Seeking Shelter from the Storm

He had not crossed the invisible line marking the edge of the pack’s territory, so technically, he had not made the critical decision to disperse and strike out on his own. Not entirely yet.

At just under two years old, the adolescent wolf was on the cusp of his full maturity. It was early September, and his natural instincts were telling him that along with summer’s waning, it was time to seek out his own territory and begin the search for a mate. Those same instincts though, were also cautioning him that the going could be hard, the hunting would likely be more akin to scavenging, and spending one more season with his extended family might not be such a bad idea.

While wavering back and forth on the best option, he wandered off by himself to the furthest reaches of the known territory. It was a semi-conscious act, wanting to test the feel of being a loner, but he had travelled somewhat further than he had originally planned. And now the weather was getting ready to turn on him.

While he had no particular fear toward a late season thunderstorm like the one he could smell approaching, the thought of a thorough drenching without the shared body heat usually available from a good group huddle was quite unappealing.

From high on a ridge overlooking the ocean, he could see the dark line etched across the sky marking the approaching stormfront, still a ways off to the west. He raised his nose to the sky and sniffed. Plenty of time still remained to find a suitable shelter, but the scent on the wind was troubling. The rain, when it came, would likely be intense, along with plenty of thunder and lightning.

The young wolf had strayed as far as the rugged bluffs that dropped steeply down to the sand and rocks along the coast. He knew there was an assortment of small niches and overhangs along the rocky faces that could provide him some protection from the worst of the weather. Nothing particularly large that he could recall from the packs previous sojourns, but better than being totally exposed.

Almost as soon as he started searching for a place to ride out the storm, he was surprised to find what appeared to be the entrance to a moderately sized cave. The opening hadn’t been there before, he was sure, but their territory had endured repeated ground shakes lately, and the wolf knew from some limited experiences that these powerful shakes could change the look and layout of the surrounding landscape. In other parts of their territory, huge fissures gaped across the ground that had appeared after these events, and entire hillsides had slumped and run downhill, altering once familiar trails.

This opening, skinny and jagged, was as much a large, vertical crack as a true cave entrance. There was room enough to walk in though, and the passage opened wider as soon as he was past the entrance. The wolf ventured in no more than a few feet before he noticed the shapes painted on the rocky walls.

He didn’t understand what he was looking at, other than to recognize what he thought were images of men. A series of paintings continued along the wall as he carefully picked his way further into the cave and away from the oncoming storm.The scenes progressed, telling a story along the way that was beyond his comprehension. They first showed a large group around an altar, a central figure dressed in elaborate, brightly colored clothing. The figure stood on two legs like a man, its arms flung wide with one hand clutching a staff, but it had the head of a wolf. The young wolf noticed this figure, but he kept moving, knowing the thoughts and actions of man often were difficult to interpret.

The final scene was the largest, showing large fields of grains, trees full of fruit, and the animals who lived with men, all fat and healthy. But it was the previous painting that was most disturbing. It showed a small group of men, their mouths sewn shut, rolling a large rock over the mouth of a cave, a single man now trapped inside. And down in the corner of the painting, a swirling, ugly black mass like an evil, malevolent storm cloud lurked.

The wolf understood these pictures as nothing more than the doings of man, which he harbored some fear of, but had no real interest in. Man, and the frequent dangers he brought, were to be avoided, but old pictures painted upon a wall were not an immediate concern.

The first peal of thunder startled the wolf, causing him to flinch and skuttle along the hard surface. Distracted, one of the claws on a hind paw caught in a crack on the rocky floor and split as he pulled it free. It was a minor injury, but he let out a small yip of pain anyway. Soft as it was, an echo of the sound came back to him from the blackness beyond, but not like a normal echo. Mixed in with the fleeting repetitions of his yelp was the added sound of a low guttural growl, along with a fearsome smell.

There were few smells in their territory totally alien to the young wolf. The stench that wafted up from the dark depths beyond was like nothing he had ever encountered. The wolf couldn’t associate anything familiar from either the forest or ocean, live or dead, with the pungent tang that assaulted his senses, yet it conveyed an intense sense of fear and danger.

The fur on his back stiffened and rose, as he readied for the fight he hoped to avoid. He crouched low and began to slowly back away from whatever lay deeper in the shadows, instinctively stifling the urge to growl in response to this new threat. He would defend himself if necessary, though he was not anxious to confront this unknown and unseen foe, wishing only to flee the cave to safety. The storm outside was no longer his primary concern.

After only a first few tentative steps back toward the mouth of the cave, a gust of wind from outside brought yet another warning odor to the wolf, this one an all too familiar scent.

Man!

The sound of their shouts and hurried, rampant tramping arrived almost immediately behind their rank smell.

He had been taught to avoid man whenever possible, particularly if outnumbered. The two that came giggling and cavorting into the cave, a male and female pair, did not seem especially menacing, though he knew appearances could be deceiving. This was one of the aspects of man that made them so dangerous. Unlike a sick, lame or old deer that was easily identified and reliably just what it appeared to be, man was not so easily categorized. The outfitting of this pair, in bright colors and with bare parts showing on their arms and legs, suggested the normally less violent manner of man. And though they carried none of the large, fighting tools he had sometimes seen, those that appeared weak on the outside could still bring forth devices, often small and unassuming to look at, but full of lethal, powerful energy. Energy enough to kill a full-grown wolf.

