The Strength of the Wolf is the Pack

by Scott Peterson

  “Hear me out,” Baloo continued as the monkeys pushed and pulled and dragged him toward the cliff. “Let me finish. You guys are going places, and I believe. I’m a believer. Now this is weird, I know. I’m not a monkey, but I climb, I’m extremely loyal, I’m great with people—”

  A high-pitched scream cut short Baloo’s rambling. A lone monkey at the back of the cluster was screeching and pointing to the spot where the man-cub used to be. Mowgli was gone!

  As the monkeys chattered angrily, excitedly, a thousand eyes swept the Great Hall and quickly spotted Bagheera and Mowgli slipping out the temple exit.

  “Run, Baloo!” Bagheera called over his shoulder as they raced out of the arena. Baloo attempted to head after them but was immediately swarmed by monkeys again, covered from head to toe.

  Enraged, King Louie bellowed an order to his frantic minions.

  “No. One. Leaves!”

  MOWGLI AND BAGHEERA RAN.

  They emerged into the daylight, running full speed, pushing themselves to the limit, monkeys racing after them from every possible angle.

  “What about Baloo?” Mowgli yelled. If something happened to Baloo, it would be all Mowgli’s fault….

  “He will be right behind us,” Bagheera assured him. Under his breath he whispered, “I hope.”

  But back in the Great Hall, Baloo was making little progress toward the door. He’d had a moment of triumph—his plan had worked!—but it was short-lived. Now he was fighting off monkeys right and left. No sooner would he kick one away or hurl one across the arena than two more would take its place.

  With an ear-rupturing roar, King Louie rose to his feet, his mighty arms hauling his fleshy form from the throne. Moss and lichen tore free of his backside as it lifted off the stone surface for the first time in ages. Now standing, the red ape was easily three times taller than the valiantly fighting bear he lumbered toward.

  “Oh, boy,” Baloo groaned. “I think this bear has overstayed his welcome.”

  With a herculean effort, Baloo threw his body into a spin, flinging the monkeys from his arms and legs before slamming against one of the temple walls to knock the others off his chest and broad furry back. Before they could regroup to attack again, Baloo bolted for the exit, chased by the angry echo of King Louie’s rage.

  “Time to go, time to go!” Baloo called as he raced into the open. Mowgli and Bagheera, already halfway down the steps of the cold lair, risked a look back to see their furry friend far behind.

  “He did it,” Bagheera grunted. “The lazy good-for-nothing pulled it off.”

  “Hurry, Baloo!” Mowgli called.

  “What do you think I’m tryin’ to do?” he called back.

  “Climb on!” Bagheera barked, and Mowgli quickly leapt onto his back before the panther raced toward the temple exit. Mowgli knew they had to get away from that place, and fast.

  A wave of monkeys poured over the temple walls as scores of others sprouted from every crevice. Swarming like bees defending the hive, they came by the hundreds from every side, quickly surrounding their prey. There were too many of them. Bagheera could see that they would never reach the exit that way.

  “We will try to hold them off,” Bagheera shouted, setting Mowgli down.

  “‘We’?” Baloo cried, still lumbering to catch up. “Don’t I get a say here?”

  “Run,” Bagheera ordered the man-cub. “Go!”

  Mowgli hesitated, just long enough to take one last look at his friends, the only two creatures in all the Jungle who had risked their lives to save him. They were his pack.

  Then the ground began to tremble, a mighty rumbling growing louder and louder. The monkeys screamed and fled the staircase.

  Something big was coming.

  King Louie exploded through the doorway, his immense frame far too large for the stone archway that now lay in ruins at his feet. Dwarfing everything around him, the heaving creature loomed over the stairway, his face contorted with anger and vengeance.

  “No one touches him but me,” he howled, his icy gaze falling on Mowgli.

  The man-cub was petrified as he stared up in horror at the living mountain of muscle swinging across the colonnade toward him at a frightening speed. It seemed impossible to Mowgli that something so big could move so fast.

  “Run!” Bagheera repeated, shoving the boy down the stairs.

  Mowgli ran, terror driving his heart as he sprinted into another part of the ancient temple.

