Half-Breed

by Anna L. Walls

  Larrarr had claimed a warm dark corner almost as soon as she had entered the door. She was very wide in the belly. Canis feared that perhaps one of the pups was sideways and she was too small for it to turn.

  Like every other time, this time was no different, even though it was a Wulfi he touched. Canis’s awareness stepped aside and the healer took over. When he woke to himself, a third pup was being rolled around by its mother’s diligent tongue. His arm ached and he looked down to see it bleeding freely.

  He went to the counter to fill a bowl with water so he could wash and Nike came to help. She bit you hard. I tried to help, but it was as if you didn’t even feel it. I didn’t know what to do.”

  Canis spoke very softly. “I felt nothing. I remember nothing. I never do.”

  Nike looked up at him in stunned wonder. “But Capricorn and…and her,” she whispered.

  “I do not remember them either,” he said.

  “How can that be?”

  Canis only shook his head and sought out the bottle of astringent they kept around for just such an event.

  Nike opened it and pulled his arm over the bowl. Canis hissed and let out a stifled curse as she poured it over the wound, then he let her wrap it in soft strips of leather.

  When Nike was finished with his arm, Canis went back over to the corner and stood looking at the new little family. “Are you all right, Larrarr?” he asked.

  He was rewarded with a low and tired hum of contentment with an underlying note of regret.

  “It’s all right, I will recover.”

  He went in to see Halley; Nike was giving her a drink. He vaguely remembered the smell and knew that Halley would be sleeping the rest of the day at least.

  “Will I go through that if Rrusharr has trouble?” asked Canis.

  “Yes,” replied Nike.

  With Halley warmly covered, Nike turned to making supper and Canis turned to the sled of meat that was still in the middle of the floor where he had left it. He pushed it out of the way then hacked off a corner he could get free and took it over to the new mother. She sniffed at it and hummed a soft “Thanks, but later.”

  Ggrrawrr sauntered over, gave his offspring a nudge with his cold nose, then he lopped a tongue along Larrarr’s whiskers before dropping to the floor a few feet away.

  A week later, Canis was preparing for another hunting trip. Life with Halley was improving, but she still tended to forget herself rather often. She was finding it difficult changing a lifetime’s habit. When Canis had stepped out to round up his hunting partners, Halley followed him.

  “Canis,” she said.

  Canis stopped and turned back to her. “Yes?”

  “Canis…” she started again and shifted her foot. She flexed her leg and winced.

  Canis waited patiently for her to voice her concern. She was easily eight to ten years his senior and yet she looked very young just now.

  “Canis…” she tried again. Then with a sigh, she blurted out the rest of her question. “Does no one ever go visiting here? I have been here for more than two weeks and aside…aside from when your father died, I have met no one here. I came here to find a mate. How can I find a mate if no one ever comes to visit?”

  Canis smiled indulgently and answered her question honestly. “We all work very hard here to provide for all of us, so there is little time for visiting, but also, you came here and made a very unfavorable impression with most everyone you spoke to. You must defeat your own first impression before you will see a change in that.”

  “How do I do that?” she asked, dismayed.

  “I have no idea,” said Canis. He rested a hand on her shoulder. “You are smart. I think you can figure it out. You must remember the difference between butterflies and wasps.”

  “What about butterflies and wasps?” she asked bewildered.

  “Butterflies are quiet and colorful; everyone likes watching them, but no one likes to be around wasps.” Canis was going to leave her with that, but he took no more than a dozen steps before he turned back. Stepping past her, he grabbed her coat and helped her get it on.

  Puzzled, she complied.

  While they were doing this, Canis’s hunting companions came into view. In answer to their inquisitive expressions, he said, “We will go tomorrow.”

  With raised eyebrows, they shrugged and went back to their homes.

  Canis then spent the rest of the day taking Halley from house to house. He introduced her and they stayed for an hour or two, then he took her to the next house. It took all day, but she got a good chance to defeat her own first impression and make a few wary friends.

