The Three Feathers - The Magnificent Journey of Joshua Aylong (3 page)

Despite the irrationality of this, there was a brief moment when Joshua decided to trust this feeling, to go with it, to embrace it. Trust. Put your life in someone else’s hands. Trust… Just before he was about to lose the feeling again, giving way to fear once more, the wolf got up.

“There is a small creek, mostly underground, but I saw where it reaches the surface for a while. We should be able to make it there before nightfall.”

And that was that. The wolf moved in front of him, leaving the grass slightly bent and much easier to navigate. Joshua followed. To where, he did not know. First he needed to get water and then see from there. One talon stride at a time.

* * *

“Grey.”

“Excuse me?”

“My name is Grey, in case you were wondering.”

Joshua was indeed just wondering what the wolf’s name was. He still wasn’t used to the instant communication between himself and the wolf. With the hens in his pen, talking to them was less immediate; the barrier between them thicker, as if there was a wall he first had to penetrate. With the wolf it seemed so clear.

At the wolf’s suggestion, they were in the process of climbing a rather large hill. Mossy rocks and the long shadows of the dwarf pines gave it an eerie feel. The wolf didn’t seem to notice. Nose on the ground he lead the way through the forest, sometimes stopping in his tracks, ears up and listening intently.

“Not far from here, on the other side, there is a small cave where we can stay during the night,” he thought to Joshua as the image of a small cave appeared in his mind. It had begun to snow slightly and Joshua was glad when they reached the small cave. It was little more than an overhang in the rock, but it was large enough for both of them and there was a small tree growing under it. Joshua jumped up on one of the low branches.

“I will be right back,” the wolf thought. “There is a nest of rabbits just below.” And he was gone. Five minutes later he came back with two rabbits in his mouth. He entered the cave, lay down and started to eat them, clearly enjoying himself. Joshua watched from his branch, feeling a bit uneasy.

“I’ll leave some for you, if you want,” Grey’s thoughts reached him.

“No. Thank you. I’m… fine.”

“There were rabbits on the farm you lived in?”

“Yes. How do you know?”

“If you don’t want everything around you to know what you are thinking, you will need to learn how to guard your thoughts better.”

“I didn’t know…”

“I can see what you are thinking, very clearly. And the answer is ‘no’. I would not eat you, even if I were very hungry.”

“I’m glad,” Joshua replied, still uneasy about the subject. “There were about two dozen rabbits,” he continued. “Every Sunday one was taken. Sometimes I wondered if I would be next. I didn’t lay any eggs or have any other important functions to fulfill.”

“You looked out for the hens and chicks. You kept them safe. That’s a function.”

Joshua’s gaze grazed the moonlit valley below. His eyes stung suddenly. “I guess so. At least until I was silly enough to think I should go and leave and follow a dream. Since then there has been nothing but misery.”

The wolf looked at him. His blue eyes seemed to penetrate deep into Joshua’s soul. He couldn’t look away. He could sense depth in the wolf and wisdom but behind that he saw sadness also. After a while an image came to him of a snow covered forest. There were icicles hanging from large pines, their branches almost touching the ground thick with snow. He saw a female wolf, her front paw in a trap. There was blood all around the large iron claw that had penetrated the wolf’s skin and flesh deep into her bone. For three days Grey stayed with her, bringing her game for food. But when the hunters came on the fourth day they came to kill her. Grey fought them and killed one of them before he could raise his bow. The second hunter missed Grey by an inch but he was a great hunter from the villages by the wind gorges and his second arrow found the heart of his companion only moments after Grey had evaded the first. He wanted to die right then and there for his life seemed to have lost all its meaning without her on his side. He wanted to just step into the clearing and let the great hunter’s arrow find his heart also. Maybe in death they could find each other again, he thought. But something in him wasn’t ready for this yet. He just couldn’t bring himself to do it. She wouldn’t have wanted this, he realized. Like a warm wind from the highlands where the winds carry the warmth from the wide, sun-flooded valley up into the hills at night, it softly spoke to him of the life she wanted him to have.

