“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Jack.”
“We won’t find out until we take a look.”
“I didn’t hear anything,” Manny said.
“I did.”
“We should go back. It’s getting late.”
“I’m going,” Jack said, climbing out of the creek bed. Manny followed as he’d always done. They’d entered the world from their mother’s womb three minutes apart, with Jack leading the way. Manny had followed his older twin ever since.
The whimper was urgent now and fueled by pain. It was Manny who found the source first. They’d climbed on top of the boulder.
“It’s a wolf cub,” Manny said. Jack moved forward until he saw it too. The cub’s right front paw was caught in a large, iron trap. It was evident from the whining and the odd way it was trying to stand that the cub was in pain.
The two boys gave each other a glance. Both knew that meat—any meat—was sparse, and for them to come home with something that could feed at least part of their group would be a big deal. Their status would instantly rise from mere children, dependent on their elders, to young men, able to take on some of the group’s responsibilities.
When they climbed down the side of the boulder and approached the cub, it didn’t move. Jack didn’t realize just how young it was until they stood in front of it. Half its fur was blackened and singed, the other half burned off entirely. The trap had caught its right front leg half-way up, and the shin and foot were soaked in blood.
Jack could almost feel the animal’s pain himself. He held his knife inside his pocket, readying himself to cut the cub’s throat. The boys had watched other members of their group of survivors slaughter animals before, and Jack was fairly sure of what to do.
He’d planned to move around the cub and get behind it. From there it would be relatively easy to hold it and slit its throat. But when he saw the cub up close, all he could think of was to open the trap and set it free.
“Help me open the trap,” Jack said after a moment’s hesitation.
“What?”
“The trap. We need to open it and I can’t do it by myself.”
“We can’t do that.”
“Why?”
“We have to go back and tell them that there’s a wolf cub in one of the traps.”
“But they’ll kill it,” Jack replied, louder than he’d intended. He was sure now. He wouldn’t kill the cub or go back to the village and tell them of a new food source. He could only hope it wouldn’t die out here, injured and without the ability to hunt for itself.
“It’ll die anyway,” Manny replied. “It’ll die without food.”
“You don’t know that—”
“And if it doesn’t die, if it survives and gets stronger and becomes a full-grown wolf, it will come back and try to kill us.”
Jack didn’t want to admit that Manny was right.
“Besides,” Manny continued, “we can’t set the trap back. It’ll be closed with nothing in it, and they’ll know someone must have freed whatever was in there.”
Damn you, Manny! Jack thought. He couldn’t argue with his brother’s logic. He was right.
“I’m going back to tell them,” Manny said as he turned and began to climb up the boulder.
“Manny!”
“I’m going back to tell them,” his brother repeated without turning. “You can come or not. It’s up to you.”
Manny was gone. It would take him thirty minutes to get to the village and another thirty to bring someone back. Jack didn’t think. He didn’t consider the possible consequences for himself or the village. He only saw the pain the cub was in, the terror in its eyes. Its silent plea for help.
He knelt before the trap. A grown man could probably open the trap alone, but Jack knew he wasn’t strong enough. Nevertheless, he had to try. He put his hands on either side of the iron jaws and pulled. The cub was still, as if it knew that moving might result in further injury. It watched him carefully.
Jack was able to pull the claws apart a quarter inch, but it wasn’t enough. The cub whimpered when Jack eased them back together around its leg. He needed to prevent the claws from closing once he pulled them apart. He needed to pull harder and farther than he did before.
Jack sat down with the trap between his legs and grabbed the two sides of its jaws and pulled. He was able to move the claws farther apart than the first time, but it still wasn’t enough for the cub to remove his foot. Jack felt his strength waning. The sharp edge of the iron cut into his hands and tears filled his eyes. He screamed his frustration, fueling his arms with one last ounce of strength. Jack’s muscles were cramping, and just when he was about to give up, the cub pulled its paw out of the trap. The blood had made the fur on its leg slippery enough to slide out.
Jack let go and the trap snapped shut. He expected the cub to run, but it cowered instead, licking its injured leg. The wound was raw and deep and caked with dirt and blood. Jack took the handkerchief off his neck and soaked it in the stream.
“Let me take a look,” he said, slowly stretching out his hand toward the cub. It didn’t resist, but its whining asked for tenderness. Jack gently took the paw and cleaned the wound as best he could, then ripped the handkerchief in half and wrapped one part around the cub’s leg to staunch the flow of blood.
“You need to leave,” he said, lightly petting the cub’s head. It responded by pushing its ears against his fingers. The young wolf was in no hurry to leave Jack’s loving touch. “You need to get out of here. Do you understand? You have to go!”
Jack stopped stroking the cub’s head and pushed at its side, away from the direction Manny had walked. But the animal refused to go. Its whole body shivered, and it pulled itself forward until its head rested against Jack’s palm again. But the boy knew what had to be done and pushed the cub a few more times and finally—afraid one of the villagers would walk around the boulder and see them—he picked it up and carried it downstream, scratching its ears as he went. The village was several miles upstream from where he was. He figured he’d go down another mile and leave the cub there. After that, it was on its own.
Ten minutes later, his back and shoulders ached so much, he had to stop and set the cub down. It hobbled a few feet away from him, still unable to put any weight on its injured leg. It looked miserable.
“Come on now,” Jack said as he picked it back up and continued their journey downstream. A series of rock formations stood a few hundred yards to the west, near the stream but relatively hidden behind a cluster of low-standing pine trees. Jack climbed across the rocks to a small gap between two of the boulders. The overhang there was large enough to give shelter from the rain and protection from prying eyes that might look up from the creek. Only by climbing the rocks as he had would anyone see the small dugout. Jack hoped that wouldn’t happen.
“This will make a nice den for you, at least for a while. You stay here. Okay? I’ll be back tomorrow to get you something to eat. It won’t be much. Don’t leave!”
The cub appeared even smaller now as it lay, back pushed against the flinty wall of the hollow, licking the handkerchief. Though Jack expected to be punished once Manny returned and the villagers learned what he’d done, he ran upstream just the same. Part of him regretted setting the cub free. It would most likely die anyway, either from hunger or from the infection in its leg. He should have killed it and brought it back to the settlement, he knew. Everything would have been better. Perhaps even for the cub, blessed with a merciful, quick death.
The pain was red.
It wasn’t only in his leg. It radiated upward into his chest. When he slept, his fever dreams were filled with images of crows pecking at the wound, piercing the slowly healing skin and ripping out large chunks of it.