The New World Ch. 03

Matteo ran fiercely at first, but the raw and simple fact was, that he didn't have a lot of strength. The pads of flesh on his sides and flanks were wasted, and his ribs and hip bones were visible even through his thick reddish coat. The wind cut through his thick fur and froze his weakened body.

The woods was alien to him. All of the scents were strange and new, and the cold bit into his sensitive nose. All of the humanity on this continent was clustered in small villages, some were filled with the white-skinned humans that Matteo had been familiar with his entire life, and he nearly ran headlong into a small hunting party of his first Native Americans.

For a moment, Matteo froze, watching them. A massive red wolf with honey-colored eyes and a ruff that was sticking strait up from fear and apprehension.

Three men. They wore strange footwear made from heavy hide that Matteo did not recognize with the fur inside (it was moose). They wore light-colored leggings and dangling breechclouts between their legs. Two had rough fur robes, and one was bare chested except for a sash. Their skin was a deep and weathered red the color of sandstone and their eyes were black and shocked.

Matteo whimpered softly, and ran away. Each one of the braves had been holding heavy flint-tipped arrows and heavier bows. To his surprise, he could hear them speaking in a language heavy with guttural syllables, and they didn't seem fearful or surprised, but annoyed.

The wolf was nothing but an overgrown puppy, and he felt exhausted and alone. He scrambled clumsily onto a bare knuckle of rock and howled at the cruel sickle of the moon. The night was slipping away from him faster then ever before, and Matteo was hungry and cold and scared. He knew that if the night slipped away he would freeze without some kind of shelter.

He came to an icy stream that was still open despite the frigid air. It gushed and gurgled over the rocks. Matteo loped forward, thirsty and excited, knowing that other animals would come to the stream, and maybe he could hunt.

If it hadn't been so cold he would have smelled the smoked steel, smelled the traces of man in the air.

The trap was covered by about an inch of granulated snow, and the pressure of Matteo's large puppyish paw triggered it.

Matteo screamed. His voice was high-pitched and panicked and agonized. He struggled and cried and ki'yi'd while struggling to free his foot from the smoked steel jaws of the cruel trap. After about a minute Matteo stopped moving, crying and panting, standing on three trembling legs. His left forefoot was red and oozing and pierced deeply by half a dozen steel teeth to and bottom.

He whined and cried and struggled for the better part of an hour, then he dropped to his side on the trampled and bloodied snow, wheezing and whimpering with his furry side heaving like a massive bellows.

Matteo's head jerked up, his eyes glowed in the moonlight. He could hear the three men, hear their guttural speech, smell the scent of their skin and sweat and furs. He mewed with pain and licked his foot, struggling weakly. The circle of snow around the deep buried peg was thrashed up and bloodied.

The youngest man, no more then sixteen or so saw him first and cried out a warning to the other two men. Matteo looked up at them with glazed eyes and growled feebly. If not for his size and teeth, it would have been pitiful. He was obviously very weak and bloody. His ears were drooping and trembling, his tail pressed between his legs. He was crying and licking his wounded paw.

He tried to stay on his uninjured legs, tried to face all three of the men at once as they spread out. His lips lifted to expose his white teeth, his eyes wide and frantic. He saw their bows, and he remembered how his own pack had fallen, weak and human and screaming as bolts from crossbows found their vulnerable bodies.

The man wearing the sash was the oldest. His wiry black hair was streaked with pure white and his face was as wrinkled and shrunken as a piece of very old soft leather. He spoke to the other men in a harsh commanding tone and they obediently put their arrows back in their quivers, but the youngest one continued to touch the red-dyed feathers with his fingertips.

The man neared until he was only about thirty feet from the huge bleeding wolf-puppy. Matteo made a low groaning sound and his good front leg collapsed again. He ki'yi'd loudly and just lay in the bloodied snow, panting and making those low groaning sounds.

The grey-haired man began to murmur softly. The guttural words softened and became a crooning sort of chant. Matteo growled softly, but the growl turned into a whimper halfway through.

The man inched closer, murmuring softly the entire time. Matteo watched him, noiseless except for his strained breath.

