Wolf Neighbours – Chapter 3

Miter had to take a few minutes to calm his own herd down after the peccaries had been driven away, back towards his new neighbour’s plot. She didn’t seem like an experienced herder; but then he hadn’t been either, at first.

He cleaned himself up at the little well by the road, and put on a fresh sleeveless tunic. There was an unseasonable fog drifting at about knee height, rippling in what little breeze was coming up from the river. Despite it, the heat was building, and the oxen would need water.

He had two buckets with a woven strap between them, and he was hauling them over his right shoulder, leaning a little heavier than he liked on his walking staff, when he realized his neighbour had come back. She sat on her heels beside the broken gate he’d set aside to repair.

“You don’t have to do that —” he grunted, as he sat the bucket down, “— I’ve got it.”

She turned and leapt up. “I can’t not! I can’t afford to replace what my hogs ate, so…” She wiped her hands on her shorts and extended her right hand to him — and as usual, he waved her off.

“Not much of a grip in this hand.” He flexed his right palm and partial thumb, showing her the scarring where all four fingers ended before the first joint.

She nodded.

“Well, I’m Gove.”

“Miter.”

“Sorry we had to meet this way. I just got settled, I’m in the next house over.”

“Welcome to the swamp, Gove.” Miter settled himself onto his working bench, tucked his walking staff underneath it. “You’re not from around here?”

Gove sat back down on the ground and picked up the post she’d be shaping.

“No, just, you know, needed a new start.”

Miter thought she might be young enough to be his daughter.

“Anyone else come with you?”

“No, that’s, you know. That’s probably why the pigs got out, honestly — I wasn’t much of a herder before!” She shook her head. “Could have been worse, I guess. I’ve got all but one back now.”

“I had to learn fast with this herd too.”

Gove looked at the herd, eyes widening at the thought of wrangling animals that large.

“Good job not getting trampled to death.”

As they talked, and Gove shaped replacement posts for the gate, the sun was slowly obscured by clouds.

The mist was rolling in thicker as the sky turned grey, and finally Gove looked up and frowned.

“I thought you at least got hot summers up north.”

Miter hummed. “We do. This is strange weather to have just after solstice.”

“Maybe that’s what spooked my peccaries?”

“You think they were spooked?” Gove brushed the wood chips off her lap and wiped her ax off on her wrap belt. “Definitely. I was inside when I heard them go off — I swear they scream almost like people — and before I could get out there the fence was down.”

Miter frowned. “You know, my herd was off this morning too.” He gestured to the smallest muskox. “They had the little guy against the house and the rest of them grunting and stomping in a circle around him when I came out with the corn.”

“Was it misty over here?”

Miter waved his scarred hand through the thickening mist. “Not quite like this, but yeah. Rolling in from the north.”

Gove looked behind her, into the woods. “In from the swamp. I swear I see all sorts of shapes in there out of the corner of my eye.”

“That’s the way of it.” Miter laughed to himself. “I could swear this morning I saw a guard walking between the trees —”

“A guard!” Gove was on her feet immediately. “There’s guards here?”

Miter leaned back. “Not full time. I’m sure I was imagining it. Wrong season for the north circuit to be here.”

But Gove wasn’t listening. Her eyes were wide and she gripped her ax with intent.

“I’ve been robbed by the guard before. They just do whatever they want.” Her gaze was clearly focused on something in the past. “I’m not standing around while this happens again!”

She leaned her posts against the gate, half turned to leave, then turned back quickly. “I’ll finish this, I swear. I — I need to go get my pig back.”

Miter wasn’t sure what to think. As she marched into the woods, he called after her.

“You’re going straight into the swamp?”

“That’s where I’d hide if I stole something!” She paused as Miter pushed himself back up to his feet.

“Don’t go in there alone. Let me track this thief for you.” Gove’s head tilted, confused.

“If you want?”

Miter sighed; he couldn’t let her drown in a bog over one peccary. “Let’s start at the beginning.” Miter gestured back to the road with his staff. “Where they got out in the first place.”

Gove watched Miter move carefully ahead of her through the forest, just as confident a tracker on dry land as he was through mud. The mist wove through the trees between them, and the grey sky peeked through willow branches that rattled in a breeze.

