Rhamin

by Bryce THOMAS

  Ben smiled. ‘She’s not as good a shot as you, is she Daddy?’ Raymond smiled back and shook his head. ‘Perhaps it’s just as well.’

  ‘But you threw a stone at him.’

  ‘Your mother’s shouting panicked me a little, I think.’ He straightened Ben’s shirt collar. He was still dressed in his school clothes. ‘All I could do was think about saving you…’ He paused and then said slowly in a deep voice, ‘from the big… bad… wolf!’ Ben chuckled.

  ‘So, my biggest bestest son, we’re going to have to forego the pleasure of meeting your wolf friend. There is no way your mother will allow any wolf near you.’

  ‘But…’

  ‘No ‘Buts’ Ben. Your mother has been frightened by wolves too many times; when they came into the house that night, remember? And when that bad wolf went for her after killing the cattle?’

  ‘But you said that The Black Wolf saved her like he saved us in the house.’

  ‘He did. And not just that. That wolf was the one that brought his pack to the mountain and if it weren’t for him, I’d be bear food now. But grey wolves are not all that easy to tell apart. Oh, I know they have different markings, but it takes time to get to know one from another.’

  ‘So what if he comes back?’

  ‘I don’t think he will come back now, Ben.’

  Rasci could see them as if he were there. And, it wasn’t like the shouting he heard that morning, when none of it made sense. Then, he couldn’t understand a single word; except for the names of the boy and the dog. But, as before, now, in his dream, he could understand everything. It was as if they were speaking wolfish. In his dreams, he had an overview that would never have been possible in reality.

  He stirred in his sleep and began to awaken. His hiding place was small but comfortable. As he opened his eyes and stretched, pushing his big feet against the sides of the hollow, he felt safe. For the time being he was free from worries. He had covered little ground that day, and limping slowly, he had many hours travelling ahead of him to get back to the Darin, and when he got back there he was expected to be a leader. A leader! That word! Suddenly, his head was aching again. The thump, thump, thumping was back with a vengeance every time he thought of it. He was beginning to hate being the leader. In fact he was even beginning to hate the thought of having to go back, and what’s more, he hated himself for being so weak. At the moment, being killed didn’t seem so unattractive.

  For the time being, however, there was nothing he could do about it. He had to accept the status quo. A spark of determination lit his eyes as he gazed out of the hollow into the cloud swept night. He had made a decision. There was no alternative now. Fate had placed him where he was. It had given him his gift of seeing the unseen and was carrying him through a process that would eventually end one way or the other. He knew he wasn’t cut out for the life that had been cast upon him, and he knew that he would eventually let the whole pack down. He couldn’t carry on as he was. If Rhamin returned, then all his worries would end. His mind was made up. He would save Rhamin or he would die trying.

  His headache suddenly subsided. The hole gave him a sense of well being, a sense of security. He snuggled back down inside it, wrapped his tail around his face, relaxed into a deep sleep and dreamt of Rhamin. ‘Don’t worry Rhamin,’ he heard his voice saying, ‘your pack is waiting for your return.’

  –––––––

  Rasci awakened to the sound of barking; not dog barking, wolf barking. Cautiously, he lifted his nose above the edge of the hole and looked out. At first he saw nothing. A morning mist clung to the ground, clouding his vision like a veil in one of his dreams. He turned his head, searching for the source of the sound, but his head wasn’t clear and his eyes seemed to be playing tricks on him. He swore he saw the dim figure of a wolf disappearing ahead of him, but the vision had evaporated before he could form it into a picture in his mind. He shook his head to discard the pangs of sleep.

  ‘Woof, woof,’ he heard it again, but the sound wasn’t ahead of him. It was coming from behind the tree. The voice seemed familiar, but it was agitated. Quickly, he jumped out from beneath the roots and sprang around to the other side of the tree. He could see the back of a dark grey wolf, but in the murky light it looked as black as Rhamin’s coat. He shook his head again, even harder this time. The wolf, hair bristling at the shoulders, was standing facing away from him, fifty or more strides away.

  ‘Rhamin?’ he muttered. Then, as he stepped closer, through the mist, he could make out the form of another wolf. It was not his leader. What he was seeing was the smooth, dark coat of the stranger he had met the evening before. It was Roxana.

