Sheepdogs: Keeping the Wolves at Bay, Gordon Carroll [howl and other poems .txt] 📗

solidity of the surface beneath him. He obediently walked alongside, moderating his gait to the terrible slow pace the human set. The undeniable genetic drive of the pack had pushed Max to obey when commanded to find the thing with fresh man-smell on it. It didn’t take long, just a few seconds. The man-smell rose like heat from the little ball on the branch of the bush. There had been other smells too: peppermint, rubber, the green blood of grass, but Max had ignored them. It was the man-smell the Alpha wanted.

Max was a quick learner in all things and he learned how to find evidence very quickly after his healing. He had been cooped up for far too long, and at the first chance to get out he was ready for action.

Gil would hold an object for a few minutes, say keys or a knife, or a wallet, making sure to get a good amount of his scent on it. Then he would throw the object a few feet in front of Max and tell him to “finden”. He would then allow Max to drag him to the prize, where Gil would pop the leash a few times to get him to lay down with the object between his paws. At first Gil tried food as a reward when Max found the object and lay down correctly, but when Max ignored the food reward, food was nothing to Max, all that mattered was the hunt, Gil changed tactics and just let him find it. Within a couple of throws Gil was tossing the objects into tall grass and then spinning Max in circles until he was dizzy before letting him go.

Max found everything he threw, every time.

After he found the ball of gum with the man-smell on it the Alpha took him back to the car and opened the door for him to jump up into. But just before he did, a familiar impulse surged through his blood. His eyes pivoted back, he shifted his weight to the rear in preparation — but the Alpha stepped behind him, almost as though he could hear Max’s thoughts. The fur rippled along Max’s back. He feared nothing of flesh and bone and blood, but this strange ability to know what he was going to do before he could act, was impossible for him to understand. It intrigued him. He had let his weight settle, and jumped obediently into the car.

Max wanted to go back to sleep then, but the car was stopped and it didn’t feel the same as when it was moving. So Max waited until the Alpha had come back and now they were driving again. Max began to drift and doze and think back to before he was Max. Back when he was one of seven pups, only five months old. Back to the dark time when the Great Gray Wolf attacked and killed his parents and three of the other pups. Even then his blood had told and he tried to fight, but the wolf slammed him aside with one shoulder, throwing the small puppy into the side of the farmer’s house where they lived, knocking him unconscious. When he awoke, he found the carnage that lay around him. Only the intervention of the farmer saved the rest of them. From that time forward, Max took charge of the pack, hunting for the others, bringing them field mice and small birds, and protecting them from foxes and raccoons and other stray dogs.

For three months Max was the pack leader. Then came the night of the Gray Wolf’s return.

Max was out hunting when it happened. The Gray Wolf slaughtered the rest of the pack, snapping their necks and then eviscerating them.

When Max returned to the covered hutch attached to the farmer’s house they used as a den, he found the carnage that had been his family. The spore of the Gray Wolf sprayed everywhere.

Max left the farm that night and never returned. It was the beginning of his search for the wolf.

Max didn’t like remembering that time. But he held no control over his dreams and now he dreamed of the first time he saw Gil, the bear and the men.

His body jerked and twitched and almost brought him completely awake, but the wind and the rumble and the softness of the cushioned seat all conspired against him and the dream took hold dragging him down to that cold winter’s day that had started so well and ended so horribly.

The snow was deep and wet and helped to confound the bear as Max tore at its neck from behind. The giant beast had stumbled in between Max and the Gray Wolf, robbing Max of his revenge. The wolf used the chance to slip back into the lush forest and disappear, leaving Max to deal with the terrible fury of the surprised bear.

It turned on Max, raking with a massive paw that missed, tearing instead into the bark of a sturdy oak and leaving four deep cuts in the white meat of the trunk.

Max ducked under, shot forward, spun and slashed his canines across the bear’s right hamstring. He tasted blood and fur and then ducked and spun again as the bear roared and snapped with his own jaws, the incisors twice as long as any dog’s. The bear’s trap-like jaws slammed shut on empty air and Max ripped a set of narrow gorges in the flesh of the bear’s snout before jumping back to avoid another attack.

The wind howled overhead, slipping down from the mountain peaks of the Great Alps, gaining speed as it pushed through the trees and whipping snow flurries into little blizzards that stung the eyes and ears, and made it hard for Max to see.

A panic rose in him. The same wind that spun the snow would eradicate the scent and even the tracks of the Gray Wolf. Max needed this to end quickly. He looked to the right, thinking to outflank the monster