Little Wolf

Ch 22 Man-instinct

I was drawn to my bike. Some people were nearby but no one was too close. I sniffed the air. Something told me I was safe to shift. I dressed out of habit. I slid on the heavy yellow jacket that identified me as someone helping to combat the fire.

There were noises, words. I knew what they meant. I headed over. Someone had been hurt using a chainsaw. I picked it up. It was easy to spot the man in charge, yelling directions to various workers.

"Where?"  Again, my voice came out using wolf sounds to make human words.

"You know what your doing with that saw?" He had his hand on my arm as he yelled the question over the noise around us.

I nodded.

He pointed me in the right direction. There was a line of men cutting down a row of trees. The idea was to keep the fire from jumping from treetop to treetop, so it wouldn't spread further.

I worked with the men a few hours before we pulled out. Someone took the chainsaw from me. I went back to my bike. I could picture Derrick in my mind. I knew he would be worried.  I pointed my bike in the right direction.

Derrick wasn't there but the tent was. I parked by the tent. I wanted to get clean. There was a man by the motel, his arm in a cast. I grabbed a change of clothes, the small bag of toiletries, and headed over to him.

I only motioned with my arm full of stuff. He opened his motel room for me.

"Take your time, it will be a few hours before most of them get back. Just leave the towels on the floor. I'll get housekeeping to bring up some more."

It felt good to get clean. I made sure I scrubbed until the smell of smoke was gone. When I was heading out, I waved to the man who let me use his shower. I spent the next few hours just policing around the area, picking up stray trash, putting one of the cases of bottled water in a tub that someone had, adding ice from the motel's machine.

I crawled into my tent, cleaned and organized our stuff for a bit, stretched out.

I woke with the sounds of people moving about. Derrick was in the tent. His hair was wet from his recent shower. When he saw I was awake he tapped my leg.

"Come on, someone brought food in."

I went out, sniffed the air.

"You ok?"

"Rain."  My voice was rough and deep.

A couple men heard me.

"I hope so, rain would make our job easier. Anyone see the forecast lately?"

The topic centered around the work that had been done and the weather. I only listened.

Derrick kept trying to ask me about where I went when I left on my bike in the wee hours of the morning. I just blinked at him, turned away. He stopped asking.

The next day Derrick and I worked in the rain, driving through streets, clearing them of debris. I could tell he was worried about me. Words from me were few and far between. I was easily distracted when not focused on a specific task. Even food was quickly forgotten. I would often focus on things he couldn't see.

Our boss John called the next day, told us to head home, take a few days off, rest up. Packing up the tent was beyond me. Derrick packed up. I could tell he didn't want me to drive the bike, but I knew where to go. I couldn't explain it even if I could speak the words. He gave the truck keys to one of the other guys from our station, got on the bike behind me.