  ‘What is it?’ Rasci called, but she didn’t answer. She was still facing away from him.

  She barked again and parried to one side. It was then that Rasci saw it. He knew immediately what it was. With its short, coarse, brown coat, its muscular, supple limbs and long, black-tipped tail; its pointy ears and long retractable claws protruding from its large feet, as it swiped at Roxana, there was no mistaking a mountain lion. Its creamy white underside looked grey in the diminished light and its white throat and chest looked equally grey until he got closer. Its pink nose in a striped black muzzle seemed deceptively harmless until the face that held it wrinkled in an aggressive snarl. It swiped out again at Roxana, with its front paw, but she lightly hopped to one side as the razor sharp claws breezed past her face. She squatted down on her front paws and snarled back, feinting a lunge that made the big cat spring to one side and circle around her, evasively.

  A male mountain lion can weigh as much as, if not more than a full grown male wolf. At around 70 kilograms, it is bigger than most female wolves. Roxana was a big wolf, but Rasci reckoned that the big cat had a definite weight advantage. But mountain lions, like all cats, have extremely fast reflexes. Wolves have reaction times faster than a human being or a domestic dog, but that is still slower than the reflex time of most members of the cat family. As the big cat jumped backwards to avoid the expected lunge of its adversary, it sprung forwards again, instantly, with another, lethal, claw filled swipe at Roxana. But she hadn’t lunged. It was just a manoeuvre. She had merely made the cat think that she was attacking, so the vicious claws, once again cut through the cool morning air inches from her face.

  Circling around, the cat attacked again, only Roxana was expecting it and raced to one side, pursued by the flailing arms of the cat. Once again she stopped and then lunged forward with her long canine teeth lashing at the air and then retreating. Suddenly, from the corner of its eye, the mountain lion saw Rasci who, despite his limp, had already gained an advantage. He was upon the lion from the rear, and even though, in the cat’s eyes, Rasci was moving relatively slowly, he had caught the mountain lion on its rump with his teeth. Seeing this second adversary, the big cat swung around and with a reflexive, lightning strike, landed its claws against the thick impenetrable coat on Rasci’s shoulder. Rasci yelped as the impact compressed his wound where the man’s bullet had cut past his shoulder blades. He lunged sideways to avoid another swipe by the ambidextrous cat, which seemed to brandish each front paw with the same cutting, punching, swiping agility.

  But, mountain lions do not have thick coats like wolves. The sudden attack from the rear had left it with an open stab wound where Rasci’s canine tooth had landed on its rump. Instead of continuing the attack, it scuttled off into the mist. Rasci watched it disappear and then, stretching his neck to ease the pain in his shoulder, he turned to Roxana.

  ‘Good job I was around,’ he said, looking at the face of his new companion, proudly.

  Roxana shook her head. ‘Tut. Males!’

  ‘What? Whaaat?’

  ‘You think you saved me, do you?’ she asked, her face showing anger, not gratitude.

  ‘Well, didn’t I?’

  She waited a moment before answering. She sighed heavily and then said, ‘No.’

  ‘So what did I just do?’ Rasci asked, surprised at her reaction.
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  ‘You helped me save your skin,’ Roxana said firmly.

  ‘My skin?’

  She nodded. ‘That’s right, your skin.’

  ‘But…’

  ‘But your backside!’ she said and started to walk away.

  ‘Wait!’ He hadn’t approached this just right, he could tell. Roxana turned, tilted her head, and waited.

  ‘I… I thought you were in danger. I thought…’ He walked closer to her. He could smell her. She smelt very agreeable.

  ‘You thought!’ she said angrily. ‘Can you think?’

  ‘Well, yes, I think so.’

  She shook her head. ‘It was stalking you, you idiot!’ Somehow the description didn’t upset Rasci. After all, that’s how most of the pack used to regard him before his lapse into leadership. The word ‘idiot’, in fact seemed to have a warm comforting sound to his ears. ‘I didn’t think they bothered with wolves,’ he said, perplexed.

  ‘Not when they are in a group, they don’t; but a single wolf that is obviously wounded, then that is an entirely different matter.’

  ‘Wounded?’ Rasci had forgotten his injuries.

