The Wild (28 page)
Authors: Whitley Strieber
Tags: #Horror, #Fiction, #General, #New York (N.Y.), #Wolves
The cubs, grown hungry, mewed in perfect unison at his feet. Normal wolf cubs do not mew together like that, not ever.
In the car the cubs became quiet after eating some beef jerky offered them by Joe Running Fox. Bob slept with his head in Cindy's lap, waking occasionally to take a long, lovely sniff of her.
It was a long drive down to the bridge and back up the other side. Through it Cindy stroked Bob's head. He smelled tears, but she made no sound. He waited to lock glances with her or Kevin, but it never happened.
Then the car stopped. "It's time," Joe said. Bob got to his feet. Kevin and the old man were sleeping on one another's shoulders. Gently, Bob nosed his son awake.
"Good-bye," Cindy said. Kevin bent down and kissed him.
No, it must not be! For God's sake, look at me!
He imagined them changing, fought to see them as wolves, Cindy's face soft and full of courage, her scent unimaginably perfect.
She moaned, and then, quite suddenly, she was looking back into his eyes.
There came a shaft of golden light from the sun. The old man screamed, the Indian sighed, Kevin's voice swept high with terror. "Mom, Mom!"
Oh, there—perfect, just perfect! He leaped into her, rushing and roaring, filling her with the essence of the wolf, the magic of the wild. She rolled, growling and muttering, still trying to talk.
She was one god-awful beautiful wolf! "Mom, no!"
Kevin, come on, look at me, look at Dad!
"Mama, I'm scared! Please, Mama,
please
!" She leaped up, resting her paws on the boy's shoulders. "They do it to you," the Indian shouted. "Kev, they do it with their eyes!" He was young and full of life, and that life recoiled in fear.
When his mother looked into his eyes, he whimpered, then cried. His whole body shook, shimmered as if behind a wall of heat, then his arms, his legs began to twist, his hands to curl in on themselves.
It wasn't easy for him like it had been for his mother and father. Perhaps this was because he was young and full of human hope for his human future. Or perhaps it was simply because youth loves life, and this felt too much like death.
But once the process started in him it would not be stopped. The change continued relentlessly on. His head burst with a great crackling sound into the head of a fine young wolf.
Out of the writhing blur of his body there came the naked stalk of a tail, the skeletal sticks that would be his legs, then beneath the ripping, tearing clothes, a blur of fine, gray hair.
He was a lovely young wolf, his soft eyes crackling with intelligence.
He stood beside his mother, his tail circling, his very stance speaking promise. When Bob went to him to sniff under his tail, he leaped forward, yapping.
Had it been possible, Bob would have laughed. But he taught them both the wonders of their new sense. In a few minutes of sniffing each other the little family knew each other better than human beings have since we left the forest.
When he lifted his head from his wife and his son and his cubs, Bob could smell the other wolves not a hundred yards away, hiding in a stand of pine.
"I'll never forget you," the Indian said. He would not look at Bob, though, when Bob sought his eyes. "It's too late for me," he added, "I'd be a waste." Then he dropped his eyes. His fists were clenched, such was the pain in his heart. "You go on, find others, many others! Find the young and the strong. God bless you and bless the race of wolves!" He and the Englishman withdrew so that the other wolves could come out of hiding.
When they appeared, the pack reunited with much sniffing and joyful yapping. Because of the losses, the two new wolves were more easily accepted.
The pack remained there through the night, sometimes fighting, sometimes not, and in the morning there was a new order established.
The alpha wolf was still alpha. Behind him came Cindy of the high tail, who had turned out to be a fierce fighter. She had taken second place against all of the other female wolves. Then came a thoroughly beaten Bob. He had tried hard to be alpha. He was Cindy's husband, for God's sake, married in the Catholic Church no less! But the leader was clever in the ways of wolves, and he was strong. Behind him were the young wolves, included among them his own beloved son.
Not long after dawn the Indian and the old man returned to the pine grove. He watched them in silence. There were tears on the Indian's face, but he would not meet Bob's eager eyes. "Under God's heaven," he said, "make something new in the world."
Bob knew what was finally happening, knew the grandeur and the wonder of it. The spirit of man had finished its ages-long journey through history, and was finally returning to the wild from which it had come. But it was returning triumphant, bringing the gift of intellect with it.
The two old men stood watching as the pack left. When they mounted a rise, Bob looked back. He saw their car creeping away like a beetle, moving toward the Lightforth Bridge and mankind's old, dark world.
At last Bob turned north. He bounded forward, taking his hard-earned place as third wolf. He followed his alphas, deep into the freedom and safety of the wild.
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