by K. T. Tomb
After a thorough tour, the man unhooked his leash and let him explore on his own. Shadow did so. The scent of another dog still lingered in the area, an older one who was long gone. He took some small comfort in the fact that the scent contained no traces of fear or panic. The previous dog had been cared for and loved.
Shadow took in the feel of the place. He could sense that the man’s pack also lived here, though they were not there at the moment. He guessed that he smelled the imprint of human cubs, fresh and floral, tinged with the energy of the young. He couldn’t help but be curious about what sort of creatures these cubs might be. Did they live in nests, like the small birds he had observed in the forest? Did they romp and play, learning to fight and hunt as he and his pack mates had? He didn’t have long to wait, however, because a burst of sudden words and laughter jolted him out of his thoughts.
A different human female and two human cubs bounded into the room. Shadow backed into the wall, despite his resolve to go along with everything. Another small pang erupted in his heart at the thought of Ula, lost to him now. She might know what to do with the human cubs. Perhaps she would even like them.
The adult humans greeted each other with a strange nuzzle, pressing their lips together briefly. Shadow barely noticed this because the two cubs had surrounded him, strange, smiling faces near his own. They jabbered in the language of humans. The newness of it all overcame him and he backed away, trying to become as small as he could. The man chastised his brood as they ran off, vanishing down a hallway toward another part of the house.
Shadow realized with some relief that, for the time being, he was now being left on his own. The human female opened the back door. A medium-sized white cat entered through the door, casting a sidelong glance at him as she did.
“Oh, hello,” she purred as if she had been expecting him.
Shadow didn’t reply.
“They have been speaking of you,” she said. She drew her voice out in long relaxed sounds, pausing to lick her paw. “I expected they would eventually go back and fetch you.”
“What is this place?” Shadow asked finally.
“Don’t you know? This is your new home,” the cat said with surprise. “You’ve been adopted.”
Chapter Nine
The two adult humans sat down at the table, intently watching Shadow and the cat. Shadow paid no attention to them except to keep a level of alertness to their whereabouts, just as he would in the forest when faced with another forest creature that the pack had not yet marked for prey.
“Adopted?” Shadow said. “But I have a family, and I need to get back to them. How can I get out of this place?”
The cat sniffed with disdain. “I can come and go as I please. The backyard fence is of little consequence to me, but if Ginger was any indication, you won’t be getting out of here. Not anytime soon.”
“Why not?” Shadow said. He didn’t like the tone of this cat, but if he could find a way to make her an ally, then he would do so. For now, he needed information. “And who is Ginger?”
“Ginger was the last dog,” the cat explained. “Died about a month ago. Oh, don’t worry. He died of old age. They took good care of him, it seemed. He was happy enough.”
“And you?” Shadow pressed. “Are you happy?”
The cat turned toward him with a distant look, and seemed as if she might answer, but at that moment, the human-cubs returned to the room. The boy, by what Shadow could guess, was the smaller of the two. He walked over and began to pet him behind the ears, much in the way the human female had at the shelter. The feeling felt good, but Shadow didn’t like that he enjoyed it. He wanted to remain distant from them because he didn’t intend on being here long. He recalled something that he had seen the dogs do at the shelter when they approached the door. Perhaps he could copy the technique and make them open the door.
Shadow walked over to the back door, as the cat watched with amusement. He sat down and scratched the door with one paw. He let out a small, short yip. This seemed to impress the humans to no end as they exclaimed and vocalized in delight. The boy came over and with another scratch behind the ears, opened the door to the outside.
Shadow exited joyfully, only to find that the yard had a high wooden fence. The cat had mentioned that, after all, he remembered. Nonetheless, he circled the area, sniffing and exploring. At first, he found nothing that could be a weakness in the fencing. No matter, he would find a way out somehow.
The human cubs pulled out a basket of toys. There were balls of various sizes and a few small stuffed shapes that looked and smelled as if they had been chewed on by the previous dog. He took little interest in most of them, but responded with feigned enthusiasm when the ball was thrown. Finally, when he was panting and refused to chase the ball anymore, the family went back inside, leaving him alone with the cat.
“They’re not so bad, really,” the cat explained. “They mean well. They all do. Except for the ones who don’t.”
“What exactly does that mean?” Shadow asked.
“Humans,” she explained. “They mean well.”
“The human man stole me away from my family, from the forest. He did not mean well.”
***
The following weeks, Shadow developed a routine with this new family.
He followed along when taken out on the leash, was led around the neighborhood for a short while and then returned back to the home. Sometimes, he was let inside during the night, but mostly, he and the cat were placed out the back door into the yard at the end of the day.
He learned that the cat’s name was Clementine, and she kept him company. At least, as much as her distant aloofness could be called company; at other times, she would disappear over the edge of the fence with a dismissive flick of her tail.
He ate the dry, dead-tasting food they gave him and drank the water. He missed the forest and his family. A few more times, he attempted to reach out to them with his mind—at the very least to try and alert them to his presence—but to no avail. He determined that he had simply been taken too far away from the pack to reach them through the mind connection.
