The Amazing Wolf Boy

Part 4 - Uncle Bob

I awoke in the bushes, covered in dew. The sky was a soft gray. Birds sang in the trees.

My eyes burned, and I rubbed them as I looked toward the silent house. A blue pickup with an extended cab sat in the gravel driveway. I wondered if it belonged to my uncle. I heard that my mother sent Bob money to buy a truck. At the time, I assumed it was a tricked-out show vehicle. This one looked like it was accustomed to hard work.

I dressed in a hurry, crossed the yard, and climbed through my bedroom window. A clatter came from the kitchen. My stomach fell. I was as apprehensive about seeing my uncle as I was about turning into a wolf.

I went to the kitchen. Uncle Bob stood at the sink making a cup of instant coffee with hot tap water. He had steel gray, over-the-collar hair and a thin build.

I cleared my throat. “Good morning.”

“Cody. Good to see you, boy.”

He held out his hand, and I shook it. His palms were heavily calloused. I wondered what he did for a living.

“Hey, you got tall,” he said with my mom’s smile.

I tried to smile back, but it felt like a grimace. Yeah, I got tall, seeing’s how the last time he saw me I was four years old.

“You have grass in your hair,” he said.

My hands jerked up, and I stammered, “Oh, I was, ah—”

“Want some coffee?”

“No, sir,” I said, and then blurted, “There’s nothing around here to eat.”

He slurped. “What, you didn’t eat last night?”

I frowned. Had he expected me to exist on airline food?

“I ate.” He patted his stomach. “Had me a nice rabbit dinner. Nothing better than fresh caught.”

“You like to hunt?”

“Sure. Don’t you?”

I’d never been hunting in my life. But I hoped to fit in, so I said, “I fish.” Although I hadn’t since I was ten.

“Fish?” He scrunched his face. “To each his own, I guess. Why don’t we go into town and get some breakfast.”

“Can I go like this?” I indicated my damp sweat pants and stretched out tee.

He shrugged. “This is South Florida. You can go in your skivvies if you want.”

We walked together into the gray morning. My nose twitched with flower-scented humidity.

“This will give me a chance to show you around.” Uncle Bob circled the cab of his truck.

I sat shotgun and buckled in. The first thing I noticed was the truck didn’t have a radio. The second was a baseball bat on the floor. I didn’t think it was there for sport. A knotted leather cord dangled from the rearview mirror. Feathers and animal fangs decorated its length.

“What’s that?” I motioned.

He winked. “Trophies.”

I nodded like it was normal to keep mementoes of road kill. I saw why my parents considered him a black sheep.

We lurched along the rutted roads that led out of the neighborhood, and finally pulled onto asphalt where we picked up speed. Outside my window, the landscape turned alien. It wasn’t like I’d never been in Florida. I visited Miami Beach plenty of times—blue water, white sandy beaches, high-rises. This was nothing like that. One minute we’d be in a jungle so thick you couldn’t see past the trees. The next, we’d be in a flat expanse of scrub and sawgrass that stretched for miles.