The Strength of the Wolf is the Pack

by Scott Peterson

  It was a promise the weary cat was unable to make.

  “Show me,” he said. “Then I will decide.”

  Unable to contain his enthusiasm, Mowgli scampered up to a small lean-to he had constructed outside Baloo’s cave. It consisted of thick support branches and a roof of thatched twigs and leaves that protected the various tools he had made, all hanging neatly from hooks. He had labored over the structure and its contents for days upon days, and his pride was evident.

  Bagheera hesitated. This did not belong in the Jungle. It looked more like one of man’s traps than anything else. He was wary of getting too close, but Mowgli ran inside.

  “These are vines I use on the cliff. I twirled them together to make them longer and stronger. See?” Mowgli tugged with all his might on the vine rope, but it wouldn’t break.

  “And this is the thing I use to hold myself up,” he said, proudly displaying the harness he had fashioned. “It could probably even hold you if I adjusted it a little. You wanna try?”

  “I think not,” Bagheera snorted, but before he could say anything further, the man-cub erupted again with excitement.

  “Ohhh, and the pouch I made. It hangs over my shoulder when I go up to collect the—Oh! The really cool part is inside. Check it out!”

  Mowgli darted out of the lean-to and into Baloo’s cave, his eagerness radiating like the summer sun at midday. Bagheera eyed the entrance to the dark den with concern. It was not wise, even for one as strong as he, to venture blindly into an enclosed space, but slowly, cautiously, he followed the man-cub inside.

  Bagheera’s eyes quickly adjusted to the darkness, and what he saw made no sense.

  “Lookit!” Mowgli said, throwing his arms wide as a proud grin spread across his face. “It’s a honey stash! For winter. Baloo says I’m finally reaching my true potential. What do you think?”

  Bagheera was speechless. The cave was stacked with pile after towering pile of honeycombs. Mounds as big as bison filled every corner, rising from the dusty floor to the damp ceiling. There was barely room to walk.

  “Have you lost your mind?” Bagheera gasped.

  “You said you wouldn’t get mad,” Mowgli protested.

  “Did you listen to anything Akela taught you? There is no place in the Jungle for these tricks. You want to do this, you do this in a Man-village.”

  That wasn’t what Mowgli wanted to hear. He wanted Bagheera to be proud of him. He looked up as Baloo entered the cave and squeezed between two gargantuan honeycomb stacks.

  “But I’m helping Baloo,” Mowgli explained. “To get ready for hibernation.”

  “Bears do not hibernate in a jungle!” Bagheera snapped at Baloo. “What are you teaching him?”

  Mowgli’s mouth hung open. Was that true? Had he been lied to all that time? He looked to Baloo, expecting him to set Bagheera straight, but the bear averted his eyes.

  “Never hurts to be prepared.” Baloo shrugged.

  “Listen to me, you con artist,” Bagheera began, laying into him. “He may not know your games, but I do. He’s leaving now.”

  Mowgli ran to Bagheera, desperate. “No. I don’t wanna go.”

  “You do not have a choice!” Bagheera growled.

  “Now hold on,” Baloo started. “You can’t tell the boy what to do….”

  “I belong here,” Mowgli protested. He was desperate. He had truly hoped that could be his home. “He’s my pack now.”

  “He is using you,” Bagheera spat.

  “And he’s controlling you,” Baloo barked back.

  Instantly, Bagheera crouched lower to the ground, ready to pounce, a deep growl rumbling past his glistening teeth.

  “Whoa. Okay, okay,” said Baloo, his hands raised as he attempted to pacify the warring parties in his home. “Let’s all settle down the growling and teeth baring for a minute, okay? Everybody relax. No sense getting our fur all bunched up over this.”

  Bagheera glared at the big bear.

  Mowgli scowled at Bagheera. He was no longer a cub. He didn’t need the old cat or anyone else to make his decisions for him. He opened his mouth to say something, but it seemed Baloo and Bagheera were not finished.

  “Besides,” Baloo continued, “look outside. Sun’s dropping off faster than a molting peacock feather. It’s getting late. Too late to travel.”

  Bagheera looked outside.

  “So why don’t we all just settle down, take a load off, have a little honey….”

