Free Spirit Wolf by Gary D. Svee

the hillside for purchase, sacrificing silence for safety. Still each step threatened to send him plunging to the bottom. The coulee took a sharp bend to the east, and as he edged around the bill, he saw it.
    It was just as Uriah had said. The coulee opened into a little park, but it was wall-to-wall juniper and pine. The brush was so thick there was no hope of seeing into it or walking quietly through it.
    Nash paused for a moment, looking below. A whole pack of bloodthirsty wolves could lie in ambush there, waiting for an unwary deer—or man—to stumble into the brush. Nash stood there, and the fear grew in him, gnawing at his gut like a live animal.
    Then he realized the pain wasn’t imaginary but real. Oh, hell, he thought, gas.
    Nash knew he couldn’t wait. Not long anyway. He and his large intestine had worked out a bargain long ago. The large intestine wouldn’t bother him until it was absolutely necessary. Sometimes two or three days stretched between those times. But when the call came, Nash was expected to answer with very little hesitation.
    The bargain had been necessary, the result of the gap-sided, splinter-ridden, one-holer out back behind the Brue cabin. It was a miserable place. In winter the thought of sitting down on that seat with a wind whipping a miniblizzard through the walls was enough to give anyone pause. And still winter was better than summer. In summer the stench was unbearable. Lime dumped down the hole occasionally would help, but only for a while. Sometimes at night the reek of putrification would drift down toward the house and send everyone outside to evening chores. Nobody lingered at the outhouse, even if the Sears Roebuck catalogue was there for reading—and other purposes, too. Flies buzzed around the building in a cloud, and sometimes Nash thought he would inhale one of the creatures. Knowing as he did what drew the flies to the outhouse, the thought of one of them touching him was enough to make him gag. It was because of that one-holer that the bargain had been struck. And now he had no time to waste.
    Nash searched the hillside frantically for a ledge or rock, any place level enough he could squat there without sliding or tumbling down the hill. There was none. Nash had no choice. His need overcame his fear. He would go into the brush. There was a smooth log there. He would make his way to that.
    Nash slipped, scrambled, and slid down the hill. He didn’t care about noise then. He hoped that the sound would frighten anything hidden below out of the brush before he got there. But if it didn’t, that was all right too. If the wolf, that awesome, fear-inspiring beast, had stepped out of the brush to greet him fang and claw, Nash wouldn’t have given him so much as a fare-thee-well. Nash had more important things on his mind.
    Branches tugged at Nash’s clothes, as he headed into the brush at a run. He had to reach that log. He did, just in time. He jerked down his pants, and fumbled for a minute at the flap buttons on his long Johns. Then he sat down.
    Oh, blessed relief—but not for long.
    The wolf popped into his mind again, and the image was worse than ever. Nash was about as vulnerable as anyone could be. The wolf could take Nash now before he could even raise the shotgun leaning beside him on the log. Wouldn’t that be something? It was one thing to be killed by a wolf like the one they were hunting. There was more than a little romance in that. He’d be like ol’ Charley Spencer, and when men gathered at night around campfires, stories would be told about him and the killer wolf.
    But what if the wolf got him while he was sitting bare-bottomed over a log, taking a crap? There wasn’t much romance in that. The vision was clear in his mind’s eye, and it wasn’t pleasant. His father riding stern-faced into the homestead, leading old Nell burdened with an empty saddle. His mother frantic for word of her son. Uriah