Hear the Wolves

  His father is being attacked by the wolves.

  His eyes go big, his hands stretch wide, and his entire body shakes. “Dad!” he screams. “Dad!”

  He tries to run, but Mr. Foster is on him in an instant. “No!” his teacher roars. “You stay here.”

  Pilot tries to break free, but Mr. Foster grabs his face and jerks it close to his own. “You listen to me. Stay put! Do not move.”

  Mr. Foster rushes toward me, and for a moment I’m afraid of this man with his skinny legs and muddy hair. He looks like someone else entirely.

  He jerks the rifle from my hands and runs, runs, toward the sound of Nash Blake screaming. As he flees into the rain, surrounded by terrible shadows, his color changes from safe, knowledgeable white to brave orange. So orange it burns a hole through the earth, though that can’t be right.

  Mr. Foster vanishes, and Nash’s screams change into something different. As the man moans, Pilot goes from looking like he couldn’t move if he wanted to, to racing after Mr. Foster. I’m there to grab him, though it does little to slow him down.

  “I have to get to him,” he yells, no longer caring about the wolves. “He’s my father!”

  As I fight against Pilot—knowing no matter what’s happened to Nash it’s something his son shouldn’t see—I realize his dad has stopped making any sounds at all.

  A shot rings out.

  It’s a hundred times louder than any shot I’ve ever fired. Like the first sound I’ve heard with both ears in ages.

  Pilot drops to his knees, and his dog leaps up to lick his face. He shoves the animal away, and the dog yelps. Sympathy washes over me for the puppy, so I pat him, quick, on the back.

  The howling has stopped. The flutter of paws against the snow is gone.

  The wolves have fled, but where did that last shot go?

  We wait seconds, minutes, days for any noise to reach us.

  “Do you hear anything?” I ask Elton, who’s come to stand beside Pilot and me.

  He shakes his head.

  I glance at Pilot, but he’s shaking in a different sort of way. Like he knows something bad happened with that shot and it’ll change him forever.

  When I hear the soft crunch of boots, I’m not sure if it’s real, or just hope. But it sounds again, closer, and I know someone’s coming.

  We wait, the three of us, Elton with his palm in mine, and my other hand touching the crown of Pilot’s head.

  My heart slows for the first time since we spotted the wolves, and my breath catches in my throat.

  The footsteps grow louder.

  And Mr. Foster appears. Alone.

  He tosses the rifle into the snow as if it burned his hands. He wipes the rain from his face, and when he drops his arms I notice a splattering of something red on his sweater.

  “Where is he?” Pilot asks. His question is a knife through my heart. I clench my eyes shut and hope that when I open them again, Pilot’s worthless old man will step out from behind Mr. Foster. But I know it isn’t happening, so I open my eyes and help Pilot to his feet and nudge his dog toward Elton.

  “Mr. Foster?” Pilot says.

  My teacher shakes his head, and when he steps closer, I notice he’s crying.

  Pilot scrunches up his face like he’s trying hard not to do the same. His eyes blaze like the torches we lost, and I wonder if he’s replacing sadness with anger, just as I replaced my own sadness with numbness.

  “Did you shoot one of ’em?” Pilot’s voice is so even it scares me more than if he yelled.

  Mr. Foster stares at him.

  “I asked if you at least got one?” Pilot says.

  The man reaches for him. “Pilot—”

  Pilot takes a backward step. “Are you sure they got him? It’s dark out. He’s probably just hurt. Much as I’ve wished Nash Blake dead, there isn’t a thing in this world that could kill him.”

  “He’s gone,” Mr. Foster says without looking up. The words slap me across the face, and even Elton chokes on a sob.

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” Pilot makes as if he’s going to pass by, but the man is there to block his path. As Mr. Foster grabs on to Pilot’s arm, the boy explodes like a land mine.

  Pilot shoves Mr. Foster and he falls into the snow, rain driving over them both. “Where’d that last bullet go? Did you take out the wolf making a meal of my daddy, or did you save it for Nash himself?”

