Chapter 3
Stalkson trotted across the ridge, silhouetted by the moon three days past full. There was a light dusting of snow that would melt off shortly after the sun rose the next day.
The borders of Elk Mountain touched the national preserve in northeast Washington and the wilderness of Canada. The reservation was over two million acres of pristine Rocky Mountain panhandle, but sometimes it didn't seem nearly big enough to satisfy his need. Schee-Chu-Umsh had lived for thousands of years in his territory before they made room for Stalkson's tribe.
It was big enough for them.
Wolves didn't typically seek solitude, but now and then he needed it for little stretches of time. He did his best thinking when he ran by himself. Whoever said, "It's good to be king", had obviously never been one.
He was restless. Most of his tribe was asleep - the lucky ones curled up with their mates, feeling as content as creatures can be. Werewolves got a surge of energy at the full moon - their blood waxing, responding to the magnetic pull in the same way as the tides. Their bodies and spirits responded to the call to hunt and mate. By the third day, they were usually exhausted. The unmated were exhausted from running. The mated were exhausted from f**king. And hunting. And more f**king.
It should feel good. It used to feel good, roaming alone, sorting things out. Sometimes he thought he could think better in wolf form. The brain equipment was different, but that was a good thing. It gave him a fresh perspective. His wolf simply processed information from another point of view.
Hot tonight. It's never hot. How could it feel hot on a December night? As cool air drifted across the warmer water of Coeur d'Alene Lake, the ghostly mist below would soon rise and give cover to even the most inept predators. At such times, even bumblers could be successful as hunters.
There was no one to see him trot past, but if there had been, they probably would have said he was a beautiful sight. Nothing says "wild" like a lone wolf on a full moon night. The combination of the snow and the white birch bark made his dark fur stand out on moonlit nights like that one.
Maybe it wasn't the weather. Maybe it was him, heat coming from the inside. Stalkson wasn't big on introspection. It had no practical application that he could see, and a thing that lacked practical application was, as his father used to say, useless as tits on a boar hog. The leader of one of the thirteen remaining tribes of werewolves had no time or use for introspection, especially not with something as catastrophic as extinction looming.
The thought of the extinction of the wolf people under his care was weighing him down. Sometimes it even made him feel short of breath. His mind was in such turmoil as he ran along that he almost missed the movement, but his peripheral vision was sharp and his reflexes were quick. He froze with one paw lifted in the graceful pose of a bird dog on point. Just ahead was a twelve point buck, weighing in at about four hundred pounds.
Stalkson realized he was upwind. The big boy must have smelled wolf and been startled out of his nocturnal cover.
For just a second, just one crazy second, Stalkson felt an impulse urge him to attempt pulling the great horned monster down alone. Just a little surge of adrenaline... In his youth he might have tried it. And might have barely limped his stupid, young self home, too.
No. He wasn't going to challenge the other magnificent male, no matter how appealing the idea seemed. They stared at each other barely breathing, neither blinking nor moving a muscle. Stalkson knew the big elk would never turn his back on him. As predator on the scene, he was the one who would have to break the stalemate.
Deciding to make it quick and painless, he wheeled on his haunches and ran in the opposite direction for a few yards before slowing his pace to resume an easy trot. All too soon his thoughts drifted back to the ever present troubles.
These days his mind was always crowded with problems. And maybe fear. Fear of what could be coming if they didn't solve the problem.
He thought about the carefree days of his youth when there was beauty and balance in the world. The tribe was blessed with a new crop of pups every spring, half male, half female. The birth of a male pup was a joyful occasion because there was no question that he would find a mate when his time came.
Stalkson stopped long enough to look at the moonlit landscape. Beautiful. Still beautiful. But the balance was gone. Not just in the diminishing number of females, but also in the signs of spoilage. The part of his personality that was wolf would wax poetic with some romantic inanity, like "evil on the wind".
He wished it was. It would be easier to engage in spiritual battle than fight the ravages of technology fallout. Twilights were too pink and orange. It would be a watercolor dream if it didn't mean the choking air pollution from Los Angeles to Beijing had started to drift and hang in the air over the natural refuges set aside by Teddy Roosevelt and others. There was no such thing as natural refuge from bad air.
His ears pricked when he heard a distant howl on the wind. He would have sniggered if wolf lips worked that way. If only humans knew how bad they were at attempting to mimic animal language, he supposed they would stop trying. He turned and headed in the direction of the fake howl. Might as well investigate.
BlueClaw tossed a dry branch on the fire and waited. He felt a pair of eyes on him and looked in the direction of the sensation just in time to see a dark wolf emerge from the darker forest and shift into a man mid-stride. He smiled. "Brother Wolf. I thought you might be out and about on this fine moonlit night."
"ShuShu." Stalkson squatted down by the fire. The night might feel warm to fur, but it was chill to bare skin. The sensitive nerve endings of his balls reacted to the brush of dry grass beneath him. "You called?"
BlueClaw grinned. "I thought you might be out tonight." The gleam in Stalkson's eye was more than reflected firelight. There was teasing there as well. "I know. You think my wolf howl sucks."
Stalkson shrugged and smiled at his old friend. "What's troubling you?"
"Like most old men, I can't sleep. And, I suspect, like most old men I was thinking about love."
Stalkson couldn't have been more surprised if the old man had said he was thinking about becoming an investment banker. "You think the minds of old men are preoccupied with love? What about it?"
"I think that, when people near the end of their lives, we begin to review. Thoughts turn to what we did experience and what we didn't experience. Reliving our stories... Well, that's healthy. Dwelling on what might have happened and didn't? If we think about it too long, demons of disappointment turn those thoughts into regrets. Once that happens, it can be hard to think about anything else."
Stalkson arched an eyebrow. "Demons?"
"It's a metaphor. Are you paying attention?"
"You know you're going out of your way to be vague."