  Instantly, Baloo was besieged by a mass of monkeys, and without hesitation, Bagheera leapt into the fray to fend them off. Quickly, they were both engulfed, the myriad of wriggling bodies holding them back as the king bore down on his target.

  Once again, Mowgli was on his own.

  MOWGLI RAN BLINDLY through the dark rows of columns, hidden from the sun by the heavy stone ceiling.

  There were none of the familiar smells or landmarks of the Jungle to indicate direction, and in his frantic state, he couldn’t remember which way he had come. But there was no time to stop and think. He was racing for his life and he knew it.

  There! He spotted a bright square of daylight at the far end of the temple. It was a literal ray of hope and Mowgli made a beeline for it.

  Suddenly, the ceiling erupted as King Louie’s huge frame dropped, sending debris raining from above and rocking the entire structure.

  Mowgli tried to gasp, but fear pressed against his chest like an elephant’s foot.

  “Where you going, Man-cub?” Louie snarled, his massive bulk blocking the boy’s only path to escape.

  Mowgli wheeled around and ran, Louie lunging to grab the fleeing boy. The man-cub darted left behind one of the great stone columns and the ape swung a gargantuan arm right through the structure, shattering the stone; chunks as big as Mowgli flew through the air as the man-cub bolted for safety.

  “Stay away from me!” Mowgli cried, running wildly to keep out of reach of the grasping hands. Panic was quickly climbing his spine and clouding his judgment. He had to get out of there. He saw a stairwell and ran for it. It was far too narrow for Louie. The man-cub put on a burst of speed and leapt up the stairs a moment before the ape king’s hand crashed down where Mowgli had been standing.

  As he raced up the stone stairs, the wall beside Mowgli shuddered and cracked. Louie was trying to punch his way through the solid stone. The man-cub scrambled to the opposite side of the stairwell just before a second blow reduced the wall to pebbles. The giant hand scraped and clawed through the new hole, searching blindly for Mowgli, missing him by inches. He felt the bristling orange hairs that poked from the back of Louie’s hand scratching across his heels as he leapt up the last step and onto the next floor.

  King Louie seethed as he yanked his hand out of the hole and threw his almost impossibly long arms up to the floor above, heaving his bulk onto the landing. The boy couldn’t run forever. Nothing could stop the king of the Bandar-log from getting what he desired, what he deserved, what was rightfully his.

  But then the man-cub was gone. All Louie could see were the long rows of stone pillars stretching to the horizon. He knew the boy hadn’t vanished. He was hiding. And he would not stay hidden for long.

  “You have no one now, boy,” Louie said, slowly stalking his prey through the darkened forest of stone. “I’m your only hope.”

  Mowgli, his back pressed tight to one of the rock columns, tried to disappear. He tried to wish himself home, back to his Jungle, back to the pack, to the time before the tiger had appeared at the Peace Rock. He feared he might never see his Jungle again, that he might spend his final moments in that strange land where he so clearly didn’t belong. No one belonged there.

  His eyes darted to the shadows. The great ape didn’t see him yet, but if even one of his simian minions was lurking in the darkness, a single screeching scream would give away his position in a heartbeat.

  “I can make it real good for you here,” Louie called out, dragging his hulking frame slowly toward the next column. Then,
with unexpected speed, his arms flew around the column to engulf his prey. “Or I can make it real bad….”

  But Mowgli wasn’t there.

  Fear racked Mowgli’s trembling body, sweat trickling down his neck as he heard—and felt—the ape drawing ever closer to his hiding spot.

  “Where else you gonna go?” Louie asked as he pushed his way past each pillar.

  “I’ll go back to the pack,” Mowgli said. He should have stayed silent, but he felt a powerful need to show the bullying ape he was wrong. He would never stay there. “I’ll go back to Akela!”

  Louie turned. The boy’s voice had come from the left. He was closer now.

  “Akela?” Louie said calmly. “Oh, you didn’t hear?”

  The ape reached quickly around the next column. No man-cub.

  “Shere Khan killed him,” Louie said coldly.

