Hitchhikers (Wolf Point #1)

-52-

I spend nearly a week on that couch, and the Whittemores never complain once that I'm taking up all their sitting space. There's no television so I sleep a lot and pretend to sleep even more to avoid conversation with Mr. Whittemore. I wait for him to tell me to get out of his house, but he never does. He goes about his business like it's no big deal to have a strange kid on his couch, eating his food.

I figure the Whittemores usually eat their meals at the kitchen table, like normal people, but on account of me they eat on trays in the living room. Zeke and his dad talk about their day in monosyllables or not at all. The sound of silence and chewing is comfortable, not awkward, and I find I like it. The fact that the food is hot and fresh and plentiful makes it more so.

At night Zeke and I play cards. His dad prefers to do something useful like skin animals or clean his guns, and I can tell he'd rather Zeke be hard at his schoolwork or reading one of the old leather-bound books on the shelves. Once or twice I catch a glimpse of something in his eye when he watches us talking and laughing. He's glad Zeke has a friend. Isolated out here, I guess Zeke doesn't have much opportunity. Neither have I these past three years.

My leg turns shades of black and green and purple. Pus seeps out under the stitches, which I clean off with the alcohol. By week's end it feels solid enough for me to walk on it. I attempt it one morning when Zeke and his dad go out to milk their goats.

It's wobbly at first, and I feel my muscles shaking. One testing step, hopping most of my weight onto my other leg. A twinge, not so bad. Another step, putting more weight on it.

I exhale. I'm not sure if a normal person with no wolf blood would heal this fast, but I sure am grateful. It sets my teeth on edge when I think of how that metal trap scraped my calf bone.

I hobble into the kitchen area. Mr. Whittemore already brewed coffee for himself, but breakfast isn't served until after the morning chores. For the first time, and maybe only because I'm finally wide awake after a week of dozing on the couch, I wonder what happened to Mrs. Whittemore. Mr. Whittemore usually does the cooking, and neither he nor Zeke have ever mentioned a mother. There are no photographs anywhere in the house. Just animal heads and horns and guns for decoration, some plaque award-type things that I never bothered to look at, which I assume are related to the hunting. Awards from where, I don't know. So far as I can tell they keep to themselves. No church, no school. Mr. Whittemore doesn't go to work. They have their animals and jars of food in the cupboards. I open and look for the first time.

Vegetables and fruits in clear mason jars, each labeled with a permanent marker in a man's hand. Beans, pickles, tomatoes. Some essentials in boxes that were store-bought, baking soda and salt. I close my eyes and inhale. There is food stored elsewhere, in a pantry or basement, potatoes, onions, carrots, root vegetables. Grains. A small amount in the kitchen, in one of the bottom cupboards, under the sink. I take a few potatoes and onions and start peeling. I don't throw the peels away. I know the waste is kept for compost in a bin outside. Eggs in the generator-powered fridge, and bacon.

By the time Mr. Whittemore and Zeke are finished with their morning duties, I have breakfast on the table. Mr. Whittemore is surprised but keeps his face blank, no hint of a smile. Zeke's smile is enough. "I didn't know you could cook, Dan," he says, slapping me on the shoulder as he takes his seat.

"Or walk, neither," Mr. Whittemore adds.

I limp back to my seat. "Leg's getting better."

I wonder if he'll ask me to leave once the limp is entirely gone, or once spring sets in. I can only hope my ability to help out will earn me more time.

* * *

It is night and the full moon is streaming in through the living room window, right across my face. Those old legends about werewolves and the full moon can't be true, but I feel a pull to the outside and I am there, night air cold on my skin. I should be cold. I should want to go inside. Instead I pull off my clothes, the sweatpants that belong to Mr. Whittemore, the thermal shirt that is Zeke's.

I should be covered in goose bumps and shivering. Instead there is steam rising from my body.

That bright orb in the dark sky calls to me and I answer, the howl erupting from my very soul, and I am racing into the trees, not a man but a wolf, a creature who only wants to run and chase and fight and live and survive.

The pain in my leg is a dull throb at the back of my mind.

I run and run, stretching, moving as I haven't in the past week. Snow flies under my feet. I dodge trees and rocks. A pressure in my brain darkens my vision momentarily – the wolf pushing for control. I push back, and my sight clears. I've stopped running. Suddenly my human side with its gift of reason presses to the forefront.

traps beware of traps

I stand stock still in the snow, looking around. How would I be able to tell if there was a trap? The night I got caught it had been snowing, and the trap was under a layer of snow so I couldn't see it.

Smell. Zeke would have left a trail of scent that any animal could smell. And didn't traps have bait? If I smelled any hunks of dead meat, that meant a trap was nearby.

I don't smell anything like that.

What I do smell:

pine woodsmoke moss maple ice fish

Fish?

I follow my nose for a mile or two to a small lake. It comes up all of a sudden to my wolf eyes, even as the fish smell had been growing stronger this whole time. The water is frozen through, and though I see a small ice fishing hut in the middle, I don't dare tread on the ice. The weather has been warmer this week – not really warm, but enough to set the snow to melting and dripping down from the gutters of the Whittemores' house. Not safe.

A small movement catches my eye, the tiny scuff of a paw in the snow and I'm running through the brush

meat rabbit chase

I go black in flashes, flinching every time I resurface and see a tree flying at my face, pushing and clawing my way to the forefront of my consciousness. The blind need to

run chase kill

is overpowering. Once I emerge from the blackness and the rabbit is in my jaws, the coppery sweet taste of blood on my tongue, the blackouts stop. I drop the dead creature from my mouth. Its hot blood steams in the frosty air.

Panting, I sit on my haunches and try to reason. My fur melts away and now it's my bare ass in the snow. The light sweat all over my body begins to freeze.

The mess in the snow bothers me. I just killed this rabbit for no other reason than to kill. I can still taste it, the blood. I feel sick.

As the flood of sour bile fills my throat I say out loud, "The wolf is an animal, not a monster." Not a monster. Just an animal. Animals don't have morals or ethics or whatever it is that keeps humans from going on killing sprees all the time. Most humans. Some humans do kill for pleasure (Paul the Perv springs to mind) and we call them serial killers. They are the human monsters.

"I'm not a monster," I tell the moon. Part animal. Part killer instinct, an instinct I need to learn how to control.

My body gives a sudden shiver as it realizes that it is cold.

I could walk back to the cabin naked, risk frostbite and getting lost, and keep control of my mind. But it makes more sense to return as a wolf and practice my control.

Take a deep breath. Close my eyes. Become the Other.

With my humanness firmly in control, I scoop up the dead rabbit in my mouth and follow my nose back to the cabin. The Whittemores and I can have rabbit stew for dinner tomorrow.