A bump on the road woke Evan up. He felt like he got hit by a train. He tried to remember last night but only seemed to be remembering tastes and smells. The smell of the two hillbillies. The scent of that motley furred, yellow nightmare he chased through the ravines and mountains. He ran his tongue across his teeth and lips. He thought he could still vaguely taste its blood. He remembered how that warmth felt going down his throat. It had felt so right. What in the hell had happened? It was like he drank too much last night and couldn't piece the whole thing together. Evan had been drunk last night, he decided, drunk on a lifetime of pain, anger and hate. Evan shuddered. He didn't want to think about what he remembered he was last night. Instead he took stock of his surroundings.

He was in the back of a rusty orange pickup truck. Where the rust began and the paint ended he couldn't really tell. He was thankful that he was covered in an old moving blanket against the early morning autumn chill. He peeked his head over the edge of the pickup bed. Even if he knew where he was the truck was moving down the mountain road way too fast for him to jump out. The driver had a strange way of driving, accelerating on the straight sections and braking at the last possible moment as the truck entered another hairpin turn. This made it quite difficult for Evan to keep his balance, let alone stand up in the back of the truck.

Evan could see the back of the driver through the cab's rear window. The man's head was huge and covered in a mess of dirty blonde hair that was tangled and somehow clumped with dirt and leaves. He was wearing jean overalls without a shirt underneath which had the effect of showing off his huge shoulders, back and copious body hair. The driver noted Evan's activity and slid open the small window.

"Oh hey thar lil' buddy!" He shouted back. Evan could make out kind eyes and a smile full of crooked teeth in the rear view mirror. "Jus' take 'er easy, ok? We'll be up at mah Mee-maws place soon. Lots o' 'scplain' gonna go on. Don't you worry." The driver closed the small window.

Evan sighed and slid his back against the back of the cab. Where ever he was going, he was along for the ride. The truck hummed a long while the driver excellently navigated the switchbacks of the mountain. The truck wound back and forth and it circles making its way slowly up the mountain. As they reached the top the fir trees cleared and Evan made out a worn down wooden house.

The roof of the house was sagging on one side and almost falling off on the other. The porch was bowed in the middle, either from age, too many people sitting on it for too long, or a combination of both. Part of the house had been painted blue once and another part red. So much of each paint was worn off that you could call the color of the house "old wood" and no one would argue with you. There was an open shed off to the side of the house full of blue plastic barrels, crates of potatoes and a pot still on prominent display. The truck came to a stop and shut off. The driver made his way out of the cab and around to the back of the truck. He lowered the tailgate.

"Well come on thar buddy." The driver slapped the lowered tailgate with a massive palm. "I ain't gonna bite you." Evan slid along the bed of the truck on the moving blanket, trying to preserve his modesty and stop shivering against the early morning chill. As Evans' feet hit the soft pine needle carpet of the clearing the driver extended his hand.

"Names' Douglas McFion. Mosta ma kin calls me Dougie." The huge hand engulfed the one Evan extended from beneath his blanket. Dougie was a huge mountain of a man befitting the mountain he called home. His arms seemed to be as big around as Evan's legs. He had a yellow beard that was as unkempt as his hair that went down to the top of his barrel chest. His smile was full and kind and full of crooked, yellow teeth.

"Evan," Was all the reply he could muster.

"I was up checkin' one o' mah other stills last night. Heard you howlin' up in them hills somethin' fierce. Figgured I'd try'n make my way to ya. Didn' want to leave my truck up there. Glad I ran across ya when I did. Who knows what woulda happened if one o' the sherrifs or his boys came across ya in the road down there."

As Evan opened his mouth to begin one of the thousand questions he had right now an elberly shrill pierced the morning air. "Whatchu doin' down thar, boy?!" The voice belonged to a woman old enough to be Evan's great grandmother. She was standing on the worn front porch. Her gait was hitched and she shuffled along the rotting wood with the help of a cane. Her back and shoulders were stooped and covered with a thin, hand knitted shaw. Underneath she wore a floral print dress and leather shoes that seemed too big for someone of her slight frame. Her facial features were dropping and lined from years of hard living in the mountains. Thin, wispy white hair made its way halfway down her back. The fine white hair still had a few orange-red streaks in it.

