Hunting the Wolf (An Original Story – Part 6: The Final Chapter)
Part Six
“How did you find me?” Jason murmurs, jumping down from the bare rock where the majestic wolf stood only moments before.
In the morning light, the wrinkle lines in Grandpa Owlfeather’s face give the appearance of deep suffering. “The mare. The gunshots.” Owlfeather turns his deeply inset eyes upwards for a moment, scanning the sky, solemn crossing his face. “The eagle’s cry.”
“She was a good mare -- ” Jason says, brushing wetness from his flushed face.
A pause. “I witnessed the gorge,” Owlfeather says.
Jason recoils. “We’ll need shovels.”
“You missed one.”
“Is it injured?”
“You must see for yourself.”
Jason nods, studying Owlfeather’s eyes for a clue. But the eyes are dark in shadow, unattainable.
They follow the path back to Siren’s Gorge. Jason’s ankle demands notice again as it swells within his boot, and he wonders if he will be able to take it off later. He steps down into the gorge, avoiding the pools of wolf blood and urine on the snow and ground. Covering his nose and mouth, he scans the bottom of the gorge and hears a sound, a faltering whine.
Beneath a rocky eave, a lone pup crawls toward him on unsteady legs. Its eyes are a deep blue, its fur soft, like down, save for specks of drying blood on its paws. Jason kneels and touches it.
It makes a crying sound at the touch, desperate, helpless.
“Some things you cannot bury with a shovel,” Owlfeather says.
Jason nods, looking up. “What do we do?”
Owlfeather ponders it for a moment. He kneels beside Jason.
“What does the wolf desire?”
Jason stares into the eyes of the wolf, seeing his own eyes in the reflection.
~ End ~
Start at the beginning:
Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four | Part Five
"Hunting the Wolf" is a 6-part speculative science fiction story about a young man enacting revenge on an alien planet. Who do we become when we fight our enemy? I welcome feedback on this story about Man vs. Nature. Stay tuned, as I also will be publishing my 300,000 word epic novel "The Messiah" on Steemit in 2017.
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