  Mowgli felt his stomach drop. It couldn’t be true. The ape’s words had knocked all the air from his chest.

  “Must’ve been on account of you.” Louie shook his head.

  “No! You’re lying!” Mowgli cried out, unable to help himself.

  The great red ape cocked his head to the side. He was getting closer.

  Mowgli could smell the rot in the beast’s hair, and each breath carried the stench of rancid papayas, reaching out and encircling the boy.

  “I wish I was, kid,” the king said, feigning sympathy. “But I tell you what. Together we can stop Shere Khan. Can make him pay for what he’s done.”

  Mowgli covered his ears and closed his eyes. He didn’t want to hear any more. He was heartbroken and scared and angry; his emotions were a tumultuous river and he was caught in its swirling current.

  “You and me, we get this Red Flower, we rule this Jungle,” hissed the king. “And we could kill Shere Khan.”

  Louie stopped, standing directly behind the pillar where Mowgli was hiding. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, his great orange hand reached around the column, his fingers flexing, itching to feel the man-cub in his grasp.

  Mowgli caught the movement from the corner of his eye and dove to the ground. The giant hand closed around thin air as Mowgli rolled to his feet and ran for his life. Screaming with rage, Louie tore the pillar from the stone canopy and crashed after the boy.

  As Mowgli fled, pieces of the massive stone ceiling smashed to the ground around him. The great ape’s fury was destroying the entire temple. It was a death trap and Mowgli had to get out. Now.

  The door was too far; he wouldn’t make it. But Mowgli could see an opening, a hole in the far wall facing a refuge of trees in the distance. He made a break for it.

  King Louie barreled toward the boy, his limbs smashing through pillars that buckled and snapped as the temple crumbled around him.

  “You belong to me, you hear that?” Louie bellowed. “YOU BELONG TO ME!”

  There was no time to think. Mowgli leapt. He flew out the hole in the wall, an entire tree length above the Jungle floor, desperately flailing as King Louie burst through after him. The wall cracked and ruptured, but it held and the ape king found himself stuck, unable to move.

  The shrill chorus of rock grinding against rock drew the ape’s attention upward. A shadow fell across him. It was the temple.

  The remaining columns could no longer support the massive weight of the ceiling. It was coming down. All of it. The temple collapsed and the king’s reign came to an end.

  THE MONKEYS CHARGED in waves.

  Screaming in mindless rage, primates leapt from every structure to provide reinforcements in the attack on Bagheera and Baloo. The two fought valiantly, but the odds were stacked against them; the sheer number of monkeys was wearing them down.

  And then they heard the crash.

  Bagheera turned instinctively toward the sound of an avalanche of rock and stone, unlike anything he had heard before. The massive temple would soon be no more.

  “Mowgli!” Bagheera yelled, but of course no one could hear him over the terrible sound of destruction. Panic crept into his mind like a hungry jackal.

  All eyes were on the crumbling tower as Baloo and the monkeys stopped fighting to watch.

  “Mowgli…” whispered Baloo.

  A mighty cloud of dust rose from the dying temple. Then the sky around them grew dark as the bones of the broken city blocked out the sun and spread toward them like a fog bank, roiling like the waters of the rain-swollen river.

  The temple, the king, and the man-cub disappeared in the cloud of dust.

  Screeching in fear and desperation, the monkeys abandoned their fight to scramble over the ruins in search of their king. Bagheera and Baloo were right behind them.

  The field of wreckage was immense, and everywhere Bagheera looked, monkeys were frantically digging, howling, and chittering at one another in panic.

  “Dig for him!” Bagheera shouted to Baloo as the bear clambered over the debris. “He may still be alive.”

  Baloo’s powerful arms snatched up jagged chunks of hewn stone as large as wild deer and hurled them left and right as fast as his body would allow. His head darting back and forth, he desperately hoping to catch sight of the boy in the cracks between the stones.

  “If anything happens to that kid, I’ll never forgive myself,” he panted.

  “He was my responsibility,” Bagheera said, leaping in beside Baloo, his mighty forepaws helping the bear push a large stone out of the way. “The blame lies with me, not you.”

