Walking the Dust
7: Of Dogs And Wulves
You know what scares wulves? Nothing, that's what.
I grew up in Lo-Wil. The town had a dozen farmers, and each of them owned about thirty goats. That's a lot of goatswater, and we needed it, because the river was seasonal. Come the summer, a family could get maybe one bucket of almost-fresh water a day.
Only problem was, if you had goats then you could be pretty damn sure you'd have wulves too, sniffing around and waiting for a chance to sneak in and eat half your herd. The wulves in the north are smaller and longer-haired than what I've seen down in the hotter areas, and they don't normally come too close to people, especially if you have a fire going. But when they've got a scent, they lose all fear.
So the farmers had two ways to keep the wulves away from their herds. First, they all had dogs, the long-legged kind that could keep up with a pack of running wulves. They didn't look so different to wulves themselves, with their long bodies and big fangs, and they scared me. Father never trusted them, either. He said they could turn at any time, and they'd be just as dangerous to a man as a wulf was. I believed him, but Jerod was always fascinated by animals and bugs, and he desperately wanted a dog for the family. Him and father used to argue about that a lot. Jerod was certain he could train a dog to guard the house. He said dogs' pack behaviour was pretty similar to the wulves, and he'd studied them enough to apply it all to a family dog. But father wouldn't budge, and to be honest I was grateful.
The second thing the farmers did was keep a pen of goat carcasses stocked up, outside the edge of town, to satisfy the wulves if they got hungry enough to come looking for fresh meat. Not that the carcasses were always all that fresh, but it worked.
One cool summer night, Jerod took me out to watch the corpse pile. We hid in some tallgrass, waiting for the wulves to come, but I was only eight years old and after a half hour I was bored. But Jerod wouldn't come home, and it was late and dark enough that I didn't want to go back alone, not while the dogs would be out hunting up. So I stayed, and another half hour later Jerod suddenly hissed and pointed.
They came from over the low hills to the north of town, three of them, slow and silent. Their coats were dark and shaggy, invisible against the black of night. But their eyes...their eyes were a golden white, like the hottest part of a tree fire, and they burned just the same. They padded down toward the carcass pen, almost lazily, like nothing bothered them. They bothered me, though. I couldn't move a muscle. Jerod had promised we'd be all right, that he knew how to hide from the wulves, but I could hear his breathing over mine. And mine was loud.
One wulf circled the pen, sniffing around the fence. Another walked a wider circle in the opposite direction, sniffing the air. The third stood and watched them. When they'd finished the third one started padding toward the fence — then suddenly broke into a run and leapt over it, landing right on top of the corpse pile. The others followed, and their fangs flashed as they began ripping into the carcasses. The weird thing was, they didn't make a sound. I'd expected them to howl or snarl as they feasted. But all you could hear was the rending of flesh and bone.
That and my own yelp when the leader turned and stared straight at Jerod and me.
I froze, rooted like the tallgrass I stood in. Jerod put an arm round me and moved between me and the wulf. At the time I thought he was really brave — my big brother, he was going to save me. Looking back, I can't believe how stupid both of us were. He was only twelve.
The wulf leapt over the fence and ran at us. The leap into the pen had been impressive, but this was something else. Three strides and it would be on us. Its eyes were on fire, its fangs flashed —
And then something to my side snarled. I saw something move in the moment before I screwed my eyes shut, then I heard gunshots.
When I finally looked up, the wulf that had come for us was dead on the ground. Blood pooled from a gash in its throat, and a gunshot wound in its head. Two of the town dogs stood nearby, their own mouths dripping blood. And Jerod was looking up at one of the town farmers, Sanch, who had a smoking rifle in his hand.
Turned out Sanch had been on night patrol with his dogs and heard my yelp. He thought it was a goat broke its leg or something, and came to look.
Sanch's bitch had a litter the next year. Jerod bought one. He kept it outside the house to appease father, and when he set out a year later to travel, he took it with him. I never did get over my fear of dogs, but I felt better knowing Jerod had one watching out for him.
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