The Last Wolf

by Maria Vale

  We stop short at a sign that reads:

  TRESPASSERS

  WILL BE SHOT

  The Pack never goes in, not because the sign would hold up in any court, but because beyond it is a dump. Over the past centuries, the Pack has bought parcel after parcel of land, but not this one. At first it was owned by a stubborn homesteader with a vegetable garden. Then a stubborn farmer with twenty acres. Now by a stubborn landlord with a junkyard and an access road. We bought fifteen acres from the current owner’s older brother, but these five acres have eluded us every time.

  The owner claims it’s a thriving business, hauling people’s broken-down refrigerators and air conditioners and car parts and dumping them in this spot. He claims it makes more than what we’ve offered him, but I know that John sees this as a wound in our land and would pay almost anything to get it.

  John says it’s not about the money. It’s about four generations of spite. “Leonora always says humans are motivated by either love or greed,” he said once, “but I think she underestimates what they are willing to do just for spite.”

  With my boot and gloved hands, I hold the barbed wire open for Ti.

  “Leelee?”

  The whimpering is close at hand. Ti points to a busted-up car chassis with a broken Frialator thrown precariously on top. I lie on the ground, looking under the chassis. Leelee is trapped in a hole, her paws and chest wedged tight, so her head is bent backward, her snout high in the air. She can’t do more than whimper.

  “Leeeeleee.” I croon to the terrified pup. “It’s okay. Everything’s going to be okay.” I try to reach her, but she’s too far under. Even when I lie on my back and shimmy my shoulder under the busted chassis, she’s still out of reach.

  Ti’s body is too thick to fit under the chassis, but he crouches down anyway, breathing deeply. He stills for a moment, a distracted look in his eyes, before standing again and pulling me to the side. “We can’t get to her without moving the fryer, but we have to be careful not to move the chassis,” he whispers quickly. “If it falls or shifts, it will break her neck.”

  “Any idea how much that thing weighs?”

  “Four hundred pounds? A little more?”

  He doesn’t ask Do you think you can handle it? He doesn’t pretend that he can do it on his own. He just says that we have to move it, end of discussion. And we will, because I’ll be damned if any pup of ours is going to be crushed by a trashed fish fryer.

  Gingerly we step over the side rails of the chassis, trying to find spots that give us the best leverage we can, but even so, Ti will have to lift with his arms nearly straight out.

  My hands are sweating inside my work gloves, but Ti’s already gotten hold on his side. “Make sure that you’re not holding something that will open or fall off. At the count of three, throw it. Then grab Leelee. I want to be ready if the thing shifts.”

  “Which way?”

  “What?”

  “Which way do we throw it?”

  “Yeah, of course, to the back.”

  I feel around, grasping the front wall and a rear corner, and plant my feet firm, making sure that the dirt won’t shift under me.

  “Are you ready?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay, count of three.”

  And he counts to three. Four hundred pounds isn’t that much, but it’s a lot when you have to stand with your legs in an awkward position and a pup’s life depends on it. And when your glove tears and the fryer starts to fall and you know that it will break her back. Ti grunts from the effort of not losing his grip, his legs straining to stabilize his big body. I catch it just before it hits the chassis.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yes. Sorry.”

  “Count of three, to the back.”

  This time he counts to three, and we heave it a little—not far, but far enough. Reaching through the skeletal chassis, I grab Leelee by snout and tail. It’s horribly undignified and probably more than a little painful.

  With her out of the way, Ti steps on the chassis and pushes hard with his shoulder until the fryer tumbles over the back of a washing machine.

  I cuddle Leelee close to me, whispering that we love her, but her ass is grass once John finds out that she went into the junkyard. She knows it’s true and whimpers, pulling closer under my hair, already trying to hide from John’s fury. Only then does it register that her chest and forelegs smell like oil.

  “Hold her for a second?”

  Ti takes her and holds her tight. “What are you doing?”

  “I want to see what this is.” I lift the surprisingly light chassis.

  “Sil, no. She’s shivering. We need to go.”

