Rhamin

by Bryce THOMAS

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  Rasci firmly believed that the trip was going to kill him before he got to the safari park. The noise made his head thump. It penetrated his sensitive ear drums and buffeted the inside of his head. Besides the sounds, something inside his ears felt strange as well. He began to pant uncontrollably as a feeling of nausea swept over him. As if expecting it, Raymond realised that Rasci was not travelling well. He opened all the windows and let the cooling, early morning air wash through the inside of the vehicle. It seemed to help Rasci regain his composure; a little.

  Unlike Rasci, Margo and Ben seemed well adapted to travelling in this way. Ben leaned over the back seat and, grabbing a hand full of Rasci’s thick coat, pulled downwards. Rasci did as he signalled. He lay down, facing the front of the vehicle, resting his head on the back of the seat between Ben and Margo, letting the cooling breeze take away his angst. He watched the two children as they played and chatted in their own little world. For a while, his mind was distracted from the nauseous feeling running through his body but soon the fatigue of travelling all through the night to get to the farm, and constant drone of the vehicle for hour upon hour, eventually drove him into a deep sleep.

  The fight seemed real. Rhamin was protecting Yeltsa. As before in his dreams, one of her front legs was white. Then his dream switched to the mountain lion, and once again, he saw himself attacking it. Then the dream switched again and he saw more wolves. He had seen them all before but he couldn’t recall their faces. Everything seemed mixed up. First there was Rhamin’s face; then Roxana; then Solin; then the wide mouthed spitting fangs of a big cat. Yeltsa appeared; then Roxana once again, pleading with him. Over and over the images appeared, each time, the sequence, more jumbled than the time before. Then everything went dark.

  Feeling that he was pinned down under a great weight, the trauma subsided and then he was sitting next to Ben. They were enjoying the trip, watching everything flash by at a speed that Rasci couldn’t have ever thought possible. There were lots of other vehicles, some passing going the same way, some passing like lightning, travelling in the opposite direction; there one second, gone the next. ‘Hi Rasci,’ Ben said, looking over his shoulder and seeing the real Rasci fast asleep.

  The wolf spirit chuckled.

  Raymond looked in his rear view mirror and smiled as he watched Ben chatting away to his invisible friend. ‘The world is definitely a complicated place,’ he said to himself as he shook his head. ‘Mrs. Steadman wouldn’t believe this even if she were here!’ he said, to Ben.

  Ben smiled proudly. ‘I’m explaining things to him Daddy. He wants to know EVERYTHING! And he’s asking me!’ His eyes were wide with pleasure and pride.

  Eventually, Rasci’s dream subsided and Ben lapsed into silence before snuggling up to Margo and sleeping through part of the journey. When Rasci awoke, he remembered everything Ben had told him. Refreshed, and with a cool breeze still running past his face, he had got over the queasiness of travelling in the farmer’s vehicle and was beginning to enjoy it. He realised he was enjoying being with Ben and his family. There was so much to learn. He thought of Zelda and her many stories, and smiled to himself. He was going to have enough stories to tell the pack till he grew old like his Gran.

  Eventually the vehicle slowed down and Raymond steered it into a place where there were lots of cars and lots of other men kind. The children stretched and stirred to consciousness while Raymond got out of the vehicle and did something out of view. There was a smell of fumes, a chemical smell that made Rasci’s head spin, and a clunk as the farmer did something else. He walked over to a building and, after a little while, returned. Without a word, he got in, started the vehicle again and drove slowly for several minutes until, eventually, he reached another area which was covered with short green grass and tables like the one the farmer had in his home. He stopped the station wagon. It went quiet. He spoke to the children and Ben turned and spoke to Rasci, but he could tell that his wolf friend didn’t understand.

  Raymond got out and went around to the back of the station wagon and Rasci could see lots of other people going about their own business. As the farmer looked around, some of them began to stare, making noises of surprise and pointing towards Rasci. Raymond just ignored them. He lifted up the back door amidst a chorus of ‘Oohs’ from the spectators who, by now, were more interested in the farmer and his family than they were about their own business. Rasci just looked out in awe. Never had he been so close to so many people. Some put their arms around their young ones and ushered them away to their own vehicles. Others gathered together like buffalo, feeling more secure as one of a herd.

  Raymond took out the basket and, resting it by the back door he opened it up and took out items of food that he handed to Margo and Ben. He took out a gadget and twisted off its top. Hot steam came from it as he tilted it into a container and poured out its contents. He passed it to Ben who took a sip and placed it down by his side. Then he passed some more food to Ben and Margo, which they both ate in silence. He offered some to Rasci, but Rasci wasn’t hungry. He was used to going without food for days, but his nerves made his stomach too tight to contemplate eating at this time. Anticipation of the possible dangers ahead, like before a hunt, increased the adrenalin and reduced any pangs of hunger, keeping the body unencumbered until the task was accomplished.

