JESS ANDERSON
One wolf, and one wolf only, howls upon the mountain tonight. They’ve been trying to catch him all winter, but he’s a cunning one, this wolf, and quick enough to outrun the hunter’s bullet. The other pelts on our walls are black or grey or brown, but this wolf is white as snow. I see his shadow every now and then, a sliver of white between the trees. I caught a glimpse of him once, snuffling under the door as dinner cooled on the stove, but by the time I’d grabbed the shotgun, he was gone. That was the year my husband disappeared. He was on a hunting trip to catch the damn thing; instead, they say the thing caught him. They never found a body— ain’t even heard a scream. No one noticed he was gone ‘til the party came back with one man missing.
He’s elusive; it’s like he dissipates, fades into nothing like a cloud in the sky. I’ve taken to calling him that in my head, Cloud. Perhaps Ghost or Bones would be a better, more fitting name, but he doesn’t growl at me when I see him. He barely ever approaches the town these days, and why would he? He has all the deer to himself up in the mountains; he’s got no need to risk our wrath for some sheep. The only reason we know he’s still kicking is his singing; bitter and low, with nothing left to answer it.
There was a time when we had coyotes and bears too, but they're all gone now. The last grizzly snarls eternally above the mayor’s fireplace.
That was a project started when I was a girl, after a bear savaged the shepherd’s boy as he watched his sheep in the paddock. They brought him round for my mama to save, but it was too late, and he bled out right there on our kitchen table. Sometimes, I can still hear him gasping, wet and hollow and choking and then nothing, like a boiling pot being pulled off the stove.
They paraded the bear’s head through town when they caught him, tongue lolled, beady black eyes connected to their sockets by naught but strings of sinewy flesh.
The only time I ever saw a real bear was up a tree in the woods behind our house. I was ten, hiding from my sister as she counted to twenty Mississippi with her fingers over her eyes. Silent and still, I got halfway up the tree before I realised he was there. He was nestled in the V where the bough became a branch, staring at me with dark eyes as wide as mine. I didn’t dare move, and neither did he, till my sister yelled and one of his black ears twitched. He grunted then, a low rumbling noise deep as far-off thunder. He was still in the same spot when my feet touched the ground.
And though the slain bear was brown instead of black, and bigger and meaner than my fellow in the pine, I couldn’t help but think of him, and my fear like a mirror in his eyes.
I wonder if the white wolf has ever known that fear, though he’s the mountain’s king now, and what could a king have to fear?
*
Gravel crunches under tyres as a rusty red pickup rolls lazily down the road, coming to a stop in front of my little wooden house. A young man in a flannel steps out, offering me a wave before heading ‘round the back to unload the firewood he’s brought.
‘I thought I told you to quit comin’ ‘round, Wiley,’ I tell him. His chuckle is sheepish as he dumps his haul on my porch, next to the old rocking chair I’m reading in.
‘That you did, ma’am,’ he says, running a hand through his black hair.
‘That I did.’
The door swings open and out come my boys, giggling and squealing like pigs in a pen. Rex trails behind them, tail wagging a mile a minute.
‘Wiley! Wiley!’ Wiley scoops them into his arms before they can knock him down, laughing alongside them as I cluck my tongue. He puts them down, ruffling their blond heads as they complain.
‘I best be off,’ he tells me as the kids dash off to play in his truck. ‘Gotta get the rest o’this timber dropped off before the rain goes and ruins it all.’ I shake my head at him, as if he were one of my boys.
‘I told you I don’t need your charity, Wiley. I’m perfectly capable of cuttin’ my own firewood.’
‘Never said you weren’t, ma’am,’ he says. ‘Only that you needn’t have to.’
I cross my arms and turn away so he doesn’t see the giveaway smile on my lips. Neither of us says anything as we watch the boys clamber up the bed of his truck, Rex barking his giddy encouragement.
‘Say, uh, ma’am,’ begins Wiley, and I turn to him with a raised brow. ‘You still got that shotgun on the wall?’
‘You know I do,’ I tell him, and he nods. ‘Why? Has something happened?’
He hesitates, fiddling with a button on his flannel as he keeps his eyes on the kids. Then he says, in a hushed voice, ‘something killed Gilroy’s dogs in the night. All of ‘em, every single one. Ate ‘em too, by the looks of it.’
The sun is beginning to dim, casting long shadows on the dusty ground. The mountain looms before us like a great unblinking giant.
*
The rain begins just after dinner, drumming its fingers on the roof as I watch the fire crackle. It’s still going when I put the kids to bed, and when I go to bed myself. A steady backing for the wailing of the wolfsong.
*
The dog is barking. It pulls me so suddenly from my dreams that my heart lurches and I jolt. I wait for him to stop, but he doesn’t, so I get up and pad into the hall where he usually sleeps. He’s not there, though, nor is he in the kitchen. When I get to the living room, I see the shadowy outline of him, sitting at the door expectantly.
With a sigh, I let him out, and he trots down the front porch steps. The rain has stopped, though the lingering cold bites through my nightgown as if it were well-cooked lamb. I shiver as he sniffs around for a spot to do his business.
His head snaps up; ears perked towards the blackened mountain like he’s heard something.
‘Rex,’ I warn, but he ignores me. Then he bolts.