"Hey Mee-maw. I found this 'un in the road down yonder last night. Heard 'im howling fierce last night. Figgered we could help 'im out. I think it was his first time."

"Well hell. Whatchu wait fer? Bring 'im on up in the house. Imma fix him some food. I'm sure that poor boy is all sorts o' starved."

Dougie turned and started heading toward the house. Not really sure what in the hell was going on Evan decided to follow. He hoped he could at least get something to wear besides this smelly blanket. Dougie held the rusty aluminum screen door for him as Evan shuffled into the house. Evan just noticed Dougie wasn't wearing any shoes. Evan laughed to himself. His whole life had become so absurd in forty-eight hours.

The inside of the house was a mess. Bare wooden walls were exposed, sometimes without any actual wall but the supporting wooden studs, and sometimes there was just a wall with a massive hole in it. Various pictures and newspaper clippings were hanging, some in frames and some not but all of them were crooked. The floor was all creaky wooden floorboards with a slightly raised cement platform for the wood stove in the kitchen. The living room had an old couch that had once been floral print green and now had torn cushions with stuffing and springs poking out. There was a chair also in much the same condition. Various children toys and board games were scattered all over the floor and in various states of disrepair.

There was a staircase in front of Evan. He didn't even want to see what the top floor looked like.

The kitchen was just as bad as the living room. It looked like someone had tried to put down linoleum tile and either gave up halfway or got made and tore it up. The refrigerator was a fantastic pistachio green model from the 1947 Sears's catalog that was peeling and chipping. The wooden cabinets were all worn and beaten. Some looked like they had been attacked by a massive creature with huge bear like claws. Some of the cabinets were left open and the ones that were closed looked like they were barely hanging on. The sink was overflowing with pots, pans and dishes that were piled so high that they made their way to the floor. Evan shuffled over to a worn green Formica table next to the wood stove and sat down in a creaky aluminum and vinyl chair.

The elderly lady busied herself over the stove in a cast iron pan. A blue enameled coffee pot was going on the wood stoves range as well.

"Well I hope you don't mind Evan but I took care o' a few things fer ya," Dougie began. "Made mah way back to your father's place while you was passed out in the truck last night. Took care o' Jeb and Isiah fer ya, reburied yer pops. That way anyone happens by there this mornin' none'll be the wiser. Buried those two yahoos off in the wood line along with Chases-Babies or whatever the hell his Black Spiral name is. We been keepin' our eyes on those guys for a long time. Can't say we ever really had the chance to take care o' them last night like you did. Inbred fucks." It seemed as if Dougle would have spat if he hadn't been inside.

"Shhh Douglas!" Mee-maw turned toward them. She had a plate full of food and a cup of black coffee that she put in front of Evan. "You have to start from the beginning or the poor boy is gonna be confused as hell."

The plate was full of three eggs, two huge sausage links, some bacon and a few slices of homemade bread. It smelled fantastic. Evan couldn't remember ever being this hungry. He proceeded to shovel the food in his face.

Mee-maw pulled up a chair and leaned her cane against the Formica table top. She watched Evan shovel the food in his face with a bemused smile. As he was about finished she began. "You can call me Mother Siobahn."

Evan looked at her between gulps of black coffee. She wasn't hunched over anymore and the years seemed to melt from her face. Her voice was now young and melodic and absent the cackle and deep woods accent that Evan had first heard. Her blue eyes pierced his, as if she was trying to speak to depths of his soul that he hadn't found yet. When she spoke it seemed to demand his full attention.

"This is going to be a little long, boy. Just bear with me and lend me some time. In the beginning of all things, the beginning of the cosmos, there were three forces. The wyld, the weaver and the wyrm. The wyld was the pure force of creation, raw, random and powerful. The weaver took this creation and spun it, organized it, put it into order. The wyrm stood by as a force of balance. When the wyld created too much, when the weaver spun too much, the wyrm stepped in and destroyed. Tipped the scales back to even. Keeping balance and order among the cosmos. From this, our sweet mother, Mother Earth, Gaia was born. She was sweet and good and decided to carry all creation.