His melancholy mood was occasionally peppered with small bits of joy that Shadow begrudgingly allowed himself to feel: The sensation of having his ears scratched by the girl cub, rambunctious wrestling with the boy cub, the taste of the juicy tidbits that the girl-cub slipped to him under the table, and even the occasional conversation with Clementine. Once, the human woman had taken him into her lap and stroked him, but he was so confused by the warmth of it that he jumped down away from the gentle hand. He did not want to be ruled by the humans, even if they “meant well.”
All of these pleasures of being a pet dog paled in comparison to the feeling he had gotten when running free with his pack mates in the forest. He missed the company of wolves. He missed their mind connections. He missed the hunts and the fresh-killed foods that came with the life of a wolf.
One night, both he and the cat had been allowed to stay inside. Clementine sat at the window, peering out at the rain streaming down the panes. Shadow curled up at the foot of the female human, who had in her lap a small paper object that she occasionally marked on with a little sliver of wood. He had seen her do that often and had no idea of the purpose of her motions. Clementine had explained that this was a game, but Shadow didn’t know how that could be possible as it didn’t involve running or tumbling of any kind.
The man human had vanished into another room, which he often did in the evenings, Shadow had noticed. Sometimes, he spoke into a small box that he held at the side of his head, and got quite agitated as he did so at the voices that spewed into his ear. On this night, he had brought a small stack of papers out to the main area, and placed them on the large table. The man unfolded one of these papers until it nearly encompassed the whole surface. He worked silently, measuring and marking along different places on the large page.
The female human stood and disappeared down the hall, returning a moment later wearing h
er night garments. She gave the man a quick nuzzle and then vanished once more to their sleeping den. The man stayed, peering over the papers for a little while longer before he, too, disappeared down the same tunnel. He had left all of his work out on the table and Shadow wondered at that. Usually, the adults seemed very particular that the human-cubs should clean up after themselves and Shadow wondered why the man wouldn’t do the same in turn.
“Do you want to see?” Clementine asked.
“See what?” Shadow said.
“The stuff,” she said with a mischievous tone. “There is nothing more fun than walking all over human stuff when they are asleep,” she said gleefully. The cat then hopped up onto the surface of the table, her steps making light crinkling sounds each time her paw came down. She circled the space, her eyes sparkling in delight with each movement. “Come and see,” she invited again.
“You are not supposed to be up there, you know,” Shadow said.
“Ooh.” Clementine rolled her eyes. “The big, wild wolf dog is suddenly following the rules? Is it possible you have succumbed to domesticity?”
Shadow was already annoyed, but felt the barb was pushing the limit.
“I have not,” he mumbled.
“Somebody’s tame. Somebody’s tame,” she replied in a mocking sing-song voice, obviously taunting him.
“Fine!” he said at last. “I’ll come and look if you stop bothering me!”
Clementine giggled as she watched Shadow hop carefully up onto one of the chairs, place his paws on the edge of the table and peer over the man’s papers. He had not expected to see much, but instead, the view before him captivated his attention.
At first, the image on the large sheet of paper looked like nothing more than a misshapen blob, but the shape was immediately one that he knew. Back in the forest, when connecting with the other pack members in the midst of the hunt, he could almost see what the others could see. While he had run forward, deftly avoiding brambles and roots shooting out of the ground to trip his progress. He could also sense the sight of the Alpha, of Mother, of the quickness of his brother Thunder as he darted around tree trunks, of Storm eyeing the horizon as he pressed forward.
Each of these pieces of vision had linked together in such a way that he had known the shape of the forest, the curve of the creek bed. He knew where the trees ended and where each meadow began. He knew where the hard road ran, and what areas to avoid during hunting season. These shapes had become ingrained into his knowledge. He knew he would never forget the terrain of the place where he had lived with the wolf pack. So, he had no doubts when he peered down on the paper in front of him that the shape before him was a representation of the forest. His forest.
The line along the edge represented the road. Another wavier line echoed the flow of the creek. Certain gradated circles existed in the same place where the meadows would have been. Shadow peered closely, trying to make out the strange markings the human man had made on the page, but he couldn’t make sense of it. Clementine seemed to sense his discomfort.
“What?” she asked, acknowledging his change in mood. “What is it? What’s happened?”
“The forest,” he said. “This is a picture of the forest where my pack lives.”
“What’s a ‘pack’?” she asked.
“My family. Brothers and sisters. Mother and father. Others, too.”
“All of you lived together?”
“Yes, in the forest.”
“I can’t even remember my mother. It’s been so long since I was a kitten,” Clementine said.
“That’s what I’m afraid of. That I will lose… all that I knew of the wolves. All that I… was with them.”
“I don’t understand,” she said to him.
“Yes, you do,” Shadow said. “When you leave the yard and go over the fence on your own, do you not become what you once were? A hunter? A wild cat like a mountain lion? I know you hunt, Clementine. You come back smelling of birds on your breath. And of mice. Even, of moths. When you are out of their sight, you become more of what you are. What you and your kind once were.” He paused. “That is the same for me. When I am free, I am myself. And when I am with my pack, we are more together than we are alone.”