  Leelee’s struggling scraped the top edges of the hole, but farther on in, I can see that it is perfectly circular and very deep. Water glistens in the bottom, but beyond the fetid water is a clear smell like a million tiny deaths that have not gone into making new life.

  “Sil! It’s a long walk back. Will you just leave it alone?”

  When I scrabble out, Ti has wrapped Leelee in his T-shirt next to his bare skin. “I’ll keep her. She’s cold, and you don’t know from cold.”

  We move quickly toward home, taking Leelee immediately to the medic’s station. Someone must have gotten John, because he was running toward the back before Ti had even finished extracting the pup from the impromptu sling of his T-shirt.

  As soon as Tristan determines that she’s just bruised and shaken, I tell John everything. He calls for Tara—who is not only his Beta, but also an engineer—and makes me repeat the story to her.

  “Describe the hole exactly.”

  “This wide.” I hold my hands to circumscribe a hole about four inches wide. “I couldn’t tell how deep it was because there was water in the bottom but had to be over ten feet.”

  “And it smelled like oil?”

  “Yes. If you check Leelee, you can’t help but smell it.”

  As John sniffs the air around Leelee, she wakes up. She looks at him and begins to shiver once more. He puts his big hand on her tiny head, sweeping his thumb across her muzzle until her eyes drift closed again.

  This is the time for love. Discipline will come later.

  “Tiberius?”

  “It’s a dump, and the whole place smells of antifreeze and Freon and diesel. I didn’t see the hole. Probably from some old fence post.”

  “Yes, there were other smells around, but this wasn’t Freon or diesel,” I maintain steadily. “And it wasn’t a fence post either. It was a perfectly round hole. Perfectly. Like it was drilled.”

  “Tara, I think we better take a look at this and also find the original of the DEC report from—” Ti and I are at the door when John stops.

  “Tiberius,” he says. “Every child is a wuscbearn, a wish child, beloved and adopted by the Pack. A symbol of its future strength. The Pack will appreciate that you take that future seriously too.”

  Ti stands facing the open door, his hand on the knob. “Just so we’re clear here. I don’t give a shit about symbols, but I didn’t want Leelee to die.”

  As we head back to the Boathouse, Ti stops, looking at the sky. Then he turns, pulling at my arm. “There are blueberry muffins at the Meeting House,” he says.

  Later, as I lick blueberry and butter from my fingers, I wonder how it is that a man who can smell blueberry muffins in an enclosed structure one hundred yards away couldn’t distinguish the stench of oil at his feet.

  Chapter 14

  “Over there.”

  “Where?”

  “On the sofa.” I nod toward the fireplace and the despondent four-year-old with the rich caramel skin, a shock of tight black curls, and SpongeBob pj’s. “Leelee,” I whisper. “Except for Iron Moons, she has to be in skin until November.”

  She curls up, her knees against her chest, picking at th
e loose upholstery. I bring her a bowl of fried rice fragrant with cumin and onions and set it on the low table in front of the fire.

  “You should really eat something, Leelee.”

  “Don wan wice,” she says with that slurred diction our littlest children all have on the rare occasions they are in skin. “I wan squido. I awmos caughded it.”

  “It doesn’t matter. You have to obey Pack law. That junkyard is well marked.”

  I smooth her hair back from her forehead. “You know something, though? I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a perfect midrun turn, and I’ve watched Kayla chase down a healthy adult weasel. You are going to be a great hunter one day. When you fell your first bear, will you give me a place at the kill?”

  Leelee perks up a little, justifiably proud. “Lugs o’ hawd?”

  “You kidding? Bit of heart and a couple of ribs, and I’m in heaven.”

  “Me too. Bud I mosly lig lugs. Or libber.” Her lips smack together. Just the thought of bear liver makes her hungry, and she reaches for the bowl. I pull it away from her eager grasp. She’s too young to have eaten in skin, so I hand it to Ti for a moment while I snap a big napkin open and tie it around her neck, making sure to spread it over her entire chest. As soon as Ti passes the bowl back, she sticks her mouth straight in, snapping up the top bit with her teeth before digging at it with her hands.