The seers, shaman and medicine men aren't sure when but sometime in the beginning the wyrm went insane. Some say the wyrm became caught in the weaver's web. Some say the wyrm went insane trying to keep balance between two forces that were too great. It doesn't matter. The wyrm became buried in the depths of Gaia and was thrashing about. Every bad thought, every wrong idea spewed forth onto Gaia's surface. These evil thoughts and ideas became evil beings and evil deeds.

Gaia could not stand for this. She wanted all of her creations, all of her life to be happy. She took her strongest creatures and strongest men and made them into beings that could change shapes back and forth between. Of all of these, the wolves and men were the strongest. Of this, the Garou was born. The moon, sweet Luna, granted us our rage. The sun, Helios, he let us slip into the spirit world when we need to gain power from the otherworldly. This is what you are. This is the lineage you were born into.

I see the look on your face now, boy. You don't believe me. That's ok. You will.

We, the Garou, felt we were the strongest, so we decided to shoulder more than our share of the burden of protecting our great Mother. We still feel the pain of our arrogance to this day. When the settlements of men grew too big for our liking we culled them. We came in the night and killed their old, their sick, their young. Man is still afraid of us today. The fear is burned into their very being. They know what darkness lurks in the woods at night. What monsters hide in the behind the trees. This is why when they go into the great places of nature they carry guns, weapons and lights. This is why they seek to destroy the great forests. This is why they still hunt wolves. This is why they break down in hysterics when they see the crinos form, the war form, the form that's half man, half wolf, and all death.

We hunted the other changing breeds as well. We deemed them unworthy of doing Gaia's work. They weren't strong enough. They weren't fast enough. They weren't us. What is left of their races refuses to even speak to us this day. Most will attack us on sight.

We didn't always just attack those different from us. Sometimes we warred with each other. We fought over Scotland and Ireland. We fought over land in Russia and China. And when my ancestors first came here we fought with yours. We stole their land, gave them disease, took their places of power for our own and threw them onto the worst patches of land we could find.

We didn't know then what we do now. We didn't know that the wyrm was still strong in the belly of Gaia and it was whispering in our ear. We didn't know we had been listening for way too long. Now look what we have wrought. More of the great forests disappear every day. Factories pump foul smoke into our skies. Sewers belch foul toxins into our rivers and streams. Children are abused and starve. Animals are hunted to extinction.

There are not as many of us as there should be. We have ourselves to blame for that. But there are enough of us to make a difference. Enough of us are still here to fight. Our claws are still sharp enough. We still have enough rage. The spirits still speak to us. We can take back this place from the wyrm and send its minions from these hills."

The woman Dougie had called Mee-maw, the old woman that had called herself Mother Siobahn stood now. Her features were bright and clear. The wrinkles and signs of age were gone from her face. There was no hint of a hunch in her back. In the light her hair seemed more red than silver. She extended a hand. "Will you join us in our war against this ancient beast, Evan Raven? Will you lend your claws, fangs and rage against the enemies of our sweet mother, Gaia?"

Evan sat there for about five ticks of a clock he heard somewhere in the background. It seemed like an eternity. "I've got to get back to Bragg. I've got to go back to the Army." That was all he could manage to say.

The light and air felt like they were sucked out of the room.

Siobahn sighed. She was an old lady again with her hunched back and leaning on her cane. "Douglas, can you please take this poor boy out of my house?"

"Yes 'um."

As she turned to shuffle upstairs on her cane Evan caught a tear rolling down her cheek.

The pickup truck rumbled down the road. Dougie was driving Evan back. Dougie had found some clothes for him. A pair of jeans that were patched and badly worn and a raggedy old flannel shirt that was Dougie's father probably wore judging by its size. They rode for a while in silence. Evan was still trying to digest everything Siobahn had told him.

"Ya know, yer father was a great friend to many of us in these here hills. Mosta us woulda called 'im kin."

"So my father was a werewolf? He could turn into a huge wolf beast thing?" Evan replied.

"Nah, t'ain't like that. Ya see, the Garou blood runs in family lines. It skips generations now and again. He had enough of the blood in 'im to be able to see us for whats we really is. In all our forms and all. But he didn't have enough of the blood to do any changing. Every once in a while it pops up unexpected like." Dougie nodded Evan's direction. "I reckon he suspected you of havin' enough of it. Its jus' too bad your mother kept ya away from us fer so long."

"My mother was an abusive, alcoholic bitch. My grandmother made off with me when I was young."

