I was drawn to my bike. Some people were nearby but no one was too close. I sniffed the air. Something told me I was safe to shift. I dressed out of habit. I slid on the heavy yellow jacket that identified me as someone helping to combat the fire.
There were noises, words. I knew what they meant. I headed over. Someone had been hurt using a chainsaw. I picked it up. It was easy to spot the man in charge, yelling directions to various workers.
"Where?" Again, my voice came out using wolf sounds to make human words.
"You know what your doing with that saw?" He had his hand on my arm as he yelled the question over the noise around us.
I nodded.
He pointed me in the right direction. There was a line of men cutting down a row of trees. The idea was to keep the fire from jumping from treetop to treetop, so it wouldn't spread further.
I worked with the men a few hours before we pulled out. Someone took the chainsaw from me. I went back to my bike. I could picture Derrick in my mind. I knew he would be worried. I pointed my bike in the right direction.
Derrick wasn't there but the tent was. I parked by the tent. I wanted to get clean. There was a man by the motel, his arm in a cast. I grabbed a change of clothes, the small bag of toiletries, and headed over to him.
I only motioned with my arm full of stuff. He opened his motel room for me.
"Take your time, it will be a few hours before most of them get back. Just leave the towels on the floor. I'll get housekeeping to bring up some more."
It felt good to get clean. I made sure I scrubbed until the smell of smoke was gone. When I was heading out, I waved to the man who let me use his shower. I spent the next few hours just policing around the area, picking up stray trash, putting one of the cases of bottled water in a tub that someone had, adding ice from the motel's machine.
I crawled into my tent, cleaned and organized our stuff for a bit, stretched out.
I woke with the sounds of people moving about. Derrick was in the tent. His hair was wet from his recent shower. When he saw I was awake he tapped my leg.
"Come on, someone brought food in."
I went out, sniffed the air.
"You ok?"
"Rain." My voice was rough and deep.
A couple men heard me.
"I hope so, rain would make our job easier. Anyone see the forecast lately?"
The topic centered around the work that had been done and the weather. I only listened.
Derrick kept trying to ask me about where I went when I left on my bike in the wee hours of the morning. I just blinked at him, turned away. He stopped asking.
The next day Derrick and I worked in the rain, driving through streets, clearing them of debris. I could tell he was worried about me. Words from me were few and far between. I was easily distracted when not focused on a specific task. Even food was quickly forgotten. I would often focus on things he couldn't see.
Our boss John called the next day, told us to head home, take a few days off, rest up. Packing up the tent was beyond me. Derrick packed up. I could tell he didn't want me to drive the bike, but I knew where to go. I couldn't explain it even if I could speak the words. He gave the truck keys to one of the other guys from our station, got on the bike behind me.
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.
A young girl with a cast on her leg interrupted my thoughtful contemplation. She had stopped next to me, balancing on a crutch. I smiled at her.
Angry wolf growled at her to stay away from me. She just threw him a look. Brave little girl. I took another sip of tea, throat shifting as I swallowed.
Suddenly words came easy.
"Hello little one. Can I help you?"
Her eyes got big.
"That's what he called me."
"Who, little one?"
"You won't believe me. They don't. You'll just laugh at me."
I took her free hand that wasn't holding the crutch. I gave her my complete attention.
"I will tell you my story if you tell me yours," I promised.
She nodded agreement, if somewhat hesitantly.
I had a feeling I had a larger audience than the girl before me. I smiled. I always enjoyed storytelling. I patted the ground beside me and helped her sit down.
"Long ago," I began in the time-honored tradition of storytelling, "on the other side of the great water, Spirit Wolf roamed an ancient forest. There was a wolf there, a huge black one, that was able to see Spirit Wolf. The black wolf invited Spirit Wolf to join him in a hunt. He so enjoyed Spirit Wolf's company that he wanted to show him something special.
"He led Spirit Wolf to an unusual place in the forest, up some old stone steps, through strange stone tunnels to a special room.
"Now if you were to see this room, you would know right away what the black wolf was looking at, for the room was filled with old books, a long abandoned library. All the black wolf knew is that when he looked at the things stacked along the walls, he wanted to know more.
"Spirit Wolf knew what he was looking at. Man's knowledge. He saw the longing for that knowledge in the black wolf before him, even before the black wolf spoke.
"My father doesn't understand my need to come here, but he lets me come. He has sniffed and sniffed, and has no answer for me. He has told me to go and try to find my answers, and if I cannot find them to return and howl for him. I want to go, but the answer I seek has no trail to follow. I don't know what to do next. Here, look!
