Asimov's SF, September 2007

by Dell Magazine Authors

  “That's better. Now, hold still.” When a human shows its teeth at you it means something completely different from what you are taught to watch out for, but you had better watch out for it.

  The woman purrs, “Brent, you're scaring him!"

  Woman. Another of Happy's words. The sound she makes is nothing like a howl, but he thinks they are kindred.

  “Are you going to help me or what?” The man lunges. Should Happy attack? Other words rush in. Clothes. Arms. Clothes cover the man's stiff arms and he is waving them madly. How can Happy tear out the throat with all that in the way? Can he bring the man down before he pulls out his...

  Another of Happy's words comes back. Gun. It makes him shudder.

  “Brent, he's shaking."

  “I'm only trying to help him!"

  “Oh, you poor thing.” Sweet, that voice. She sounds like his ... Another word he used to know. Mother. Parts of Happy change in ways he does not understand. She says, “Look at him, Brent, he's shaking!"

  “Oh,” Happy barks hysterically. “Oh, oh!"

  “Come on, now. Calm down or I'll give you another shot."

  The man makes a grab for him. In another minute those hands will close in his fur. Grief touches Happy like a feather, for like the man with his grasping fingers and not-quite barking, Happy is more pink than fur. It is confusing.

  “Don't be afraid,” the woman says. “Come on, sweetie, come to Mother."

  Happy will not know exactly who he means when he thinks, This is nothing like Mother. It does not explain, but measures the extent of his confusion. In this and every other circumstance, Happy's position is ambiguous.

  This is not one of Happy's words: ambiguous. He has been pulled out of a place he can't explain into a world he doesn't understand and it makes him sick with grief.

  He doesn't belong anywhere.

  “Oh,” Happy yelps. Then more words come. “Oh, don't!” Although he has outlived his mother Sonia and half his litter-mates, in wolf years, in human time, Happy is still a puppy.

  He does what any puppy does when cornered and outnumbered. He rolls over and shows his throat.

  “For God's sake, kid, get up. What will people think? Get him up, Susan, they're staring."

  Others come. Men. Women. People with—how does he know this—cameras! People are pointing their cameras. Kept out by the rope that protects the live baggage claim area, strangers jostle, straining to see.

  There are words Happy knows and words he does not choose to understand. She growls, “You should have thought about that before you snatched him."

  “Not snatched,” the man says firmly. He says in a loud voice because they are not alone here, “Rescued. This is not what you think,” he shouts to the onlookers. “This is my long-lost brother, I went through hell to save him."

  “Stuff it, Brent. They don't care who he is or what you did."

  “I rescued him from a wolf pack in the wild!"

  She says, “They aren't interested, they're embarrassed."

  He shouts, “They stole him from our family!” He is trying to get Happy on his feet but Happy flops every which way, like any puppy. Brent tells the crowd, “When they found him, the police called me."

  Happy gnashes at his hand.

  “Ow!” Brent shouts over Happy's head, “Olmstead. My name is on the dogtag!"

  Dogtag. It is confusing. Is he less wolf than dog?

  “Hush, Brent,” the woman says. “Let me do this."

  Flat on his back with his paws raised, Happy lifts his head.

  Unlike the pink man, the woman is gentle and she smells good. Hair. Not fur. Nice hair. Clothes like flowers.

  “Sweetie, are you all right?"

  Oh, that soft purr. Happy wriggles, hoping to be stroked, but there will be no stroking. What was that word he used to have?

  Ma'am. It doesn't come out of his throat the way it's supposed to. At least this part comes back: if you can't speak when they make a question, you nod. Happy nods. She shows all her teeth ("See, Brent?") and he shows all his teeth right back to her in ... Oh! This is a smile. You do it because they expect it. You always did. From nowhere Happy can name, there comes a string of words: Songs my mother taught me. Now, why does this make his heart break? He doesn't know what it means and he doesn't want to know where it's coming from. Songs my mother ...

  She touches his hair. Parts of Happy go soft and—oh! Another gets hard. Smile for her, she is soft in interesting places. At eighteen Happy feels like a puppy, but he isn't, not really.