I curse and dart into the kitchen to pull a flashlight from a drawer before following him, hitting the thing until an unsteady light flickers to life.
I call his name, sprinting in the direction he took off, but the night has swallowed him whole. I can’t see a single twig outside of the thin glow of my flashlight and almost run straight into a tree in my haste. I yell again, and there! He’s barking, but it sounds so far away— how in Jesus’ name has he managed to go so far in so little time?
Soon enough, I can’t run anymore, and I’m forced to take a breather against the strong bough of a tree. I call him again, but there’s no answer. Come to think of it, there’s nothing at all. Not the buzzing of cicadas, the humming of crickets, or the croaking of a frog. Other than the wheeze of my heaving breaths, the woods are completely, utterly silent.
My throat is dry, and I feel the hair on the back of my neck stand up. I call Rex’s name one more time, but it’s weak. It feels wrong to be loud in this dead darkness. It feels dangerous.
I start running again, but this time I’m running towards home. It’s then that I slip on something sticky. Catching myself before I fall, I point my flashlight to the ground, revealing a pool of dark red liquid that can only be blood. The light flickers feverishly as my hands begin to tremble.
There’s blood everywhere, in splatters and in pools; some has even managed to cover the trunks of surrounding trees. There’s a smear of it, like something has been dragged along the ground, and I follow it with shaking, shallow breaths.
That’s when the smell hits me— thick and rancid, and sweet. A body lies face down on the ground, blood pooling around him where the crimson trail ends. His middle has been ripped open, exposing a meaty stew of pink and red. The light glints off his spine, fragments of which have been broken off and mixed in with his intestines.
I stumble backwards and trip over something solid. By some will of God, the flashlight stays in my hand, and I shine it in front of me, revealing another body with its face and throat torn to shreds.
Body after body, I lose count of how many I find. All are either face down or unrecognisably mutilated, until I find the shepherd. His eyes are wide open, staring into nothing. I remember watching his boy die. I wonder if he went the same way, and the thought makes me choke on a sob.
In the distance, a twig snaps. My heart lurches as I lift my light, but it’s just a doe. Only… something about her is strange, something about her face. I study her, and she stares back at me, eyes swallowing the yellow light.
Her eyes— it's her eyes; they’re closer together than they should be. She sniffs the air, then takes a tentative step towards me. I step back on instinct.
That’s when I hear the growling.
Behind me are more deer, circling like a pack of wolves. In their bloodstained, frothing mouths are rows and rows of dagger-sharp teeth.
I’m running again, faster than I ever have. Behind me, the deer are barking and yowling, their hooves thudding against the earth as they chase me. The flashlight falls from my shaking hands.
Then, snarling. Not the hungry, high-pitched gnarls of the deer, but deeper. Doglike. I hear gnashing teeth and ripping flesh— whining, yelping, then nothing. My legs have frozen in place.
A ray of moonlight peeks through the clouds and shines on white fur mottled with red.
I stare at him, and the wolf stares at me, though he makes no show of aggression. He just watches, panting in the pale air. There’s something about his eyes… they don’t gleam yellow or red like I imagined they would. Instead, they’re a plain, muddy brown— familiar almost, though I’ve never seen them before.
There’s an ancient weariness in them too, and his breaths come as quickly as mine.
He falls, and only then do I see the gushing gash on his neck. My stomach churns as guilt makes a home there, guilt and grief for this strange shepherd of mine. I sink to my knees before him, whispering a prayer, and scratching his ear until his breathing stops.
It’s in that moment that he begins to change. With the crunch of breaking bones, his limbs stretch, and human hands replace his paws.
As they do, dread uncoils in my stomach. There’s a silver band on his ring finger. A silver band that matches mine. His doggish face flattens until, lying dead on the ground, is not a wolf, but a man.
A man with hair the colour of sand, and a grin I see every day when I pick his sons up from school. A man who had walked into the woods a year past and made me a widow. I bury my face in the crook of his neck, uncaring of the blood and gore still clinging to his pale skin. He’s too cold. He still smells like my Archer.
There’s a whimpering behind me, and I turn my head to see Rex sniffing at the air. I beckon him come, but he flinches. It’s then that I see the long, unforgiving claws that have replaced my nails. My vision swims, and I lurch backwards as if I could dart away from my own hand. My arm begins to burn, a sensation that spreads through my entire body as snow-white fur sprouts from my every pore.
I try to scream, but the sound leaves my lips as a howl.
*
One wolf, and one wolf only, howls upon the mountain tonight. I move through the woods like a cloud in the sky, never staying in the same place for too long. I hold the torch in my teeth now, and it won’t be too long till I pass it on— the deer grow bolder every day, stronger too, and more and more scars litter my battered body. I wonder if the next person will inherit them. I wonder who the next person will be.
I’m keeping the deer at bay best I can, but it’s only me. You killed everything else, everything big enough to keep their fangs in their mouths.
Jess Anderson is an emerging (and struggling) feminist writer from Sydney’s Hills District. Her short story, ‘Apples’ has been published in Claws Out Literary and Macquarie University’s Grapeshot Magazine, where she is a student. Jess often writes about the magical and the natural, and hopes to one day live in a cottage in the woods among other critters and crawlies.
