Moonlight Den

Chapter 2

Have you ever had one of those moments where you don't pay attention to anything else? My father stepped forward out of the crowd and looked Tony dead in the eyes.

"Tony?"

"You're smart. You know more about the rest of this park than anybody here. What would be your suggestion?"

My father hesitated. "I'm not at liberty to use my knowledge for such assault purposes."

"Meaning?"

"I don't wish to speak lowly of anybody here."

Tony squinted his eyes. "This is no time for dignity, Marco. The future of the pack depends on this."

No, it didn't. It was only a minor food scarcity. Jasper Park had seen worse.

"No good will come of stealing from the western pack to feed us," my father said. "Surely you would understand that."

"If it were up to me, and me only, it would not have to be this way," said Tony impatiently, "but Winston refuses to tell me anything. He refuses to unite the packs, he refuses every one of my suggestions."

"But my son—"

"Your son is too young to understand," said Tony.

"Too young?" my father repeated. "He is old enough to understand the meaning of life, and the difference between right and wrong, good and bad."

Tony sighed. He was losing even more patience, but not giving up. "Come now, Marco. Let's not be hasty. It's as simple as this: I'm not going to let this pack starve. So, what'll it be?"

My father looked at Tony for a few seconds.

Tony smiled, knowing he had just won. "I'm listening…"

My father waited a few seconds before opening his mouth again.

"Dad? What did you tell him?"

"Nothing, son. Just forget it."

"Dad!"

"This happens to be one of the things he's right about you not understanding," me father said, gazing down at me.

"Huh?"

"You'll find out what I mean later. Much later. Now, I must go rest."

Unfortunately, what he said he'd tell me one day I never did find out.

The days went by like a summer breeze. It was a week afterward before the first major mark was made.

"I said I wouldn't let my pack starve," Tony told my father. The rest of the pack stood silently around us and a nearly-empty pond. "I've done my part. It's about time you did yours."

My father said nothing, but bowed his head slightly. Tony nodded and began walking away.

"Dear," my mother said to him as the pack dispersed.

"I do not wish for warm feelings at the moment, Celia."

My mother withdrew her helping paw at once. She knew better than to pester my father at a time like this.

That night, I woke to the sound of footsteps. My father had gotten up and left. He walked out and took a walk with Frances, Tony's right-hand wolf. I intend to follow them, but as I got down the hill, a familiar thick paw once again blocked me from going any further.

"Let him go," Hunter's voice told me through the darkness to my right. "C'mon. We need to talk."

I followed him back to his den, which was slightly cleaner but still a mess. The smelled differed slightly, and now smelled like rotting foot.

"I see curiosity is still raging through that body of yours," was the first thing he said.

"I was just—"

"Oh, I know what you were doing," he said. "I can't say I blame you, but this isn't your type of problem."

"What can we do?" I asked. I had to know.

"Us? A crazy old wolf and a youngster?" he laughed. "Nothing. We just let the professionals handle it and wait it out."

My stomach chose that moment to growl.

"Uh-huh," said Hunter with a nod.

"Um…Mr. Hunter?" I said.

"Hmm?"

"Where are you from, anyway?"

"Me? I'm from West Virginia," he explained. "I grew up in the Appalachian mountains outside of Charleston. That's where many good parts of my life unveiled, and also one of the worst."

I could sense part of a life story coming on.

"See, when I was a young adult, I was a lady magnet."

Of course. Why wouldn't he be?

"Many girls, many. Too many, sometimes. But I had a problem: I only loved them for looks. I would date one girl a week." A smile formed on his face. "But then one morning, I noticed a lightly-colored female eating in a field. I noticed a hunter nearby, aiming. Without much time to think otherwise, I jumped at him and threw off his aim. He took out a nearby branch. He ran off, and I never saw him again. The female thanked me. Her name was Grace. We talked, and it's like love put us together. We spent nearly every day together, and we were about to take it to the next level, when…" He stopped, took a deep breath, and continued. "That hunter came back, took her to Idaho. I tried to catch up with her, but by the time I got to Idaho, there was no trace of her. I never found out what had happened."

Although he was doing a great job of hiding it, I knew he was fighting back some release of grief.

"So," he said after a few seconds. "I came here to Jasper, because I'd heard it was a park of great romance. Like that could ever happen now. That was ten years ago."

