Moonweavers (5 page)

“
If this is gonna be my existence, I better take it for what its worth.”  Scott thought.  “But why change now.  I mean why?  Why not when I landed?  It has to be the part of me that’s moonlight that performs the transformation.  God, if Rob was here, he could explain this to me a little better.  But he ain’t.  All I know is that those wolves were pretty damn pissed when they found out I wasn’t following the herd.  Better keep traveling and keep some distance from them fuckers.”

Scott trots a little faster now liking the way the wind cools him and his coat.  For now the sun is warming up the atmosphere.  Experiencing the whole hot and cold thing for the very first time is very dramatic and fulfilling at the same time.  Like he was a puzzle before and now all the pieces just fit,  Now he
’s complete, knowing that before he never truly existed until this very time.  He can imagine what the feel of it is from television monitors and film.  But to really experience it is to know.  He would explain to any mooner if he had a chance.  It’s everything that you ever dreamed and more.  To feel this way for five minutes would be a more lived life than three hundred years in a dream that automatically make you happy so that you don’t mind that you’re food.  Scott holds his canine head up a little higher and back arches a little deeper at the thought as he trots through the woods.  Now more curious than ever to see what lies at the end of the road.  Scott sees more and more cars along the highway gets bigger and the roads get wider.  The traffic gets more congested.  Scott lingers more towards the east thinking its too much for now.  Too scary.  Too populated.  “I mean what if they do know  I’m not exactly human.  They could just shoot me in a instant thinking I’m gonna eat or attack them.”  Scott thinks, “No, no.  Outta sight, outta mind.”   He heads down the first gravel road he sees.  A less populated area would be better for him to study the humans in their own environment at a safe distance.  Knowing that if the humans can display so much violence on each other, they wouldn’t think twice about capping his ass. 

“
There’s good and bad in this world, so where would the good be hiding?” Scott wonders.  He finally comes upon a farmhouse at the end of the gravel road, climbs into the corn field.  At the edge of the farmers property, he sits and waits.  Sunlight blazes down on the tops of the long stalks of corn heating up the entire field with bites of sunlight.  A man comes up with a bag of trash from the house and dumps it in the fire pit and then puts a metal trash can lid over the wire mesh and runs quickly back into the house.  Scott wonders, “Why am I even bothering with humans?  I’m not  human.  I’m not even from this planet.  Maybe I should just try and find a wolf pack or just go into the woods and hunt and gather my….however long a wolf lives. What maybe twenty years?  I don’t know.  Eight?  Damn I should have tried to hack a computer or something to find out how long a wolf does live or at least something about them.  All I know is their dogs basically that live in the woods.  Naw, that’d get boring too quick.  The humans are exciting and unpredictable.  I think I’ll stick around here.  Maybe I should see how they’d react to contact.  I was always kind of repulsed by humans eating habits, but there was always a strange fascination with me on what a twinkie would actually taste like if you bit it.  I mean the mountain lions innards were quite tasty at the time.  I didn’t know I was eating it.  That’s what I’ll do.  Next time they come out, I will introduce myself.”

Awhile later, the young man comes back out the door and into the barn carrying a tool box.  Scott intensely watches and slyly follows the man in  towards the garage, keeping an eye on every step down the row of the cornfild that leads to the barn.  Coming out of the corn, second row, first row and now looking both ways, dashes across the lawn to the corner of the barns edge.  Hearing metal on metal as the tools jingle together onto a metal table with the metallic sheens, Scott heads towards the source of the sounds.  The man is now under the truck, turning wrenches and Scott says,
“Hello.”  The man under the truck jumps and hit’s the top of his cap on the radiator and yells “Ohh, shit” and wheels out from under the truck mad .  “What the hell?”

As doing so he says,
“Damn it.  This better be good.”  As he slides out from under his truck, he’s startled to find a wolf staring right at him.  The man slowly backs away with his arms fumbling around behind his back, hoping he’s headed towards the back of the barn where the door is.  He finally bumps into the door in which a board has it clamped shut tight.  Turning around his head to keep his eyes on the wolf, he squats down and pushes up on the wooden board that secures the door to somehow pop it off and get out of the barn, calmly as possible.

“
Good boy”, the man says.

Scott slowly approaches the man in the same calm fashion and says,
“ It’s ok, I won’t hurt you.”

The farmers eyes widen even more and he pushes up  faster.  The door flies open he runs outside to the right corner of the barn and towards the back door of the house. Not slowing down or looking back, if that damn dog or whatever it is, is coming, he don
’t want to see it hit him.  Faster and faster he runs, not caring how fast his heart is beating from the fright. 