  When he returned from his hunting trip, he found her making an article of clothing. It looked like it might be the beginnings of a shirt, but it was difficult to tell at this stage.

  She looked up at Canis’s entry and smiled. “I may have decided who I will choose as my mate,” she declared happily.

  Canis looked at her dubiously. “And who might that be?” he asked, dreading her answer.

  “Achernar has brought me some mending. He has indicated that his children are in need of a mother and he has need of a wife as well,” she answered.

  Canis was surprised. “It works that way?”

  Halley looked up at him. “Just because I get the final say doesn’t mean that men can’t make their desires known.”

  “Does this mean that you have put away your wasp?”

  “I think I am doing very well, thank you,” she replied with a smile.

  In the end, Halley did choose Achernar. Ggrrawrr, however, chose to remain at Canis’s house; it is far more difficult to earn the respect of the Wulfen than it is humans.

  Avalanche

  Until Canis turned sixteen, nothing more serious happened than a few new births, a few skinned knees, and a few youths being greeted into manhood. There were no illnesses, no miscarriages or even births that were more difficult than usual and no deaths in the clan.

  Andromeda’s oldest son, Corvus was chosen by Aquarius’ oldest daughter, Carina, who later also chose Cassiopeia’s oldest boy Hydra and the new woman of the clan, Halley, gave birth to a fine strong boy and was happily pregnant again.

  This time of relative calm gave Canis the opportunity to settle into clan life in a much more normal manner. Canis grew tall and strong with powerful wide shoulders and strong arms, narrow hips and long legs. He no longer appeared years younger than his actual age. His human heritage gave him longer bones and heavier muscles; it also gave him his face, as he never developed the profile of a clan male.

  Though all of the girls let their eyes linger on him when he passed, none of them detained him more than social interaction demanded. Unbeknownst to him, Nike had made it known from the first that she had her designs on him and Canis had made no secret of the fact that he intended to leave one day.

  This time of happiness and peace couldn’t go on forever. The winter of Canis’s sixteenth year was a year of heavy snowfalls and avalanches. Not a week went by, but what another snowstorm brought several more feet of new snow. Hunting became almost impossible and the hunters were forced to range far in search of meat. Despite the help of their four-footed citizens, they were not always successful.

  Canis and his usual hunting partners, Leo and Eridanus were no exception, though they seemed to have better luck than most. It seemed that Canis had a good instinct when it came to finding game, but even someone with good luck can have a bad day.

  They were on a hunt five hard days from home, when they were caught in an avalanche. Canis had scant minutes to sound the alarm and it was almost enough. Both Leo and Eridanus were able to make it free of the crashing snow. Most of the Wulfen made it out of danger too. Canis wasn’t so lucky. Though he wasn’t caught in the direct flow, a flying clod of snow hit him in the head and knocked him off the trail, launching him into the ravine being filled with packed snow.

  Two of the eight Wulfen that hunted with them were also lost in the crushing snow. Rrusharr, who wa
s closest to Canis at the time he was struck, was knocked off the ledge with him, but sustained little more than a few bruises.

  When Leo and Eridanus found Canis, he was piled face down at the bottom of one of the giant trees that was out of the avalanche’s reach; he was also bleeding. A cursory examination revealed three puncture wounds in his back, one high in his right shoulder and one low near his right hip. The third one, deep in his left rib cage, still had the broken branch in it. He also had a nasty cut in the center of a fist-sized lump on the left side of his head and a growing black eye.

  Despite their grim findings, Canis was still breathing.

  “Go see if you can find a sled, Leo,” said Eridanus. “We need to get him back home as fast as we can.”

  With Wulfen help, the eighteen-year-old youth was able to find the sleds, but the first two were broken and useless, the third was badly cracked but usable.

