Aurendel - Strays

Jack woke at first light. Though he was habitually an early riser, this morning he felt as though something--some sound, perhaps--had woken him. He listened, but heard only typical early morning sounds: doves, jays, woodpeckers, frogs, and so forth. Then he remembered the wolf.

Once up and dressed, Jack went to check on the animal. All was quiet in the house. Piece by piece, he moved the furniture from in front of the door, which now showed visible signs of strain. He paused and listened again. Still nothing. Slowly, he opened the door, and gaped at what he saw.

On his left side lying on the floor, back toward Jack, was, not a wolf, but a man. A naked man. With a tail. A long, black, furry tail.

Jack realized his mouth was hanging open, and shut it. Then he rubbed his eyes. He pinched himself. All right, possibility number one was ruled out: he was wide awake and cold sober. There was still a man (werewolf?) lying unconscious on the floor in front of him, and the man still had a tail. Perhaps this was some kind of trick.

Jack stepped forward for a closer look. Yes, the tail definitely grew there, just where a human's shorter tailbone would. It wasn't a fake one attached somehow. The man(?)'s right ankle was the same bloody mess as the wolf's right hind leg, and there was a large purple bruise on his right shoulder, just where the truck's bumper would've smacked the wolf as the vehicle slid to a stop. Jack had learned over the years to trust his senses, and his nose confirmed what his eyes told him. The room smelled of blood, animal spoor, and human sweat. The place was a disaster: claw marks on the door, blood on the carpet, boxes torn open.

Jack felt obscurely cheated. He'd only meant to bring home an injured animal. Now he was stuck with a two-legged visitor rather than a four-legged one. He kept up his mental grumbling as he fetched a blanket from the linen closet. Moving silently, he unfolded the blanket and began to throw it over his surprise guest. As he did so, the wolfman awoke suddenly, snarling and struggling to get up. Jack sprang back and then froze. Studying the green glowing eyes and sharp white teeth, Jack concluded that this was not a man masquerading as a wolf, but an animal in human shape. Good. He knew how to handle this.

Jack stood unmoving, staring at the kneeling wolf, neither flinching nor breaking eye contact as it growled ferociously. The wolf's growling began to subside, and it clutched the blanket around itself, blinking confusedly. At last it looked away, and Jack knew this for a sign of submission. He relaxed his posture slightly, but continued waiting. Finally, the wolf looked at him and, in a low voice, asked, "Where am I?"

"You're in my house," replied Jack, firmly establishing his territorial right.

The wolf looked about, and asked, "How did I get here?"

"I brought you. You ran out in the road in front of my truck. Damn near got yourself killed."

The wolf thought about that for a moment, then asked, "Am I your prisoner?"

"Prisoner?" Jack responded. "Hell, you can leave if you like, for all me, but you're in no shape to be wandering about. You oughtta have a doctor look at that ankle."

The wolf's eyes became wary at the mention of a doctor, and Jack realized that might not be a good idea after all. "Oh, hell," he muttered, and stepped toward one of the damaged boxes. The wolf flinched, but Jack ignored it and began digging old clothes out of the box. Why he'd kept them after he'd got too big for them, he couldn't say. Not that Jack was overweight, but the wolf reminded Jack of Caesar's description of Cassius' "lean and hungry look."

"Here," he said, tossing the clothes to the wolf. Then he rummaged in the closet for an old pair of crutches. "And here," as he handed them to the wolf. "Bathroom's across the hall. Towels in the cabinet under the counter."

The wolf nodded, then struggled to stand, clothes under its left arm, crutch under its right. The blanket fell away as it limped toward the bathroom. Jack stared at the wolf's shaggy black tail. He shook his head, wondering again what the hell he'd got himself into.

As Jack began cleaning up the mess in the junk room, he kept his ears open for sounds of anything breaking in the bathroom. He heard cabinet doors banging, and then water running. The sound of the water changed from the rushing of the tub spigot to the hiss of the showerhead, accompanied by a startled yelp. Jack's mustache twitched in silent laughter. Having scrubbed the carpet as clean as he could, he glared at the scratches on the junk room door. Only thing to do would be to replace the door. And, of course, the torn up cardboard boxes were a write-off. That would wait. It was past time for coffee. God, what a morning!