“
Did I just see that?”, the man thinks to himself as he’s running toward the door.  Turning the knob of the door and bolting in.  Turning the door and locking it behind him.  The man runs straight to his gun cabinet and grabs the shotgun and the rifle.  He thumbs through different cartridge boxes to find the right ones, keeping a good grip on the weapons at hand that he carries to the window ready to go at it with this wolf if it comes near him.  Scott slowly trots to the front door of the barn and goes right following the way the man ran saying out loud, “That didn’t go very well.”  Approaching the outside corner of the barn, he hears a thundering bang and scurries back alarmed and confused.  Pellets of the shotgun,hits toothpick size splinters, explode away from the side of the barn.  Scott says, “Not well at all.” and runs back into the cornfield as fast as possible.  Crossing the gravel road in a straight line through the woods, back into the safety of the rocky ridge hills and bluffs alongside the distance before him.  Thinking about being around humans may not be a good idea.  But not knowing what else to do, he keeps following the road.  At a very safe distance back, he finds another house.  This ones more of an animal farm than the other one was.  He could smell it hours ago.  Taking advantage of the bluff, he climbs up for a higher look, when he finally finds a hill that he thinks he can make.  The steeper areas of the hill were getting more climbable and easier to access so he attempts the high ground.  Trees were growing more easily within the area so he knew that if he happened to fall maybe one of them would stop his descent and using them kind of like pegs to leapfrog across if need be.  The dirt was harder and dryer the more he ascended up, not giving him anything to grip with his pads and claws, kicking his back legs harder with every good grip he could muster.  Leaping and hard strides to the next tree he finally finds give in the hill with more slopes and dips as he deeply pats slowly approaching the crest of the hill.  Scott lies down and catches his breath, pants fiercely.  He ponders now.  “Now its as simple as backtracking to where the farm is on the top of the bluff along the edge until I get a good look see at the house. Easy as pie.  I just sit and wait it out.  Plus if the other wolves try to track me down, maybe they wouldn’t go this way and if they do I could probably see them from up here to.  All I have to do is wait it out.  I ain’t doing much anyway.  It is awfully lonely though.”

Scott slowly rises and calmly heads towards the bluff.  Enjoying the scenic view, he just calmly walks and looks, surveying and stopping once in awhile to listen with his ears at all the subtle movements of the animals and birds that take refuge deeper in the woods.  Enjoying the best of both worlds, in a way.  He could hear and see the wonders of the woods and at the same time look down at the long flat fields of farmland for miles with the gravel roads snaking along the bluffs edge and little patches of tree here and there like stalks of broccoli lying within the drainage ditches of the fields along the gravel road where it branched out into straight lines so far into the distance heading towards that monstrosity humans call a highway full of bad air and noisy automobiles towards their cities and towns.  Scott knew he would never be accepted equally, but respected as a thinking entity by even a handful was Scotts goal.  He didn
’t want to live alone and he don’t think he could live as a wolf in a pack, if they would even have him.  Scott sensed that the wolves wouldn’t .  They would know he was different too, just like this human did. 

“
Yea, I will have to be more careful with the next one for sure.”

But all hope wasn
’t lost.  In Scotts earlier years, he discovered that people really did enjoy animals quite a bit.  With their movies and news stories even of animals rescuing people from fires and calling 911 or so many people really do love animals.  So maybe it will work.  Maybe he will find somebody. 

“
Maybe that farmer was just too scared.  He wanted to protect his family and farm. I mean, its not like I’m a fuzzy bunny.  I’m a predator.  I’m an animal.  And once that sun goes down, things might be a lot worse.  If my suspicions are right, I might be up for a long night.”

