Part 4
Alex ran without looking back. His heart hammered against his ribs, a frantic rhythm loud enough that he thought the trees could hear it. Wet pine branches whipped across his face, stinging his cheeks, and the thawing earth sucked at his boots with every step.
“Come on, Gray! Keep moving!” he hissed over his shoulder.
The wolf didn’t need the encouragement. Despite the lingering stiffness in his right hind leg, Gray moved through the dense timber with an effortless, ghostly silence. He was slipping back into his element, dodging deadfalls and navigating the slippery mud while Alex stumbled and snapped dry branches like a panicked deer.
The north ridge trail wasn’t on any county map. It was an old, overgrown logging switchback Greg had mapped out years ago, winding up through heavy brush and jagged limestone outcroppings. Greg had always told him: The backcountry doesn’t care if you’re scared, Al. You survive by remembering the terrain. Every split in the trail, every dead pine. Alex forced himself to focus, banking left at a lightning-scarred oak, heading deeper into the heavy timber where the trucks couldn’t follow.
After twenty minutes of a grueling, uphill sprint, Alex’s lungs burned. He slowed to a heavy jog, then stopped, bracing his hands against his knees to drag in ragged breaths. He listened. The roar of the truck engines was gone, swallowed by the miles of dense forest.
“Let’s catch our breath,” Alex wheezed, wiping sweat and dirty rainwater from his forehead.
Gray stood a few yards ahead, his paws planted in the damp pine needles. He turned his massive head, fixing Alex with a look that felt unnervingly perceptive. He let out a low, rough exhale.
“We have to keep going,” Alex agreed, pushing himself upright. “Just to the old cabin.”
They were nearing a low draw, a depression in the ridge that flooded every spring with snowmelt. Alex knew they had to skirt the edge of the freezing water, a detour that would leave them exposed on a narrow strip of rocky ground. He took a step forward, but Gray suddenly froze.
The wolf’s amber eyes locked onto the dense brush to their right. The thick fur along his spine stood straight up. He dropped his center of gravity, lowering his massive head until it was nearly level with his shoulders.
Alex stopped breathing. Bear? he thought, his chest tightening. It was early for grizzlies, but a hungry boar waking up from the winter freeze was entirely possible.
Then, he heard the heavy, unmistakable crunch of a human boot snapping a dry branch.
Through the tangle of winter-dead ferns, a figure emerged. It was Warden Bragg. He had a scoped hunting rifle gripped in both hands, his face flushed red from the climb. He was moving fast, cutting a diagonal path that would intersect the trail perfectly. He hadn’t just followed them; he had driven his truck up the old logging road and hiked down to cut them off.
“Get down,” Alex whispered, dropping behind a rotting deadfall and pulling Gray by the scruff.
They crouched in the freezing mud. Bragg was less than thirty yards away. He paused, scanning the damp ground, breathing heavily through his nose. His eyes locked onto the fresh, deep impressions of Alex’s boots and the massive, unmistakable paw prints beside them.
Bragg clicked the safety off his rifle. The metallic snap echoed like a gunshot in the quiet woods.
Gray didn’t wait.
The wolf exploded from behind the deadfall. He didn’t bark or howl. He moved with the terrifying, silent speed of an apex predator. Before Bragg could even swing the barrel of his rifle around, Gray hit him. The sheer kinetic force of a hundred and eighty pounds of muscle slamming into the warden’s chest threw Bragg backward off his feet.
The rifle flew from Bragg’s hands, clattering into the brush.
“Gray, no!” Alex screamed, scrambling over the rotting log.
Bragg hit the ground hard, the wind knocked out of his lungs in a sharp gasp. He scrambled backward, his boots kicking uselessly at the mud. Gray stood directly over him. The wolf didn’t bite, but he planted his heavy front paws on either side of the warden’s chest, bared teeth dripping saliva inches from Bragg’s face. A deep, vibrating snarl rolled from the wolf’s throat—a sound of pure, ancient violence.
“Call him off!” Bragg choked out, his face completely drained of color, his hands raised in a desperate surrender. “Call him off, kid!”
“Gray, back away!” Alex yelled, his voice cracking with panic. He grabbed the thick fur at the back of the wolf’s neck and pulled with all his weight.