Jack had just poured his first mug of coffee when the wolf hobbled into the kitchen. It looked somewhat more human, clothed in khaki pants and a light blue shirt. Its wet black hair was cleansed of the dried blood that had matted it and was combed back smoothly. Jack gestured for the wolf to take a seat at the kitchen table. It did, leaning the crutches against the table, and Jack dragged over a stepstool. "Here," he said. "Put your leg up."

The wolf complied, resting its bare feet on the stool and settling back into the chair. Jack noticed that the wolf had bandaged its ankle, and nodded his approval. He fixed an ice pack and handed it to the wolf, gruffly saying, "Put that on it." Then he asked, "Can you move your toes?"

The wolf shook its head. Jack grunted. "Probably broken. Stay off it." Then, turning toward the stove, he asked, "Hungry?"

He glanced over his shoulder and saw the wolf's eyes glint as it replied, "I'm ravenous."

Jack began heating the griddle. As he placed several strips of bacon on it, the wolf yipped. He spun around. "I smell bacon!" it exclaimed, excitedly, saliva trickling from the corner of its mouth. Jack scowled, and the wolf wiped its chin, looking embarrassed. Jack silently added several more strips to the griddle. While the bacon cooked, he sipped his coffee and looked at the wolf contemplatively. Suddenly he set down the mug, stuck out his right hand, and said, "Jack Randolph. What's your name?"

The wolf hesitated before shaking his hand. Solid grip. Jack waited for an answer. Tilting its head to one side, the wolf replied, "Wolves don't need names. We know who we are."

"Then what the devil am I to call you?"

The wolf winced, and said, "Most humans would just call me wolf, if I were lucky."

Jack digested that for a moment. "Well, what do other wolves call you?"

"That depends. My brother calls me brother, my sister calls me second brother, my mother calls me cub--even though I've been a grown wolf for some time . . . "

Jack interrupted what sounded like becoming a long list. "How would you introduce yourself to a wolf not in your family?"

"To a wolf not of my pack, I would say that I am the secondborn cousin of the leader of Darkfrost Pack of the North Forest in the Eighth Kingdom."

"The which?" Jack began, when the wolf yelped, "The bacon!" and tried to get up. Jack turned back to the stove to see the edges of the bacon curling and blackening. He swore sulphurously and began shoveling it off the griddle and onto a plate as quickly as he could. Hearing a clatter, he looked over his shoulder. The wolf's crutches had fallen to the floor, and it was leaning heavily on the table, trying to recover its balance. Jack spun around and bellowed "Sit!"

Startled, the wolf sat. He looked offended when Jack added, "Stay!"

The bacon was salvaged, more or less, so Jack crammed a couple pieces of bread into the toaster and picked up an egg.

"The griddle's too hot," said the wolf.

Annoyed, Jack snapped, "I can burn breakfast without your help!" and began breaking eggs into the smoking grease. The grease popped, burning the back of his hand. He sucked on the burn for a moment while trying to wield the spatula with the other hand. The damn griddle was too hot.

At last Jack shoved two plates of fried eggs and bacon, somewhat overdone, with toast, onto the table. He emptied out his cold coffee, poured two fresh mugs, and sat down. The wolf had dug its fork into an egg, and poked at it dubiously.

"Let me guess: you like ‘em over easy," said Jack.

"Actually, yes," said the wolf, endeavoring to eat the hard fried eggs.

Jack snorted and handed it a mug of coffee. The wolf wrinkled its nose, took a tentative sip, and grimaced. "Want milk or sugar in it?" asked Jack.

"Could I just have the milk?"

Jack stared for a few seconds, then, grumbling, got up and poured a glass of milk. As he returned to his breakfast, the wolf raised its glass as if in toast to him and took a long gulp. "Aaaah."

They munched in silence for a few minutes, and then Jack said, "Now. You said something about some kingdom or other. What and where the devil is that?"