  The farmer understood. He poured some water out of a big bottle and into a metal bowl. Rasci watched him, tilting his head with interest. As Raymond pushed it towards him, he licked his hand; then, slowly he lapped at the water until it was all gone. Raymond left him to it, closing the back of the station wagon, and opening the side doors to let the children out amidst a round of chatter from the spectators. He closed the doors again and, together, Raymond and the children walked over to a building. They were gone for some time, but Rasci just lay and watched as strangers ventured closer for a better look inside. They were all making speaking noises. He found it all very amusing, but he felt safe inside the vehicle and eventually Raymond and his children returned, opened the doors and got in. With that, he started up the engine and they went on their way.

  The journey lasted all day and was interspersed by more stops, one just for Rasci, when he became fidgety and whined so much that his companions guessed what he wanted. They stopped where there was no one about and plenty of bush cover for him to get out and tend, unseen, to the call of nature.

  They eventually came to an area in the countryside where they were to camp for the night. Raymond seemed to know where he was heading, and his reconnaissance had obviously taken in all the stages of the trip and all the requirements of himself, his children and his wolf. It was just a feeling that Rasci got; that Raymond was proud to have Rasci with him. He laughed and smiled whenever people seemed concerned or afraid, or just curious. For the time being, Rasci was his wolf.

  At first, the children were given the blanket to cover them as they lay across the rear seat to sleep but, somehow, during the night, they both ended up lying on or across Rasci in the back of the vehicle. Raymond slept soundly on the front seat which went all the way across the station wagon just like the seat in the rear, used by the children.

  By two hours after dawn, they were all awake, fed, reasonably well rested, and ready to undertake the day’s task. Rasci hadn’t eaten, although he did taste one of the pieces of white substance, proffered by Ben. It wasn’t to his liking, and Ben didn’t seem too bothered when Rasci turned his head away uninterested. There was a certain tension in the air, a sense of anticipation, a period when the adrenalin in their bodies was preparing them for fight or flight, for none of them knew exactly what was going to happen to them on this fateful day.

  CHAPTER TWENTY SIX

  The safari park wasn’t what Rasci had expected. From the outside, there was little sign that there was, somewhere in the area, a prison or enclosure that detained Rhamin. There were rolling hills covered with trees, and vast areas of lush grassland that were greener than any
that Rasci had ever seen. The road led under a giant man made archway with what Rasci realised was writing on it. It was the entrance to the park, and the writing announced it to be “Petersen’s Wild and Wonderful Animal Experience.” The description didn’t make sense to either Margo, Ben or Rasci, but Raymond explained the gist of it to his children. From the archway, a long road continued through vast tracts of countryside. Rasci took in all the scenery.

  Eventually, on Raymond’s instruction, Margo and Ben climbed into the back of the station wagon with Rasci and together they pulled one of the blankets over him. Rasci realised what was happening. From now on, he had not to be seen, for wolves were not allowed in the visitors’ vehicles. In fact the sight of a wolf in any vehicle would have aroused suspicion immediately; a suspicion that he had been stolen. The last thing any of them wanted at this stage was for them to be stopped as thieves and Rasci “rescued” and returned to his proper place, inside the wolf compound. So Rasci hid beneath the blanket, his nose poking out from a tunnel of cloth facing forwards above the back seat so that he could see through the front window.

  They were not alone by the time they arrived at a huge fence. More vehicles were in front of them and several more were behind. The fence was many times higher than Rasci. He considered it carefully. It was made from the same metal substance that the farmer used for his fences; only this stuff was shiny silver in colour and was woven into an impenetrable wall with spaces through which nothing bigger than a sparrow could pass. Along the top of the fence were some single strands of metal, held facing inwards to the enclosed area by struts that looked to be coated in some other substance. Rasci knew immediately that these were the parts that carried the lightning that Corvak had described. He could hear the sub-sonic buzz of death as the electricity paced backwards and forwards, like a caged animal, along the strands, waiting to be released when something reached up and touched it.

  A man emerged from a small wooden building by the side of the road, and stood nearby. He pushed at the fence and a huge section of it slid to one side. All the vehicles moved on. It wasn’t far to another building, this time made of rock. Another man emerged and spoke to Raymond. Something small was exchanged and, as the man outside looked through the windows into the back of the vehicle, Raymond casually drove on.

  Corvak had been right. From the next gate on there were animals that defied description. It enthralled Rasci. The children were spellbound. Both stood up against the back of their father’s seat and gazed out in amazement at animals which had brown patches all over them. Although they were not as tall as Corvak had described them, the creatures were as tall as trees. They strode past, totally unfazed by the presence of traffic, bending their enormous necks and waiting for tit bits of food to be passed through the open windows of the vehicles

  Raymond drove on amidst a queue of trailing vehicles. They passed more tall animals, only these were hairy and had two enormous lumps on their back that flopped over to one side. They too were impervious to the presence of people and cars. They wandered close to the vehicles in search of some tit bit or treat.

  Then, beyond another fence, Rasci spotted some buffalo bunched together, grazing on the lush green grass, and to the side of them were some strange kind of deer with long thick, straight horns, lying and cudding lazily in the morning sun. But no people wandered amongst them; for Rasci knew how dangerous the male buffalo could be, and obviously the men kind and their children knew also. In fact, from this stage on, nobody seemed to have the windows of their cars open. A sensible precaution, Rasci thought. There was another large enclosed section where horses roamed. But these were not ordinary horses. They were white with black stripes.

