by K. T. Tomb
The mood intensified. The others pulled in as if they became a single arrow aiming for the heart of the creature they planned on felling for their cause. The doomed elk couldn’t yet be seen and probably had no knowledge of the pack. Yet. As they closed in together, Shadow could see an image in his mind, the plan of attack springing from the mind of Alpha to all of them within close proximity. This way, they would know the others’ movements, even as they separated to circle the prey.
Shadow saw the path he would take, a small part in the larger plan, each of them with their own role. He would circle around to the front, as the necessary distraction before the larger wolves homed in and brought the elk down. Mother would take the kill this time, the plan was decided, and they would all have their fill.
The pack separated, each wolf falling into the places determined by the plan in place. Everything faded away. Shadow felt as if the trees themselves vanished as he moved forward. He focused his mind on the presence of the elk, standing still at the edge of the lake, head lowered to the water to quench his thirst.
Shadow broke to the left in a smooth motion, muscles working, sinew stretching and contracting as he ran. With deft footing, he neared the unwary creature. The elk raised his head, suddenly aware of something amiss. But he didn’t sense Shadow, though, nor the other wolves. Shadow circled the thicket closest to the lake, bringing the elk into view. The massive creature towered over the edge of the water, his antlers reaching for the cloudless sky that was reflected in the water. It had turned but not toward Shadow.
The large creature’s gaze cut back across the forest beyond where the wolves approached. He didn’t know what had alerted the elk, but within seconds, it broke into a run, away from the water’s edge, and away from the approaching pack.
Shadow pulled his speed to a quicker pace. He could still make it around to the front of the animal and slow his escape, allowing the others to complete the circle and take him down. But it was not meant to be. Shadow pulled alongside the panicked elk, whose feet dashed forward. In a last effort, Shadow tried to lunge for the nimble ankles, but at the last moment, the elk bounded over him and escaped up the mountainside, disappearing into the pines.
The prey was lost. Lost!
“Good going,” said Chase, his voice drenched in sarcasm, as he walked up and paced alongside of Shadow. They all knew at once the moment the elk had escaped and a surge of disappointment washed through the pack.
“What are we going to eat now?” Snow chimed in.
Blue had little to say, but he cast a sympathetic eye toward Shadow.
Shadow gave them all a sidelong look. He felt angry. Something had alerted the elk to their presence, but it was not him. He knew he had had a clean path to his desired location around the other side, but he had been so focused and in tune with the pack mind that he had not heard the same noise as the elk. What was it, he wondered.
His answer came from Alpha, who stepped up to Shadow, facing the same way that the elk had escaped. Shadow could sense the disappointment and frustrations coming from the other pack members, but Alpha soon put them to rest.
“The loss was no fault of Shadow’s,” he said with finality. “What the creature heard came from an intruder into our forest. Humans. The humans have entered our land, beyond that which the hunters roam. The forest has been compromised.”
The wolves all looked toward the Alpha with horror. This time, it was different, they knew, though they didn’t know how. The Alpha gazed out over them with a look of knowledge. “The old ones told the stories of the time of the humans. Once, we roamed the forest as far as the eye could behold. There were not hard roads, or growling machines that tormented our numbers. Once, the wolves were the royalty of all the animals of the forest. We could hunt as we pleased. The humans traveled in packs, much like our own, and we lived in honor and respect for each other.”
The others settled in around the Alpha as he continued the story.
“So, long ago, the humans and the wolves almost lived side by side, one never bothering the other, but sharing the land with each other and the many animals. Our numbers were many. We are one pack, but during this time, a single pack could number as much as ten times as large as ours.”
“What happened to us all?” Blue asked with a tentative voice.
“More humans came,” Alpha said. “Different than before. Their coats and fur looked different than what we had seen before. They had strange branches that exploded and caused us to fall to the ground. Over time, they changed the land. First, they came with horses, not the wild ones, but others who served them. And with those horses, and they cut down the trees by the hundreds and dragged them away until the forests were thin.
“They killed off many of the other animals, down to such small numbers that they almost vanished completely. Then they began to change the paths, turning them into the hard roads that you have seen. The buildings and the outside world became more and more plentiful, pressing our places of living smaller and smaller.
“What we have now, this vast forest, is merely a parcel of land, compared to how it once was. I fear…” Alpha began this last statement looking away from them, avoiding all of their eyes. “I fear that the humans that come this time would do so again. These are not the hunters who can be frightened away with a mere glance. These are the humans that will come with the destroyers and take down the trees and dig up the ground. We cannot frighten them. We cannot run from them. We cannot escape what will happen if these humans come into the forest.”
He stopped speaking and looked at them each one in turn. His deep golden eyes glinted in the setting sun, reflecting the orange glow. Shadow had never seen such sadness as that which was reflected in his father’s eyes in that moment. Little did he know that the sadness they all felt at that point in time would pale and vanish before the day’s end.
Chapter Five
The wolves returned together to the relative safety of the grove.
“What shall we do, then, before the humans come?” Thunder asked in a wild bid for attention among the squabbling voices of the pack.
