The Year's Best Science Fiction, Vol. 20

I sent up Goldie and in a moment I saw on the monitors two-no, three-no, five- wolves running in circular patterns, running into the herd briefly and out again. I had no idea what was going on.

On the ground, all I saw were quick brown streaks through the grass. Glimpses, only. I had no idea they were so fast. They barely registered before I lost them.

I watched their faces on the monitors, tongues out, running easily, looking as if they were laughing. It didn’t look serious. I couldn’t see Jack. I had Goldie fly in circles. I had to get pictures of Jack.

I finally caught him loping just below the herd. He was running easily, not working hard just yet. Watching the wolves. It looked like he was calling to them but Goldie’s audio couldn’t pick him out.

Then he changed direction and sprinted towards one edge of the herd. Three wolves came in behind a single huge bull and two others danced around between the herd and the bull.

“Jesus,” I said. Didn’t wolves go after the weak or the sick? Cows and calves? Maybe the bull was old.

The bull stood his ground against two of the wolves, menacing them with his antlers but that freed one to nip at his back legs. He lashed out and the wolf flew five feet and rolled, came up again and back towards the bull. This was not a weak or sick bull. This was a giant buck full in his prime.

The other two wolves succeeded in turning the herd away. The herd ran off to my left. Goldie got some good shots of them leaving. Now, the bull was on his own.

Goldie circled as the wolves worried the bull. He wouldn’t run. He faced one, then two, then three of them, all the while being worried by any wolf he was not directly facing. It didn’t look like hard work but foam came from his mouth and his sides were heaving.

Then he broke and ran and the wolves worked him into a circle, two wolves chasing him and nipping him, three holding back and taking turns. Jack moved between the bull and me. He pulled out his knife and then disappeared into the long grass.

The bull was growing tired. Even so, he caught one wolf that got too careless and tossed him twenty feet. The wolf lay still.

Three wolves shot forward and snapped at his legs while only one stayed in front.

The bull ran forward at the wolf. The wolf darted out of the way-I saw it was Akela. The bull was running straight towards me.

I saw him running directly at me, his eyes focused ahead, seeing his only chance and going for it. I could feel his hooves pounding through the soles of my shoes. I couldn’t seem to hear anything; all sound had disappeared from the world.

Jack leaped from where he had been hiding in the grass. In two eight-foot bounds, he was running just to the side of the bull’s head. Without stopping, the bull brought his head down to bring the antlers to bear on him. Jack leaped and caught them. He was in the air with his knife hand below the throat of the bull. The bull tossed his head back to throw Jack aside and the force of it drove the knife deeply in and across his throat.

Jack was thrown in the air, landed curled and rolling, bounced to his feet and ran after the elk.

The bull staggered, blood pouring from his throat as if from a bucket, ropes of it hanging from his muzzle. He shook his head slowly. Jack caught up with him and drove the knife into his eye. The elk fell, boneless and flaccid, to the ground.

Jack didn’t say anything for a long second. Then, he punched the air with his fist and cried out: “Yes!”

“Jesus,” I said.

Jack heard me, looked up at me and grinned.

I had never seen so much blood in my life. The ground was stained with it ten feet around the bull. The wolves were covered with it as they merrily tore the elk apart. Goldie stood on my shoulder and took sequence after sequence. This was great footage.

“Did you see that?” he said standing next to me. Jack was drenched in elk blood from neck to knees, his fur coarse with it, his hands burnt red to the elbows. “Did you just see it?” He shook his head and grinned at me. “I’ve wanted to do that for years. Since I was a kid.” Still grinning, he looked around.

“I bet,” I said, watching Goldie in the monitors.

After a moment, I noticed Jack had grown silent.

I looked up from the monitor and didn’t see him. “Jack?” I called.

“Over here.”

I followed his voice over a small rise and found him in the deep grass. He was tending to the fallen wolf. There was an angry set to his mouth. The wolf’s whole side had been opened and I could see the ribs and muscles exposed. Mostly, the wolf panted but every now and then he yipped as Jack probed the wound. Once, he snapped at Jack’s fingers.

“It’s not as bad as it looks,” Jack said suddenly and I wondered who he was trying to convince: himself or me.

“It looks pretty bad.”