For a terrifying second, Gray didn’t yield. His yellow eyes remained locked on the warden’s throat. But the tension in his heavy muscles finally broke. He stepped backward, shaking off Alex’s grip, but he positioned himself firmly between the boy and the man, continuing his low, unbroken growl.
Bragg didn’t try to stand. He stayed on the ground, his chest heaving, his eyes wide with shock.
“Get your gun and leave us alone,” Alex said, his voice shaking, though he forced himself to stand tall. “He didn’t hurt you. But if you try to shoot him, he won’t stop next time.”
Bragg slowly pushed himself up into a sitting position, keeping his eyes glued to the wolf’s teeth. He reached out with a trembling hand, grabbing the strap of his rifle and dragging it toward him. He didn’t try to raise it.
“You’re out of your mind, kid,” Bragg rasped, slowly getting to his feet and backing away. “That thing is going to kill you the second it gets hungry. You tell your old man this isn’t over. He humiliated me in front of my supervisors. You’re both going to pay for this.”
Bragg turned and disappeared into the trees, moving as fast as his trembling legs would carry him, glancing over his shoulder every few seconds.
Alex stood in the cold mud until the sound of Bragg’s boots faded completely. He dropped to his knees, his hands shaking so violently he had to press them against his thighs. Gray turned, the aggression evaporating instantly. The wolf nudged Alex’s shoulder with his heavy, wet snout, letting out a soft whine.
“I’m okay,” Alex breathed, burying his face in the wolf’s neck. “I’m okay. We need to get back to Dad.”
By the time they navigated back down to the cabin, the Fish and Game trucks were gone. Greg was standing on the porch, a heavy hunting rifle resting loosely against his leg. When he saw Alex and the wolf emerge from the tree line, the rigid tension in his shoulders collapsed. He set the rifle against the wall and jogged down the steps.
“You’re alright,” Greg said, grabbing Alex by the back of the neck and pulling him in. “Bragg track you?”
“He cut us off at the draw,” Alex said, his words spilling out in a rush. “He had his rifle out, Dad. Gray hit him. Just knocked him down, didn’t bite him. But he had him pinned.”
Greg’s face hardened. “Where is he now?”
“He ran off. He said you humiliated him in front of his bosses.”
Greg let out a slow, heavy breath. He looked down at the wolf, who was calmly sniffing the hem of his jeans. “The regional supervisors showed up. Three of them. Did a full sweep of the property. Wanted to see if I was holding a nuisance predator.”
“What happened?”
“Nothing,” Greg said flatly. “I happen to know the regional director from my time out in the oil fields in Wyoming. He didn’t find a wolf, so he told Bragg to drop the vendetta and get back to town. Bragg must have driven his personal truck up the logging road to try and catch you with the evidence himself.”
Greg crouched down in the dirt, looking Gray squarely in the eyes. He reached out, resting a calloused hand on the animal’s broad head. “You kept him safe. You did your job.”
The wolf leaned into the touch, closing his eyes for a brief second.
Greg stood back up, looking at Alex. His expression was heavy with a sad, unyielding truth. “He assaulted a game warden today, Al. Bragg was off the books, so he won’t report it right now, because he’d have to explain what he was doing out there with his safety off. But he won’t let it go. He’ll wait. He’ll come back with state troopers.”
Alex swallowed hard. The cold wind bit at his wet face. He looked at Gray, then at his father. “I know.”
“He has to go back, Alex. Deep into the backcountry. Where they can’t track him.”
“I know,” Alex repeated, his voice barely a whisper. “When?”
“Tomorrow,” Greg said quietly. “First light. We’ll hike him up to the northern ridges. There’s a pack up there he can run with. It’s the only way he survives this.”
That night, the cabin was agonizingly quiet. The fire cracked in the woodstove, casting flickering shadows against the log walls. Alex lay on the pull-out sofa, staring at the ceiling. He didn’t bother trying to sleep.
Gray lay on the braided rug next to him. The wolf wasn’t asleep either. Every few minutes, he would lift his heavy head, his amber eyes catching the firelight as he looked at the boy.
Alex reached a hand down, resting it on the wolf’s thick, coarse back. He felt the steady, powerful rhythm of the animal’s breathing. He didn’t want to say goodbye. He didn’t want the morning to come. But as he listened to the wind howling through the canyon, he realized his father was right. Gray wasn’t a pet to be hoarded. He was a piece of the wild. And keeping him here would only end in blood.