Wolf Neighbours – Chapter 2

Gove jogged through the swamp, easily following the trail of destruction. A small herd — eleven! only eleven! — of peccaries could absolutely tear up the place when left to their own devices. The low-lying mist pooled in ruts they’d carved in the soft ground on their way through. The sun was peeking through the trees, sparkling off the water to her left, spotlighting eddies in the morning’s mist as the breeze worked its way through. It was only now getting hot enough for the bugs to wake up, which was a mercy.

Gove hit her herding stick against trees in frustration as she lost the trail; she wasn’t a tracker, and when the herd had left the soft ground for rocky turf she had no idea how to tell where they went. She was walking in a widening circle when she caught a noise on the breeze.

She ran through a stand of dead trees, cursing her hogs and whatever chaos they’d gotten into, and pushed her way through a thorny berry bush, only to stand up on the other side, shake herself off, and realize her peccaries weren’t alone.

The herd had broken into another fenced paddock — she could see exactly where they’d smashed open the gate — and were harrassing six or seven huge unhappy muskoxen. Clinging to the back of one of them was a man, as discombobulated as his animals and also cursing the pigs.

Gove stood there stunned at the chaos for a moment, and finally summed up her feelings: “Shit.”

The man’s head snapped up and he turned his exasperated stare on her. “Please tell me you’re here for these monsters.”

Wolf Neighbours – Chapter 1

The fog was thick, obscuring the rippling roots of the twisted cedar trees, and the dead lower branches kept pulling at his sleeves as he ran. Behind him, the ground shook and the branches snapped, but he couldn’t stop to see how far behind it was.

In the trees, skittering noises told him his pursuit was being watched by the small creatures of the forest — but he couldn’t pause to try and join them in the branches — and what would it be worth, with a creature like that at his heels.

All he could do was run, and run he did, stumbling over roots and rocks, sliding on damp moss and cutting his hands on tree trunks studded with broken limbs.

The grunting breath of his pursuer felt like it was pressing on his neck, and when a huge boulder blocked his path between the trees, he couldn’t let himself think about it — he just veered left, downhill, down slippery clay wet with the mist.

He barely noticed when his feet started to splash instead of stick in the sucking mud — and it was too late when he realized he’d run into a ravine. The thin creek wove deeper between steep slopes, and as the water reached past his knees he knew he had to get out of there.

He pushed along the bank on his right, feeling for handholds, until miraculously he found where it turned into a gentler slope, lined with saplings and ferns. Behind him, something large and heavy was splashing down the creek — was it just the fog distorting noise, or was it — no, the white bear was too close, he could see its silhouette, hear its low growl, and he knew as it approached that it was slowing down, the better to corner him.

Mabek had no choice left — up the wet clay bank he climbed, pulling on the doomed saplings like ladder rungs.

As the trees were torn out by their roots from his weight, he dragged himself further and further up, and behind he heard the white bear gnash and roar as whiplike young willows and maples tumbled down to block its path. The trees were older and stronger as he climbed higher, and through the mist was the glow of the sky, of a wide open space just beyond this ravine. Could it be the road? Were those human shapes in the fog?

“Captain!! Guards! Bear!!”

Behind him there were crashing noises as the creature threw itself up the slope, tearing out what growth Mabek hadn’t destroyed himself, and as he turned to look, he felt himself slip in the clay, sliding on his belly for too long before he could catch himself on a knotted root.

“Yaska! Captain!” The bear behind him grunted with effort as it pulled itself closer. “Help!”

But the grey silhouettes were sharpening, and at the top of the slope stood not his troop, not his captain, but a pack of grey wolves, ears perked and hackles up — and then he felt it — five dagger-length claws latching on to his calf, pulling him back down the slope — throwing him back down the slope with frightening strength. As he landed on his back in the stream, he looked up the far slope and saw more watching eyes in the trees; and as his doom crashed back down the slope to take its prize, it was no comfort to know that his end was witnessed by black bears and bobcats, raccoons and possums and smaller chittering shapes he would never get to see. All was the white bear.