  Then she prods him with her toe. Her voice drops so he will know she is serious. “Okay then, get up."

  Slowly Happy rolls over and rises on his hind legs, although he is not all that accustomed. Susan shows her teeth at him, but in a nice way, and her voice lightens. “That's better. Let's get him in the car."

  * * * *

  With wolves, you are always certain. Your wolf mother loves you. Get out of line and she will swat you. Grey Sonia did it as needed. Get too far out of line and your father will kill you. Happy bears the marks of Timbo's fangs in his tender hide—this torn ear, that spot on his flank where the gash is healing.

  If you are male and live long enough, you will have to kill your father. It is the way of the pack.

  The wolves aren't Happy's real parents. In a way this is news to him, but from the beginning he had suspicions. Happy's captor—er, rescuer—doesn't know what Happy knows, and what the boy knows is buried so deep in early childhood that it is only now coming to the surface. All his life Happy has run after the hope that the next thing will be better.

  He only left the woods after Timbo tried to kill him.

  He thought his real family would be kinder, although for reasons he only partially understands, he had forgotten them.

  In fact, he was the last child in a big family. Happy made one too many, and the mother put him in clean clothes when they went out but at home he was forgotten, sitting for hours in his own messes. She yelled at him for being in the way. One did things that hurt, but he will not remember which person. When he cried nobody cared. They didn't much notice. He wasn't supposed to hear his mother snap, “And this one's my mistake."

  Words are like weapons, no wonder he forgot.

  The night the wolves took him, Happy was alone in his little stroller in a mall parking lot, hours after the family car pulled out with everyone else inside. He was so thoroughly combed and scrubbed that it may have been accident, not neglect, that found him there in the dark, crying. A central fact about Happy is that he doesn't know.

  He cried and cried. Then the wolves swarmed down on Happy in his stroller and the bawling toddler lifted his arms to them. The big males paced, slavering. The child didn't read their watchful eyes but Sonia knew. She turned on them, bunched and snarling. They backed away. Then she nosed Happy. He looked into her yellow eyes and clamped his arms around her magnificent neck. He buried his face deep in her thick white ruff. Timbo picked Happy out of the stroller and dropped him at Sonia's feet. The pack took the message and backed off. He has been running with them ever since.

  The first thing Sonia did was rip off his little outfit with her teeth and lick him raw so he would smell of her and not the other pack, the one he quickly forgot. The only thing left of them was the scrap of metal dangling from his neck. Timbo wanted that off too. Even though he was the leader, Sonia rolled back her lips and snarled. It stayed. Happy ran with the wolves but the cold square tap-tapped on naked flesh, a sign that he was different. Sonia fed her new pup off her sagging belly and licked his tears away. Then she dragged him through dirt and rotting dead things until he was fit to run with the other cubs and from that night on she was his mother. The rule of the pack is: never get between a cub and its mother. He knew he was loved.

  Timbo did not love Happy, but he protected him.

  In time the pack forgot that he was not one of them. Howling to stay in touch, they ran at night, ah-whooo, ranging wide, ah-whoooooo, and with the knife he fou
nd on a dead man, Happy was as good a hunter as any. Even Timbo came to respect him. This, he thought, was all there was to life. The howling and the hunting, Happy and his litter-mates running free in the night.

  When you are raised by wolves but are not one of them, time is never what you think. You do not age at the same rate.

  Happy he was, yet living with the wolves, nursing injuries when his litter-mates grew up and the challenges began, Happy thought: This can't be my real family. Some day my father the duke and my mother the movie star will come for me. Where did these words come from? Who were his people, really?

  The litters he ran with grew up much, much faster than Happy.

  It was a mystery. The other cubs grew tall and rangy while he was still an awkward pup. They flirted and rutted, things Happy thought he understood and longed for vaguely but was not built to do. He was shaped all wrong, too young in ways Sonia would not explain to him; she was, after all, a mother and there are things mothers keep from you until it's time. His litter-mates frolicked and did things Happy was not yet old enough to do. When he tried to play they snapped: don't bother me. In time, he played with their cubs. Their cubs grew up. Sonia got old. Then Sonia died, and with Sonia gone, craggy Timbo began stalking him, licking his chops.

