Wolf Wind
"I look around. Edward and Dr. Cullen are gone."
~ l ~ l ~ l ~
Down the wind we run. Following our enemy. Cold trail, cold feet, dead flesh walking. They run, too – after the scent of the trail. The wind is our voice, the rain is our tracks, among the standing ones.
Dead flesh walking. Sweet smell of decay that never comes. Like the white man's candy. We follow, wearing the night for pelt.
Up mountain, down valley, far from our home. Enemy territory. We follow their war party at a distance, from downwind.
The young one wears the scent of our daughter in his coat. He wraps himself in it, inhales her, pulls her in over his tongue and into his belly, holds her and drinks her endlessly as he runs. He is a burning branch in the dark, shooting hunger and rage and pain and desire, out to the four directions.
The trees hold grudge against him, and so do we.
There is blood on this wind. Waterlogged and dirty. There at the lake, where the white men made fences of yellow tape. Here among the trees as we shadow the running dead.
There are only two warriors among them. The yellow hair, with marks of the moon all over his skin. And the woman who pretends to be his twin, who died in blood and indignity. The rest are consumed by guilt, for hunting our daughter when they should have been guarding the Mother whose creatures feed them. The chief, and the small one, grieve most of all. But it is no use. These ghosts are like the other ho-kwat, the warm ones, who only know invading and have never been invaded. They sleep with both eyes closed, even when they no longer sleep at all.
Far from home this trail has run. Twisting and turning like a snake in high grass. To the edge of the land. To lights and water. The Others are waiting for them. Perhaps they saw the burning boy from far off, when they looked back over their shoulders.
We will watch and we will see, how these devils fight among themselves: where is their strength and where is their weakness. The treaty stands, but the old man's pack has grown. Even if yellow kills red tonight, we do not trust. And so, tonight, we will watch and learn.
There are three, these Others. The homeless ones. The hungry ones. Waiting at the edge of the highway. A mated pair, and the decoy, who pretends to be their head. Their stolen skins smell of dirt and rain and the prey they have devoured. Their hair – black of the lieutenant, red of the woman, yellow of her man – is long and matted. Their feet are bare.
Our teeth. In silence, between the wind and the trees, we bare them, too.
The outlanders wait to parlay, because to run invites chasing, and killing.
"Greetings of the road, brothers, and sisters," the black-hair offers, both hands open before him. His face is dusky, not pale like his fellows. "Perhaps, though, we should get off the road. People seem to travel at all hours this century."
They retreat into the cover of trees. We stay at a distance, behind our curtain of rain.
The yellow-eyed chief speaks. "You have hunted within our borders."
We feel his warrior's influence. Our tails droop without our permission. The interlopers, too, stand smaller, as though ashamed. We pay attention, for our grandfathers never met this scar-skinned one.
"In truth, we did not know this land was occupied," the black-hair says.
"It is. And you may see that we require a large range." Large range for a large tribe. The yellow-eyes seem to loom taller in the dark, and the trees seem to multiply their shadows. "The peninsula is ours."
The three stand closer together. Rain falls softly among the pine needles. Trees and ground and these ghosts and we, all are heavy with wet.
Red eyes glow at yellow. "Is it true what is said? Are you that one, who drinks only from beasts?"
"It is our custom."
"Then at least we have done no harm, taken nothing that you might have used." The decoy speaks these words, but they all are smelling our warm girl on the cold boy's coat. They smell him, too. We all do. How he burns for her, thirsts for her.
The nomad yellow-hair and his red mate lick their lips.
Our ears flatten.
The boy bursts with rage, and the moon-marked warrior shuts him away before any sign can show.
"How we use our resources is our own concern," the chief says. "We claim our rights as any coven may. What guest goes rummaging through his host's pantry without so much as asking? Even the Guard did me the courtesy of dining beyond my borders when they visited."
Though we watch from afar, with every word we feel as if the earth is slipping out from under our feet. Our heads dip down, even tilt to expose our throats. The three wanderers grin appeasement, and look down and away.
"A thousand pardons, Monsieur."
A string connects the heart of the warrior with the heart of the small woman. They feel each other along it, though they stand only loosely together, like all the others. We understand him now. He is their bow-stringer, their net-maker, their spell-caster. And she is his spider woman, plucking his heart string to warn.
The red-haired woman speaks in a hurt child's voice. "You would not begrudge us the city, I hope?" She is thirsty. They all are. They have not yet drunk their fill. Her mate tastes the air around the boy. He is laughing inside, and we smell bad things in him, about the boy, and our daughter.
Thunder growls for us, and all the cold ones startle. The warrior binds his little brother more tightly, and we remember the grandfathers' stories: "The young one listens to what cannot be heard." He yells at the warrior, through his own heart string, his feelings unruly and wild.
"We claim everything between the waters," the chief says. "Sea or straits on three sides. The highway called Route 8 is our border to the south."
Holding his brother, the warrior's grip on the strangers is loosened. The black-hair becomes bold again. "A fur-trapper's kingdom," he laughs.
The chief's hackles rise. "It is best if you do not return."
"Oh, come, now. We began on poor terms, but there is no need to end so."
"You are leaving on foot, and not on the wind. Those are very good terms indeed, my friend."
The seven move, so that they stand almost in a line.
"Leave off, Laurent," the yellow-hair says. "It's clear they don't mean to share. They've not even offered us a bath, or clothing, or even a seat by the fire. There's hunting east of here, and I've had enough of jabbering in the rain."
"We will see you to the border."
The red-hair links arms with her mate. "No, James, north. The city there is named after me. We're already wet, what does it matter if we swim?"
We watch from a distance, as they all go down to the shore, and the three strike out through the shallows. A long time the yellow-eyes watch, until the red-eyes are gone beyond their sight.
Owl calls, stopping first light at the edge of the world. The seven run back the way that they came, swifter than the wind.
A/N: I owe such a debt of gratitude to my beta, averysubtlegift, and pre-readers albymangroves and saritadreaming. Each of these wonderful women, wonderful writers, read through this chapter meticulously, each offered unique and much-needed perspective. And there was handholding, since this chapter bucked me off and rewrote itself completely in the wolves' voice, shoving the Cullens to the periphery.
The wolves in this story are a bit non-canon. Perhaps some day, somewhere, Bella may ask Jacob, "What's it like?"
He looks away. "You're not yourself. It's nothing to want or wish for. I don't even know if we have real bodies or just shadows. Or maybe we're all just laying passed out in the lodge under a pile of wolf skins, dreaming."
"But I saw you," she whispers. "One of you carried Uncle Billy. And you all brought me back to Auntie Sue's house. Shadows can't do that."
"Maybe. Spirit warriors never stopped white people from taking our land, though. Maybe we only work against -" He doesn't want to be cruel, so he says, "zombies and stuff."
And then she is in his arms, sobbing.
"Ho-kwat" is Quileute for "(white) non-Indian". h t t p : / / www . quileutenation . org /
Thank you for reading.