So he stayed hidden until the night gave way to dawn and the hunter was gone and so was her body. He looked at the area where she had lain for three days but couldn’t see any signs of her. The snow had covered everything. The blood and even her scent were gone. It was as if she had never existed.

The wolf ran for ten days crossing the Tundra, barely stopping, barely eating, and barely feeling anything. He had wished that he could just leave his loss and run away from it and never face it again. But it followed him like a hunter stalks his prey and on the eleventh day he slowed down and let his grief catch up with him. He sank to the ground and wept until he fell into a dreamless sleep. And when he woke the next morning the emptiness in his heart was as vast as the Tundra, and as cold.

“I’m sorry,” Joshua thought. “I’m so sorry.”

“Thank you,” the wolf replied.

“You did all you could to help her.”

“I know,” Grey thought.

“You didn’t leave her there. You stayed with her.” Joshua was surprised about the bitterness that accompanied his thought.

“No. I didn’t leave her. That doesn’t make me feel less responsible. For it should have been me who died there in the cold, not her. I would have given everything for it to have been me. Everything and more.”

There was no answer to that and Joshua felt the emptiness that enveloped the wolf at that moment and he realized that this emptiness was in his heart as well.

5.
K
RIEG

Over the next few days, Joshua and the wolf walked the land, crossing streams and climbing one hill only to walk down on the other side and up onto the next. Both stayed within their own thoughts for the most part until, on the third day, they were coming over yet another hill, when they saw an old barn amongst a small settlement of buildings.

“Do you feel this?” Joshua thought.

“No. What is it?” Grey answered.

“I have felt this before. In my pen. We were two roosters at first. But the other one was almost twice my size and he picked at me and the other hens constantly. One morning the door to the pen opened and the farmer came in and grabbed the other rooster and brought him to a spot next to the house. He laid him on a large block of wood and, at that moment, a wave of fear and terror reached me… from him… like nothing I have ever felt before.”

“I felt the same from you just before I took the fox.”

They looked at each other for a moment.

“There is something down there. It’s a large animal and I think it’s afraid for its life. We have to go help him!” Joshua replied. And without any further thought he flew down the hill and toward the large barn. Grey had no choice but to follow. “We should probably avoid settlements like this,” he thought to Joshua.

“I know,” Joshua answered. “We can’t avoid this one.”

Waves and waves of fear came from within the barn and Joshua had to muster every ounce of his strength not to be overcome by the strong feeling of terror.

He flew up to a window sill and peered inside. There were three men. Two of them held the rains of a huge horse. It must have been a war horse at some point. It was massive, dark brown with a black mane, white markings and extensive feathering. The third man held something that looked like a bolt gun. Joshua had seen this before on the farm. It had been used to slaughter pigs and cows. It was usually held to the animal’s forehead and a bolt came out penetrating the scull and killing it instantly.

“They are going to kill him!” Joshua thought. “We have to do something!” He flew off the window sill and ran around the barn and through the open door. When he saw the horse from down here he was even bigger than before. He stood on his hind legs, fear clearly showing in his eyes. Joshua flew up in the air, screaming loudly while trying to lure the men’s attention toward him. The one with the bolt gun tried to kick him several times and Joshua evaded him each time but barely.

“Let’s get this over with!” One of the other two men said. “I don’t have all day! Get my rifle.” He gestured toward a shelf on one of the walls. The man with the bolt gun turned towards it.

At that moment, the wolf stepped quietly into the barn. Everything slowed down. Joshua could see the dust particles in the air around Grey’s head who stood in a beam of sunlight coming in from a gap in the barn siding. The man with the bolt gun saw him first. He was so stunned that he completely froze. The two others saw the man stop in his tracks and, following his gaze, saw the wolf as well. With a low snarl he stood, teeth bared, the coat at his neck standing up.

“You will never reach that rifle,” Grey thought to the man closest to him. Not that the man understood his thoughts but he realized at that moment that he had no chance of reaching the rifle and shooting the wolf in time. He backed away.

