overturned by a rototiller. Plants had been ripped out, leaving the hillside bare, and big clumps of dirt lay at the bottom of the hill. One of the small trees lay on its side with half of its roots pointing to the sky and the other half stretching to keep hold of the ground. The land was scarred by pig activity, but they had not stuck around. I flew on.
Two decimated hillsides later, to the right of a young, bent tree, I spotted a peculiar swirling pattern in the thigh-high field of weeds. The grass swirled clockwise, bending until the long strands were pushed to the ground. Four of these grass circles surrounded the tree. Hovering above, I surveyed them and then moved on, thinking that these were old, discarded beds, when the grass twitched around one of the circles. Looking closer, I chuckled in amazement—the coloring on the four pigs below blended nearly seamlessly into their surroundings.
I looked back at the pack. They were following a path, invisible to me, but clear to their sensitive noses. Although the path wasn’t a straight line, they were weaving closer to this particular thicket. David lifted his head and I caught his eye, pointing down to the nest below me. There was no visible communication between David and the other werewolves, but almost instantaneously, the whole pack flowed toward me without a break in stride. Watching the pack, I admired their wild beauty. David was the biggest, both in form and attitude. His black color did not fade into the night; instead, all color seemed to be drawn and trapped into his fur. Pedro and Philip, in the form of two gray streaks, followed close, with Gina and Rex not far behind. The werewolves were as beautiful and graceful as anything I had ever seen. Each body was streamlined into a perfect fluid flow, muscles bunching and releasing in rhythm with their steps. Despite the uneven terrain, their heads were held perfectly parallel to the ground with every massive stride, eyes unwavering on David’s lead.
The pigs below hadn’t woken to the impeding trouble heading their way yet. They were peacefully asleep, snouts buried partially into the ground, legs and hooves sticking out the side. I landed in a small tree downwind of the nest where I still had a good view of both the wolves’ approach and the pigs. When the pack was about thirty feet from the nest, one pig woke with a start and instantly clamored to its feet. The others woke and popped up. I had never seen a feral boar before, but now I realized these wild creatures lacked any resemblance to the piggy in Old McDonald’s Farm. They weren’t pink and cuddly; they were brownish-black and fierce and big. Bigger by far than any pig I’d ever seen before. Short, stiff bristles covered their entire bodies but stood tall between their ears and down their spine. Most of their mass bunched into their shoulders and front half, then all of that muscle flowed down their wrinkled faces to a snout which hung open, displaying a bottom jaw full of fierce-looking teeth crowned at the front by two razor-sh
arp-looking tusks, which stuck out in a broad V-shape. The biggest of the pigs, probably the male boar, had even larger tusks coming down from the top jaw. I looked back to the pack of approaching werewolves armed with their teeth and claws—it would be a fair fight. I swallowed hard.
The werewolf which was David stopped within ten feet of the pigs, and the others fanned out behind him. Unlike how I would expect dogs to behave, the wolves were completely silent. The two packs stared at each other, unblinking and unmoving. The wind rustling the dried leaves was the only sound.
David broke the standoff by lunging at the pigs. Three of them scattered backward, but the big boar mirrored the lunge and snapped at David’s head. David pulled back in a flash, but the nasty-looking tusks brushed his fur. The other wolves lunged at the pig as well. The boar swerved back, retreated to his nearby pack, then whipped around to face the approaching wolves. All four wild pigs stood shoulder to shoulder, mouths open and tusks bared.
The wolf pack broke apart and flowed like water around the pigs. Each werewolf worked independently, lunging and retreating at the other pack. But the pigs held together, standing their ground, although their movements were becoming more and more panicked. They began snorting and squealing, pawing the ground. A fierce assault by Gina broke their resolve and a terrorized pig broke ranks and started to run. Once the one started to run, all of them scattered. This action was what the wolves were waiting for—they regrouped into a pack and picked one animal to chase. I blinked in surprise. They were chasing the biggest pig. The one with tusks on the top and on the bottom—clearly, the meanest and toughest one of the pack. What in the world?
The wolves caught up with Tusky in a few strides but didn’t attack. Instead, they took turns herding the running animal to the left, then the right. The boar moved faster than I would have expected for such a heavily muscled, bulky creature, but it was breathing heavily. The action was disappearing from view, so I left my perch and followed. Pedro was now in the lead, nipping at the heels of Tusky. The massive pig squealed and spun to the left. Dirt spraying to the side, Pedro banked with him. The pig was slowing down, panting roughly. Pedro jumped toward its neck, missing it by only a few inches. But when the werewolf landed, he tumbled abruptly, back legs flipping over his head, and skidded to a nearly instant stop, his front shoulder and leg lying at an unnatural angle to the body. He lay motionless. Red flowed through his fur and into the ground within a fraction of a second. What the…
My brain was trying to process what had happened to Pedro since the pig hadn’t touched him when a frantic yip from another wolf spun me around. Now Rex lay on the ground as well, his back leg stretched straight behind him, his paw twisted and caught on something. Tucking my wings, I dropped and hit the ground running toward Rex. Drawing closer, I could tell his leg was caught in a vicious-looking large metal trap which had been camouflaged in the grass. That’s what the damn poachers had been carrying the other day… hunting traps. And now both Rex and Pedro had been caught in ones they left behind. My prank on them was nowhere good enough for this nastiness.
Blood pounded in my ears and my pulse raced. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Philip, the emergency room nurse practitioner, turning back to his human form near Pedro, whose leg was caught in a similar-looking trap. David was turning human and was heading in my direction.