“We must travel deeper into the woods,” Cass said, a slight edge of panic in her voice.
“We cannot,” Mother responded. “The trees grow thick there and food is scarce.”
“It is scarce enough here!” Cass said. The voices jumbled together as the adult wolves all vied for the center of attention.
“That’s enough!” Alpha finally bellowed.
The pack fell silent at this command.
He lowered his voice when he continued, “That is enough. Yes, it is true that we lost a good kill today. It is also true that the presence of the humans alerted the elk and that is what sent him running before we had a chance to circle in. But we must not panic. I have known about the human’s presence for a little while now.”
Shadow and Snow exchanged a shocked glance. He had known?
Alpha gave them all a stern look as he continued, “I haven’t yet made a decision as to how the pack will deal with this new circumstance...”
“We should move up the mountain...” Cass said.
“Take a stand, is what I say,” Thunder added. “Fight them!”
“No,” Mother Wolf said. “It’s too dangerous.”
“We need to wait and see how this plays out,” said Storm. All of the voices blended together in a cacophony of heightened emotions.
“However,” Alpha said in an authoritative tone, which silenced them once more. “However, I will take into consideration everyone’s position. For now, the pack must eat. We can each hunt on our own as the smaller creatures are not as alert and will be easier to track. We all know where the plants and berries are as well. Yes, I realize it is not fresh elk, but it will have to do.” Alpha nodded, indicating that he had dismissed them. He turned his back as, one by one, the pack members left the grove to find their own small meals.
Shadow silently watched. He had never seen the looks on the faces of the other adults and wonde
red if this pack had ever faced such a situation before. The sound of his stomach growling brought his attention back to the issue at hand. Like the others, he needed to eat. He watched them go, one by one. Finally, only he remained, aside from Mother and Alpha. Then, even Mother finally left the grove, after a quick touch of the nose with Alpha.
Shadow waited quietly watching before he took a step to leave and find food.
“Shadow.” Alpha spoke without turning toward him.
“Yes, Father,” he said, expecting some chastisement for losing the elk.
“You would have had him, you know, if he had not gotten spooked.”
“Yes, I know,” Shadow replied. “Thank you, Father.”
Shadow exited the grove and let the thicket of the underbrush embrace him as he wandered, not entirely sure where he would go. He sensed the others walking away on their own, each of them grateful for the solitude after the day’s disappointments. Shadow had run a lot that day already. He didn’t want to exert much more energy to go after a squirrel or other small creature. It would be better than nothing, he knew, but the fight had gone out of him.
He wandered without thought, nibbling on some berries alongside the forest floor. Suddenly, a thought entered his mind. He knew where he could find some food. The small parcel of meat that the man had offered. The human had tossed it to the ground. It would only be a mouthful, but perhaps it would give him enough energy to be able to seek out another animal after he ate it. Besides, Shadow knew that the man had more food. He had only just given him one of them, but Shadow had noticed by the scent that the man had a small bag of them in his pocket.
I should avoid the area, Shadow thought. Humans are dangerous. In the end, hunger won out and Shadow headed toward the place of the wall to find the morsel of food.
When he arrived there, he sensed no sign of the human, except for the imprint of the scent left from his contact with him earlier. Shadow glanced around the area, pinpointed the small bite of meat and stepped forward to grab it. He had no more than pulled the bit with his tongue and begun to chew, when a firm hand landed on his neck, grabbing him by the scruff.
Shadow quickly scrambled backward, trying to escape the intrusion, but the human had him firmly by the neck. A large box with a metal grate door sat nearby and Shadow quickly figured out what was to happen to him. He wriggled his legs, kicking and twisting with all the strength he had, but the darkness of the enclosure encircled him.
Shadow let out a long warning howl to alert the others. In one sound, he sent the message: Danger! The others heard. Snow had been closest and as soon as she heard the high-pitched sound, her hackles raised. She sounded the alarm to amplify the warning to any who might be further off and not have heard the original call of warning from Shadow.
Further along, Blue picked up the sound and amplified it with his own howls. Soon, the chorus was filled with the voices of Cass, Storm, and Thunder. Mother ran back to the grove, bounding through the trees just as Alpha stepped out of the den.
“Shadow,” she said, voicing what they all already knew. “They have Shadow. The humans have Shadow!”
Alpha tried to calm her, placing his chin over the back of her neck in the wolves’ embrace. “These are difficult times,” Alpha said. “We must all be careful now.”
Mother buried her face into the silver coat of the Alpha, knowing, in that moment, that there was nothing that could be done. The continued sound of the pack’s mournful howls echoed through the expanse of the forest. All of the creatures stopped to listen. Every bird fell silent. Creatures in the underbrush stood still, peering up over the short growth. Even the larger creatures that usually feared the wolves heeded the cry. They all heard and they all understood. The human had entered the forest and had taken one of them. And they knew that nothing would be the same for any of them, not ever again.