  Now Happy was old enough to do all those things he had been too young to do before, and Timbo?

  Timbo had to die. Happy had reached the age of kill or be killed. Wolves know that when you are grown, you have to kill your father. Kill him before he kills you.

  He thought he could take Timbo in a fight and so he scent-marked a tree, making clear his intentions. The wolf's challenge!

  He bunched himself as Timbo circled, snarling. Imagine his surprise. The gouge in his flank goes all the way from here down to here. Now, a wolf can lick all the hurt places, but Happy wasn't built to reach the places wolves can reach without trying. Pain drove him sobbing out of the woods.

  When you have been raised by wolves, you know what to expect.

  Foolish to expect better of people.

  Nursing the fresh gash in his flank, he watched the building, men walking back in front of lighted windows. He heard a sound like a forgotten lullaby: human voices. He limped out of the woods, whimpering, “Oh, oh, oh.” Then, when he least expected it, a word came to him. He pointed his nose at the sky. “Oh, help!"

  He expected helping hands, kind words, but big men clattered out shouting, “Stop where you are!” They were nothing like he expected. Happy froze.

  Somebody yelled, “What is that?"

  Somebody else yelled, “Some kind of animal."

  They were so angry! This is nothing like I thought.

  Happy did what wolves do when they are in trouble. He howled. Ah-whoooo. One by one his brothers responded, but the howls were scattered, the howlers far away. Wolves know never to come out of the woods, no matter who is calling. Ah-whooooooooo!

  The men pulled shields over their faces and raised their guns. Guns: a word Happy didn't quite know. In the struggle, the chain around his neck parted and the only scrap of his old life fell into their hands. Why did he imagine it made him special?

  He limped back into the woods. The other wolves—his brothers!—smelled men on him. He was ruined for life in the woods and there was as well ... what? The curiosity. When the men fell on Happy, he felt his flesh smacking into human flesh and there was no difference between them. Even clothed, his attackers were more like Happy than Happy was like the wolves. Like the missing limb that hurts at night, he felt the ghost family. Wolves run in packs or they prowl alone; they kill and are killed and that's the end of it. Men have families.

  Night after night Happy doubled back on the clearing. He was drawn by half-remembered smells—hot food, the scent of bulky, not-wolf bodies—and sounds: music and forks clattering, the buddabuddabudda of low, not-wolf voices. Circling, Happy yearned for something he missed terribly. As for what ... he was not certain.

  Alone, Happy howled to the heavens. He wanted to bring out Timbo, even though he knew Timbo would kill him. Ah-whooooo. If they fought to the death, one way or the other it would end his confusion. Happy's howling filled the woods but not one wolf howled in reply. Ah-whooooooo!

  The loneliness was intense.

  This is why Happy did what wolves never do. For the second time, he left the woods. For a long time, he circled the police station. Then he dropped to his haunches on the front walk and howled to heaven. He howled for all he was worth. Unless he was howling for everything he was losing.

  Now look.

  * * * *

  The needle Brent used to get him out of the airport left Happy inert, but aware. They are riding along, he and Brent and this Susan, he can smell her. The car is much smaller than the van that took him to the hospital after the fight at the police station. They sewed him up and Brent came. Happy did not know him, but he knew him. He rolled off the bed and fell into a crouch, ready to lunge. Guards came. He struggled but the doctors gave him to Brent anyway. They said he was next of kin. Family.

  ...Brent?

  It was on the dogtag. That's Brent's word for it. But why was Brent's name on the dogtag? Am I his pet? Happy wonders. Do I belong to him? He is no dog. He runs with wolves.

  He does not like Brent. Keep your eyes shut, Happy. Keep them closed and he won't know you're in here.

  He is riding along between them. The nice soft woman is soft, but not as nice as he thought. She says over Happy's head, “Why in hell didn't you hose him down before we got in the car?"

  “It's not my fault he stinks."

  “You could have put him in the trunk!"

  Smelly breath mists Happy's face as Brent peers at him, but he keeps his eyes clenched. “Lie down with wolves and you smell like one. You hear?"