  I put the spoon in her fist and try to motion how it works. She looks at me skeptically, and then she pulls it to her mouth, using the spoon as a shovel until the rice is gone.

  She wipes at her mouth with the back of her hand, licking it in turn.

  Pups come up to her and nuzzle her and whine. Some lick at her, but when she doesn’t change, they give up and trundle out. When the little door that we put in the big doors swings shut behind the last pup, Leelee lies back against my thighs and stares forlornly at her hands.

  “It’s not so bad, you know,” Ti says, holding her tiny hand in his big one. Though they soaked her thoroughly to get rid of the oil, there are still dirty spaces between her fingers. “There are tons of fun things you can do with your hands.”

  “Lig whad?” she asks groggily. I stroke her dark curls as her head falls more heavily into my lap. Her feet squiggle against Ti’s leg.

  Ti’s face is blank as he tries to imagine what hands can do that will make up for being a lonely little wolf. Then he looks at me.

  Like I would know. I have no idea what children do except watch television.

  “Poker,” he finally says. “Poker is fun.”

  But Leelee is past hearing. Her breath has slowed and her leg shakes, like pups’ legs do. Ti volunteers to carry her upstairs to the children’s quarters. Since none of the beds are ever slept in, I choose one by a window facing Home Pond and yank the sheet and blanket off with a jerk before settling them loosely over her body.

  It doesn’t matter. The moment her little body sinks into the softness of the mattress and she feels the unaccustomed weight of the blankets, she begins to flail.

  We creep out as quickly as we can, heading past the pups curled together in their puddle of fur.

  “Didn’t work.” Ti nods toward the Great Hall and the little girl staring through the window. “She’s awake.”

  “It takes a while,” I say. “Learning how to sleep with walls and blankets and sheets and pajamas. It feels like a cage. But she’ll learn. And then she won’t be able to sleep without the cage.”

  The caged wolf man stares long and hard at the caged wolf girl. She presses her hand to the window.

  “Ti?”

  He doesn’t move. I touch his hand.

  “Ti? Do me a favor, will you?” He looks down blankly. “Run with me. Be wild and run with me. Please.” I throw my hoodie over a branch and then my shirt.

  He starts to pick up my discarded clothes.

  “Leave them.” I grab his arm and try to pull him toward the trees, but he’s too big and too strong and too stubborn.

  “I already told you, Silver. No.”

  I kick off my boots and leggings and stumble behind a yew, arching my spine, the knobs of my vertebrae extending and my shoulders bending forward and the thin dusting of hair thickening to fur.

  There’s a hollow roar in my ears, a swirling blindness in my eyes, the nocking of the bones in my jaw. When it’s all over, Ti is standing on the Boathouse dock, looking distractedly over the streaky moonlight on Home Pond.

  I grab his shirtsleeve in my teeth and pull.

  “No.”

  I grab the back of his sweatshirt and pull again.

  “No!”

  I smelled the longing of his wild when he watched Leelee in the forest. That was real. This isn’t. These are just more meaningless human words. Tiberius is meant to be a wolf. I know it. He has to know it too.

  I grab the ankle of his sweats and pull hard. He starts to topple over, catching himself on the arm of the chair. When he falls to the dock, I drag at his pants.

  “Cut it out!”

  I chuff in annoyance and shift up, putting my head on his chest, trying to think how I can get him moving. He tilts his head back, staring once more at the moon on the water. So I open my jaws as wide as they will go and gently set them on either side of his neck. It’s what we do, and it means trust me. It means I see you at your most vulnerable and will not hurt you.

  But he’s not Pack, and he doesn’t understand, and he shoves me away so hard that I fly off the dock and skid into the honey locust at the water’s edge.

  Now he’s done it. My ribs are bruised, and one of those nasty thorns from the locust is sticking out of my hind leg right above the stifle.

  “D’ooowww.”