The man halted again about ten feet beyond the reach of the short chain and he spoke softly to the trapped puppy. Matteo didn't understand the words, but he understood the compassion in them, the gentleness. His tail wagged feebly and went limp.

The man fearlessly went up to Matteo, ignoring the way his fellows stiffened and called out panicky warnings. Matteo rolled onto his side and whined in what he hoped was a friendly way, wagging his tail a little.

The man's hands touched the trap with utmost care and released the mechanism. He slowly pried the steel teeth from Matteo's chewed and bloody paw. Matteo gave the man's brown shriveled hand a small lick before gingerly attending to his own paw.

The other braves moved in closer, and the hair on Matteo's shoulders stood up and he growled a little. The old man backed away as the red puppy slowly crawled onto his three good legs, holding his wounded paw in the air. He limped away, terribly weak and wounded and more frightened then ever.

---

Matteo's progress was slow and halting. He was looking for shelter, any kind of shelter. A rotten log, a huddle of dead branches filled with leaves, a bank of earth that would provide some shelter from the wind. He had his clothes, and a thick heavy cloak. Maybe if he could find a sheltered place he could make a nest, and wolves healed more quickly than humans.

Matteo licked his throbbing paw. He would still limp for weeks.

Matteo sniffed under a pine tree. The sky was turning gray. The earth around the massive tree's knotted roots was still soft and sandy. He began to dig clumsily with his good paw. He managed to dig a three-foot deep shallow pit before hitting frost.

He limped away and dragged back as many dry pine branches as he could find, preferably with needles still on them. When the sun peered up over the horizon, the change happened.

He cried out with agony as his bones crackled and shrunk. the hair retreated under his skin with a massive itch over every inch of his body. His skin shrunk and felt too tight. His injured paw needled fiercely with pain.

Matteo cringed on the dry freezing sand under the pine tree, naked and freezing. He got to work. He used the cloak to line the shallow pit and he fumbled on the trousers and shirt as fast as he could. He curled up inside the pit and wrapped the cloak around him in a tight nest, and then reached for the pile of branches near the entrance of the pit. He put as many as he could over the opening, shielding him a little more from the harsh elements.

He opened his eyes in the darkness. He was surrounded by the thick cloak, and shivering. The cold earth pressed in all around him, and he could feel it against his arm and his back and his thigh. There was a little warmth in the middle, between his chest and his knees, and a little warmth in his groin and between his legs.

He curled up as tight as he could, and held his hands (the injured one as gently as he could) between his legs for warmth. His breath feathered his knees and shivering chest with moist warmth, but whenever he inhaled a cold draft made them even colder. He could barely feel his feet.

Somehow, frozen and hurt and half-starved, Matteo cried himself to sleep.

---

He dozed feverishly all day long, and the wind was bitter but the icy fingers barely brushed his body, instead of freezing away his breath. He rubbed his numb feet with his fingers to try and keep them warm, and he breathed on his hands.

He was so hungry. The pains stabbed at his belly in long waves, as if someone was drawing a hot razor blade up his stomach from the base of his groin to the hollow under his ribs. The pains wold briefly relent, and then start again.

Somehow, some way, Matteo survived the long frozen day without frostbite.

He nearly wept with relief when he felt the moonlight touch his frozen skin.

---

As a wolf, Matteo looked up at the tiny sickle of a moon and moaned softly with fear. He had two days of moonlight left. Three, if he was lucky. He needed to find better shelter, and he desperately needed food.

He licked his mangled paw, which was beginning to bear some of his weight, and limped off into the moonlight, quiet and watching.

---

People have a common misconception of the superiority of predators. They imagine nature red in tooth and claw, but in reality many of the majestic predators starve to death. Matteo was afraid and slow and by himself. Even as a coordinated pack, the kill rate had been about one in five.

Matteo needed to be clever, and he needed to ignore his lupine instincts, which told him how to hunt in a group.

Matteo loped along and found a game trail, a thin path beaten through the underbrush by generations of hoofed feet. He also found small piles of deer pellets.

Giving into his hunter's instincts and hiding his human disgust, Matteo broke the pellets apart with his paws and rolled in them, masking his scent at least partially. He rolled in several piles of deer pellets until his low pleasant (at least to his nostrils) lupine musk was hidden by the dumb grasslike reek of deer shit.

