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

was pain, fever, chills, nightmares, but through it all, the calm, steady voice, and strong gentle strokes of the Bear Killer kept him anchored to a semblance of sanity that pushed the fear and feelings of panic, that tried time and again to claim him, at bay.

On the day the fever broke, he awoke feeling famished. There was a bowl of water beside him and another with a few chunks of meat. He ate one of the chunks, drank a few laps of water, fouled himself and passed out. It was night when he again opened his eyes. Still too weak to get up on all fours, he managed to sit up. There was no sign of having soiled himself, the bedding beneath him was clean and his fur waste free. The bowls held fresh water and fresh meat. He ate again with the same results. It was like that for four days. On the morning of the fifth, he ate all the meat, drank half the water, and stumbled out of the nest-like bed, through a flapping doggy door to an enclosed yard where he marked several trees and expelled his waste, covering it with a few jerky thrusts in the dirt from his back paws. Max went back inside, finished the bowl of water and slept until the next morning. His strength quickly returned and only then did he realize how close he had truly come to death.

For weeks the Bear Killer treated him, patiently caring for his wounds, feeding him, cleaning up after him, and sometime during those weeks, Max came to think of him no longer as the Bear Killer, but as the Alpha.

He knew he was in a different land. The smells were different and this bothered him. He was so far away from his home there was not even the barest scent of the Gray Wolf who had permeated his thoughts nearly all his short life. The Gray Wolf killed his parents, killed his siblings, almost killed him. And the one mission Max would not be deterred from was his revenge against that great monster.

The Alpha had saved him from the men, Max understood this and was grateful in as much as he was capable, but he had also taken him so far from the Gray Wolf he might never find him and for that Max hated him. The two emotions, with the added conflict of his innate drive to be the pack leader himself, warred within the confines of his mind, shifting his mood back and forth so that at any given time he might want to lick the Alpha’s hand or rip out his throat.

A car’s tires snapped and popped on the hot asphalt that led up the long winding drive to the mountain cabin. It stopped, bringing Max back from the world of the past to the present in a heartbeat. His ears picked up the sounds of a child’s muffled sobs and of a car door opening and closing.

There was no reaction from the cabin, no tingle at his collar. Then the roar of the shotgun going off inside the house shattered the quiet afternoon.

Max waited as the man and the little girl walked by him.

48

Gil

“Joseph, give me the gun,” I said, holding out a hand but making no move toward him. Joseph was crying. His hand shook on the long black barrel of the shotgun, his finger wrapped around the trigger.

“He killed my brother.”

“No, not him. The men he hired, but not him.”

The gun shook a little more, the barrel digging into Doors’ neck, forcing his head forward. “It’s the same thing. He’s responsible.”

“Yes, he’s responsible, but not just him. There are others and we need him to catch them.”

The tears ran over Joseph’s lips so that they flew like spit when he spoke. “I don’t care about them. Only him. He killed Shane!” He jammed the gun in deeper.

Roger Doors had lost all semblance of arrogance. He urinated in his pants, the dark stain spreading from the crotch of his jeans and running down his legs. “Don’t kill me-don’t kill me-please don’t kill me. I beg you.”

“SHUT UP!” Joseph screamed. I saw his finger tighten on the trigger and knew how light the pull was on that particular gun. A second more and Roger Doors’ head and face would be so much jelly on the cabin’s hardwood floor. I can’t say a part of me didn’t relish the idea, but letting Joseph be responsible for that and having to live with the consequences for the rest of his life was not worth it.

“Joseph, wait — easy. I tuned that shotgun to have an extremely light trigger-pull. Back off, please, and let me talk to you.”

For an instant I thought I had lost him. He shoved in so far I thought Doors’ chin would rupture through his skinny chest. But he pulled back. “He has to die.”

“He will be punished, I promise you that. But not by you, Joseph, by the law. That’s the right way to do it.”

He looked up at me and the anguish poured from his eyes. “The right way? The right way? I heard what you said. What they did to my brother. How could they? How could they do that to him? He didn’t do anything wrong. He didn’t do anything. Shane just wanted to do what was right. That’s all. He wanted to do what was right. He wanted to do what was right!”

“He was cheating me,” said Doors, and I could have killed him myself.

Joseph exploded. “SHUT UP! He wasn’t cheating you. I should kill you. I should kill you right now, you stinking, filthy piece of…” He pushed the gun forward again and I felt my heart go into my throat.

“Yes he was-yes he was-yes he was,” blubbered Doors, drool stringing from his lips, snot dripping from his nose, his pants soaked.

“He never did that,” screamed Joseph. “He never did. He was good. Shane was good.”

Something about the look on