  “Sil,” he calls, running down from the dock. “Sil! I’m sorry… I just… I didn’t mean to…”

  I try to pull at the thick end with my teeth, but the angle’s all wrong, and damn it hurts. When I look up, Ti is squatting down beside me.

  “Shit, Sil. I really am sorry.”

  I hobble away, hiding behind a hazelnut thicket, but he keeps following me.

  “Let me see, will you? Let me help.” He holds out his hand toward me, and I nip him.

  “Okay.” He shakes his hand. “I may have deserved that. But obviously we need to talk. And I can’t do it if you’re like this.”

  I can’t change. There’s a thorn the size of a pencil in my leg, and until I get it out, I can’t change. I move further around the hazelnut.

  “Are you really going to make me talk to a bush?”

  It’s not a bush; it’s a thicket. And since I have every intention of keeping said thicket between us while I pull at the stick and seethe, The answer is yes. Talk to the thicket.

  He sits down and doesn’t say anything at first, but Leonora says that the same way nature abhors a vacuum, humans abhor a silence.

  “It’s just… Well, I don’t like anything at my throat.” He clears his throat. “Sil?”

  What does he think I’m going to say? The thorn finally comes out, and I lick my wounded leg, but bending that way hurts my bruised ribs.

  “You once asked what wolf would do this?”

  I stop licking and peer at Ti through the little forest of twigs. He is sitting with one arm tight around his knees and the other absently tracing the ragged scarring at his neck.

  “It was me,” he says. “I did it.”

  I shift forward until I can see him more clearly, then drop my head on my front paws.

  Ti stares at Home Pond for a while and then starts talking again. “Shifters say that changing is all about self-control. Either you have it or you don’t. We—well, they—have it. It’s what sets them apart from the Packs, makes them better.

  “Better than humans too, by the way, because humans just are. They never have to fight to stay that way.”

  When he extends his hand
toward the thicket, I stiffen, but he only plucks at a tangle of my fur caught on the branches when he threw me. He brings it to his nose, then rubs it between his fingers, releasing the strands into the cool autumn wind.

  “But…I never saw a Shifter struggle like I did. I mean, sometimes one of them would pick a fight for no reason, and that usually meant the itch to change was there, but an extra drink, an extra round with a punching bag, an extra woman, and it was gone. For me, it wasn’t an itch. It was something inside that clawed at my skin. Something that threw itself against my skull until I thought I would explode.”

  He holds up his fingers and, with a single breath, blows the last bit of silver fur into the night.

  “Sometimes I think I remember shifting when I was very young, though maybe it was a dream. Anyway, in that dream, I changed and felt…” He takes off his Outlast cap and scratches the short hair on his scalp. “I felt almost holy. I don’t know how to explain it. I remember my body dissolving. Every breath I took brought the world into me, and every breath I let out sent me into the world. Everything around me was so clear and so…so present, and I just wanted to run and feel… And feel.”

  As he remembers, the scent of his wild seeps from his skin. I smell it, sharp and urgent and real.

  “But then it happened again, and this time, I know it wasn’t a dream, because they caught me. You’ve seen me. I was young and didn’t really know how to move on four legs, and the other Shifters hunted me easily and dragged me back home. They thought it was funny, but my father was furious. From then on, before every Iron Moon, he locked me into a prong collar and chained me to the fence. Like a dog.”

  Without even really noticing what I am doing, I leave the thicket and sit next to him, so close that when I breathe, my chest brushes against him.

  Ti pulls a leaf from my fur. “I did this”—he lays his hand against the ruined skin at his neck—“trying to get that stupid collar off. For the next three years, I spent my Iron Moons chained to a tiny patch of dirt, until I finally understood that there was nothing holy about a necklace of beveled steel pushing into your throat. That there was nothing holy about being surrounded by the stink of your own shit. That there was nothing holy about a waterlogged column of canned offal in a dirt-encrusted food dish. That there is nothing fucking holy about loneliness and humiliation. You cannot begin to understand how much I wanted this thing inside me to die. I hated it. I hate it.”