  Mr. Foster only crawls to his feet and tries to guide Pilot to him, but Pilot pushes him again. It’d be better if Mr. Foster just said it out loud. That he’d never shoot Nash. Not even if the man was in pain and he thought a bullet was the fastest way to end that pain.

  So why doesn’t he just say it?

  When Pilot goes to shove the man again, or worse, Elton shrieks at him to stop. I grab Pilot by the arms and attempt to drag him back, but it’s like wrestling a thunderstorm.

  When Pilot pushes me too, I’m so surprised I barely keep myself from falling.

  “We’ve got to get out of here, Pilot,” I say, hoping he’ll see reason. That he’ll remember the wolves are still out there, and that they could return any second. But mostly, I want to stop the look on Pilot’s face.

  Pilot points at me. “You should have taken that shot. When that wolf got on your boot, you should have shot it. They would have run, and Nash would still be here.”

  My face burns so hot that my nose, eyes, and ears turn to ash. I open my mouth to reply, to say anything, but I think the heat got my tongue too. He’s right. I was saving that bullet. Because, wolf teeth on my boot? That was something I could handle. But what if they’d gone after Pilot? If something happened to him I’d lose my friend, and my lasso.

  Every other time the wolves appeared, I had two or more bullets. But tonight, there was only one.

  “I’m sorry,” I whisper.

  “You’re sorry?” Pilot says. “My dad is … he’s … You know, if I’d gone ahead to Vernon, my dad wouldn’t be out here. I stayed for you. I stayed because ever since I brought you out of those woods you’ve been too scared to do a thing on your own.”

  Mr. Foster throws his arms around Pilot. To comfort him. To stop the angry words. Pilot struggles against him, and then finally, finally, he allows himself to be embraced. But when the basset hound wiggles out from Elton’s hold and runs to Pilot, sensing his owner’s distress, Pilot breaks away and stoops to his dog.

  He rubs his face with his free hand and glances around, realizing for the first time that we’re all still exposed. I can see the fear rushing in to replace the anger.

  “Come on,” he says, standing up. “You know what my daddy would say if one of you was taken? He’d say we gotta think about ourselves now.”

  Pilot looks in the direction of where his father must lie, then his eyes fall to the snow and he mutters, “We’ll come back for him.”

  “For both of them,” Mr. Foster says quickly.

  Pilot winces, and then starts walking. “Let’s go.”

  I glance at my gun. My father’s gun. My grandfather’s gun. It looks different lying there in the snow, emptied. For all the meals it’s brought us, I’m not sure I want it anymore. But it feels odd leaving it behind. That rifle, and my .22, they’re a connection to a life my father built. What will I do without a gun in my hands? I give it one last look—recalling the lives that depended on it, and the blood that spilled from its chamber—and I turn toward Pilot.

  We follow after him without a word. What else can we do? As we walk through the darkness, not able to see more than five feet ahead, the rain drenching us, I think about Nash Blake and the father he was to Pilot. And I decide, no matter how people live their lives, they leave holes. Because once a person is gone, all that’s left is the wondering. Wondering what might have happened if they’d stayed. If things were good, how much more good could there have been? And if things were bad, could they have gotten better?

  Now Pilot will never know the answer to that. And neither will I.

/>   We walk another ten minutes before a wolf releases a great and mighty howl in the distance. They’ve returned to Nash, and we all know it. Pilot stumbles once, and his head drops. Then his back swells as he takes a mighty breath, and he keeps walking.

  As I march, I think about all the ice that’s gathered on our hearts, and how we’ll ever chip it off. And I think about those wolves too. About whether now that they’ve made a meal of Ms. Wade and Nash too, there’s a chance they’ll stop there. Because the only thing worse than knowing I’ve lost another of our group to the woods and the wolves is that those wolves might not be satisfied for long.

  But the very worst thought?

  The overwhelming, shameful, stomach-turning feeling of thankfulness that the person the wolves are maybe feeding on right this very moment … isn’t me.

  We find the final shelter as the sun rises. We just followed the direction Nash had been walking, and kept our eyes peeled for the gashes in tree trunks. Twice, we followed what were probably bear marks. But at last, we stand staring at that tin roof and wood walls and dingy door. After the night we’ve had, the shelter looks like a mansion.

