Little Wolf

Ch 22 Man-instinct

I drove for awhile, then went off-road. I heard a wolf howl, but that wasn't why I was here. A few four-wheel off the road vehicles followed me. I didn't care about them.

I came to a stop near the home of an old man. There was a small fire outside his house. I took my helmet off, handed it to Derrick. Wolf in man-form circled a spot next to the fire, curled up in a circle, went to sleep.

I woke to an angry voice. Another wolf didn't like me in his territory. I sat up, blinking blearily. An old woman on my other side handed me a wooden cup full of tea. It was exactly what I needed. Old Badger Woman refilled it. I drank it down, smiling at the old woman who now sat where I had seen Badger. The old man looked at me, gave me a slow nod. I heard a hawk cry out. I laid back down, slept.

I woke again. The old man handed me a bowl of stew. I ate it down. More tea. A second bowl of stew. I felt my muscles relax some, a minor shift. I heard Derrick talking about our work helping with the fire. I felt drums beating somewhere. The old man smoked. I smiled at him but didn't need the pipe. I slept.

I woke again. The moon was high. The cup and a skin of tea was next to me. It took effort to focus, but I filled the cup a few times, drinking down the tea.

A young timber wolf brought me a rabbit. Man had sharp canines. Soon there was nothing left of the rabbit but skin and bones. The remains found their way to the fire in front of me. The young boy put more wood on the fire.

I woke to early morning sunlight , and the sound of children's laughter. I could smell Derrick nearby. The angry wolf was near. There was a thin man on the other side of the fire. I blinked, seeing a heron, blinked again, saw the man.

"Feeling better?" he asked.

I thought about it. I was still tired, but I nodded yes, I felt better. There was less tension in my body. The food, the sleep, and whatever was in the tea had helped my body recover from the night of running and shifting, too many shifts, through the burning forest. I stretched, rolling my shoulders. I yawned, a yawn that had wolf tongue curling up.

I gave more thought to the man's question. I considered my state of being. I was still me. I was man, but I was wolf within the man.

I contemplated what Dad had once said about getting lost in the wolf. Had anyone ever shifted the way I was? Before I became a man, as in a grown-up human, I had shifted to wolf while still using a human brain. Now I was capable of standing as a man, but my brain was all wolf. Simple words, muscle memory. Man-instincts... yet still thoughts that were mine.

It was easy to assume that most men, my dad included, might shift to wolf brain when being a wolf, and would automatically return to man brain as the body returned to man.

I had experimented while fighting, pushing the limits of my abilities. The revelation that my brain could also shift had me testing what I could do. Combine that with Dad's way of training, controlling the shift, pushing your abilities to the limit... how much control could I gain over shifting how I processed information?

My mind went back to when Dad told me there was real wolf in our bloodline. I had considered then that werewolves had no border between wolf and man.

Now I considered the night in the burning woods. I had lost myself, not necessarily in the wolf, but in the shifts. Even now, knowing myself to be wolf, I knew me to be me. Then, I had shifted by instinct, not by choice. Therein lay my danger. It wasn't just being wolf. I couldn't afford to get lost to instinct. That was my path to getting lost in the wolf.