Clementine stared at him for a long while, as he kept his eyes on the large paper, almost as if trying to find a way to climb into the page and go back to his beloved home. Shadow had not always gotten along with the cat, but they were the only animals in this house and, as such, had formed somewhat of an alliance. Clementine had taught him the ways of how to get more food, how to get the humans to open the door when needed, and so on.
Shadow saw a series of squares that had been drawn in a different medium against the map of the forest. Symmetrical shapes that lined up neatly alongside each other. He didn’t know what this represented, but he couldn’t help but feel that somehow his family was in danger. After a long look at the forest that was represented on the paper, he climbed down from the table, knowing he had committed it all to memory.
Shadow recalled the first time he had seen the man in the forest.
The experience had startled him, of course. The man had not carried himself in the manner that the hunters did. Up to that point, he had only seen hunters in the distance, sometimes tracking the very same deer as the pack. But the man had then brought food, which had confused Shadow at the time because when animals in the pack brought food to each other, it meant they were connected.
Now, he realized that the man had tricked him with the food offering. Perhaps Shadow being vulnerable to humans had something to do with the difference between himself and the other wolves. A wolf would have never done it. A wolf would never have trusted a human and traded his freedom for a bit of food. When he realized what he had done and what he had set in motion—all for a bit of food—he realized what a serious mistake it had been to trust a human. A mistake so serious that it seemed that he might never see any of his pack again, or enjoy his freedom again, or know the wolf life again.
Shadow had seen his own reflection in standing pools of water when he had quenched his thirst with his wolf pack family. Now, he realized that, physically, at least, he more resembled the dogs he had seen at the shelter than the wolves he considered to be his brothers and sisters. He didn’t know what to make of this new insight, but he did know one thing. He had to get back to the forest. He had to warn the others. Against what, he didn’t know, but he knew they were in danger and he knew that he was the only one who could warn them.
“Okay, cat.” He turned resolutely toward Clementine. “I need your help.”
“Why?” The cat tilted her nose in the air. She had often listened to his tales of the forest and Shadow determined that she only half-believed them.
“Little cougar, you are the only one clever enough to help me.” He hoped that his flattery would have an effect.
“Well,” Clementine said, rubbing a paw over her ear. “I suppose that is true. What do you need help with?”
“When you go over the fence,” he said, “what’s on the other side?”
The cat gazed at him, carefully measuring her words. “Not much, really,” she replied. “More grass. A few more houses. Birds, lots of birds.” She licked her lips and burped a bit.
Shadow tried to maintain his patience. “Are there trees?” he pressed. “Is there any forest nearby? Big trees?”
Clementine thought. “I don’t think so,” she said finally. “I’ve roamed pretty far and all I know of this area is houses and yards. Sometimes, there are bicycles and mice, but no. I don’t think we are close to any forest. There are small trees. I can jump down easily from the tops of them.”
Shadow walked in a small circle. “If I could just get out of that backyard, then I could find the big trees. I could get oriented.”
“Oriented to what?” Clementine asked.
“To find my way back,” he said. “I’m always on that silly leash or trapped in the fenced yard. It’s infuriating, really. Why do you get
to come and go as you please?”
Clementine smirked. “I always come back. I don’t have to, but I choose to. It allows for more freedom. If they opened the gate, they know you would not return.”
“That is true. I would not. Do you know where the forest is?” Shadow asked.
“No,” she said. “Just houses. Houses as far as I have ever roamed.”
Shadow walked over to another part of the living room.
Clementine sat, cleaning one paw and then wandered into the kitchen. He heard the dry crunching sounds of her nibbling on her food. Food that smelled so vile that they didn’t need to keep her bowl on the kitchen counter. There was no way he would ever eat a morsel of it.
He lay down, but his mind raced. Now more than ever, he knew he had to find a way back to his family. He didn’t know how, but he had to find a way.
Chapter Ten
A few weeks later, Shadow got his chance.
Every day, he had examined the routines of this human family, the walks in the neighborhood, the time spent in the backyard. He had carefully examined the wall around the yard, looking for a space between the ground and the bottom of the fence, to no avail. His attempts at digging his way out were met by scolding and stones wedged into the holes he had dug, until the perimeter of the yard was lined with stones at the bottom of the fence. At that point, he’d given up trying to dig his way out.
Clementine had sat by him with amusement at his insistence on finding a way out. But at last, the day came. Clementine told Shadow that the family had planned a day at the park. She said they had cleaned out a basket that only came out when they planned to put food in it and eat at the park. The cat had developed a rudimentary understanding of their speech and habits and so, she was able to sometimes translate what she overheard, on a very limited scale.
Shadow still thought that the sounds the humans made resembled a staccato cackle, much like that of a teasing jaybird. The sound made him cringe but he had been able to determine some meaning when combining the body language with the tone and inflection sometimes applied when they spoke to him. But for the more important details, he relied on the cat’s interpretations.