Scott really enjoyed the bluff with the open sky and the nice cloud forms of puffy shapes.  He could eye out little bits and pieces of shapes.  One looked like a frying pan.  Another like a face looking down.  And other farther away looking like small vehicles and a puppy dog with two tails.  And the smells of the grass and the weeds and the dirt.  Earthy smells that would instantly draw his nose to the ground to investigate canine sense of smell.  He knew that there were stories of poisonous mushrooms but the smell was so invigorating, he just had to take a taste.  First licking with his long tongue, getting the texture to savor on his upper lip, he goes right in and bites and chews it down and swallows it quickly smelling for another little treat, grazing on the clover patches when he finds them, between the smells of the mushrooms as he realizes how quickly his organic form needs nourishment.  He loved the texture of the clovers and the nice mushroom chewy substance in his mouth.  He stops all together searching for the white farm house below the bluff.  Scott can hear a slow trinkling sound of water from a  running creek going to the bluffs edge.  Scott trots to it.  He indulges in the nice cool water, licking up a storm to quench his thirst enjoying the waters tastes and feels as much as the clover and mushrooms, but yet for entirely different reasons.  With the texture of the food being so much different than the wetness of the water or the tearing of the flesh earlier, Scott quickly puts that to the back of his head and just shakes it off, at the same time in a way, getting the water off the bottom of his chin.  Scott grunts with satisfaction of that and goes back to the mission at hand, finding the house.  Casually just looks up from the water falling over the bluffs edge, he can see the white shape of the house below.  He moves dangerously  towards the edge of the bluff for a better look.  Scott watches as a woman comes out of the house with a basket of clothes, hanging them on the clothesline towards the back of the door of the farmhouse.  Four smaller figures of dogs clumsily follow her while chasing each other.  Playing like puppies do.  The bigger one of the bunch looks like a pitbull.  Another looks like a poodle.  The third looks like a small hairy rat without a nose.  And the last is a Scottish terrier, gray with white spots.  The smaller one runs frantically and barks at all the bigger dogs.  The bigger dogs chase the smaller one in futile attempts to catch the small dog off guard and it always jets away just in the nick of time before the dog gets tackled down in their thunder of play as they slowly progress towards the owner busily hanging the clothes on the line, the white flowered sheets and pillow cases flapping in the wind in unison with her long brown flowery dress altogether kicking in the air as the bursts of wind come bouncing off the bluff at the same time into the wolves face.  The small cloud earlier moves a little faster as it blocks out the rays of the sun.  it
’s the one that looked like the small automobile, moved forward right towards him like the light just turned green on an invisible street .  Scott grins his canine teeth at that thought.  Looking back down, he sees now that the small dog has gotten one of her

socks out of the clothes basket along the bristly grass at the lady
’s feet and now not only are the dogs chasing the small rat like canine with long hair, but the lady is as well and they all join in.  The dogs thinking that it’s a new game go and try to rescue the sock from the small canines mouth.  The lady being shoeless falls and all the dogs pile up on her.  The small dog instantly drops the sock and runs to play with the others.  She  gets up, picks up the sock, finds one of the dogs toys a ball and throws it.  As all five dogs go to chase that one ball, the lady goes back to the clothesline with the sock.  The sock once pink and bright, now looked more dirty than when she washed it.  She sticks it in the empty laundry basket.  Scott liked the comedy routine.  She might be more accepting to the notion of befriending me.  But I might have a problem with all those other dogs.  I just don’t know how they are gonna react.  Scotts ears perk up and his head jerks back in a start as he hears movement in the brush behind him, completely leaving all attention away from the little farmhouse down below.  Scott can’t smell what’s coming from that way being upwind, but sees a shadow behind a tree move a little.  Scott instantly crouches down in gard ready to lunge on anything that comes out of that brush, his teeth smiling in a wicked,  grin and a low growl emerges out of him from nowhere.  Scott almost feels possessed at times when this happens, but figures its just some kind of deep rooted survivor instinct, like when he ate in the cave and didn’t know it.  Or went into a dream like state while running away from the pack.  He appreciated it, sure, but it scared the hell out of him at times too.  Almost as if the inner werewolf was still there with its thirst for blood and a need to kill.  He leaps towards the darkness and lands his front paws precisely at the spot he saw the movement.  Nothings there.  Scott turns to the left and right and then turns again, surveying, looking, smelling with his nose.  The wind is blowing in the wrong direction, but Scott tries anyway.  Now straight ahead he sees a face appear out from a knot in the tree and then submerges back into the tree.  Scott wonders what the heck is that.  Crouched down again, he leaps again toward the tree.  He smells harder.  With a more strange aroma than the woods, but Scott can’t  just place it.  As he looks into the rotted gore of the trees knot with sprouts of life popping out, Scott sees nothing.  Now a white transparent head slowly appears from behind Scotts tail and rises.  Now a shoulder rises.  Scott senses it and turns to see a lady standing before him scrowling.  She has a determined look on her face of unease or pleasure toward the wolf as she slowly creeps up from the surface of the woods through the scattered leaves and brush, without making a sound.  Scott looks puzzled as his body turns to face the creature.  In a stern voice the lady says, “What is your purpose moon beast?”