  “Save your breath, he's out cold.” The woman riding along next to him, what does this Brent call her? Susan. Susan gives Happy a little shake; his head rolls back and settles on her arm. “If you want him smiling on TV, you'd better revive him."

  “Not now, Suze. Live at Five next Thursday."

  “Like they aren't already waiting at Chateau Marmont?"

  “No way! We can't go public until Dad makes the deal.” Dad. The word Happy refused to remember. His teeth clash and his hackles rise. It is hard to keep from growling.

  “You should have thought of that at the airport. Mr. Show biz.” She goes on in Brent's voice, “’ I rescued him.’ Like you didn't see the phones and camcorders. Screen shots. Everybody knows!"

  “Well, tough. Nobody sees him until the press conference. Dad is talking eight figures."

  Happy's insides shift. He is confused. Wolves don't think in figures.

  Brent barks, “Driver, get off at National."

  “What are you thinking?"

  “Gonna hide him!"

  “Not in this town,” Susan says. Distracted, she's let parts of herself flow into Happy. She thinks he is asleep. Parts of him flow back and she lets him.

  “Outskirts. Inland empire. The valley."

  She says, “Too close.” Happy leans a little closer; she shrugs him off, but he slips back and she lets him. It is hard for him to keep from smiling. They ride along like this for a while. At last she says thoughtfully, “Your mom stayed back in Caverness, right?"

  “She did,” Brent says and then he just stops talking.

  The car rounds a corner and Happy leans into the body next to his, but only a little bit. He can feel her voice vibrating in his bones. “Then take him to your mom's."

  Warm, she is so warm.

  “No way. She hasn't forgiven me for losing him."

  Something changes in the car. “You lost him?"

  Happy's ears prick.

  The woman has asked a question that Brent won't answer. He says instead, “Come on, Susan. What are we going to do?"

  “You lost your very own brother?"

  “Not really. Well, sort of."

  Happy is trying to make his mouth into the right shape to fr
ame the big question. Even if he could, he knows not to bring it out. It is disturbing.

  “Brent, what were you thinking?"

  The fat man whines, “Mom said he was a mistake. I thought she would thank me, but she freaked."

  Mom. Another word Happy can't parse. Oh. Same as mother. That word. Soft, he remembers. Other things. He will not remember other things.

  “She never forgave Dad either."

  “So he lives in L.A. Got that.” Susan adds dryly, “Too bad you can't divorce your kids."

  “Could we not talk about this please?"

  She stiffens—is it something I did? "Back there.” Her voice goes up a notch. “Look. Tell me that's not a mobile unit."

  “Holy crap, it's TV Eight. Driver, take Laurel Canyon."

  The car goes around many curves and up, up, higher than Happy remembers being, and whenever they round a curve too fast he bumps against Susan's soft parts like a sleeper with no control over what he is doing, but in all the uphill and downhill and veering around corners he never, ever bumps Brent, not even accidentally.

  He is aware of a hand waving in front of his closed eyes. A pinch. He wants to play dead but he can't stop himself from flinching. The needle bites. The world goes away again. He can't be sure about the days or the nights, which they are or how many.

  Happy sleeps and he wakes up, then he sleeps again and in the hours they drive he can never be certain which is which, or whether the woman is touching him by accident or because she intends it.

  At last the car crunches uphill and stops for the last time. Happy's head comes up. The smells when Brent hustles him out of the car and hauls him to his feet on the hard, hard street are terrible and familiar. They are climbing steps to a wooden ... porch. Happy knows almost all the words now. Brent slaps the door and a remote bell rings. Footsteps come.

  Terrified, he begins to struggle.

  “Brent, he's waking up!"

  “Not for long."

  Happy yips as the needle goes into his butt. What they do and say when the door opens is forever lost to him.

  When he wakes everything is as it was and nothing is the same. Will his life always be like this? Happy is curled up in his room. He knows it is his room because it used to be his room in the old life, and he knows from the sights and smells that nothing has changed here. It feels good and bad, lying in the old place. From here he can see the pretend bearskin rug in the center of the room with its plastic fangs and empty glass eyes, and lodged in the corner, the faded pink volleyball that he remembers from his very first time on the floor in this room and his very last day here.