A sad look crossed Dougie's face. "It's a shame. I see it all the time way up over yonder. Boys like those two that messed with yer pops. Some Garou use that five dollar word when talkin' 'bout' 'em and call 'em formori. Me? I jus' call 'em evil. Parent's beat 'im, holler at 'im all the damn time, make 'im drink bad shine, and lay with their own kin. Poisons them right down to their soul. When they finally come out o' dem hills they stink of the wyrm something fierce. And they ain't got nothin' on the mind but doin' more bad in this world and spreadin' hurt. I reckon it's a good thing your gramma did what she did. Looks like she saved ye from something pretty awful."

"Why did Mother Siobhan's voice change when she was talking to me? I swear she looked…different," Evan asked, eager to change the subject.

Dougie chuckled. "She has a gift fer doin' that. She reaches back and kinda talks to our ancestors. They give her the power to inspire, to talk right deep to the soul of a man. See, our ancestors came to these hills way back when. They was all Irish and Scottish. I reckon they only knew how to do a few things; drinkin', fightin', and how to talk the pants off o' anyone. My Mee-maw has still got it."

"Seems not a day goes by here that I see something I have a hard time wrapping my head around."

Dougie laughed and shrugged. "It's always been that way up in these hills. Long as I can remember. You get used to it."

Evan shook his head. "I'm not sure if I want to. I want to get back to Bragg. Things are simple there. You get up in the morning and you know what's going to happen. And if something different happens someone is telling you how to handle it. Go here and do this. Stand here and guard this. It's easy."

"Well, I may be just a simple boy from the hills and I don't know that much 'bout things outside o' here. But one of the things I do know is that things that are easy are rarely worth doing."

The look on Evan's face showed that Dougie's last statement struck a chord. Evan's words still said otherwise. "I didn't ask for any of this. I didn't ask to be a cosmic warrior for Mother Earth or whatever the hell it is you guys are doing. I don't want to be a giant wolf man thing."

The truck cleared the ridgeline and began the descent into the cove Evan had made home for the last few days. "I'm going to give ya nickels worth of free advice, my friend." The truck came to a stop in front of his father's place. "Now that you've changed it's going to be hard to be around normal, god-fearin' folk. The scared part o' man in 'em can smell that beast in ya that's right under the surface. People will want nothin' to do wit ya."

"People been wanting nothing to do with me most of my life, Dougie." Evan patted him on the shoulder and shook his hand. He hopped back down from the cab of the truck.

"If ya happen' to change yer mind there's gunna be a lil' meetin' tonight with a few o' us. We call 'em moots." Dougie was talking to him through the open truck windows. "Lot's to talk about these days. Yer father's passin' and the means o' such are gonna be talked about. I'm sure Jeb an' Isiah's kin are gonna be out lookin' fer a little retribution. Blood for blood an' all. Smarter folk than me 'n you gotta come up wit' a plan for dealin' with them."

"I'm sure you'll get along fine without me," Evan smiled and leaned up against the truck door. "I plan to be out of here tomorrow morning and on a flight by the afternoon. Thanks for everything Dougie. I owe you one."

"When you head down in to town be careful. That sheriff don't take to kindly to our kind. He's awful crooked too. So crooked that he could swallow a nail and spit up a corkscrew."

Evan laughed and waved as he headed back towards the house. He waved back as he heard the sound of the truck making its way back up the road.

Dougie had been as good as his word. The signs of the struggle from the night before were all but gone. The dirt on his father's graved had been piled back on top of his casket under the tree. There was still some blood on the side of the house and the grass but nothing a good rain wouldn't take care of.

Evan stepped back in to the house. He changed out of the ratty hand me downs and back into some boots, jeans without holes and a plain white shirt. He poured a huge glass of sweet tea from the fridge into a mason jar. He topped it off with a fat two finger pour of the moonshine Sean had dropped off a few days prior. Shit, that felt like forever ago at this point. He wasn't a fan of alcohol but this morning he kind of felt like he had earned a drink. One time in high school he and his buddies pooled their cash and got a bottle of vodka. They had gone out in the woods, built a fire and drank the whole thing. They staggered back into his grandmother's house in the early morning hours acting like some drunken fools. The old lady had obviously heard them. She woke them all up at six am, kicked his friends out and made him do menial labor in the backyard till he threw up and almost passed out. Between his mother's rampant alcoholism and his Native American heritage he was always worried about becoming just another drunk. That day had been the last time he touched the stuff till today.