  While Leo searched, Canis woke up and coughed, something, he discovered, he shouldn’t have done; the pain it caused robbed him of the ability to breathe at all for seconds.

  “Take it easy, Canis,” said Eridanus. “Leo found a sled. He’ll be back here in a few minutes.”

  Canis, still sprawled face down in the snow, clutched at it as the pain washed over him. As the tension increased, the amount of pain also increased. When he started to tremble, he finally fainted.

  They loaded him on the sled and tied him in the best they could. It was impossible to make him more comfortable. They had no warm pelt to wrap him in and he was forced to ride mostly on his belly. The sleds are far from comfortable to begin with, and worse when the rider is already in pain.

  Canis drifted in and out of consciousness for most of the first day of their trek, but seemed to stabilize somewhat after that. Each bump was agony and he sought the quiet of unconsciousness as often as possible, but with the tracker’s instinct running strong in his blood, not even that distracted him from keeping track of where he was, especially when he had a constant feed of sights, sounds and scents from five different points.

  Leo and Eridanus toiled away day and night. They took turns pulling the sled without stopping longer than it took to pass around the water skin, then fill it again with snow. There was nothing to stop for; their provisions had been lost with the sleds, and Canis needed to be taken home as soon as possible. Even though there was nothing that resembled a healer there, neither of them would have done any less. No one wanted to die out in the wilderness.

  They were cutting across the terrain in search of their original trail and Canis was aware of this. He also knew that he had led them on a twisted route in search of the elusive game. “Head right,” whispered Canis for the Wulfen to hear; he would do what he could to shorten their trek. It took his mind off the pain.

  Leo and Eridanus learned of this change of course, and its source, through their companions, and they stopped to check on him.

  “Did you tell the Wulfen to change course?” asked Leo.

  With a white knuckled grip on the edge of the sled, Canis opened what he could of his eyes. “Yeah,” he whispered then closed his eyes as he fought down the urge to cough. His lips were already lined with blood.

  “Are you sure we should turn? How could you know where we are?” asked Leo.

  Canis cocked half a smile. “Have I ever…led you wrong?” he whispered then struggled not to writhe as a jab of pain lanced through his body.

  “No,” said Leo, “no, you never have.”

  After giving Canis another sip of water, they headed out again on the new course. For the rest of their trip, Canis occasionally requested small course adjustments and in the end, he managed to cut an entire day off their trek. Unfortunately, Canis had succumbed to blood loss and cold, and he wasn’t aware of their successful return to the stockade, or how much time he had saved them.

  His friends carried him into his house and deposited him on the bear hide near the hearth. Nike built up the fire and lit some lamps since it was already growing dark, then the three of them worked to remove Canis’s clothes.

  His clothes were cut away and pulled free. It was fortunate that he was unconscious because his coat and shirt needed to be pealed away from his skin. Nike was relieved, and at the same time, appalled to see the condition of his coat. Appalled that so much blood had saturated the fur insulation, and relieved that it had retained at least some of its insulating ability regardless. Frostbite may have been avoided, but Canis was still dangerously cold.

  With Canis settled, the men went home for some long overdue nourishment and sleep. Rrusharr, Ggrrawrr and Rrooggrr, Nike’s companion, took on the job of warming Canis’s feet and legs while Nike scooted herself under his head and shoulders trying to provide him with yet another source of body heat.

  Canis draped over her lap like a dead man. Only his chest still moved, shallowly, showing that his soul still clung to his bones.

  Nike knew that Canis was slowly drowning in his own blood and there was nothing to be done about it except be with him and try to make him as comfortable as she could. She pulled the bear hide over him up to the stick still protruding from his back, and chafed his shoulders with her hand.

  With her vision burning with tears, she refused to shed until after he was dead, she started to run her fingers through his shiny red hair. She had always liked his hair. She would miss it. It was matted with blood on the side and she didn’t try to pick it out. She didn’t think he would live long enough to bother.

