Wolves at dawn

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It had been a long week for Ben. He’d been out checking his trap line and doing a bit of hunting, though not as much as he’d wanted to. It seems he left a full box of bullets on the table back at the house so now he was nearly out; in fact he was down to one bullet.

He’d made camp about two hours from home. He could have made two more hours but his horse need ed the rest. So one more night under the stars wouldn’t kill him. He’d found a nice boulder to make camp against, it would do double duty of breaking the wind and reflecting back the heat from his fire. After he’d unpacked the horse and tethered it nearby Ben settled down to some grub and then built the fire up and rolled over and went to sleep.

Nothing rouses a cowboy out of his sleep quicker that his horse getting spooked. It was nearly dawn and the fire was nothing but embers when he saw the first of them. There were four wolves headed in his direction, they had spread out so as to flank him but fortunately for Ben he had a large boulder at his back.

Ben instinctively grabbed his rifle when he heard his horse and knew he could make short work of four wolves and have some nice hides to trade in the bargain. As the wolves were standing around him snarling he realized he only had one bullet. He knew he couldn’t show fear, or he’d be dead for sure.

Ben summoned up all the bravado he had and shouted, “Today is a good day to die, which of you wants to be first?”

He knew they didn’t understand him, but the shouting had thrown them off. Ben was trying to figure out which one was the leader when he saw one start edging toward him as the others brought up the rear. Ben took aim at the lead wolf and shouted, “Last chance, get out of here, go on.”

To his surprise the wolf that was furthest back peeled off and started loping away. The odds were getting better. Just then the lead wolf made his move and Ben squeezed the trigger and caught him in the forehead. The wolf went down with a thud. The two remaining wolves charged and being out of ammo Ben began to use his rifle as a club. He swung and made contact with the first one’s head and knocked him back into the remains of the fire. The air was filled with howling and the smell of singed fur. That wolf had had enough and ran off.

The final wolf had backed Ben up against the rock wall and Ben had no room to swing his rifle. He was prodding at the wolf, trying to get some maneuvering room. The sun had just broken over the horizon and this had heartened Ben a bit. He knew that wolves tended to hunt at night and sleep in the day. Just as he thought his luck had changed, the forth wolf showed up. He was not as big as the other, but still two wolves against an essentially unarmed man were not good odds.

There was something odd about the last wolf but Ben didn’t have time to be pondering the peculiarities of different wolves. Still this wolf didn’t seem to be coming at him, he seemed more interested in the other wolf.

The wolf that had Ben pinned down made his move and lunged at Ben, at the same time the smaller wolf went for Ben’s attacker and sank his teeth into its rear haunch. It howled in pain and turned its head to go after its attacker. The was the opening that Ben had been praying for, with all his might he swung the rifle into the turned head of the wolf and he heard something snap. It could have been the wolf’s neck or it could have been the stock to his rifle because they were both laying there.

One last wolf, and the smallest of them all was all that stood between him and home. He raised what was left of the rifle over his head preparing to bash in a final skull. It was then Ben saw a glint of sunlight reflecting from something hanging on the wolf’s neck. Almost at the same instant the wolf laid down on its belly and was cowering.

Without thinking about it, Ben lowered his rifle and got down on one knee. He looked over at the cowering creature and said, “Come here boy, it’s OK.”

Ben got a tail wag for that and nothing more. It took about thirty minutes of coaxing and bits of jerky before he could get close enough to the dog, because it was surely a dog and not a wolf. Ben was certain if it had been a wolf that he would be dead now. When he finally got close enough to look, the shiny thing was an old ID tag hanging on the remains of a collar. Ben could barely make out the name Sam. How he had gotten here and how long he’d been running with the wolves nobody can say. Ben got packed up and said, “Come on Sam, we’re going home.”