by Wayne Smith
The woman wasn’t following the Wild Animal; the Wild Animal was chasing her. A trace of blood just inside the bushes confirmed his judgment. The woman was not being careful. She was in a hurry. A yard or two in, he found a different blood scent. The Wild Animal was in a hurry, too.
A few steps in, the thorns stopped him. Ahead the brambles were higher than his ears. Only a desperate animal, fleeing for its life, would run through this thicket. Its pursuer must have been either desperate or mad. He stretched his neck forward and sniffed, and confirmed a hunch — the Wild Animal’s scent didn’t follow the woman’s scent through the thorns. The Wild Animal had turned back after running a few feet into them.
Thor carefully backed out of the berry patch and picked up the Wild Animal’s scent trail. As he expected, it went around the thicket. He followed it to the edge of the berry patch, where the Wild Animal had circled around to the other side, to the spot where the woman had emerged from the thorns.
He found the place were the chase picked up again, and found another faint but familiar smell — that particular mixture of adrenalin, sweat, hormones and enzymes that make the smell of fear. That was a surprise. Fear is a fleeting scent, and the trails were at least a day old. For the scent to still be detectable, the woman must have been overflowing with it. As the path led away from the berries, the scent of fear got steadily stronger.
This was where the Wild Animal had begun to catch up with her.
The trail led over a large fallen tree with lots of sharp branches, dangerous to navigate. The woman had been looking for obstacles to slow her pursuer down. Thor picked his way through the maze of dead branches, and finally picked up the scent he’d been expecting for a while — the smell of death.
As a predator, he was not frightened by the smell; in fact, he liked it. It charged his blood with adrenalin and piqued his curiosity. But it also put him on guard.
He stepped onto the trunk of the fallen tree, mindful of the sharp branches that pointed at him like accusing fingers. As he hoisted himself up, he caught his first glimpse of his quarry, lying on her back on the grassy hillside, staring at the sky with dead eyes. There were no other predators around. He cautiously stepped up for a closer look.
She wore hiking boots and shorts, and her bare legs had been horribly lacerated by the thorns. The cuts must have been painful, but they hadn’t killed her. She’d died when the Wild Animal ripped out her throat. Afterward, he’d torn her shirt apart and opened her torso from her neck to her naval. The ground was sticky with blood, which thousands of ants were busy cleaning up. Some of the ants marched into her body, where they fought with maggots for her remains. Thor didn’t like the idea of setting his paws down in the writhing sea of insect life that surrounded her, so he leaned as far forward as he could and sniffed from a distance.
His nose picked up the odor of liver, one of his favorite foods, and curiosity got the better of him. He stepped lightly over the ants and leaned his nose into the opened torso.
The Wild Animal had ripped through her thorax in search of an organ, but somehow he’d missed the best part — her liver was still intact, untouched except for a few maggots and ants. The smell of liver, even with the odor of decomposition setting in, was intoxicating. But Thor resisted the temptation to eat.
He was no dummy — he’d learned a few things about meat in his time, and he knew better than to eat meat found outside.
It had been a painful lesson. He’d been on a walk with Dad one weekend in the woods at home. Dad had brought Thor’s tennis ball, and they walked to a little clearing where Dad threw the ball to the far end, behind a big tree. When Thor got there, he found a thick, raw chuck steak lying in the grass like a gift from the gods. Thor helped himself to the succulent meat — and his mouth and throat caught fire. He yelped and howled and whined and vomited, but nothing put the fire out. He ran back to Dad, who was unable to help, then back to the creek behind the house. He drank as fast as he could, but it hardly helped. As soon as he stopped drinking, the fire started up again. It seemed to burn forever.
In fact, he was back to normal in about a half hour, but it was the longest half hour of his life. The next day, out with Dad again in a different part of the woods, the ball again landed near a tempting treat.
Beef liver. Irresistible. He drooled uncontrollably, but held back for a moment, remembering the chuck steak. But steak is steak, and liver is liver. He succumbed to temptation, only to have the same horrible lesson repeated. Since then, he’d twice found meat in the woods and passed it by both times.