  The vehicles just drove slowly and in line through each enclosure. Each time a new enclosure loomed, there was another tall fence and a sliding gate to go through. Eventually, however, they reached a different kind of gate system. Now, as they approached the sections which Rasci was to discover contained the most dangerous animals, the carnivores, there were double gates. Each time, an attendant waited for several vehicles to accumulate. The first gate would close behind them and then, only when it was clear that there were no animals in that fenced section did the second gate open in front of them to let the cars proceed.

  Once again, the enclosure was vast but now Rasci spotted some strange vehicles, not moving, but waiting, like a wolf waits for its prey. He could see a man inside each one. And most strange of all was the fact that the vehicles were white with black stripes, just like the striped horses they had passed earlier. After passing some in every enclosure, Rasci worked out that they were most likely the prison guards. They were there to make sure that none of the animals escaped and at the same time to check that nobody got out of their cars for it was obvious that some of the bigger animals could and would attack if someone was unprotected. At least once Rasci saw the occupant of one of the patrol vehicles drive over to a car and unmistakably instruct the visitor, with a winding motion of his arm, to close the window. Clearly, the underlying principle of the safari park, must certainly have been to entertain men kind and their offspring, and not to feed them and their youngsters to the animals. Rasci noticed that each man in his patrol vehicles was armed with one of the deadly stick weapons that, at the school, Ben had called a gun, but he was baffled as to how they worked. Keeping his head well covered as they went by the patrol vehicles, he was just thinking that puny men were vulnerable to attack from animals that wouldn’t even attempt to attack a wolf, when suddenly the hair on the back of his neck bristled. Raymond had stopped the station wagon. There, in the middle of the road, right in front of their vehicle, and stopping all the traffic, was a cat so big it would have dwarfed two of Rhamin. It was the colour of the flames that sometimes wash over the dry grassy plains just as Corvak had described, but it was bigger than he could have imagined. It strolled casually around to the side of the station wagon, sniffed at the glass window and looked inside. Its face was wider than the window; its amber eyes many times bigger than those of a wolf.

  With an instinctive reaction, Rasci barred his teeth. At first, the big cat pricked up its ears as it picked up the ultrasonic noise from Rasci’s throat. Then it lay them down flat against its head, placed a huge paw against the glass, opened its mouth, rolled back its lips and snarled. Raymond revved his engine and drove away as quickly as he could.

  Needless to say, it wasn’t long before, and with a sense of relief that, they reached the next set of gates. ‘This is it,’ Raymond said to his passengers as he read the sign, Wolf Enclosure.

  Rasci could feel both the tension and the anticipation in his companions. He too was tense. He knew it wouldn’t be long now before he saw his brother Rhamin again.

  CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN

  Rasci didn’t recognise Rhamin as first. The wolf he was watching was very thin, and this wolf should have been black, but his coat was stark and the guard hairs on his back were tinged at the ends with brown. Even his white ears had turned a dull grey. This wolf looked ill. If it was Rhamin, then he looked to be a whittled down version of his former self, unsteady on his feet, glancing around warily at all the cars that were filing past. Something about his manner was diminished as if a large ember had fallen off his previously blazing fire. It seemed that the energy to take control was no longer there. He was no longer driven by determination. Instead, there was a resigned disregard for either himself or the other wolves that were milling around.

  Rhamin watched as vehicle after vehicle slowly grumbled past, the windless heat doing nothing to disperse the choking fumes of their breath. The occupants of each vehicle were observing the spectacle of the giant black wolf. It was one of the things they had come to see, and he was the centre of attraction. None of the other wolves that were wandering around the compound seemed to draw such interest. But he was getting used to it. He stood in the middle of the hard road and watched as a gap appeared in the line of traffic. One vehicle was holding back. Eventually it started to move forward ag
ain and drew alongside him.

  ‘Want a ride?’

  Rhamin looked around. The station wagon had eased to a standstill in the shade of the trees on the left hand side of the concrete road. It had stopped a few feet from the black wolf. The voice had seemed familiar but was muffled. It definitely came from the man’s vehicle. He looked again at the man. This time, instead of looking about furtively, he turned to face Rhamin. It was a face that Rhamin would never forget. But he didn’t know whether to be pleased or angry. This was the farmer who had led the man, Petersen, to him, the farmer whose eyes he had met in the forest and thought he’d understood what he was feeling. This was the farmer who had almost been killed by Bortag the bear and, had it not been for Rhamin and his pack, would surely have perished that day on the mountain along with his companion. Was this farmer here then, as part of the conspiracy? Was he here to gloat? What did he want? Had he planned it all? Rhamin couldn’t tell.

  ‘Psst. Want a ride?’

  The voice seemed to come from behind the farmer, but the sound was coming from the other side of the vehicle? Slowly, still without any real purpose, but perhaps now curious, Rhamin stepped around to the other side, only to see just a grassy bank that led away to the adjacent monkey compound.