Silver Claws: Blood Twins

Chapter 4

The smell of smoke on our clothes would mask our scent. I made sure to cross the road several times, to confuse our trail. We dashed through a creek, running as humans under the moon. Whenever I saw Luna in her full form, I felt the hairs wanting to spring out of my flesh.

I heard no more howls, or the hunting snarl of the Protectors. But human ears are weak. Quint must have been quite far ahead of them or they would have caught us. It wasn’t until the sun glowed in the distance that we slowed.

“Running as a human is tiring,” Rhea said. She spoke out loud since mindspeak is harder in human form than wolf. She wiped sweat off her forehead. Her dark eyes darted around.

“Only two legs. It’s silly when you think about it. It takes twice as much work to get anywhere.”

The neigh of a horse echoed ahead, and we both jumped off the road and into the bush, watching a farmer in a wagon riding by. His blue heeler yapped at us, trying to tell the farmer what we really were, but the farmer couldn’t understand and didn’t see, his eyes were puffed with tiredness. He looked like he hadn’t slept in a hundred years.

“We’re getting closer to the human towns,” I said.

“I don’t really like them,” Rhea said.

“ Father suspected something was going to happen to him and Mother,” I said. “He used to bring us to towns all the time. He said we had to learn to be like the humans. To fit in.”

Rhea nodded. “Maybe. He knew there was danger for him in the Pack. I wish I had paid more attention about the Silver Claws. I wish they had trusted us.”

We had to get further away. Faster. To never be found again. I had an idea. “Come on.” I led her down to the river, it was wide and docked, on the outskirts of town, was a paddlewheel boat. It was a two decker, and people were crowded on the open decks over the bright red wheel at the back. They were waving and shouting and laughing. Three smoke stacks bloomed white puffed flowers into the blue sky and the pilot house was trimmed in black and gold. Two tall, black and gold columns columns at the front held the chains and the pulleys to lower and lift the gang plank.

 “We have to ride on that. They’ll never track us.”

“We don’t have any money.”

“We’ll sneak on.”

I grabbed her hand and led her down to the dock. People were crowded up at the gangplank. We got in line, the humans smelled--the ladies’ stink was sweet, with much perfume. The men smelled like outhouses. It made me sick, but I kept a smile on my face. Rhea held her hand over her nose. “Don’t be so obvious,” I whispered.

“How are we going to get on?”

“Follow my lead,” I said. When we got to the front the ticket man, red faced with sunburn, squinted at me. “Where you think you’re going?”

“Mother. Father!” I said, and a few people turned around on the boat. “They paid already,” I explained. “Asked us to leave the horses with our uncle.”

He raised an eyebrow. “They didn’t pay me.”

“I’ll get Father to come back.” People were grumbling behind us.

“Fine,” he said,”you two go. Send him back.”

We squished into the crowd and I pulled Rhea as far away from the gate as possible. “What if he finds out?”

“Well, they’re not going to throw us overboard. We’ll just have to hide out.”

We climbed up to the second deck and got a good view of the river. I liked feeling wind in my hair. I hadn’t been on a boat this big before. A whistle sounded and the steam driven paddle wheel began to turn. It was quite the the thing to see.