  Elton uses what little strength he has to run ahead. Farts jogs after him, barking at his heels, because apparently there’s nothing worse to a dog than a ten-year-old running faster than he is.

  Elton disappears inside, and as we close the distance to the shelter, he reappears in the doorway. “Holy moly.”

  “What is it?” Mr. Foster asks blankly. He’s hardly said a word since he vanished between those trees with my rifle, as if the memory of what he did, or didn’t do, is too much to bear.

  Elton holds his hand above his head. In his grasp is a silver can.

  It’s food, I realize. There’s food inside the shelter.

  I’m running before I even think to ask how it got there. My body doesn’t care about questions. It needs to eat. It needs to sleep. And it needs to shut itself off from my brain, because the memories it holds are too awful to think about.

  I rush inside the shelter, Mr. Foster and Pilot directly behind me. Elton is already pushing past us, searching the ground.

  “What?” I say, my mouth watering. “What do you need?”

  “Rocks,” he answers. “Always, rocks.”

  “What kind?” I ask. “What color?!”

  Elton stops his search and looks me straight in the eyes. “A sharp one, Sloan.”

  I almost smile. Almost.

  It takes the four of us under two minutes to find what Elton needs. We practically throw a pile of rocks at his feet.

  “This isn’t a Boy Scout kind of thing,” Elton says, choosing the sharpest rock. “Any of you could do this.”

  But for some reason, we don’t. We stare at Elton as he expertly taps the edge of a can against a larger flat rock as if to loosen the seal. Then he raises the sharp rock and brings it down on the tin top. When it doesn’t budge, Elton tries it again. And again. He’s grunting from effort when Pilot rips the can and rock from his hand.

  Pilot hits it the same way Elton did, but with much more strength. Finally, with a snarl, Pilot hurls it at a nearby tree.

  The can bursts open.

  Peaches fly through the air and plop into the snow, dripping sticky-sweet down the tree trunk. Farts is the first there, licking the juices with his long, pink dog tongue.

  “Oh, gross,” Elton says.

  But we scramble over anyway, scooping handfuls of half-frozen peaches and snow into our mouths. When there’s one questionable-looking slice of peach lying on the ground, no one stops Pilot from taking the honors.

  Elton points to the shelter. “There’s more.”

  We don’t need encouragement. We’re on our feet, racing, stumbling through the snow. Once we get inside, we find he’s right. We were too busy worrying over peaches to see that we’ve been blessed with French green beans, and artichoke hearts swollen with olive oil, and salted potato wedges with skin, and mangoes packed in their own juices, and black-eyed peas and sliced carrots and pickled okra and barbeque baked beans.

  And, holy mother of food, there are five cans of potted meat.

  We go for the meat first. Grip those pull-tabs, rip off the tops, and dig our fingers inside. The meat is awful. The meat is amazing. The meat is like sunshine on my tongue.

  I lick the inside clean after I’m done eating, and open the fifth can for Farts. Pilot sees me doing this, and nods. The weight of his words last night slams into me, but I shove it down because now I’ve got a can of potatoes and my body is saying shut up, shut up, shut up to my brain.

  After the potatoes, I reach for the mangoes, breaking the can open and letting the juice run down my throat. We forget the river, we forget the wolves, and we eat until all we can do is lie back, unable to speak, hardly able to draw a breath, as our stomachs stretch toward the sky. Pilot looks over at me, and he takes my hand. His eyes say he’s sorry for what he said. Mine say I wish I knew how to ease his pain.

  When my mouth grows dry, I stand and whisper to Pilot, “I’m gonna get kindling for a fire so we can melt snow to drink.”

  He makes as if he’ll come with me, but his body moves slowly. I put a hand on his shoulder and add, “I’ll be fine.”

  He nods, and collapses against Elton, who is snoozing alongside Mr. Foster.

  Pilot’s dog follows me as I walk, making me feel less alone in my search. I don’t find any dry bark, but I do chance upon a rock I think Elton can use. I’m clawing at a rotted tree when the basset hound suddenly races ahead, cutting a quick path in the snow. Everything in my body wants me to return to Mr. Foster and Elton and Pilot. But I can’t go back without the dog. So I shove the rock in my pocket, and I sprint after him.