He sat on the porch sipping his hard tea and thinking about what Mother Siobhan had told him. A big part of it made sense to him. That was what bothered him. It was like she had been talking to a part of him he had never dealt with. He had always fought to keep his temper under control. In basic training it had been easy enough. Don't make any dumb mistakes and the Drill Sergeants really didn't know who you were. Just don't stand out and no one will get in your face. One of his Drill Sergeants didn't even know his name till graduation. Airborne school had been a little more of a challenge. He had been fine until the last week when they had to do five jumps. The first time that door opened on a plane that was still in air he had almost lost it. He saw the cars and trees on the ground screaming by and felt the fear grab him straight in the gut. He swallowed it down and put that fear away in a box in his head. He exited the aircraft without an issue. The other four weren't a problem after that. But when he walked out of the house a few nights ago and saw those two hicks messing with his father's corpse there had been no stopping it. All the years of his repressed rage had rolled forth from behind the broken damn that had been his self-restraint.

He still marveled at how that had felt. He had never felt so strong or so fast. Or so powerful. And he had never felt so right. Some part of him felt a small measure of righteousness when he separated that man's head from his body. The satisfaction of ripping out that motely furred freaks throat had been beyond anything he had enjoyed in his life.

But is that really what he was? A huge bipedal wolf killing machine that was the rage incarnate of Mother Earth? That just sounded like a really fucked up episode of Captain Planet to him. All this crap he went through in his life was due to some great cosmic evil entity? Evan didn't buy that. People did bad shit because they either liked doing it or they didn't know better. It was as simple as that. The ones that liked it were crazy. The ones that didn't know better were dumb. There was no great force pulling on the strings like some messed up puppeteer on an evil marionette.

But what if this whole thing was his true calling? What if this was the purpose, the calling he had been searching for his entire life? That would be some serious shit. No more army, no more paychecks on the first and fifteenth, just this house out in the woods and tons of things to hunt and kill. He was sure Dougie (maybe?) or Siobhan could teach him how to change into any of those forms when he wanted. Then he could run through the hills and mountains all he wanted. Howl all he wanted. Rage all he wanted.

What was the deal with what Nola showed him? Thinking about it again, it was obvious she had wanted some kind of reaction. She had gotten part of what she had wanted. But had she wanted more? Had she wanted him to lose control and "wolf-out" on the armed guards? Who knew with her? She was about as easy to read as Ulysses by James Joyce. Greatest novel written my ass, who gets through that whole thing?

Evan shook his head. The booze must be sneaking up on him. Whatever this moonshine was, it was strong. He had no idea what the hell was going on here but he wanted no part of it. He just wanted to go back to Bragg. Shit was easy there. Show up to formation on time, wearing right uniform and your day was going to be pretty simple. If he stayed here things would rarely be simple as a giant wolf-man thing. Evan laughed to himself. He was beginning to find his own thoughts hilarious.

He wasn't sure when but he fell asleep on the front porch. The combination of the early morning sun warming his face and the booze was too strong for a man who had seen just a little too much in the last few days. He began to dream.

He was standing next to a fire pit that was blazing hard against the winter winds. The fire pit was in the center of a semi-circle of wooden log houses. There was about a foot of fresh snow on the ground and two men were by the fire. Both were clad in furs against the snow and wind. One was older and stooped. The other was young, tall, muscled and proud. Both seemed like ethnic Cherokee to Evan. The older man was speaking to the younger.

"I am sorry Runs-with-Stags. The Great Mother did not give you enough of the gift. You will never be able to fight alongside your brother in the light of the moon."

The young one was angry, indignant. He spat in the snow. "I am twice the warrior my brother is. All in the tribe know this. Why does he get this great gift and I do not?"

"Such is the way of our Great Mother and her sister the moon. They choose roles for us all in this world. It is all we can do to fill them." The old medicine man turned toward Evan and looked directly at him. "They choose roles for us all in the world. It is all we can do to fill them."