He’d never found meat in the wild again until today, but the lesson held. He sniffed the woman’s liver and passed on.
* * * *
“Thanks, Ted,” Tom said, taking the offered mug of coffee. Tom usually didn’t allow himself more than two cups a day, but he always made an exception at Ted’s place. Ted ground his own beans for every cup, and the beans he ground weren’t cheap. There was nothing else like it in the world. Certainly not the canned coffee Janet got at the supermarket.
“So, let’s talk,” Janet said. The three of them sat around the small kitchen table. Reflected sunshine bathed them in a diffuse light that made their faces look angelic. Only Ted’s face was imprinted with a sadness the soft light couldn’t wash away.
“So talk, sis,” Ted said. He didn’t resent their intrusion, but he wasn’t eager to spill his guts, either.
“Ted,” she said earnestly, her hand on his. “We know you’ve gone through a lot. And we respect your desire to be alone. But we . . . I . . . I’m afraid for you. You’ve been holed up here for months, Ted. You can’t go on like this forever. You need to put your life back together.”
Tom looked away from the table, embarrassed. He could understand why Janet wanted him to be with her during this discussion, but he wished she could have done it by herself. It wasn’t his place to hear this. It was too intimate. He felt like an intruder.
“I don’t know what I need,” Ted said sullenly. Then he snorted bitterly and said, “Actually, I do know what I need. I just don’t have the guts to do it.”
“Ted!” Janet gasped.
Tom cringed. This was exactly the kind of thing he didn’t want to hear.
“I don’t want to hear that kind of talk,” Janet said.
Well, Tom thought, at least we’re in agreement there. Now can I leave?
He almost laughed, and desperately made himself think of something else before he got himself into trouble he could never get out of. He stood up from the table and sauntered over to Uncle Ted’s bookshelves for a browse.
Uncle Ted didn’t respond to Janet’s outburst, so she picked up the discussion without him.
“Ted, I know you loved Marjorie, but there are other women in the world. You’ll find one you love someday, if you’ll just go out and meet them. You’re just digging yourself into a hole in this place.”
“Not deep enough, apparently,” Ted said, and snorted. Janet bit her lower lip and tears welled in her eyes. Ted saw her expression and was immediately sorry for what he’d said. He put his hand on hers and held it tight.
“I’m sorry, Janet. You know I didn’t mean that. It’s just that . . . I have to make up my mind. I . . . right now, I really don’t know . . . I don’t know what to do with my life anymore . . . There are things you don’t know about . . . I just can’t say any more than that. Not now. Okay?” Janet said nothing. A tear rolled silently down her cheek. She bit her lip a little harder.
“Okay,” she said in a barely audible whisper.
Tom noticed something odd about the books in Ted’s shelves. He opened his mouth to say something about it, then closed it. This wasn’t the time.
* * * *
Thor had learned about as much as he could from the carcass. The Wild Animal had eaten some part of the woman’s body, but left a dizzying array of organs untouched, organs Thor would have eaten first. There was a lot of damage to the woman’s rib cage and the lung underneath it. Whatever the Wild
Animal had taken had come from under her left lung.
Thor passed no judgment on the killing of the woman. As guardian of the Pack, he himself might be called upon to kill a human someday. Other humans, those not associated with the Pack, were not his friends and not his concern. If Thor were to see a strange dog attacking a strange human on the street, he would not assume the human was Good and the dog was Bad. He would look to the Pack for cues. If he were by himself, he would simply watch.
Still, he didn’t like the idea that there was something in the woods that could kill a human by itself — not with the Pack nearby.
Fortunately, all traces of the Wild Animal were a day old; there was no sign that it was still in the area. If there had been, Thor would have gone back to Uncle Ted’s house immediately, just in case.
Thor turned his attention to the trail the Wild Animal had left after the attack. It wasn’t hard; the Wild Animal’s scent stood out in the potpourri of aromas like garlic in a pot of spaghetti sauce. Except that Thor liked the smell of garlic. He didn’t like the Wild Animal’s scent, though he wasn’t sure why. There was something about it that almost worried him.
