Fox Run (31 page)

"Not that long," she said.

"Long enough to find another tree."

She hugged me tightly to her.

"I will climb down now," I told her. "You won."

Then, slowly, I slithered down the tree, earning a few scrapes from the rough bark on the way down. Lara followed, landing on the ground a few seconds after I did. I shifted to fox then rolled over and exposed my throat. Lara knelt down, her head over my throat, and kissed the fur. "I love you, little fox," she said. "No other wolf would have found you. Now, we are both going to be gracious about this."

She backed away and shifted to fur. I rolled over and slowly climbed to my feet. Lara pointed her nose to the compound and bounded off. I slowly followed, my head hanging from my shoulders. Lara got quite a distance ahead of me before she stopped. She huffed. If I huffed back at the same volume, she wouldn't have heard me. So she howled briefly, but I didn't respond.

She ran back and came to a stop in front of me. I sat down facing her, my head still hanging.

She huffed again and nudged me.

I tried to shake out of my mood. I had done amazingly well, far better than anyone could possibly have expected. I would have beaten any other wolf. I should be proud. But in the end, the only point that mattered was the last one. I wouldn't have made my foolish promise if I'd realized it was Lara I would compete against. I just kept going around and around in emotional circles, and I couldn't shake it.

There wasn't anything to be done about it now. I climbed slowly to my feet and walked past Lara, heading towards the compound. Rather than bounding ahead, Lara walked with me. It must have been painful for her, keeping to a fox pace.

I finally decided I was sulking, and I picked the pace up marginally. Soon, we had picked up an escort of furry wolves. Both of us got licks. I hated being licked, but I put up with it. I knew they meant well.

Suddenly I lifted my head, bounced ahead two steps, then ran to the left. I managed to get everyone to follow me, which surprised me. Then I reversed course again and, very deliberately, used my claw to draw a line in the ground.

Lara looked at the line, chuffed, and fell to her stomach, her toes right at the line. I licked her once, listened for a moment, then dashed away. Some of the wolves tried to follow me, but Lara called them back.

I had to put some distance between us. They had scared all the game. But eventually I heard a rabbit. I approached it slowly, the stalk taking a good ten minutes, but when I pounced, I caught it. I snapped its neck cleanly then proudly carried my kill back to my alpha. When I pulled into the clearing, she was waiting for me, her toes at the line. I walked straight to her and dropped the rabbit at her feet.

Lara lifted her nose to the air and howled a victory cry, which was quickly picked up by the clustered wolves. Then she reached out with her claws and ripped the rabbit open before nudging it back to me.

I took a small share for myself then backed away. One by one, the assembled wolves partook of the rabbit I had caught, each of them taking the smallest of pieces When each wolf had taken a share, Lara took hers. Then we turned our noses to the compound and began to run.

Becoming Less Unsettled

Dinner that night was a large communal affair. There was to be food and a large bonfire. I was still upset, but no longer felt dead. Still, I couldn't stand the idea of everyone congratulating Lara on having caught the fox. When I tried to beg off, Lara sent Elisabeth to talk to me about it.

"Spill," she told me while sitting on the sofa in Lara's bedroom. I was staring out the window into the back yard, which was mostly a view of the forest.

I continued to stare out the window. "I don't think I could listen to everyone congratulate Lara on catching me and making me offer my throat."

"So two hits to your pride, one that she caught you and one that you offered your throat."

"Yes."

"So you're better than everyone else in the pack?"

"I'm not of the pack," I said.

"Don't quibble. Are you saying you are better than all the rest of us? We've all offered our throats, and before Lara was Alpha, she offered hers to her father."

I turned to face her. "Just so you understand, I hate losing arguments."

She laughed. "I will keep that in mind. It's a good thing this is a discussion, not an argument. If anyone is pleased that you offered your throat, they are pleased because it is symbolic that you are part of the pack."

"But I am not. I am fox."

"So? We're all were."

I stared at her. "You really believe that?"

"Yes."

I didn't have a real response to that. I shrugged instead.

"Can we at least agree that there is no one here, except possibly you, who feels you should be embarrassed about offering your throat?"