Kneeling beside Rex, I gasped. The teeth of the trap had almost bitten through his leg. White bone gleamed in the darkness. He tried to stand on his front legs and twist around to see his back leg. Pushing his head back to the ground as gently but firmly as I could, I brushed my hand over his brown fur. When he was motionless for a few seconds, I moved to look at the trap. It had a homemade look about it, the welding bubbly and the metal roughly cut. Rex whined pitifully and, hardly conscious of what I was doing, I started to softly sing a Swedish nursery song as I looked for a release switch for the trap. There it was—a pin attached to a spring holding the trap tight. Pulling with all my strength, I released the pin and the trap flopped open. Rex tried to stand again, but I restrained him. Philip needed to look at him before he moved and made things worse. Stroking his head and behind his ears, I continued to sing the same tune my mom used when I was hurting as a kid. I felt David kneel next to me and, oddly enough, a blanket of peace settled over us. Rex closed his eyes. Looking at the concentration in David’s face, I guessed where this feeling of peace was coming from.
Across the field, Philip had finished triaging Pedro’s immediate wounds and was now looking toward Rex and me. But then another sharp howl broke the silence. My stomach dropped as I looked toward the sound, expecting to see yet another of my pack caught by an illegal trap. But it was Gina, fifty yards away and cornered by the boar in a dense thicket of bushes and bleeding from her back flank.
The boar. I had completely forgotten the hunt, and Gina must have forgotten David’s strict warning about hunting alone. The boar had a few new scratches on it, so Gina must have gone on with the hunt and further wounded Tusky, but it looked as if her attacks only had got him flaming mad, not crippled. And had she not seen her packmate and twin lying on the ground hurt? Why hadn’t she stopped hunting with the rest of us? A combination of anger and fear for Gina rose in me like a tsunami. I looked at David. Jaw clamped and eyes narrowed, he looked beyond furious. He also looked like he was trying to transform back to werewolf, but so many transitions had sapped up too much energy—his change was much, much slower than any other time I had seen.
I leapt to my feet and ran toward Gina. A few strides later, my brain caught up with my legs and informed me that I had zero weapons to defend Gina or myself from the very large, very angry, very tusky pig. Crap. And now the pig had turned to face me, lips curled back and snorting loudly. Then it charged me, head lowered, shoulders high, and mouth open. Double crap. I released my wings but kept running toward the pig. My new plan was insane, but it was the only thing that popped into my brain in the last few seconds, so I was going for it. Neither the pig nor I swerved from our ridiculous game of chicken. And as we got closer, the boar seemed to grow to a massive size until it took up my whole view. Right when I was close enough to see individual bristles down his back and for him to bare his teeth for a lunging bite, I jumped. Pushing down with all my might on my wings gained me an extra few feet of elevation to clear the pig’s head and I twisted midair, pivoting my wings and body, and fell onto its back. My head snapped back as I landed and I instinctively grabbed fistfuls of the rough hair to prevent me from slipping off. My torso flopped hard on top of the animal’s neck. Holy bullspit, it worked. I was riding a boar.
The boar, however, was not happy about being ridden. It jerked its head around, snapping its teeth dangerously close to my thighs, wildly bucking its back legs at the same time. Tucking my legs closer to my body, I used my outstretched wings to stabilize and keep a firm grip on the boar while it leapt and twisted and ran. He headed for a patch of scrub bushes. Branches scraped my face and wings as we ran through bushes, and the rocks thrown from its hooves bounced off my arms, but I still held on. This was crazy, this was absolutely insane, but I laughed into the night air. This was also insanely fun.
Off in the distance was a small gravel pit that had been shut down decades before. I smiled grimly, grabbed the boar’s left ear, and tugged hard. It squealed and twitched its head to the side and instinctively swerved to the left. Just like riding a bike. But after a few strides, it must have decided that running wasn’t going to get me off its back so it skidded to a stop and kicked its back legs out again and again. I grabbed a better hold of the hair and held on for dear life.
Without warning, the boar jerked to one side, tripping over its own feet. Looking down, I saw David, in werewolf form, biting into its broad neck. His teeth sank in, but not far. The skin on the neck appeared as if it were thick and tough as a tire. The boar pushed around and bit at the werewolf’s head. David let go of his hold as the teeth got closer and closer. As soon as the boar was free of David’s grasp, it too
k off again, but this time away from the old gravel pit. Oh no, you don’t, I thought and reached back to the left ear. I couldn’t reach it, but grabbed the flesh behind its eye and pulled while leaning as far to the left as I could without losing my precarious balance. Thirty feet… twenty feet… ten feet… Keep panicking, Tusky, I thought, and never mind the big cliff coming up...
When the wild pig was only a few strides from the edge, the imminent approach of the sharp drop-off broke through the haze of panic and the boar tried putting all four appendages in reverse. But the extra momentum of me on his back kept his legs propelling straight ahead, right to the edge. We hovered on the rim of the pit for a fraction of a moment, Fate deciding what should happen to this oddest combination of rider and beast. But the lip of the cliff crumbled beneath the boar’s front, then beneath the back legs, and we were falling headfirst.
Uncurling my clenched hands from the pig’s hide, I pulled my toes up and under my legs and pushed down and away as hard as I could. The pig and I were now falling separately, but I was a bit better equipped than it was. One sweep of my wings stabilized my descent, another sweep stopped my fall, and by the third, I was ascending. By the fourth sweep, a squishy, dense thud echoed below off the pit’s walls. There was one squeal and then silence. An odd feeling of satisfaction and pride washed over me. I didn’t have sharp teeth or razor claws, but I had been a critical part of this pack hunt. And the kill went to me.