He picked up the trail a few feet from the corpse and followed it down the hill.
* * * *
“Ted,” Janet said, “I want you to stay with us. For a while. Until you sort things out.”
Tom held his breath when he heard that. He was still perusing the books, and wasn’t too sure if he should even be in the house. Trouble was, he couldn’t think of an excuse to leave.
“Sis, I really appreciate your offer, but I just can’t.” Tom silently let out his breath. “I have things to work out on my own, and it has to be that way.”
“You can stay with us and be by yourself,” Janet insisted. “We have a garage with a studio apartment on top. You wouldn’t be in our way, and you’d have all the privacy you need. But we’d be there if you need us.”
Well, that’s better than putting him up in the guest room, Tom thought.
“I don’t know . . .”
Uncle Ted got a faraway look in his eyes, and for just an instant his expression changed to one of calculation. He pressed his lips together in a grimace of inevitability.
“You might be right,” he said, so softly that only he heard the words. Tom didn’t hear anything at all, and Janet only heard him mutter something unintelligible. But she knew her brother, and she accepted the murmur as capitulation.
She felt infinitely relieved.
* * * *
Thor stopped what he was doing and raised his head. The hairs on the back of his neck rose to attention, and he stood absolutely rigid, smelling the air without sniffing it. Without realizing it, he held his breath for a moment to listen in total silence.
He heard nothing and smelled nothing. It was neither sound nor smell that had alerted him, but a feeling. The same kind of feeling that told him Dad was coming home, only different. That feeling was Good. This feeling was Bad.
Something Bad was coming. Something very, very Bad.
He looked down the hill in the direction of Uncle Ted’s house, but it was too far away to be seen.
He’d wanted to follow the Wild Animal’s trail, but it would have to wait. He couldn’t look around anymore. He belonged with the Pack.
He retraced his steps back to the body, over the deadfall, around the berry bushes and back to the path. He ran all the way down the hill to Uncle Ted’s house.
* * * *
Tom sat down at the kitchen table, thinking the heavy stuff was over, just as Thor came bounding into the room through the open back door.
Thor glanced at Dad, Mom and Uncle Ted, then dashed into the living room to see if anyone else was in the house. Satisfied there was no one else inside, he ran back to the kitchen table to look them over again.
Lacking the ability to count or compile mental lists, he had to imprint his mind with the images of those present, looking back and forth from person to person until his gut told him no one was missing. His job was made more difficult by the fact that the Pack was split up.
Having imprinted the adults in his mind as best he could, he ran through the front door and onto the deck, where he was relieved to find the kids playing right in front of the house. He stood on the porch and looked at the kids, then turned to look at the grown-ups, then back to the kids. In about four passes, he was satisfied everyone was here.
He returned to the kitchen to check the mood of the adults. He didn’t need to watch the kids as long as he could hear them, but he wished they would come inside.
The adults had a quiet little laugh watching Thor go through his head count. Then they settled into an awkward silence, waiting for someone to restart the conversation. Thor finally calmed down and trotted into the kitchen. He plopped down next to Dad’s feet and grunted.
Dad figured it was time to make small talk.
“What happened to your book collection?” he asked Ted innocently.
“I thinned it,” Ted said with finality.
Not much of an answer. If Ted had said, “Marjorie took some of them,” Dad would have dropped the subject. But he hadn’t said that. Surely this couldn’t be a painful, personal topic, could it?
“I noticed,” Dad said. “Ansel Adams, Minor White, the Westons . . . There’s not one book on the shelves that’s more than twenty years old.”
“I decided to bring myself into the twentieth century,” Ted said, shrugging. Thor took the defendant’s side. He walked over to Uncle Ted and sat at his feet with the weight of his body against the man’s legs. Uncle Ted reached down and patted him appreciatively.