"All right."

"So the other issue. You think this is about Lara winning."

"Yes."

She looked away, clearly thinking. Finally she said, "Michaela, I wish to ask a favor. Trust me."

"That's the favor?"

"Yes. Trust me. Come to dinner. Trust me."

I sighed. "All right, Elisabeth."

* * * *

Still, I hid in the room as long as I could. Eventually Lara sent Gia and Angel to fetch me. I let them cajole me downstairs and out the door. Someone handed me a beer, which I immediately handed to Angel. She looked at it gleefully, but Gia took it away from her before she could drink any of it.

"Oops. I guess you and I are the only ones not drinking, Angel," I told her.

"Naw," she said.  "There are a few other teenagers. Want me to get us cokes?"

"Sure." She disappeared and came back moments later, handing me a cold can.

There was an advantage to being my size in a crowd of giant wolves. I was difficult to spot, being below notice most of the time. Conversations happened around me, and I was able to avoid them.

Jason found me. "There you are," he said. "Wow, that was amazing today."

"The alpha is really something," I said neutrally.

"She is," Jason agreed. "But I was talking about you. You're so small; you're easy to under-estimate. But wow. That was amazing. You really gave her a workout. I wouldn't have lasted that long against her, that's for sure. She'd have caught me in seconds."

Then he squeezed my arm and wandered off.

Angel and Gia had both wandered off. I roamed the crowd, looking for them. Angel was sitting in the grass with a group of teenagers. I started to turn away, but Jeremy, one of the boys we had rescued, saw me.

"Fox!" he said. He stood up and ran over to stand in front of me. "Would you talk to us for a little bit?"

"All right," I said, joining them in the grass. "What's up?"

"Well," said Jeremy. "We heard about the kayaking. We were wondering, do you think you could talk our parents into letting us come to Bayfield, and teaching us how to kayak?"

"How did you hear about that?" I asked.

"Rory told everyone how you saved his life," Derek said.

Angel smiled. "If you weren't with the alpha, I think he'd want you."

I smiled at that. "Rory is a nice wolf, although not exactly my type."

"So, how about it?" Jeremy asked. "Will you teach us to kayak?"

"Let me ask you guys something. I'm not the alpha. I'm not an anything. I can't cuff any of you hard enough for you to notice. If I tell you to do something, and you don't do it, there's nothing I can do about it. If I were teaching you to kayak, you would have to do exactly what I said. Could you do that?"

"Sure," Jeremy said. "Besides, there'd be adult wolves there somewhere, and even if you didn't cuff us, they would."

I laughed. "That's probably true. But what if there weren't?"

"We'd do what you said," Angel said. "You would be our teacher. And you might be small, but you're older than we are. If you told us to do something, there would be a good reason."

"All right," I said. "I'll talk to your parents if you guys bring them to me sometime. But in the end, it will be their decision."

"Thank you, Michaela," Angel said. The rest of them thanked me, then started peppering me with questions about kayaking.

Lara rescued me ten minutes later. "Sorry, kids, I need her." She helped me to my feet and pulled me away. "Feeling better?"

"Not that I'd admit," I told her. "Did you really need me?"

"Not at this exact minute, but I thought you'd given the kids enough time for one night. Go mingle."

I disappeared into the crowd and tried not to be noticed.

Someone announced that food was ready, and the wolves crowded the tables that had been set up for food. I hung back, amazed at the amount of food it took to feed the pack. Elisabeth stepped up to me and I asked her about it.

"Don't I know it. You should see the grocery bill."

"Where does the money come from?"

"Real estate investments are a lot of it," Elisabeth explained. "Apartment buildings, office buildings, and a couple of small shopping malls. Lara has a management company that handles all that, and she needs to do very little. Another big part are the tithes."

"Tithes?"

"Yes. Everyone in the pack with a job tithes a portion of his income to the pack. That means everyone who isn't a full time enforcer or hold some other pack position. Even Lara tithes. So do I."

"I thought you were an enforcer."

"I am, but I also own a chain of grocery stores." She mentioned the chain.

"Holy shit. You own that?"

