Wolves and Men

Was it really crazy to live with yourself, test yourself against nature, and to have found true happiness? Maybe, as far as he knew he was a singularity in the human condition. Why give up all the comforts of modern living to go live among the mosquitoes and wolves of the forest?

The wolves. His pack was his family now, even though he only got to run with them one night out of the month. He looked forward to his nights with his pack.

A loud rumbling and squeezing of his abdomen brought him back to his reality. The reality that he had to eat. He was hungry, but it was a different type of hunger, more a nagging urge than a desire that drove him.

He leaned down and grabbed his rich brown deer skin pants and pulled them on. They had gotten a little loose sense the last time he had worn them. He grabbed his black bear skin vest and raccoon skin hat and finished dressing himself. He was glad that he didn’t have a mirror. He probably looked like an idiot, but his clothes were functional and out here he was the biggest trend setter since Calvin Klein. He grabbed his coyote skin bag and his fishing pole and pried open his burrow door.

The sun light that slanted through the trees was a warm yellow that showed the dew and microscopic debris and dust that was ever present in the woods. It was morning and the sun was just lending his warmth to the forest floor. He could see his breath as he stepped outside his burrow. He inhaled the scents of this place, so familiar to him but no less appreciated. He looked up and smiled at his redwood. The solid old man had plenty of good years left in him and he was thankful for the companionship. Was it crazy to consider a tree a friend? Who cares what other people think? Let them spend a few years out here and see what orthodox conceptions they cling to.

He set his fishing pole and bag down and resealed his burrow’s portal. The clay and mud of his ceiling did an amazing job of covering his smell form the rest of this place and he was glad of it. Human noses are so weak compared to other animals. Good thing he could tap into some animal skills of his own.

He stood up, grabbed his bag and pole, and made his way down to the river. He was always cautious of his woods, no matter what kind of day it was. By now he was sure that he had lost any trace of his ‘human’ smell but that did not guarantee his safety. If living out here had taught him anything it was that life was never safe and to stay alive you must be cautious, pick your battles, and sometimes, kill.

Life was a constant struggle out here and he had found that he was well suited for it. As well as any human could be and sometimes better than any human could imagine. His thoughts kept returning back to his nights spent as an animal. This was normal for him. He was always a little sad after he awoke from his nocturnal activities shared with his pack. It wasn’t easy to let go of that power and those smells. Seeing the forest through animalistic eyes was something he wished he could do all the time, not just once a month. But being in Heaven one night a month would have to be enough.

Sighing, he continued walking toward his river. He was constantly scanning his surroundings. He looked past the rich brown trees to his left as he walked upon the dead pine needles that made up the carpet of the forest floor. He hadn’t mastered walking silently yet. He had read in stories such as The Last of the Mohicans that Native Americans were able to walk without a sound through their forests in their leather moccasins. He didn’t need moccasins but being able to walk without a sound to his weak human ears would go a long way to give him some confidence about stealth and avoiding being heard by the predators of this place.

He made slow steady progress down the hillside. Would his actions, carefully smelling and looking around the forest all the time be considered paranoid? He almost laughed out loud. Being paranoid meant that you worried about a danger that didn’t exist or was perceived only in the mind of the paranoid party. He knew that his death could happen at any moment, and it wouldn’t be because of his shoes or his worldly possessions. His death would be at the hands of a predator that was hungry. That was the law out here. The natural order of things and if you wanted to live another day you had to play by nature’s rules.

He stopped just in sight of the river and scanned the riverbank to his left and then to his right. He couldn’t hear anything, and he didn’t see anything. When he was sure that the river was vacant, he slowly moved out onto the riverbank. He kept looking and listening for anything. His wolf pack could be anywhere and as he was right now, he was not their alpha, but prey to be hunted. There were bears out here too, as well as coyotes. Come to think about it, a lot of animals shared his home, predators that really wouldn’t think twice about ending him.

He set his bag down and prepared his fishing pole. Yes, he was fragile compared to the other animals, but hadn’t his survival proven he was made of at least equal stuff as wolves? He opened his bag to pull out the small box which contained his fishing tackle. This bag had been one of the first things he had made out here.

He had planned to come out here and live. It was not just some crazy idea he had hatched and gone off halfcocked. He had planned and prepared for several months. His preparation had included taking several frontiersman classes on how to survive in the wild. He had learned how to skin an animal, how to make traps and how to gather food from the forest. He had also invested in some sewing classes.

He had bought a fifty-pound weight compound bow to hunt with. And he had learned to use it before he had left the ‘real’ world. Some people would probably laugh at him. Why not just bring a rifle with you? The philosophical answer, for him, was that animals didn’t have any real defense against firearms. The practical answer was that it was possible to make more ammunition for his bow, whereas with a gun he would have to buy more bullets, and where was there a trading post out here, or money for that matter?

The skin that made up his bag was from the first animal he had killed while in his new home.