The black wolf paused and lifted his muzzle into the air. The scent of elk made his nose twitch and his mouth water. But after weeks of captivity, surviving on whatever carrion his captor tossed into his cage, he didn’t have the strength to bring down such a large animal. The mouse he snatched earlier that morning didn’t give him the energy he needed to run.
The wolf ignored the hunger that gnawed at his belly and trotted up the eastern slope. He didn’t like traveling away from his mate, but she’d already merged with her woman. She couldn’t shift until he merged with his man. And his man was somewhere on the other side of the mountains.
After a full day of traveling without sufficient meat, the wolf couldn’t even manage to trot. So he walked.
Something caught his attention. He froze then slowly turned his head. There, just ahead of him and off to the side, something moved. He sniffed the air, but the wind was at his back. He crept forward, one paw at a time, and found a rabbit hiding next to a fallen log. It pinned its ears against its back and flattened its body against the ground. If not for the subtle movement of its eyes, tracking the wolf as he advanced, he might have missed it.
The rabbit pressed its body deeper into the ground as the wolf inched closer.
Patience. Step by step. The wolf knew he’d only have one chance to take the rabbit. He didn’t have enough energy to give chase. The wolf crouched. His muscles tensed.
The rabbit sprang into the air.
The wolf pounced. He clamped his jaws around the rabbit’s neck and gave it a victorious shake. Bones cracked. The rabbit stopped kicking.
After his meager meal, the wolf licked his muzzle clean then resumed his journey. His belly wasn’t full, but it was full enough. He broke into a loping run and didn’t stop until he saw the twinkling lights clustered in the valley below. This confused him. The lights belonged in the night sky, not on the ground. He continued down the slope, stopping often to sniff, look and listen.
There was a heaviness in the air. The smell burned his nose and stung his eyes. It overpowered the cool, clean scent of pine and the warm, musty smell of leaves decomposing under a melting blanket of snow. The closer he got to the valley, the more his apprehension grew.
The wolf’s territory spanned several hundred miles. But he’d never been this close to so many humans, so many unrecognizable scents, and so much noise. It slammed into him from all sides.
Huge, blocky animals with giant glowing eyes raced back and forth on a wide, hard trail, spewing toxic fumes. The wolf needed to cross the trail to get to his man. He trotted back and forth, looking for an opening. But every time he tried to dart across, the beasts howled at him. He’d never heard anything like it; louder than a rutting elk and more shrill than a dying rabbit.
He ran along the path but stopped when another path intersected it. A long line of beasts stood motionless on that path. They growled quietly but took no notice of the wolf.
Suddenly, the beasts on the other trail stopped. The wolf darted across. He barely made it to the other side when the beasts resumed their race.
The humans’ dens were clustered together. Most of them were guarded by at least one huge, sleeping beast.
Small, noisy animals snarled and barked at the wolf, but they were trapped behind wooden fences and posed no threat to him. Their canine scent—not wolf, but similar enough to be familiar—marked the perimeters of their cages. They threw themselves against the wooden slats, challenging the wolf, warning him to stay away from their territories. He ignored them.
The wolf kept the wind in his face and sneaked up on one of the huge, sleeping beasts. Several canine males had marked the strange, round feet of the beast. This was a challenge he couldn’t ignore. The hair along his back stood on end. He scratched at the unyielding ground, lifted a hind leg and added his own mark. The beast didn’t react. It’s eyes didn’t glow. There was no sound of breath or beating heart, and yet it remained standing. The wolf growled at the beast then continued his journey.
He followed the urge to turn onto a new path. The human dens along this path were spaced further apart. Trees grew thicker, but still didn’t provide much cover. The scent of deer surrounded him. Four does and a buck leapt to their feet and bolted. The wolf’s desire to find his man overpowered his instinct to give chase.
He found his man’s den at the end of the path. No beast guarded this den, but the wolf could smell the acrid odor of one inside the den. He growled, but the beast did not respond.
The wolf circled the den and the wooden cage that enclosed half of it. He didn’t detect any canines inside the cage, but several males had marked the perimeter. Unacceptable. He put his mark on top of those then leapt into the cage.
His man was inside the den. The wolf sat on his haunches, lifted his nose and howled.