Evan was flying now. He was a great falcon, wings spread against the sky and flying low over the green growth of spring. The mountains and hills of Appalachia spread out before him. To his left another falcon was flying. The bird turned and spoke to him with the Old Man's voice. "Runs-with-Stags has always struggled against the weight our Great Mother would have him carry." They circled low over the tree tops. The old falcon seemed to be searching for something. "When he was young he was never the fastest. Never the strongest. Never a good warrior. He ran and trained until he was. But all his work was for nothing. The blood of the Garou runs deep in his ancestors. His brother and his father both had the gift to change. When they both died in battle against a great wyrm beast he left the tribe for many moons. He lived away from us and screamed and raged at the moon every night. Why did she not listen to him?"

The two falcons circled around a clearing up ahead. There the young Cherokee was there with his head bent over a small fire in prayer and sorrow. Evan noticed a small white wolf on the edge on the clearing. The wolf was so white it looked almost silver. The two falcons circled once more and landed on a nearby tree limb to observe.

"The Great Mother doesn't always give us the gifts we want," The Old Man said. "She gives us the gifts we need. The things we are meant for." The white wolf moved closer and closer to the young brave. It danced back and forth lightly, testing the situation and his awareness. His head was hung and he didn't notice the wolf's approach. The wolf went right up to the Cherokee's face and licked it with its rough tongue.
The young brave was startled and stood up full of anger. Who was this wolf to interrupt his great sorrow? He chased after it around the clearing first with a bow then tomahawk and knife. Every time he drew close the wolf danced away easily with its playful and mischievous nature. After hours of this the young brave collapsed in the clearing and let out a loud, angry sob. It was no wonder to him that his father and brother had been killed and he wasn't worth of the gift of changing. He couldn't even catch a young wolf on his own.

As he lay there sobbing the wolf cocked its head to the side. Then it changed before their eyes into a woman. She was young and pretty. She was small of stature with long silvery hair, fine features and small full breasts. She was fully nude. She walked toward the sad young man, lifted him off of the ground and embraced him. The embrace was slightly awkward as if she didn't have much practice with it but still full of comfort and passion. Then she kissed him. It was a full and long kiss that displayed passion only usually found among the beasts.

Time sped by before their eyes. The young brave built a house in the clearing and took the white wolf woman as his wife. Her belly grew full and she gave birth to a boy. One morning, when the boy cub was old enough to survive without her milk, she turned back into a wolf and ran back into the forest from which she came.

At first the Brave was angry and sad. How could she leave him like this? Why was he meant to suffer so? Why had he earned all this pain? Then he looked into the eyes of his young son. He knew what he must do. He grabbed what supplies he needed and started walking back towards his tribe with his young son in tow.

The falcon turned and looked at Evan again. "She gives us the things we are meant for."

Evan awoke to someone shaking him on the shoulder. "Hey, you alright man?" Evan opened his eyes to see Sean Husk looking down at him, obviously a little concerned.

Evan rubbed his head. It was pounding. "Yeah….yeah. Just had a little of the shine mixed in with some tea. Knocked me right on my ass." He tried to stand, staggered and knocked over the remnants of his mason jar on the front porch. He sat back down.

Sean chuckled. "That shine'll do it to ya every time. Strong stuff, 'specially for city folk like you."

Evan rubbed his eyes. "What's up Sean? What's going on?"

Sean took a few steps back and pulled his hat off, holding it in front of him. "Well, I kinda need some help with something."

"Yeah?"

"Well, this area of the country is kinda like what they call a food desert. Nearest grocery store is about sixty miles down the road. Most folks don't want to or can't make it down there to buy decent groceries. Most people just buy garbage kinda food down at the gas station in town."

"Ok…" Evan wondered where this was going.

"So your pops and I started teaching some of the locals how to farm things besides tobacco so they could eat right. We been doin' pretty well lately and I got some extra groceries I was gonna drop off at the rez. I know there's plenty up there that could use them."

"Ok, so?"

"Last time I went up there without your father they gave me a really hard time." Sean took half a step back, and half turned his head in embarrassment.

"Hard time how?"

"Slapped me around, called me names, threw my groceries I was gonna give out in the dirt."

Before Sean could finish Evan was already walking to Sean's truck and climbing in. "Let's go. And let's make this quick. Sun's going down and I want to cook a steak before it's dark out."