Wolves and Men

They continued eastward sliding from shadow to shadow, hiding from the sight of the sun as well as the sight of anyone else who might want to be watching them. As he ran after his guide, he found that they had been increasing their speed, because he was running a lot faster now than he was this morning. It was a very liberating feeling, moving at these speeds without being tired. Running like this was true freedom. But his mind was troubled by the fact that his body was even capable of it. He was running at speeds that matched the she-wolf and from here he could see that she was exerting herself to maintain this speed. She is working hard while I am just gliding along the ground making it look easy.

He decided to test his speed and forced himself to move even faster. He began to catch up to his guide. Even through the underbrush and staying inside the tree shadows he was able to not only match her speed but surpass it. He became a little concerned at this new ability of his. What did this mean? He didn’t know and he didn’t have time to worry about the consequences of his speed. He over took the wolf and looked over his shoulder and winker at her.

The wolf looked at him and seeing him wink at her she pressed her body lower to the ground and shot forward in a burst of impossible speed, even for a wolf. If this had been a cartoon a trail of fire would have lit behind her as she took off. He lowered his head and forced himself to move even faster just to keep her in his field of vision.

This was definitely not natural. The ground seemed to be moving out behind him like a tread mill and all he was doing was lifting his legs. This was the easiest running he had ever experienced and yet he found himself wondering what was causing this to happen. Was this just another side effect of him being a werewolf?

He didn’t know and right now he didn’t care so much about the how. Right now, the only thing he was really interested in was putting as much distance between them and that helicopter as possible.

It didn’t take long before they reached the tree line and the open expanse of flat rock met them once more. The wolf turned north and dodged in between the widened spaces between the half dead trees and he followed. They had slowed their pace and were now, rather cautiously, running northward.

He could see the wolf rotate her head back and forth. She was looking for or listening to anything that might warn her of danger. He couldn’t help but do the same thing. He had let himself be lulled into a false sense of security over the past few days but the sight of that helicopter reminded him that something to do with the federal government wanted him found.

Why would the government want to find me? There had to be dozens of missing persons, a lot of them much younger than he was, out there. Why would the government spend this much time and money on trying to find him?

His mind reached back to the night he was forced to leave his valley. Those guys in the haz-mat suits had taken briefcases out of his burrow. At the time he thought that those briefcases held all his stuff but looking back now he wasn’t so sure. If they had been from the government then they were looking for something very specific and they had known that he had been living there. Did those guys know what he was? If they did then he was in very real danger and he couldn’t afford to be caught. Cops didn’t use military helicopters. If those guys found him being taken back to civilization was the least of his worries.

He looked northward and he saw the massive snowcapped mountain in the distance. It looked closer than it had yesterday, but that was probably his imagination. The wolf continued to weave her way in between the trees. The dirt gave way almost entirely to the rock of the mountain and he found that is footing was less stable. He couldn’t get any kind of grip from his feet. He was forced to slow down even more.

The wolf must have caught his slowed pace when she had been looking around because she matched pace with him. They continued to move northward. The sun began his decent in the afternoon sky. His legs began to protest the constant movement and his body didn’t like him very much right now either. His abdomen cramped up and he found it hard to breathe. He slowed down even more holding his side.

The wolf ran ahead for a time but again she must have seen him struggling with his body because she doubled back to run next to him. With the wolf at his side the pain in his side seemed less of a problem. He berated himself for not being tougher and what a wimp he must be letting a little cramp slow him down as much as it was.

The wolf ran at his side for a good while. The cramp didn’t let up and he was forced to run at a slower and slower pace. He reminded himself that there was a military helicopter out here looking for him. There was somebody from the government that wanted him found. He felt more than just a slight twinge of guilt over the fact that it was the she-wolf at his side that had saved him from being seen but he just couldn’t make himself run any faster through the pain. The pain was not dissipating at all; in fact, it was only getting worse.

He stumbled but the pain in his side and the exhaustion that had settled over his worn body prevented him from keeping his footing and he fell hard to the ground. The wolf jumped away from him as he skidded to a halt in the shallow dirt of the tree line. His first thought was to get under some cover. When he tried to move a bolt of sharp hot pain shot up through his leg. I’ve just broken my leg. He thought with horror and panicked. He immediately took control of himself and shook that thought away. He couldn’t have broken his leg from falling down. He was still holding the cramp in his side. He rolled over onto his back and closing his eyes he breathed a few deep breathes. The cramp wasn’t going anywhere and the added pain of his leg wasn’t making any of this any easier.