"Forty percent. The stores run themselves, and we expand very cautiously, so it really is pretty cushy for me. Lara owns twelve percent. David had some; I don't know what happens to his share now. It may go to pack, it may go to Lara." She paused. "It may go to you."

"Why would it go to me?"

"There is a council that oversees pack assets. They can decide almost anything in a situation like this."

"Well, I don't want it."

"Anyway, you get the idea. Lara is rich. So am I. We could live comfortably just on our fixed income. The pack is really rich. Again, investments. Whenever a pack member wants to start a business, the pack invests. And pack businesses always succeed."

"Why?"

"Failure is not an option."

I laughed.

At that point, Angel and Jeremy ran over to Elisabeth and me carrying plates of food, giving them to us and disappearing before we could even thank them.

"That was sweet," I said.

"Pack leadership doesn't stand in line for food," Elisabeth said. "Rank hath its privileges."

"As does being a guest?"

Elisabeth looked around. "I don't see any guests, Michaela."

We sat down in the grass and ate quietly. People started to join us, and soon I was surrounded. I kept my head down and hoped everyone would ignore me.

"I haven't laughed so hard in a long time," Francesca said.

"At what?" Elisabeth asked innocently.

"The alpha with her head and shoulders stuck under the car, scrambling to chase the little fox."

"Oh yeah, that was good," Rory said. "But I liked it when she got tangled up with Jeremy."

Soon everyone was taking turns, regaling each other with my exploits. Elisabeth whispered to me, "See?"

"Wait for it," I replied.

"So," Rory asked. "She finally caught you. How?"

I sighed. "I was running out of tricks. I'd gotten some real distance from her, maybe almost a minute ahead, and that's when I used my absolute best trick. And no, I'm no telling any of you what it is. But the problem is, the alpha knows that trick because I told it to her once. So she finally figured out what I had done, and that's when she found me."

"How long did it take her?" Elisabeth asked.

"From when she lost me to when she found me again?"

"Yes."

"I don't know, maybe twenty minutes. It was fun watching her look."

"Wait!" said Elisabeth. "You knew where she was for twenty minutes, but she didn't know where you were?"

"I knew where she was the entire time," I said. "I shook her off my trail a half dozen times, but she eventually found my trail again. When you're a fox, it doesn't matter how many times you lose the wolf. It only matters how whether the wolf finds you again."

They were uncomfortable about that, but then Rory smiled. "Well, I thought you were fantastic. I loved it when you kept shifting back and forth between two legs and fur."

"That's just because you liked seeing her naked, Rory," one of the females said to him.

"I'll admit," he said. "Our little fox is worth looking at."

"Rory!" I said.

"I wouldn't admit that too loudly when the alpha can hear you Rory," Elisabeth said.

"Too late," I replied. "She's standing right behind us."

Rory looked up at Lara, grinning. Lara simply said, "Make space." The people to my left shifted further away, and Lara sat down next to me. I leaned against her and laid my head on her shoulder.

A while later, Francesca lit the bonfire. There were nearly thirty wolves clustered around. Lara stood up and said, "It is time for stories." She looked around the group and said, "Francesca, would you tell us all a story?" Lara sat back down next to me, and I leaned against her.

Francesca stood up, paced around the fire for a moment, then began a story. It took me a minute before I realized she was making it up as she went. When she was done, she received applause.

Lara asked for another story, and Emmanuel and Serena together told a story about getting caught far from home in a blizzard. When they were done, Lara asked Elisabeth for a story.

"All right," she said. "But I need help with this one. Little fox, would you care to tell the story of Spot?"

I looked at her for a moment and nodded. Elisabeth said, "You tell the first part, and I'll pick it up from when I met her."

So that is what we did. I stood up and told about how I had first met Spot. "I know Spot isn't a very good name for a deer, but she was just a fawn when she came to me, and fawns have spots." I explained how I had raised her and taught her how to survive in the wild, and finally how I had let her go, but would visit her two or three times a year. Then I explained that I had needed a tracking collar no one knew about, so that Elisabeth could keep track of where I was, and they all nodded, knowing that story already.