“I thought maybe it was something else,” Dad continued casually. He couldn’t understand why this had suddenly taken on the feel of an interrogation. What was going on here? “It looks like you got rid of all the black-and-white books. Every photo collection on the shelves is in color. Every single one.”
“Well, you caught me, Sherlock,” Ted said. “You’re right. They’re all color.” He paused for a moment and said, “I don’t like black and white anymore.”
“What?” Dad said. “Are you the same guy who lectured me for an hour on the beauty of black and white? About how it’s a whole world to explore, and you didn’t know if you’d ever discover all its secrets?”
Ted shrugged. “That’s what I thought then. I don’t now. I’m fed up with black and white. I’ve seen all the black and white I ever want to see.”
“Ansel Adams and Edward Weston?” Mom asked.
“I don’t care who shot it, I don’t want to look at black and white! I want to see color, that’s all. I . . . had a . . . an unpleasant experience. And black and white reminds me of . . . things I don’t want to remember.”
Mom and Dad just looked at him.
Uncle Ted turned his attention to Thor, scratching his neck roughly, deliciously. Thor threw his head back, mouth open, tongue hanging out, eyes narrowed to slits, and panted his approval. Thor had no idea what Uncle Ted had been talking about.
Neither did Mom or Dad.
They dropped the subject, and Uncle Ted relaxed a little and focused his attention on petting Thor.
At that was the moment when Thor noticed the change in Uncle Ted’s touch.
When Uncle Ted petted or scratched Thor, his touch spoke only of love. There was tremendous love in Mom’s and Dad’s hands, but their touches conveyed other feelings as well. Commitment. Obligation. Consolation. The other feelings didn’t bother Thor — on the contrary, he was reassured by them; Mom and Dad should feel those things. Mom and Dad were, after all, the Pack’s Mating Pair.
But Uncle Ted was not part of the Pack, no matter how close he might come. He and Thor were friends, not relatives. Their relationship was based solely on mutual affection; no responsibilities, no debts. It was the kind of single-emotion relationship that could only exist with an outsider. Relationships within the Pack could never be so simple.
But now Uncle Ted’s touch was different — no
longer the pure, uncomplicated affection Thor knew so well. And it wasn’t just Uncle Ted’s sorrow, either. There was something new, something different in Uncle Ted’s relationship to Thor. Other feelings had crept in. Respect. Caution.
Caution?
Could Uncle Ted be afraid of Thor? The thought shocked him, and he whipped his head around to look into Uncle Ted’s face, confused by the ambiguity of his own feelings.
Thor’s sudden movement startled Uncle Ted. He snatched his hand away from Thor’s neck, realized there was no danger, and put it back.
As if Thor might have turned around to bite Uncle Ted’s hand!
He was afraid of Thor. Why?
The wordless question evaporated, and Uncle Ted scratched Thor’s neck some more. But Thor didn’t drop to the floor and turn his underside to Uncle Ted, as he normally would have. Something had changed, and he didn’t like it.
“Well!” Uncle Ted said sharply, startling Thor. “Let’s talk about something else. You guys must be hungry by now. How about trying a little recipe I picked up in Nepal, huh? You’ll love it!” Thor was glad to hear the conversation lighten up, but he wished the oddness in Uncle Ted’s tone (and his touch) would disappear. It was subtle, but bothersome. And it didn’t change when Uncle Ted put on a happy face.
Thor made no connection between Uncle Ted’s oddness and the body outside. He’d completely forgotten the body for the time being, and wouldn’t remember it until he went outside again. The sensation that something Very Bad was coming was also fading.
Uncle Ted opened a kitchen cabinet and pulled out an enormous wok. “The dish I’m going to make isn’t normally cooked in a wok, but I can’t remember how to cook with anything else . . . any objections?” he said with forced bonhomie. There were no objections — Mom and Dad loved Uncle Ted’s stir-fried delicacies.
He put the wok on the stove and poured a puddle of oil into it, lit the burner, and only then opened the refrigerator and rummaged through it for ingredients.
The smell of oil heating in the wok was more than enough to start Thor’s salivary glands working.