  “I do not eat honey,” Bagheera snarled.

  “Okay, to each his own,” Baloo said, snapping off a generous chunk for himself. “For now, let’s just get a good night’s sleep. We can talk about all this in the morning, okay?”

  Bagheera didn’t like conceding to Baloo, even on such a small point, but there was no sense in arguing.

  “Fine,” he finally said. “But we are leaving at first light.”

  The panther slid out of the cave and into the night to find a tree to sleep in.

  “Well, that went well,” Baloo said to himself dryly. “It’s a shame he doesn’t come to visit more often.”

  Mowgli glanced at the bear, who had started to curl up in the cave, then looked out at the shadow of the retreating panther. The man-cub felt pulled in too many directions. He knew it was his own fault; he wanted Bagheera’s approval but fought his advice, and he loved the life Baloo lived, but now he wasn’t sure if that was the life he should be living. It all made the man-cub more tired than he’d been in his entire life.

  THE JUNGLE WAS COLD.

  An encroaching mist enveloped the Jungle tree by tree, wiping away details as the world faded to white. A bone-chilling wind from the north swept through the valleys and slipped through the cracks in the rocky outcroppings, seeking out the shivering animals trying to hide from its icy fingers. Mowgli had never, in all his years, felt such a chill in his bones, and it made his lean frame shake like the tail of a cobra. All he wanted to do was climb into his den and curl up next to Raksha with Gray and the other pups, to snuggle in where it was nice and warm and safe.

  But when he reached the cave, it was empty. All the caves were empty. And fear ate at his belly like a worm.

  “This is not your home,” boomed a voice from the top of Council Rock. “You wear the skin of the wolf, but you are not wolf.”

  Mowgli looked down at himself and saw that he wore the hide of Akela over his head and shoulders like a cloak. Revolted, he yanked the fur from his body and threw it down. He tried to protest, but no sound escaped his lips.

  Mowgli turned back to the cave, but it was no longer Raksha’s cave; it was Baloo’s. Mowgli ran inside, but it also was empty and barren.

  “This is not your home,” boomed the same powerful voice. “You do not belong here, Man-cub.” Mowgli covered his ears, desperately trying to block out the voice as it stampeded around the inside of his head. He didn’t want to hear it. He just wanted to go home.

  “This is your home.” The voice echoed and Mowgli looked up to see the scarred mask of Shere Khan looking down at him, a grin splitting his face in two. The tiger opened his jaws wide, wide enough for the man-cub to step inside, where the raging blossom of the Red Flower was waiting for him. Then the voice boomed again, laughing:

  “Welcome home, Man-cub.”

  Mowgli broke out of his nightmare, arms flailing. It was the fifth or sixth time he had woken up that night. He couldn’t seem to get comfortable. The banyan tree leaves he had fashioned into a bed kept poking at him. A mosquito had been feeding on him on and off since Baloo had started his traditional chuffing night noises. From outside the cave, the sounds of the night that he usually found so comforting kept rousing him just as he started to fall asleep.

  How had things gotten so complicated? This wasn’t a problem he could solve with one of his tricks. All he wanted to do was find a home, but there was nowhere he fit in. The wolf pack was no longer safe. The Man-village was strange and unfamiliar. Staying with Baloo had felt right, and Baloo was all for it
, but now Bagheera said this was not his place, either. Who was right? Bagheera? Baloo? Neither of them? He felt more than confused. The pounding in his head was like a river raging between his ears.

  A blinding ray of dazzling orange light broke through the cracks in the thick Jungle canopy and into the cave. The sun was just cresting the tree line, shining directly into Mowgli’s eyes. There would be no more sleeping for him.

  Mowgli sat up. Beyond the sounds of the night birds, the irritating whine of the mosquitoes, and the gruff, rumbling snores of Baloo was a sound Mowgli did not recognize. A high-pitched blast of…of what?

  Mowgli stood, curious, and slipped silently past the slumbering mass of matted hair that was Baloo and out of the cave. The man-cub stepped cautiously across the ground as Bagheera had taught him, holding his breath and avoiding sticks and leaves that would give away his location to the panther himself in the tree above.