"What do you think they wanted with Grace?" I asked him.

He looked at me. "I heard that they wanted her to hunt for them, because they weren't getting enough of their own captures as it stood. She had to do the hunting for them." He sighed before adding, "She wasn't a hunter."

Ouch, that was a serious complication.

Hunter was now staring at the ground a few feet from my paws. He looked back up and opened his mouth to say something, but something from outside interrupted him.

It was a gunshot.

Hunter jumped up. "Shh! Stay here."

"But I wanna see!"

"It's too dangerous. Stay put!"

"But I want to see who's there!"

He sighed again. "Alright, but stay quiet."

I followed him outside the den and behind a nearby tree. Three people were standing in the darkness. Two were hunters, and one was a scientist. The closer hunter stepped forward.

"What the hell happened?" the scientist asked.

"Got away," the hunter said. "Almost got him, though. He's probably not walking these hills again tonight."

"That's nice, but where exactly are we supposed to find another wolf now?" the scientist said in a low, fierce voice.

The hunter took a few steps away from him. "Look, Dr. Sandusky, I—"

"SHUT UP! I'm trying to think," Dr. Sandusky said. "Okay, let's see."

The hunter turned and approached the tree Hunter and I were hiding behind. "Sir—"

Dr. Sandusky looked enraged. "Ralph, did I, or did I not, just tell you to keep your mouth shut while I'm trying to think?"

"Sir," Ralph repeated with more emphasis. "I'm picking something up back here."

He pulled out a device I was unfamiliar with until hunter whispered frantically behind me.

"He's got a thermal imager! Get back!"

We retreated several feet behind another tree. Unfortunately, this didn't quite pass completely unnoticed.

"I got movement over there!" Ralph said, pointing to a spot near the area we had just passed through.

"Greg, what have you got?" Dr. Sandusky asked the other hunter.

"Nothin', 'cept what Ralph's got," Greg replied.

"Damn it!" Dr. Sandusky said.

"Sir, might I mention to keep your voice down in an area populated by wolves," Ralph said with an annoyed look on his face.

"Oh, and you'd do better at getting one of these things?" Dr. Sandusky asked, approaching Ralph vigorously.

"With all due respect, we're the hunters here!"

"I don't give squat!" Dr. Sandusky spat.

"Well, have you ever thought that maybe Greg and I don't want to work for you anymore?" Ralph said. "You want a DNA sample so bad? Go and get it yourself!"

"Yeah," said Greg.

Dr. Sandusky pulled out a small pistol and shot Greg in the middle of the body. He fell to the ground, dead.

"Hey, you son of a—!" Ralph shouted, taking charge, but he didn't get very far. Dr. Sandusky had the pistol pointed into his grim face.

"Let's not make this difficult," Dr. Sandusky snarled.

"Okay," Ralph responded. "Just put the gun down."

"Very well," said Dr. Sandusky, dropping the pistol on the ground.

Ralph relaxed, which, after what happened next, was a bad move. Dr. Sandusky then pulled out a small knife and stabbed Ralph in the stomach with it, then took off running and laughing evilly.

Without thinking much, I stepped out and walked over to the man on the ground.

"Joey, wait!" Hunter said. Obviously, he had been watching me before enough. He knew my name. "Don't get too close to him! He might—Joey!"

I didn't listen. Hunter obviously stepped out too, because Ralph noticed the two of us.

"It's all—Sandusky," he managed to choke out, even though he thought we couldn't understand him. "You're—wolves, but you can still—do something. It's all—Sandusky. All—" he groaned and choked one final word before going limp, "—him."

I stared at him for a few seconds, then I felt Hunter tap me on the shoulder, indicating he wanted me to return to his den to talk for a moment.

"What did they mean?" I asked.

"I don't know."

"Are they causing the caribou to leave?"

"I don't know."

"Will we go hungry?"

"A little bit, but not much."

"Will that Sandusky guy kill us?"

"I don't know."

I admit my question were a bit fast and continuous, but I was nervous and scared.

"Well, what do we do?"

"You'd better go home, little buddy. I'll see what I can find out. I'll let you know."

I went home and tried to sleep, but it took a while, because the scene I had just encountered kept replaying over and over in my mind.

AN: Well that's not good, is it? Dr. Sandusky's up to something. What is it?