Whitley Strieber The Wild

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from a moving snowmobile.
The next shot, though, smacked into the snow not a tail's length from his
head.
He redoubled his efforts, bounding along, increasingly desperate.
Voices now mixed with the scream of the engines. Men were calling back and
forth, their voices gone high with eagerness. "Two hundred pounds," somebody
shouted.
"Two-ten," came the cheerful reply.
At the top of the ridge Bob began to be able to go faster, but the snowmobiles
also broke out. They raced along behind him. The woods were not a hundred
yards away, but he knew they were going to close the gap before he was safe.
He was frantic, running with all the force he could muster, the wind sweeping
past, his fur flying, his paws grabbing the ground with practiced efficiency.
The snowmobiles were on him in a matter of a few minutes.
A rifle butt slammed down across his back. He yelped and snapped at it, but he
did not stop moving. There were snowmobiles on both sides of him now, and
rifles were weaving in the air.
A shot rang out.
Bob, by a miracle, had been missed. Then he saw why: the shot had not come
from the snowmobiles, it had come from a man standing off to the left.
"Leave that wolf alone," the man thundered, "in the name of the Mohawk
Nation!"
An Indian, by God, and where had he come from? Another gun butt hit Bob,
making him roll once in the snow.
Then the Indian fired again, and one of the snowmobiles peeled off, rattling
horribly, its occupants diving off into the drifts. It turned over and burst
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into flames just as Bob reached the edge of the woods.
"You goddamn fool," a voice screamed behind him, "what the hell's the matter
with you, that's a damn wolf!"
"I am not a fool. My name is Joe Running Fox and I'm the last of the goddamn
Mohicans. That wolf is sacred to my people."
As Bob twisted and turned among the hemlocks and the pines the voices dwindled
behind him. He could have listened but he wasn't interested. The Indian might
stop those men for a few hours or even a few days, but they would be back.
The pack was in immediate danger of being killed.
The cubs would die.
He raced on, his breath coming in hurting gasps, his blood thundering in his
temples.
An hour later he reached the pack in a state of happy relaxation. The cubs
were playing with the big alpha male and the little female with the bent tail,
still
Bob's immediate superior. Better, the middle wolves had taken a raccoon, which
lay where it had been hunted down, a deliciously bloody ruin.
Bob's fear caused a little restlessness. The alpha female wagged her tail
inquiringly. Others watched him, looking for some signal that would explain
his distress.
Their language did not allow for explanations, though. They would have to hear
the snowmobiles and smell the men before they would run. Bob dashed north a
distance, barking frantically. Some of the younger wolves yapped, infected by
his state. The alpha male, who had obviously eaten his fill of raccoon,
stretched out on a bare patch of ground and went to sleep.
Night fell. The wolves were happy, and they howled together. Bob felt sure
that the hunters were close enough to hear them, and he yapped helpless
protest.
The howl was so good though, so charming with its racing highs and soaring,
laughing combinations of voices that he joined it, too, and when it was over,
he almost wanted to leap for the rising moon, he was so full of the gladness
that is being a wolf among wolves.
His beloved daughter cub curled up with him this night. He lay with her
softness under his chin, listening and sniffing. Although he smelled smoke and
may once have heard a faint murmur of voices, the men did not appear.
Next morning Bob arose before dawn, to the protests of the little cub. He
nuzzled her and she licked his face, making complicated little noises of love
in her throat.
Especially when he was with his cubs, Bob thought he could sense the loving
force that was behind the change in him. He sensed it now, and he sensed that
it was both uneasy and excited.
His mind went to Cindy and Kevin and he thought, if only.
But surely it was impossible. No, he was alone in this. People don't change
into animals.
He stood, then ran a distance into the deeper woods. He did not like the fact
that the thickest forest was to the south. Northward there was a daylong run
to the seaway, through mostly scrub woods, over ridge after ridge. The
climbing would quickly exhaust the wolves.
From the middle of the woods Bob heard them. The Indian had not been able to
turn them back. Now they roared, now they snarled, at least a dozen of them,
each carrying one or two armed men.
The wolves had no chance.
He barked furiously, and there was such fear in his voice that every adult
wolf in the pack leaped to his feet also barking. In the quiet that followed, [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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