  ‘Yes,’ Roxana said, with as deep a sigh as Rasci had heard in a long time. It was a nice sigh, though he wasn’t sure why. He wasn’t unduly upset by it. ‘A wounded wolf is good prey. We hunt wounded animals all the time.’

  Rasci turned his head and looked at the dried blood on his shoulder. A trickle of fresh blood was running over it. ‘Oh. Well, yes, I have got a slight cut on my…’

  ‘Slight cut my bum!’

  Hmm, nice bum though, Rasci felt the thought trickling through his brain. ‘Well, I must admit…’ He paused for a moment and then, discarding the thought, he said, ‘How do you know, anyway?’

  ‘How do I know? I saw you hobbling along like a cripple. That’s how I know.’

  ‘Well I was limping a bit, but…’

  ‘You were limping a lot.’

  ‘I was limping a lot,’ Rasci agreed with a nod.

  ‘I told you it was dangerous out here!’

  ‘I thought you were kidding me. I travel around on my own all the time. I don’t recall ever getting eaten by some mad, vicious cat at any time.’

  ‘There’s always a first time.’

  He nodded. ‘Hmm. Well what was it doing in my territory, anyway?’ He stopped and thought about what he had just said. ‘What are you doing, still in my territory, come to that?’ Roxana seemed a little unsettled. ‘Oh, looking for you,’ she said. Rasci felt she was straining to be casual.

  ‘For me? Looking for me?’ He lifted his head and gazed into space for a second. ‘Right,’ he said as if he suddenly understood; which he didn’t. He waited for her to explain, but she just shrugged. ‘Er, why?’ he asked her, eventually.

  ‘Oh, a little bird told me you were really a pack leader. As you said, I have ambitions.’

  ‘Ambitions? Did I? Oh, well yes, but… a little bird? You don’t know Corvak do you?’

  ‘Corvak?’

  ‘A bird.’

  ‘It’s a saying, stupid.’

  ‘Stupid? Oh, yes, that’s me. I… I’m not really a pack leader,’ he fumbled with his words. ‘No, I am more your, how shall I put it?’

  ‘The following type?’

  ‘Yes!’ He thought again for a moment and then asked;

  ‘So who told you I was a pack leader?’

  ‘Some lone wolf I met up in the forests.’

  ‘One of my pack, no doubt,’ Rasci nodded.

  ‘Not that I could make out, he wasn’t’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘No. This one seemed a little bitter. Had badly torn ears.’

  ‘Solin!’ Rasci gasped. ‘I see.’

  ‘You see?’

  ‘Oh, Solin was hoping to be a pack leader. He just messed things up a bit, that’s all,’ Rasci said with a sigh. He realised that, had Solin not betrayed the pack, he would now have been the new leader. But then, would Solin have wanted to save Rhamin? Rasci thought not.

  ‘You don’t sound like you dislike him.’ Roxana looked puzzled. ‘He said you hated him.’

  ‘No, that’s not true. He just did the wrong thing at the wrong time. Perhaps he was born at the wrong time, I don’t know. Solin is just Solin, that’s all.’

  ‘So what about your pack?’ Roxana asked, coming closer to him. ‘How come you don’t have them around you? How come you didn’t tell me you were a pack leader?’

  ‘I felt a bit embarrassed,’ Rasci said, shrugging sheepishly. ‘It’s all a bit new to me.’

  ‘Embarrassed?’

  ‘Well, I don’t feel like… I don’t think other wolves see me like that.’

  ‘Well, obviously, your pack does.’

  ‘Yes,’ Rasci said, suddenly realising the significance of what Roxana had just said.

  ‘You’re not frightened of me are you?’

  ‘Me! Frightened? I’ve never been frightened of anything in my life,’ Rasci stated truthfully. He was a courageous wolf. He just didn’t feel the need to be courageous all the time. Being a leader meant he had to be on top of the job. He had to show a certain strength all the time. But perhaps, with more thought, he wasn’t as courageous as he would have liked to be. He was afraid he would never see Rhamin again, and he was afraid that even if Rhamin was alive he would not get the chance to save him. On top of that he was afraid that if he went back to the farm, the farmer would be just as intransigent as before.

  ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it that way,’ Roxana assured him.

  ‘You seem, well, a bit shy.’