  With her thumb, she probed the swelling on the side of his head, and in the process, her fingers brushed the stone between his eyebrows.

  His hands weakly gripped the surfaces beneath them, the left one was on her leg, the right one was behind her back pulling at the bear hide. The weak grip on her leg and the wet gasp she heard caused her to lean over for a closer look, but his eyes remained closed and his hands relaxed again a few seconds later.

  With a curious finger, she explored the stone again, brushing it carefully with the tip of one finger. She had grown used to its presence in his features and had almost forgotten about it, but this small reaction drew her curiosity.

  With the more deliberate touch came a charge that traveled up her arm like a squirrel running up a tree. When it reached her mind, all the things of her life that lodged there came apart in innumerable pieces, then like a spring snowstorm, it all settled back down. Everything was still there, it was just slightly rearranged – a strange sensation to be sure.

  Immersed in this fascinating sensation, she almost missed the fact that Canis’s arm now wrapped around her hips and his head was pressed back into her belly. His other arm had been pulled back cocking his elbow up high and he was panting wetly, shallowly.

  Suddenly Nike became intimately aware of the texture of his skin. She found the damage in the shoulder under her elbow. She saw the ripped hole there in the skin and in the muscle underneath and knew that, all she had to do was move this here and that there – just put it back together – it was all so clear.

  She shifted her attention to the worst wound, sliding her hand down his spine toward the area of interest. She saw the blood that filled his lung cavity, constricting the capacity of his lung, preventing his breathing. She wrapped her hand around the stick and eased it from the wound then she forced the accumulated blood out with it. Dimly she was aware of a vibration in his chest and the pulling of muscles that were trying to fold his body up.

  She soothed the antagonized nerves, bringing the body relief and relaxation, then started to work on the damage. The blood had taken days to fill in between the rib cage and his lung, but she forced it out somewhat quicker. She then made the blood vessels join back together where they belonged, and she made all of the broken pieces of the ribs that had been brutally shoved aside, come back to where they too belonged.

  By the time she was done, much of the damage had been undone. That much accomplished, she moved on to the other wound in his back, then lastly to the one on the side of his head. None o
f the wounds were completely healed and all of them would require constant attention for several days, but it was as done as it could be today. He would not die…today.

  Nike came back to herself and looked down at Canis still draped across her lap. His breathing had greatly improved and already some color was returning to his pale cheeks. If that wasn’t evidence enough, the appearance of the two wounds not covered by the bear hide or his hair confirmed that it had not been a dream.

  She looked up at her surroundings and saw that daylight had long since come, so she eased herself out from under him and set about cleaning up the expelled blood and puss, then she spread soft leather bandages over the wounds before pulling the bear hide up to cover his shoulders.

  She fixed their Wulfen something to eat, then went about her day, checking on Canis frequently. The news of what had happened to him traveled quickly around the stockade and when Nike didn’t come out by midday to announce his death, Andromeda went to inquire.

  When she saw what she considered to be something rather further from dead than she had been led to believe, she asked, “Nike, Leo said it looked like Canis was moments away from death and here he lies looking real bad, but far from dead. Was it just the cold?”

  “No, mama. He was very bad. I thought he was going to die very soon too, but then I bumped that stone in his forehead… Mama, you remember how he healed Capricorn right after he came here? Well, I’ve done the same thing for him. I don’t know how, but he couldn’t heal himself so he made it possible for me to do it for him.”

  Andromeda knelt and looked closely at the stone between his brows. “How could he do that? Wouldn’t he need to be awake before he could teach you?” she asked.

  Nike shook her head. “I don’t begin to understand it, but it’s true. Look at him. It has to be.”

  After her mother left, Nike set about washing the blood from Canis’s hair. Blood, once dried, doesn’t dissolve easily, but Nike worked gently and persistently until his hair was clean. Then she proceeded to bathe the rest of him, at least as much of him as she could without moving him. The daylight was fading by the time she finished.