  Farts runs faster, and I realize he’s chasing a squirrel. Idiot.

  “Farts, get over here.”

  The squirrel dashes into a hole in the ground, and the basset hound goes nuts, howling as if someone cut off those long, goofy ears. He races to the hole and scratches at the entrance, trying to get inside.

  “I see you’re brave when it comes to squirrels,” I say, bending to corral him. I stop when my fingers brush barbed wire. I follow the wire to a wooden stake and realize what it is I’m touching.

  My father’s fence. The one he and his men built. I wrap my hands around the wire, careful to mind the barbs, and move it back and forth. Slowly. And then faster. Frustration simmers inside me as I yank harder and harder, trying to—what?—to take down at least a small piece of this ridiculous fence? This fence that helped put us in harm’s way. And why? Because my father said it would help?

  I believed him. I thought he knew all about hunting. But he doesn’t know everything. Neither did my mom.

  I dig my heels into the snow and lean back, shake even harder.

  I love my parents. But they don’t always know what’s best, which means someday I’m going to have to learn to trust myself.

  “Argh!” I yell, releasing the fence.

  Farts dashes away from me and into a thicket, deciding with his large dog brain that the squirrel didn’t go in the hole after all. Or maybe he’s running from my meltdown. Who knows?

  “No, get back here. Come on, we gotta go.”

  The puppy backs up. Slowly. Too slowly. He whines and tucks his tail and shoots a nervous look in my direction.

  Every muscle in my body grows stiff. The dog lowers his head and hesitates for one long moment.

  Then he bolts.

  A wolf, the alpha male, springs from the thicket and chases Pilot’s dog.

  I don’t know what makes me do it—the thought of watching the dog die or imagining Pilot’s face or because my parents aren’t always right or because I don’t know, I don’t know—but I lunge in front of the wolf and scream, “No!”

  Farts disappears into the distance, and the wolf halts because he hadn’t seen me, but now here I am. Without a rifle. Without anything but my own racing heart and enough meat on my bones to feed this animal.

 
The wolf charges, bloodlust in his yellow eyes, and I run.

  I don’t make it two feet before there’s a flutter of movement.

  A snowshoe hare rushes from the hole in the ground, startled by the squirrel and driven mad by the scent of wolf. The rabbit thinks it can make it too.

  The rabbit is wrong.

  The wolf dashes toward it, a snarling hunter. His jaws close down over the hare and he lifts his wriggling, screaming prize.

  As the animal lopes into the woods, I run back toward the shelter. I only make it a short distance when I hear Elton calling my name. The relief at hearing him brings a smile to my face.

  “I’m here,” I yell, still running. “There was a wolf!”

  I’m almost laughing with joy at being alive—the sun on my head and the snow underfoot and the pleasure of food in my belly—when I hear Mr. Foster holler.

  “Look out!” he screams.

  I hear a snarling that I know comes from more than one wolf. The rest of the pack is here.

  I make it through the brush in time to see Mr. Foster running toward Elton. He screams, and the sound breaks my skull into a billion jagged pieces.

  Mr. Foster doesn’t make it to him in time.

  But he does run fast enough to draw the wolves’ attention away from Elton.

  The first wolf lunges at Mr. Foster.

  But it’s the second one that kills him.

  This time, no one tells us not to run. We’d do it anyway. Our boots dash through the snow as Pilot ensures his dog stays close and my left eye twitches and Elton cries, panicked after Mr. Foster fell. We dive over bushes and rush around trees and haul each other off the ground when one of us trips.

  We do not speak.

  We just run.

  A wolf howls in the distance, and we zip forward. As we race onward, in shock, in fear, a memory seizes my mind. My mother bartering for fertilized eggs. Those eggs becoming chicks. And finally, one winter day, those chickens lying slaughtered in the snow.

  A fox, my father said. When they get desperate, they kill more than they need.

  Are wolves the same? I wonder now, my brain buzzing with hysteria. They’ve taken Ms. Wade. And Nash Blake. And Mr. Foster. Will they stop?