Then he climbed a tree.

Climbing was not instinctive, but he found a large sycamore tree with a lightning-blasted side and climbed carefully until he was on a branch overhanging the path. The bough was thick, and held his weight without creaking.

He waited in that tree for two hours, silent, shivering to produce warmth, feeling the steely contractions of his needing stomach.

His ears perked up when he heard them for the first time. He heard the soft heavy breathing and the small whickering noise that a doe made to her half-grown fawn. It was a small family group, two thin does and three half-grown fawns among them. Each of the full grown deer were less then a hundred pounds, and the fawns ranged from about forty to sixty.

Matteo waited. Every instinct screamed at him to go for the vulnerable herd right now, but he knew that if he jumped from the tree his injured leg would collapse and these small deer would disappear like wisps of smoke.

The first doe was walking side by side with her fawn, the heaviest one. They were only fifteen feet away from Matteo's branch when they stiffened and their delicate translucent ears flew into the air.

Cold or not, hurt or not, exhausted or not, Matteo's reflexes were like a sun flash in their speed and intensity. The massive wolf jumped silently, his mouth gaping open and his large paws struck the doe's back, and he could feel the spine snap with a satisfying give under his paw. He cried out with the pain of his injured paw as he landed on all fours with the thrashing deer underneath him.

He snarled and bit at the deer's slender throat. The doe let out a high pitched, womanlike death scream.

The deer died with his teeth at her throat, and he could taste the warm blood against his tongue, and the hunger spasms had grown deeper and more intense. He had snuffled around her belly, prepared to rip it open and finally fill his aching stomach when he heard a low growl and jumped.

Three massive grey wolves surrounded him on that dark moonlit night.

---

Matteo's instinctive reaction was one of pitiful joy. Humans and wolves are both social animals. His very first joyful thoughts were memories from his pack in Europe. He remembered sleeping together in a huge warm wriggling mass like a group of puppies, he remembered the relative ease and increased surety of their kills, and most of all, he remembered the love and care and affection he had been shown. Even to a scrawny outsider, even to a sickly mouth to feed, his pack had loved him.

He gave a whimpering joyful little puppy-bark and his tail wagged so furiously that his hindquarters were wiggling back and forth. His tongue lolled from his mouth and he limped towards the nearest wolf, ready to lick his face and maybe play a little.

The nearest wolf snarled at him and snapped at his leg. Matteo yelped and cringed back. The three wolves started to circle him, and now Matteo could smell the bitter taint of rage and aggression. These wolves wanted to tear him apart.

If he had run they would have caught him almost instantly, and if he had fought they would have torn him to ribbons. He made the right choice.

The pitifully thin, wounded wolf collapsed to the snow and lay on his side. He looked up at the wolves and whined feebly, appeasingly. He groveled on the ground, turning onto his back to expose his vulnerable white belly and crying weakly.

He turned himself into a puppy, and it was deeply against every wolf's inner rules to harm a puppy. One of the wolves snarled harshly with the sudden anger against Matteo's trick.

It was as if they made a simultaneous decision, and suddenly they had all jumped on Matteo, biting and clawing, but not to kill. Matteo let out high pitched little cries of hurt as they nipped his shoulders and flanks and paws. He got to his feet and they snarled at him while he cowered, his tail pressed firmly between his legs. After what seemed like an age he began to run and they stopped nipping him. They weren't tormenting him, they were herding him, and at a breakneck pace that hurt his chewed up paw.

Two of the wolves began to herd him away, a third lingered to drag the skinny doe carcass.

They ran through the trees, the two grey wolves loping at his heels and nipping him hard if he made any mistakes. Blood oozed from a dozen red marks on his thin body.

As the red wolf ran and yelped and sobbed for air he could smell the scents of another human village, one that belonged to those native men he had smelled, but instead of veering around the village the two wolves drove him right towards it.

He burst out into the clearing of the village, panting and crying. The shelters were all rounded frames of young saplings and sturdy hides. The sky was starting to lighten, and several human women and children were in the square. They saw the small red wolf being hounded and herded by two of their own, and continued to go on with their duties. The children watched excitedly, some of the little boys were making howling noises and shouting encouragements.