  “But I filled his head with all those crazy ideas,” Baloo moaned. “If he’d stayed with you, he would’ve had a nice long, safe, boring life. It’s all my fault.”

  “No, we did this together,” Bagheera said with a sigh. “If what I truly fear has truly come to pass, it is on both of us, my friend.”

  And then, suddenly, they heard a voice from above.

  “Bagheera.”

  The two turned, looking up into the trees to see Mowgli standing in the high branches.

  “Mowgli!” Bagheera cried with relief.

  “Yes!” Baloo leapt into the air, pumping his paw toward the sky. “I knew you could do it, kid!”

  “Stay there,” Bagheera called, leaping across the ruins. “We’ll come to you.”

  But as the panther and bear approached, overjoyed to find their young friend alive, they were taken aback to see he did not share their elation. He stared down at them, frozen.

  “Is it true?” he asked without emotion.

  “What?” Bagheera asked, confused.

  “Is Akela dead?”

  The question hung in the air and everything seemed to go silent. The ceaseless cries of the terrified primates, the intermittent rumblings of the still falling stones, everything faded away.

  Bagheera and Baloo looked up at the man-cub somberly. They didn’t have to say a word. He could read it on their faces. He felt the warmth in his body drain like water from his pouch; he had never felt so empty.

  “You knew,” he whispered in disbelief. “You both knew.” Akela was dead. Because of Mowgli. And they had kept it from him.

  “We were going to tell you,” Bagheera started, but could not bring himself to finish.

  “Kid, just hold on,” Baloo added, moving cautiously toward the boy. But Mowgli backed away, his pain instantly evolving into anger. Anger at them. Anger at the world. Anger at Shere Khan.

  Shere Khan. He had done this. And he would continue to consume the lives of those Mowgli cared about until…

  A dark shadow took hold in his mind.

  “Someone’s gotta do something,” he said firmly.

  “No, Mowgli,” Bagheera warned. “Don’t—”

  “Mowgli,” tried Baloo, but it was too late.

  Mowgli turned and disappeared into the trees.

  Bagheera scrambled after him, but the rubble of the temple blocked his path. He’d never reach the boy in time.

  Mowgli was gone.

  NOW MOWGLI WANTED to be on his own.

  The man-cub ran from the fallen temple, from the los
t city, from the Jungle, from everything he had known. It would be a long time before he stopped running.

  As he raced on, his thoughts swirled like the turbulent waters beneath the waterfall, ideas and feelings bursting to the surface only to be submerged under the weight of the next churning question.

  Anger wrestled with sadness inside his heart, each fighting for control. He felt betrayed by the ones he trusted. He felt abandoned by the pack that had raised him and even by Akela, who had left that world without any choice in the matter. He felt used by everyone.

  Everyone seemed to have a claim on him, but he was not their son, their friend, their savior. He did not belong to any of them, least of all to Shere Khan. He belonged only to himself. He would write his own story.

  The few patches of blue sky visible through the dense foliage began to fade to dark purple as day gave way to night. To the west, a thin ribbon of orange split the darkness of land from the blackness of sky, spilling onto the tops of the tallest trees in the Jungle and crowning them with amber. It was the last gasp of the sun, but Mowgli’s work was just beginning.

  All through the late-night hours, the man-cub moved, sometimes running, sometimes walking, heedless of the wet leaves slapping at his body in the darkness, undeterred by the calls of restless carnivores seeking their next meals.

  Finally, Mowgli came to the top of the mountainside and stared down from the same vista Baloo had shown him, his eyes reflecting the flickering orange glow that lit the night.

  The Man-village.

  The man-cub explored an alien world.

  There were no leaves or branches underfoot to give away his position, but Mowgli watched every step nonetheless and was cautious to stay upwind. He didn’t know what to expect and he did not want the occupants of the strange place to hear or smell him coming.

  Unlike the monkeys’ monumental city of stone, this was small, built out of many natural materials. Wood. Mud. Thatched grasses, not unlike the kind Mowgli had used to build the top cover of his shelter outside Baloo’s cave.