Alpha kept his comforting presence by his mate as she cried into his shoulder, but his thoughts were veering toward how to best take care of the pack. He had suspected from the beginning that Shadow would one day be a liability to them. When his mate had brought Shadow to the den, it had been immediately clear to him that Mother wouldn’t accept anything less than his full acceptance of the adoption of the lone pup. Perhaps he should have refused the pup from the beginning.
No use in dwelling on it now, he thought to himself. The past has already transpired. Now, he had the task of considering what would be the best course of action to keep the rest of the pack safe. They would mourn, of course, as they would for any fallen pack member. Then after the allotted time, they would most likely travel, relocating the den to a more remote location, further up the mountainside.
One where the humans could never, ever follow.
Chapter Six
Shadow crouched in the small cage, the motion of the vehicle throwing him from side to side as they traveled along the road.
He recognized the scent of the man who had grabbed him as the same one from before. After placing him in the crate, he had tossed in a few more bites of the strange treat from before, but Shadow ignored these—they laid untouched in front of him on the cold plastic floor of his small enclosure.
As far as he could tell, the man was the only one present in the vehicle with him. The motion of the travel brought up another distant memory that Shadow couldn’t quite identify. He wondered with a deep pang if he would ever get back to the pack, and if any of them were in danger from this thief. For indeed, Shadow had been stolen. He had heard the echo of Snow’s howl, so he knew the warning had gotten out to the others. The motion stopped. They had arrived somewhere. The crate moved again, and he felt a jolt as the crate was placed on a surface of some kind.
He heard the human voices speaking outside the crate, but Shadow didn’t understand their staccato words. They sounded like the birds of the forest, making sounds that just piled on each other with no sense of poetry or purpose. He could make out the tone if he concentrated enough. The man, the one who had captured him was telling the other, perhaps a female, about how he had lured Shadow with food and then stolen him from his family.
The female human seemed receptive to the information. Her scent indicated that she might be an ally of some kind, if such a thing was possible with the humans. Shadow had no doubt that he would find a way to escape and get back to the pack before the day was out. The humans had finished talking, it seemed, and the crate had been lifted once more. The door opened and a face appeared and looked inside at him. Shadow suppressed the feeling of panic that he felt at the scent of her because something else had caught his attention.
Behind the female, he could make out what seemed like bare walls, a small bench, nothing more than a wooden board nailed against the wall, and two small bowls. One had been filled with water, and the other, Shadow saw, was full of something that smelled like it was supposed to be food. Not the fresh meat of a recent kill, of course, but something edible anyway. His mouth watered at the scent, but he held back. He decided to take a chance and dart out of the open gate to get past the female human.
He managed to do so, but found himself no more escaped as he was in the closed room with no open door. He darted around the room, looking for an opening of any kind, but found no means of escape. Shadow turned toward the female and bared his teeth, his hackles raised. If he couldn’t escape, then he would let her know that he was not happy to be there.
He tried to make himself as large as he could, and he felt pleased when she lowered herself down, becoming smaller. She put her hands behind her back for a moment and he didn’t see until too late, the small object in her hand as she reached for him. The pinching sting in the side of his rump was quick and when she pulled back, he tried to snap at her, his teeth clicking together against thin air. The room suddenly felt thick and moved in much the same way as when he had been inside the vehicle. His legs swayed, then eventually gave way as his vision went black.
***
“Well, would you look at that,” he heard a voice say as if from
a great distance. “He’s trying to wake up. Boy, he’s got a lot of fight in him.”
Shadow didn’t know how much time had passed when he opened his eyes. He had been locked in a small cage with open metal bars on either side. The voice he had heard came from a female dog who inhabited the cage next to him. Beyond that, he could see more cages, each containing one dog. The female who had spoken had long, light-brown fur and ears that dusted the ground on either side of her front feet. She had a friendly face, but Shadow remained wary.
“You feeling okay there, Tiger?” she asked.
“My name is Shadow,” he mumbled. “What is a tiger?”
She chuckled. “Where are you from?”
He didn’t reply as he painfully pulled himself up to look around. The bowls of food and water had been placed against the back wall, and the presence of it reminded Shadow of how long it had been since he had eaten.
The other dog let out a small laugh. When she spoke again, Shadow noticed that her language had a strange lilt to it that was much different than the wild wolves of the forest. “It’s nice to meet you, Shadow. I’m Lila. And you can eat what’s in the bowl. It won’t hurt you.”
“She’s right. It’s not bad, once you get used to it,” said another dog on the other side. Shadow turned to see a large white short-haired canine peering at him through the bars on the other side. He jutted his nose toward Shadow’s full bowl. “Name’s Gilroy. Pleasure to make your acquaintance.”
Shadow said nothing.
“I’m not so sure, Gil,” Lila said. “This one’s feral. I can tell by his voice and by the way he carries himself. He’s been in the wild for a bit. How long have you been in the wild, Mutt?”
“It’s Shadow,” he said.
“Wild, eh?” Gilroy said, his voice low and suspenseful. Something about him made Shadow think he didn’t quite believe him. “How long, eh? Did you have a family before? Did they give you the shoulder tag? If you have a shoulder tag, they can find your family again. No matter how long it has been.”