Matteo cowered on the hard-packed snow and gasped feebly for air, licking his paw. The two wolves circled him, making vicious snarling noises, nipping him if he moved. Matteo felt so scared and tired, and so hungry. He could smell some kind of thick mush made of corn and maple sugar, and he could see a child eating a breakfast of mush and cold slices of cooked venison. Grease dripped from the child's mouth while Matteo hadn't eaten any kind of meat besides a scrap or two of fish for three months.

The third wolf came in dragging the scrawny thorn-shredded carcass of the doe. Matteo watched him change into a tall man with skin the color of cinnamon and a powerful body. He walked naked over to a woman who hugged his body and jabbered excitedly over the doe. The man was already stiffening and he dragged the laughing woman into their shelter. Matteo could hear them making love in quick harsh pants.

The day lightened and wolves came from every direction. They came in bands of four or five, they came in pairs, and they came in singles. Every one came to snarl and nip and sniff the strange crying puppy in the clearing. They sniffed his shivering bleeding body and wounded paw. One wolf differed slightly from the others. Most of the wolves were varying shades of buff and grey and light brown, but one wolf came and he was furred a deep silky mahogany. His body had a leaner cast and he moved more quickly then most of the others. He loped over to where Matteo lay, miserable and panting, not daring to change while so many of the wolves were still big enough to tear a human limb from limb.

The lean dark wolf sniffed, but did not bite. He even gave a deep bite on the puppy's shoulder a gentle lick with his pink tongue. Matteo looked up at the brown wolf and feebly wagged his tail a few times.

One of the grey wolves snarled and nipped his flank hard, making Matteo flinch and whimper and cast his honey-colored eyes to the earth again.

---

The alpha came at around dawn.

The alpha was a light tawny color, and head and shoulders above most of the others in height, and about half again as heavy as well. He had a large proud head and intelligent yellow eyes, his legs were long and powerful and he had a deep powerful chest. His coat was thick and luxurious and sparkling in the weak dawn sunlight as he began to change.

Matteo whimpered and cried as he began to change as well.

Soon, a dozen naked shivering men and a few shivering naked women stood in the snow. Wives and children and family rushed in with fur cloaks to cover their sleek sweaty bodies in the cold. They all surrounded a frail white boy with a mangled hand and matted red hair, and their faces bore expressions of coldness and anger and hatred.

A hand tangled in Matteo's hair, and the man half-led half-dragged him to a thick wooden post shoved into the ground, some ways away from the encampment. Matteo didn't struggle, he knew that his life was in the hands of this pack, and he didn't want to be hurt.

The man was barely more then a boy, and he was so furious. Every touch from the young man was meant to twist or hurt. The young man bound Matteo's frail wrists behind him and tied a rope around his neck. He attached the rope to the post and left after kicking Matteo hard in the hip. Matteo shivered weakly, and wondered if they were going to leave him there to die.

He remembered that warm thick cloak that Brekken had given him with longing. That little nest was still there, maybe a fox or a badger was using it now. He flinched when he saw men approaching out of the corner of his eye. He didn't dare look up, he only cowered.

It was a youngish man with a muscular body and an expressionless face. He was different then the others; he had a slightly different cast of features, and slightly darker skin. His features were harsher and less rounded. He stripped away the cloak that had been covering his body and knelt so he was at eye level with the shivering cringing boy.

He carefully wrapped the cloak around Matteo. He made sure that the shivering little redhead was sitting on it, and that it was wrapped over his crossed legs and folded tightly in front of his chest and that it made a little hood over his bright dirty hair. Matteo could feel a ghost of the man's body heat warming his frigid little body inside the cloak.

"Merci." He whispered timidly. He started to cry a little. He was so scared and this was the only wolf in this strange cruel pack which had treated him with any sort of kindness. The man murmured something in a dialect that even Matteo could tell was different from what the rest of the men spoke. The words had a sort of rhythm to it, a low soothing rhythm.

The man lingered for a moment, before touching Matteo's chest through the blanket and asking a soft question.

"Matteo." The boy whispered.

"Ahote." The man said softly.

Matteo was so thirsty. "S'il vous plait, de l'eau potable?"