Caught between the unknown from deeper in the cave and the pair now blocking his exit, the wolf made the only logical choice. He hunkered down where he was and slipped back into the shadows, watching and waiting for an opportunity to escape.

They paused just inside the mouth of the cave for a few moments, watching as the storm continued to build its intensity, until the wind and driving rain drove them back from the entrance. The two hadn’t ventured far before they too noticed the paintings.

The wolf had been only mildly interested, unable to draw any real meaning behind the strange images, but the man and woman were enthralled. They stopped to examine each one, pointing and quietly commenting as they moved down the sequence. The male went back to revisit the image of the wolf headed man while the female continued further inside. When she got to the painting with the black mass, she let out a faint cry.

A faint echo stirred meekly in reply, unnoticed by the pair.

The man said something quietly to her from his place nearer the entrance, but she was too far or too distracted to hear. So he repeated it louder. When she still didn’t reply, remaining mesmerized by the picture on the wall in front of her, he called out; a single, bark like syllable.

“Hey.”

Not exceptionally loud, but enough to arouse a more distinct echo from deep in the cavern.

Its first resounding was just the typical mimic of the original, the staccato sound repeated and elongated a few times, each subsequent repetition fading bit by bit, as if it were creeping back into the darkness. But then, just as the echo was poised to fade entirely, the sound reverberated back again, gaining intensity rather than continuing to die out, rushing back out of the darkness and strengthening as it came, until it sounded more like the loud chugging of some deranged locomotive barreling forth from the depths below.

The wolf peered into the darkness in the direction of the sound. The cave walls quivered, pebbles falling from the roof as something was emerging from its subterranean lair. Nothing appeared, or nothing substantial, yet the air seemed to compress and thicken, as if trying to congeal and take on a form of its own. It became ethereally visible, like a wave of cloying vapor pouring out from the darkness. And with the wave came the cacophony of sound, and the powerful, fetid smell.

The storm of sound brushed violently past the female, first knocking her against the wall, then driving her to her knees. Her hands flew to her ears as the wave passed by her, taking aim at the male. He heard and saw the disturbance coming at him, and turned futilely to run. The rolling swell dipped low to the floor as it caught up with the fleeing figure, striking him at the back of his knees. Even over the thundering noise of the living echo, the wolf heard the loud snap of the male’s long leg bones as they splintered.

The wave kept moving ahead, flew past the man and rebounded off the wall, returning for a second assault. The male, now propped up only by his arms, shrieked in pain and terror at the oncoming wave, until the breath was driven from his chest. The wolf could actually see the male’s torso compress under the onslaught.

The brutal sound reverberated again and again, buffeting the male relentlessly on each pass, until there was little more than a bloody heap on the floor of the cave. It then turned its attention to the female.

Still on her knees, hands clasped on either side of her head, blood streamed down between her fingers from her ears as she stared down at the rocky floor. Like a prey animal trying to blend into its background and appear invisible, she was frozen nearly motionless.

The wolf understood that man was not as accomplished at this instinctive action as were the woodland animals he frequently stalked. Even though she made an evident attempt not to move, soft whimpers of either pain, fear or both still escaped unbidden from her throat, her chest heaving in response.

The echo gathered itself from across the cave, appearing to home in and took notice of her.

Like a great invisible hand shooing away a particularly bothersome insect, the wave of sound impacted against her and threw her, sailing airborne deeper into the tunnel. The dim light from outside penetrated inside just far enough for the wolf to be able to see her body slam into the cavern’s ceiling where it curved downward as the opening shrank. She fell out of sight into the darkness, a limp and lifeless ragdoll.

The wolf witnessed it all, silent and unmoving, from his hiding spot only a few feet away.

With no apparent focus remaining for its fury, the echo began to wane. Stray bits continued to bounce back and forth off the cave walls for some time, but they diminished with each repetition. The sound of the rain outside the cave gradually reasserted itself, drowning out the fading reverberations, until nothing but the background noises of the storm remained.

The wolf waited a long time, motionless but alert, before daring to move. Even after deciding that the deadly entity was indeed gone, and despite the overwhelming desire to sprint away from the horrors of the cave, he moved slowly and deliberately until he was outside and well clear of the opening. The thunder and lightning were off in the distance now, leaving only a pouring rain. The young wolf welcomed the feel of it, took a moment to appreciate the rich and pure smells of the familiar coastal area in the throughs of the late summer shower.

It would be a long slog back to the familiar family den, for he had made his decision during the events in the cave without even realizing it. Not only did he have an overwhelming need to reconnect with the comforts and closeness of the pack, but there was now a new danger in his homeland, a danger that he must, above all else, share with the others. He hoped if they just stayed away, the mysterious noise would simply remain in hibernation, but he couldn’t be certain.

Before leaving the area, he marked the perimeter around the cave in several spots, on the off chance one of his clan would pass this way before he could warn them. He could smell his own fear, sharp and pungent, each time he left a mark on the ground.

Satisfied he had done what he could, and grateful to be alive, the young wolf, already completely soaked from the rain, loped off in the direction of home.

A year later, when the now fully mature wolf did disperse from the pack of his birth, he made sure to head inland in search of new territory, well away from the bluffs along the coast.