The horse pulled his head backwards and the reign slipped out of one of the man’s hands. The other couldn’t hold his either and the horse was suddenly free. He stood up on his hind legs causing one of the men to fall backwards, nearly missing a blow from one of the horse’s hooves. The image of the horse on its hind legs and the wolf standing across from it in the beam of light inside the barn was so powerful and awe inspiring in Joshua’s eyes that for one moment he forgot the terror he felt.

Then all hell broke loose as the wolf charged at the man with the nail gun. Joshua was struck by the men’s screams and fear for their lives. It was equal to the horse’s panic from just a minute ago. As the wolf hit the man and pushed him to the ground, the horse jumped over both of them and bolted through the open door. Joshua thought at first that the wolf would kill the man but then he realized that he was just standing on the man’s chest, his bared teeth only inches away from the man’s face. He was in absolute terror.

“We should go!” Joshua thought to the wolf. “GREY!” He yelled in his thoughts.

The wolf turned his head as if coming out of a trance. “We have to leave. Now!” For a moment longer the wolf looked at the man then he turned and ran outside, followed by Joshua.

They cleared the barn and Joshua saw Grey break through thick bushes and down an embankment to a small stream. “They are going to hunt us!” The wolf’s thoughts reached Joshua as they made their way down the stream. Joshua flew most of the time but he knew he couldn’t keep this up for much longer. “I’m too slow. I won’t make it!” Joshua thought to the wolf. “If they catch me they’ll catch you. You should run, Grey. They won’t have any interest in a rooster if they can hunt a wolf.”

“I will not leave you.” The wolf thought.

“You will have to if you want to live.”

Joshua felt his strength leave him quickly. He wasn’t used to flying or using his wings at all. In the last few days he had used them more than ever before in his life. Now he felt every push as a strain.

“Go!” He thought to the wolf. From a distance he could hear the men yelling to each other. He could only hear a few words. “Hunt. Kill. Wolf.”

“I can take them!” The wolf replied.

“No you cannot. You cannot take three men with rifles. You must go!”

“I will not.” And with that, Grey turned around and headed back toward the voices of the men.

“No, Grey!” Joshua yelled in his thoughts “You can’t do this!”

At that moment, the horse broke through the underbrush just in front of the wolf. For a second horse and wolf looked at each other, a hint of fear in the horse’s eyes. “Jump on my back,” the horse thought to Joshua.

“What?”

“You heard right. Jump on my back and hold on to my mane. That’s your only chance.”

The wolf looked flustered. A rooster riding a horse?

“Do it. NOW! Or you just saved me for nothing.”

Joshua made a conscious choice at that moment not to think about what would happen but rather to just do it. Without another thought he jumped, flew and landed on the horse’s back.

“Hold on!” The horse thought and, with that, turned around and broke through the brush and into the open meadow. What followed was the wildest ride of Joshua’s life. He dug his talons into the horse’s back and if it felt it, it didn’t let him know. He realized very quickly that he needed to stay low if he wanted to stay on at all.

The large warhorse flew across the meadow with the wolf at its side. Joshua felt the sheer power of the horse’s muscles under him but he also felt its utter joy of having escaped certain death; of running fast as the wind, pushing against the earth beneath its hooves. Joshua couldn’t help but be infected by this array of emotions and to his complete surprise he let out a rooster call that was filled with his own joy joined with the horse’s. The call was heard in the farthest reaches of the valley by creatures large and small and some of them felt the joy inside their hearts as well. And for the smallest of moments they were all with him.

* * *

They eventually slowed down into a trot and by nightfall they rested by a small stream that flowed into a still pond. The cover of snow that had fallen earlier made the night even quieter. Joshua sat on a low branch in a large pine tree. Grey lay below him on the pine needles licking his paws. They were raw from the day of running on the harsh ground. The horse stood by the edge of the pond grazing off a small patch that was more dirt than grass. His reins were tangled with small branches and covered in mud from the escape. Joshua could feel the throbbing pain the horse had in his mouth from the metal reins pulling at it all day.

“I can take these off for you if you want,” the wolf thought. Joshua saw in his mind’s eye the image of the horse lying down in front of the wolf and Grey, with his teeth, taking the leather strips of the reins and pulling them over the horse’s head.