CHAPTER 54
"I got us into one heck of a mess, Bingo. Yer my best friend and a dang fool. I gotta get us outta here or we're gonna end up as supper."
Bingo licks W.H.'s face the entire time he pushes on the traps and struggles to set himself free. Once he releases the tension, he's able to slide his arm out.
"I'm hurtin' all over, boy, but it ain't my face. You don't need to go on like that." W.H. pushes Bingo away.
The pair quickly scramble to their feet. W.H. picks up his rifle and reloads it with fourteen shiny brass shells. He cocks it and peers through the scope to ensure that it wasn't damaged.
"Fangs and claws ain't no match for the Reaper," he says, patting the butt stock like it's a baby.
Bingo looks up and notices that the sun will be down in a couple hours, giving the wolves the advantage. He whimpers as W.H. searches for his bowie knife. He finds it in a pool of bloodstained snow next to the maimed wolf. He wipes the blade off on the wolf's hide and holsters it.
"I know. I want to get the bounty, too. But we'll just have to come back for their hides at early light."
He follows the lumberjacks' tracks out of the killing fields and looks for his horse. "I sure hope Cotton made it out all right." He whistles for her.
Rattled from the fight and freezing cold, Bingo shivers.
As the dog and man work their way down the ridge, W.H. sings, "B-I-N-G-O. and Bingo was his name-o…"
The dog prances to his master's tune, proudly displaying himself with puffed-up chest.
"Bingo, you're my hero! With all the money we'll fetch for the bounty, I'm gonna buy you a big steak dinner!"
The thought of a warm steak makes him lick his lips.
Kiowa's wolf eyes present the world in a way a man could never understand. Everything has a trail and is marked clearly by a heat signature in tracks that fade or hold strong.
He detects faint traces of golden light in fresh deer tracks. Every living creature has a distinct scent all its own. Between how he sees and smells the world, the wolf could find anything he wanted.
He follows them and sees the tracks of everything that's ever stepped on the earth's cool surface. Tiny squirrel imprints run along the forest floor and scamper up the trees. They disappear in tiny hollows, but he can see their gleaming eyes and hear their beating hearts. He logs their location in the back of his mind, and for some reason, he wants more than ever to punish them.
Rabbit tracks frantically dash across the pine needles, going this way and that with no discernible direction. Bobcat tracks follow close behind. A dried pool of crimson blood shows where that story ends.
Elk tracks are distinct and deep. They move steadily and become frantic, like the rabbit's. He identifies why. A cougar made a wide stalking circle and discovered its prey. He assumes that the cougar tracks end the elk's story, the same as the bobcat ended the rabbit's. To his surprise, he discovers bear tracks. The deep grooved foot traffic indicates that a fight occurred. But where the elk's end, the bear's resume. The bear must have won, because the bloody elk body was dragged away.
Now he can see history and the present at the same time. As he searches around, he sees tracks glow brightest where a deer recently stepped. He inhales and detects its gamey scent, approximating where a deer is hiding. The aroma of pine and musky water are so pronounced in his nose and mouth, he can't help but see where the animal has been all day. Its sex is given away by a faint hint of sweetness. Judging by the tracks' width and length, she's not much older than the doe he grew fond of when he was a boy. Do not worry. We can still be friends… I hope.
A new truth is revealed to this animal world he's been birthed into. Everything searches for food. Some seek grass, berries, and nuts. Everything else must eat meat!
His ears instinctively shift back and forth and bring the acoustic sounds into focus with each turn. When his ears turn out, he can hear the wind blow. The trees creak as they sway. When they turn in slightly, he can hear an owl's hoot and the deer's heavy breathing. When they turn so that they point straight up, he can hear her heart beating to the symphony of crickets that are loud all around her and quiet near her.
"I think I know exactly where she is," he whispers to Anoki, who trots up behind him.
Having never hunted, Anoki's senses are overwhelming.
"I am confused and pleased at the same time."
She sees many of the same things as Kiowa, but she could never think as a hunter thinks. To her, all is beauty. All is life.
"What do you hear?"
"I hear everything. I can even hear your heart. It beats like a drum."
"I hear crickets. I hear owls. I can even hear the bat's wings. For me it is the same, but more of it and much, much louder!"
The two wolves look at each other, laugh, then sprint off playfully through the forest.
The speed with which four legs carry a body is much greater than two ever could. Anoki runs as fast as she can, but in her wildest dreams, she could never keep up with Kiowa. He sprints far ahead of her and disappears into the woods. She can hear him leaping over fallen trees and maneuvering through the forest as though he has always been a wolf. She blinks and suddenly he is beside her. He pounces all around her.
"I circled back. I didn't want to leave you, but I had to see how fast I could go! We are as fast as the wind!" Kiowa shouts, circling around Anoki so many times it makes her anxious to follow him.
I could never be as fast as you. She lowers her ears and drops her tail.
"I could never move this fast on my horse!"
"Always promise me that you will wait for me, Kiowa!"
"Anoki, you are my soul. Wherever you go, there will I be also," he says with yellow eyes that both spook and excite her.
"You are my heart. Where you go, my body must follow."
Kiowa has so much energy that he leaps from thought to thought. "We are free from duty! Free from tribes! Free from everyone and everything!"
"We are free to be with each other," she says, lowering her nose and testing his meaning.
Kiowa feels an explosion of excitement swell in him. He draws a deep breath, tilts his head back, lowers his ears, and howls so loudly it silences the crickets, sends the owls inside their shelter, and alerts all living things that a new master owns the night. Masters that are man, woman, and wolf.
The deer sprints out of its hiding place and flees for its life. All animals smaller and within range clear out of his kingdom. For miles and miles they move, seeking shelter elsewhere.
Unable to resist, Anoki joins in.
"Thanks be to Onendah for his great magic!" Kiowa howls in a new voice, which echoes through the forest.
When he's finished singing praises, he presses his head to Anoki's and stares deep into her blue eyes, sinking into her ocean. He presses his paw to her heart. She does the same to him. They stare at each other like this as lovers often do when they build love with glances and gentle touches. The energy passes from one to the other, heightening new senses that excite, tickle, and charge.
"I know it isn't possible, but are we flying?"
"Anoki, can you not see? With our magic, anything is possible!"
Author's note: With love's bright wings to carry us, anything is possible. Is it not? Well here's a little Christmas love from me to you. Get on over to Instagram. Search for harvestmoonofficial. Look for my book give away. I've signed it. I've poured my heart into this book. Now it's your job to go "catch what cannot be caught."