"The black wolf pushed open a book, looked at the picture there, laying down, studying it between his paws. Not even the mouse in the corner distracted him.
"The desire that so possessed the black wolf touched Spirit Wolf's heart. He decided to do something special for the black wolf.
"I can set you on the trail, if that is what you truly want.
"Black wolf's eyes held nothing but excitement and desire for what Spirit Wolf offered. Spirit Wolf touched the black wolf, breathed on him, pushed him up onto his hind legs.
"Can you guess what happened next?"
She shook her head, and I could tell that she did not believe my tale. I couldn't blame her. My story might not be historically accurate. Spirit Wolf might not have actually interacted with my dad, but the story did relay the heart of my family history.
"The black wolf walked out of the forest on two legs. Spirit Wolf had made him a man. A wolf on two legs, the black wolf was eager to learn all that he could. He made his way across Europe, learning everything before him as if it was a great feast." I took in the look on the girl's face. "You don't believe me?"
"You're just telling me a tale."
"Derrick, what did my dad tell Mac?"
"That it was him, his father, and his grandfather, and that he stepped out of the Black Forest. He also told Mac that the way of the wolf means protecting your own, and that Mac didn't want to be in the way of him protect his own."
"See? My dad made his way to America, met my mother at one of the colleges in the northeast. She brought him back home. He stood before our council, asking for her hand in marriage. He told them what he was, wolf in man-form. Promised to be a man-husband to her. They were married for ten years before she went to the council, told them they couldn't hold him to the promise he made. She wanted to be one with her husband. The council released him from his promise. Spirit Wolf touched her so that the wolf could live within her. And lo and behold, I came along!"
I grinned at her. She looked dubiously between me and Derrick, sure we were trying to pull one over on her. I took both of her hands in mine.
"Look at me."
Human eyes laughing. Shift. Grinning wolf looking at her. Shift. Spirit Wolf looking knowingly at her.
Her breath caught. She put her hands on my face, kissed my cheek.
"Thank you," she said, her voice barely louder than a whisper.
Spirit Wolf winked, blinked, and I found myself looking out of my eyes at her very surprised face.
I laughed and gave her hands a squeeze. "Now, you owe me your story before my friend and I hit the road."
"My family was camping when the fire started. My cousin and I were supposed to work our way back ahead of everyone while they packed up. The fire cut us off from each other. I fell and hurt my leg. My cousin tried to carry me, but we weren't getting far. It seemed like the fire and smoke were everywhere."
She looked sharply at me suddenly. "You know what happened next, don't you?"
"Well...Spirit Wolf told me he found someone on the wrong side of the river, confused by the fire and smoke. He heard someone call to him."
"That was my cousin. Spirit Wolf carried me out. He led all of us out. He called me little one, and gave me a message, but I don't know what it means." She considered my puzzled look. I had given her no message. "You don't know what Spirit Wolf said to me, do you?" she asked, looking at me so seriously.
"What did Spirit Wolf say to you little one?"
"You don't know?"
I shook my head no. "Spirit Wolf is my friend, but that doesn't mean he tells me everything."
"Is the black wolf really your father?"
I looked over at Derrick with a tilt of my head.
"His dad told Mac that his name was Black Wolf."
She looked at Derrick. "What's his name?" She meant me of course.
"Little Wolf."
I could hear the indrawn breaths around me, felt the surprise, especially from the angry wolf.
"Then he was talking about you," the girl said with a touch of awe.
I waited, still holding her hands. It seemed surprise had stolen her voice. I gave her hands the slightest of tugs to get her attention.
"Why would Spirit Wolf tell me something about you?" she asked in wonder.
"I don't know little one. But I trust he has his reasons. What did he say?"
"The wolf knows justice. The little wolf will lead the way, and all wolves will follow where their brother leads. What did he mean? Where will you lead them?"
I sighed. How to explain things like looking for justice for what was done to Lone Wolf to an innocent young girl? Plus I had no idea where my path would lead.
Easier to explain my connection to all wolves, as if I understood it myself. All wolves who were willing to accept me anyway. Brother-to-All-Wolves is what Spirit Wolf had called me.
I had been aware of the young wolf my entire visit here, knew him to be my brother. The angry wolf... well, it was his anger more than anything I was aware of.
"That is a story for another time. Perhaps I will return again someday and tell it if I have an invitation."