  Again he heard the high, keening wail of what sounded like an animal in trouble. A warning or an alarm of some kind. Mowgli moved quickly but quietly toward the distant sound.

  Fresh dew, winking with reflected sunlight, dripped from the leaves and vines as Mowgli pushed his way through the foliage and up onto a gently sloping hill that would give him a view of the grass valley. The sounds seemed to be coming from there. At the crest of the hill, Mowgli craned his neck to see what was happening below. He froze, startled. He didn’t know what he had expected, but it wasn’t that.

  A herd of elephants, agitated and trumpeting in shrill blasts, moved anxiously around a mud pit. They approached, then retreated in darting movements. To Mowgli, it looked like those mighty, unstoppable creatures were frightened.

  But what could frighten an entire herd of the largest animals in the Jungle? he wondered.

  He had to find out.

  MOWGLI KNEW the old cat wouldn’t approve, but he couldn’t stop himself.

  He slid silently down the embankment to the valley below and sprinted across the grassy plain to see what was wrong. He had never been so close to the elephant pack before and they towered over him like mighty gray mountains. Suddenly aware of his presence, the huge pachyderms reared back, disturbed by the intruder. Whatever the problem was, a young man-cub racing among their stomping feet was not helping.

  Mowgli barely had time to notice that before an intense blow to the side of his head sent him reeling. As quickly as he could recover, he rose and turned, but before the man-cub could get his bearings, a second elephant’s trunk, thick as a small tree, swatted him away, that one slamming into his side and nearly crushing a rib. Suddenly, Mowgli realized just how dangerous a situation he had put himself in. He was like a mosquito to the gargantuan creatures and they could crush him with one step.

  Mowgli moved back and quickly dropped to his knees. As Bagheera had taught him, he bowed, offering respect, hoping it wasn’t too late.

  The bull elephant nearest to the man-cub paused, his mighty trunk raised to issue another, perhaps fatal, blow. He looked down, curious, at the tiny brown creature in the respectful pose. If the human was not there to attack them, then why was he there?

  The elephants, still agitated, turned away from Mowgli and back to the mud pit. Slowly, gently, he rose to his feet and moved carefully through the walls of weathered gray hide to the edge of the pit. His heart fluttered like a baby bird in his chest when he saw what had taken the entire herd to the brink of panic.

  And he believed he could help.

  Mowgli flew, as fast as his feet could carry him, to his lean-to. He snatched up his tools and hurried back the way he had come.

  Bagheera lifted his head from the branch where he had been sleeping. Was that Mowgli he had heard? What was that boy up to now?

  Bagheera dropped to the ground, the thick pads of his paws absorbing the impact, then slunk into Baloo’s cave.

  Mowgli was nowhere to be seen. There was only the bear and the echo of his rumbling snores.

  “Wake up, you lazy good-for-nothing,” Bagheera said, shaking the big brown lump a bit more violently than absolutely necessary.

  “What? What?” Baloo said, scratching himself lazily. “Oh, it’s you. I had kinda hoped you were just a bad dream.” He rolled over to go back to sleep.

  “The man-cub is gone,” Bagheera informed him. “I thought you might know where he was going.”

  “I’m sure he’ll be back soon,” Baloo said, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. “Whatever he’s doing, I trust him. He’s a smart kid. He’s smarter than I am.”

  “You can say that again,” Bagheera sighed.

  “Don’t underestimate him.”

  Bagheera ignored the bear.

  “I am going after him.”

  “All right. Fine. I’m up, I’m up. And I’m coming, too,” Baloo said, shaking his head to clear it and standing as quickly as his considerable bulk would allow.

  “You will only slow me down.”

  “Not on your life,” Baloo countered.

  “Do not make promises you clearly cannot keep,” Bagheera snorted, turning to leave. “We both know how that turns out.”

  “One time!” Baloo bellowed. “One time over fifteen seasons ago, but you refuse to let it die!”

  “Because I almost did die,” Bagheera snarled back. “Thanks to you. Or rather, no thanks to you. An animal’s word is his bond in the Jungle and yours is worthless.”

  With that, Bagheera left the cave, quickly moving to pick up Mowgli’s trail while it was still fresh. Baloo sighed heavily.