The wolf hesitated before responding to Jack's question. "First, can you tell me where, besides your house, I am? Is this the Tenth Kingdom?"

"This isn't a kingdom. We're outside the town of Okachula, Florida."

The wolf frowned. "Then this isn't the realm that Virginia the Fair is from?"

"The Virginia State Fair? That'd be north of here--quite a ways." The wolf looked as befuddled as Jack felt. "Never mind. If you can explain where you're from, I can figger where we are in relation to it. There isn't any part of the world I haven't been at, one time or other."

So the wolf began a long and confusing description of someplace called The Nine Kingdoms. The more he went on about his pack's home and history, the more suspicious and skeptical Jack grew.

" . . . and my pack, the Darkfrost pack, left the Second Kingdom when Queen Riding Hood the First began requiring wolves to carry permits, and . . . "

Jack spluttered indignantly. "You expect me to believe this mess of fairy tales?"

The wolf halted his recitation, surprised at Jack's outburst. "Jack, I assure you, everything I'm telling you is true. Wolf's word of honor."

Jack chewed his moustache. Just because he had a werewolf at his kitchen table didn't mean there'd ever been such a person as Red Riding Hood, or any of the rest of it. Jack believed in evidence, in this case physical, though supported by legends of wolfmen from all over the world going back many centuries. But fairy tales?

Trouble was, Jack had known all kinds of men, and he'd learned to tell which you could trust on a handshake deal and which you had to have a contract gone over by two lawyers and an accountant, and still think twice before signing. All his instincts told him that a wolf's word was his bond.

Jack could see the wolf was growing irritated with his hesitation. It huffed and muttered something under its breath about humans. "All right," said Jack. "Your word's good enough for me." The wolf blinked, astonished, then smiled.

Just then the telephone rang. The wolf yelped and jumped up, forgetting its ankle as it went into flight or fight mode. The ankle gave way beneath it, sending the wolf sprawling onto the kitchen floor as the phone rang again. Jack grabbed the receiver with one hand and hauled the wolf back into its chair with the other. He shushed the whimpering wolf before putting his mouth to the receiver.

"Hello?"

"Jack, George here. Have you got that manuscript ready for me yet?"

Jack groaned. "It was ready when I sent it to you the first time. If you hadn't wrecked it . . . "

"Be reasonable, Jack . . . "

Jack tuned out the rest of George's complaints, responding only with "um-hmm"s at appropriate intervals. Finally, he realized George was asking him a question.

"So you'll have it in the mail to me tomorrow, right?"

"Next week." Ignoring the editor's protests, Jack hung up. Then he groaned. "Editors!" He noticed the wolf eying him. "That was my editor calling," he explained. "Why the devil he couldn't stick to making sure I'm not changing my character's name every few pages, and not saying on page 87 that a panther attacked him, and then on page 130 calling it a leopard . . . . But no. First he says I don't give enough description, then he accuses me of longwinded digression, and now he wants me to add a romantic interest! Editors!" Jack rolled his eyes in exasperation.

"Are you saying you write books?" inquired the wolf.

"This is my second novel. A few short stories before that," Jack replied modestly.

The wolf looked impressed. "May I read it?"

Thinking about the previous evening's struggle, Jack decided it wouldn't hurt. He certainly wasn't going to get anything done on the book today. "May as well. I'd rather have a wolf for a book reviewer than an idiot for an editor." He got up, and gestured for the wolf to follow him into the living room. As the wolf got situated on the couch, Jack noticed it wincing in pain. He got the manuscript from his office and gave it to the wolf, then fetched a couple of aspirin and a glass of water. The wolf sniffed suspiciously at the two white pills Jack handed him. "Swallow ‘em, don't chew ‘em. They're medicine." The wolf tossed back the aspirin and, making a face, gulped the rest of the water to get the taste out of its mouth.

"I'm going into town. Have at it. You can tell me what you think later."

The wolf nodded and began reading. As Jack headed outside, the unreality of the situation struck him again, and he couldn't decide whether he should laugh it off or have a stiff drink. Shaking his head, he climbed into his truck and headed for the hardware store. Time to get a new door for the junk room.