  Rasci knew what she meant. ‘I’m not what you think I am,’ he said earnestly. ‘If you are looking for a leader to… to have babies with and things…’

  Roxana smiled. ‘I am.’

  ‘Well, it’s just that, I am not really the leader of the pack.’

  ‘That’s not what I’ve heard. That wolf Solin seemed to think you were.’

  ‘Did he?’ asked Rasci, suddenly feeling rather proud of himself.

  ‘Yes, he said that you were the new leader now that Rhamin is dead.’

  The words cut deep into Rasci’s soul. ‘Hmm, well I…’ He was going to explain what he felt, but thought better of it. ‘So he told you about Rhamin then?’

  Roxana nodded. ‘He told me that Rhamin was his brother, and so are you.’

  ‘Did he, now?’

  ‘Isn’t that true then?’

  Rasci thought for a while. Explanations, explanations, explanations. When would he be able to just get back to being his old self; just following the leader? No explanations, no responsibilities, no wolves wanting to be the alpha female matched with the alpha male. He tried to picture himself with Roxana.

  ‘Rasci?’

  Rasci snapped back to consciousness. ‘What? Oh, yes, he…they are… were. I mean he is and Rhamin was.’

  ‘Brothers?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And what he says is true then?’

  ‘Er, what did he say?’ Rasci’s mind was beginning to somersault.

  ‘That you took over from your brother Rhamin when he died?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right.’ It seemed a simple explanation to a complicated question. The pulse was beginning to throb above his right eye again.

  ‘So how did Solin get his torn ears?’

  ‘Oh, I’m not sure,’ Rasci lied. ‘Perhaps we had better travel together,’ he said, changing the subject. ‘After all, there is a dangerous cat about.’

  Roxana smiled. ‘Do I take it that you are warming to me a little?’

  Rasci couldn’t deny it. He hadn’t really cooled to her in the first place. But he still felt uncomfortable. He was not leadership material, and usually it was only leaders that took a mate. And besides, Roxana made him have feelings he didn’t know existed before he met her, and was still trying to come to terms with them. He thought about being the pack leader and wasn’t sure if he wanted to prolong a friendship which was based on a false premise. But
was it a false premise? Now, suddenly, for some reason, he wasn’t sure if he wanted to give up being a leader. But why was he thinking that? He wasn’t sure. In fact he wasn’t sure about anything any more. ‘Look,’ he said finally, ‘we’ll walk together for a while. That way I won’t attract predators. You know,’ he said, after giving the subject some thought, ‘even the vultures seem to have been taking a strong interest in me lately.’

  ‘Really? Vultures?’

  ‘Yes, there’s a pair that seem to be waiting for leftovers all the time now.’ He considered them for a while as he walked beside her. His brush with the farmer had been unsettling but, although he didn’t feel particularly good, he didn’t think he looked at all like dropping dead. Maybe he looked worse than he thought. ‘Perhaps you are right, even the vultures are waiting for me to keel over.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure they know you’re all right,’ Roxana replied with a comforting smile that made him feel better instantly.

  Eventually, a hot morning sun burnt away the cool, lingering mist and the pair walked silently together, heading towards the Darin.

  ‘So how did you get your injuries,’ Roxana asked later, as they circled a clump of trees and instinctively peered into the thicket in search of prey.

  Rasci walked over to the cover of the shade, and slumped down to rest. He didn’t want to say anything to Roxana about how he got hurt. He didn’t want to tell anybody. A swarm of flies buzzed enthusiastically around his head, making him feel rather dizzy, and his leg ached so badly that he needed to rest. Roxana came over and licked the gash on his shoulder. It had to be cleaned or else the flies would start to lay their eggs in the open wound. Her closeness to him made his head spin even more, but with Roxana’s attention to the cut, he almost immediately began to feel better. More than that, her attention to his shoulder relieved the pain in his leg. He found that quite remarkable. ‘You are very quiet,’ she commented as Rasci began to feel the tension drain from his body.

  ‘Sorry, I was thinking,’ Rasci replied truthfully. His eyes began to close as he relaxed.

  ‘Oh? What about?’

  ‘About… about.’ Rasci lapsed into sleep mode, turning off all his senses to the things around him. He could still feel Roxana’s tongue gently cleaning his wound as he slid out of reality.