  “What kind of creature wakes someone from a perfectly good sleep to yell at him?” Baloo yawned. “A bear can’t even take a nap in his own cave anymore, I tell you.”

  Across the Jungle, Mowgli was already sidestepping down the steep hillside to the elephants’ grassy field, reconfiguring his tools as he ran.

  Moments later, Bagheera broke through the tree line at the top of the hill, his keen eyes searching the countryside for his charge. There. In the valley. The man-cub. Surrounded by an entire pack of elephants.

  “Man-cub!” Bagheera cried, but the boy was too far away and too involved in what he was doing to hear. Before Bagheera could cry out again, Mowgli disappeared from sight. Where had he gone? Behind one of the great elephants…or trampled beneath one?

  “Where is he?” Baloo gasped as he finally caught up, huffing and puffing from the run up the hill. He grabbed hold of a tree trunk and bent over, trying to catch his breath.

  “There,” Bagheera spat. “Is that your teaching?”

  Baloo lifted his head to follow Bagheera’s cold gaze.

  “Whoa!” Baloo huffed. “I never taught him to mess with elephants. I’m lazy, not suicidal.”

  “Let’s go,” Bagheera said, racing toward the man-cub. “Before it’s too late!”

  MOWGLI BELIEVED he could do this.

  He clambered out of the mud pit, carrying the ends of several vines in his teeth. He knew that one wrong step could mean death at the end of a dozen massive ivory tusks, but he approached the largest bull elephant and held out the vine anyway. The pack leader still didn’t understand what the tiny hairless monkey wanted. Frustrated but unwilling to give up, Mowgli moved on to the largest female of the pack, the matriarch, again holding out the vine, tugging on it a few times to show her what to do. The elephant was unsure how that would help, but she took the vine with her trunk and pulled.

  Mowgli urged her back, away from the pit. He slapped at the thick, impenetrable hide of her legs as hard as he could, knowing that it would have all the impact of a butterfly’s wing on his own skin. But she got the message. Slowly, carefully, she began to back up.

  Whether they understood or were simply copying her movements, several other elephants took hold of the vines with their massive trunks and began to move backward, away from the pit. The vines grew taut and slowly, inch by inch, rose from the pit like snakes from a viper den.

  Mowgli raced to the edge to look down into the darkness, where a keening elephant calf was ris
ing out of the pit. It was working! Mowgli’s heart sang.

  Bagheera and Baloo stopped at the bottom of the hill as they saw what the boy had done. The baby clambered out of the pit, alive and unharmed, thanks to the ropes and slings Mowgli had fashioned.

  “Well, would ya look at that?” Baloo shook his head in amazement. “Our boy is all grown up. Come to think of it, maybe it was me that told him to mess with elephants.”

  Mowgli worked to remove his modified harness from the elephant calf, unwinding more vines from its stocky gray legs. The calf was nearly as tall as the man-cub but a tiny baby compared to the rest of his tribe. Mowgli spoke soothingly to the little one the whole time, not knowing if the calf could understand the words.

  “It’s okay, little guy. You’re okay. And your ami’s here and your father’s here. The whole pack was worried about you, but you’re okay, and they’re gonna take you home now.”

  The elephant calf looked into the man-cub’s eyes. He knew that this strange creature had helped him out of a dark, scary place and had brought him back to his family.

  Mowgli stepped back and the calf galloped quickly to his mother, nuzzling his muddy head against her rough skin. Mowgli felt warmth in his chest spread quickly to his face, a pride that brushed over him like a sudden wind.

  The pack walked slowly away, finally calm now that they were reunited, but not before the calf’s mother paused to look back at the man-cub—a long silent look that could only be one of gratitude.

  Stunned and impressed, Baloo and Bagheera stared at the receding pack of elephants as Mowgli walked past them.

  “Hey, guys,” he said, climbing the hill toward Baloo’s cave. Bagheera and Baloo looked at each other.

  “You gotta admit, he’s special,” Baloo said with a grin.

  “I know the boy is special,” Bagheera said quietly. “I found him. I raised him. But he is in danger.”

  “Yeah,” Baloo said, serious for the first time. “He told me. He’s being hunted by a tiger.”