Free Cry of the Wolf by Juliet Chastain

 

     
    Cry of the Wolf
     
    Juliet Chastain
     
    Breathless Press
    Calgary, Alberta
    www.breathlesspress.com
     
    This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or
    persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
    Cry of the Wolf
    Copyright© 2012 Juliet Chastain
    ISBN: 978-1-77101-066-5
    Editor: Spencer Freeman
    All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations
embodied in reviews.
    Breathless Press
    www.breathlesspress.com
     
    Cry of the Wolf
     
    Juliet Chastain
     
     
     
    Chapter One
     

     
    The gray wolf sat still and silent on the moonlit hillside. He watched the woman, as he did most nights, while she finished her chores, and then as she moved about her kitchen behind the big picture window. The lights went off in the house, but still the wolf didn’t move. He remained, motionless, watching the window where the last light had gone out, thinking about her, yearning for her.
    The rest of the pack—four gray wolves—had awakened and joined him in his vigil. They were restless, padding back and forth nervously or sitting, ears cocked, uncomfortable, anxious to move away from this exposed place, eager to get back to the cover of the woods, eager to begin the hunt. He was the alpha, the leader, and the decision maker, so they stayed with him.
    He knew they couldn’t understand; he couldn’t really understand it himself. He had long ago decided to leave mankind—and his own humanity—behind, to be nothing but a wild creature, a wolf. Then he’d seen the woman. Something about her had drawn him to her and to this place, this small farm where she lived alone. Again and again he had sat here and watched her, first with animal fascination, then with human longing.
    The other four animals grew even more restless and began to whine softly. “Danger,” they were saying, “there’s danger here.” He snarled softly to remind them that he was the leader, that it was his choice, and his alone, whether they stayed or went.
    Then he heard the movement, a gentle rustle coming from the dark side of the house. He leaped to his feet and barked the order to run for cover.
    Two wolves who had no experience with the ways of man turned, snarling, to protect the retreat of the others. Shots rang out in the darkness and they fell to the ground.
     
     
    Chapter Two
     

     
    Laura awakened to terrible sounds—gunfire, barks, excited yelling, and cursing, screams of pain. She stumbled out of bed and rushed to the window. The light of the moon, a few days past its fullest, reflected off the snow covering the field on the hillside behind her house. It cast ominous shadows around the winter-naked trees of the wooded area that began at the top of the hill. She saw a big man with a rifle running up the hill, her neighbor Joel Coughlin. Another man, this one shorter but with a big belly, Joel’s father, Billy Coughlin, moved more slowly behind him. She hated the two always-angry-at-something men who collected grudges the way some kids collected Pokémon cards. Then she saw the gray shapes—wolves—lying lifeless on the hillside.
    Fury overcame her. The wolves had been reintroduced to this part of the country a few years ago. Killing them was against the law. Now these had been killed on her land in spite of the No Hunting signs she’d plastered everywhere specifically to keep the Coughlins away. She grabbed her robe, shoved her feet into her sheepskin slippers, and ran down the stairs and out the back door into the snow.
    “Billy Coughlin, Joel, you get off my land!” She ran through the snow toward them, not giving a thought to the fact that the two armed men could shoot her just as easily as they had the animals lying in the snow. Not