WOLF HEART

"

It was easy to spot the wolf in my mother. The night I left she found a way to escape her bonds and threw herself into the darkness of the forest surrounding the hospital where she had been living to run into the arms of a man who murdered her.

Apparently her murderer was an unhappy drifter at whom she snarled and clawed.

Perhaps he was frightened for his own life. He served three years and then was let go, disappearing as easily as he came into her world.

I heard of the murder by the police who tracked me down, and even subtly let the accusation in the air that I was a suspect although they had the real killer's sworn confession. When I heard no more I went into the nearest town, picked up a newspaper, and read the lurid events. News was in short supply that month and pages were filled with supposition as to the killing of my mother. I once thought I heard her voice -- her angry voice -- outside my cabin in the night, calling my name over the shriek of the loons on the lake. WOLF. Perhaps it was not myself she was calling, but rather my father, the real wolf of her mind.

Three years I lived in my solitude , doing odd jobs to make the little cash I required. I read Thoreau whose inclination to the solace of nature mimicked my own, differing only in the back story of how we came to this hermitage.

The start of my fourth year alone was greeted with an early snow that whirled around my door in graceful dance. I could already see the anxious preparations of the squirrels for winter supplies, the flutter of birds trying to make up their minds when to fly south, and the careful circling of the predators who hoped to put fat on their bones to stave off the Winter's disregard. I too made my gestures to the threat of Winter's grimace by laying in more provisions, fuel, and reading material. Then I saw him at twilight just by my woodpile. He could scarcely be starving yet. The weather was often warm enough during the day to lure animals out for him to savage.

Yet there he was. His teeth showing beneath his curled-back lip. His eyes were golden, heated up with a passion I could not understand. His fur was a silver with the stripe of black running down his back. When he saw me he bent his body in supplication.

"Father?" I questioned aloud. This was a wolf in his prime. My father, wolf or no, was long dead.

I approached cautiously. Strangely I felt no fear.

He was wagging his tail frantically.

"Father." No longer a question. I put out my hand. He sniffed my human essence and snarled. Why I did the next thing I do not know. I dropped to my knees and put my nose close to his. We sniffed each other for several minutes.

I do not know how my smell filled him. I was human, unwashed for several days, my lips greased with the rabbit I ate one hour previously. His smell was the forest, rich with soil and pine. Then I smelled my mother's scent just by his nostrils. His tongue came out and licked my face. Dropping my human trappings I gave out a low moan and returned the greeting of the wolf. Then I rose up in the memory of myself as Man. The wolf looked surprise, then moved back. We examined each other one moment longer.