The farmers burned all the kindling they could find trapping the wolves on three sides. The remaining side was too close to the houses.
‘Let’s finish them all off, teach them to prey on our stock’
Jack raised his torch, his friends followed suit, cheering.
‘Yay!’
‘Death to the wolves!’
Aadi saw the flames from his window and hurried to the forest.
He found the wolves and ran to them shouting
‘RUN. THE FIRE WILL GET YOU!’
‘It’s a trap’ Dolph wandered in the opposite direction.
‘Would you rather burn to death?’ Gonzalo followed Aadi.
The cubs stood in between them looking from one to the other.
Lovato moved towards Gonzalo.
‘Let’s go’
The cubs followed Lovato.
Dolph pushed past them and ran ahead.
Gonzalo was at the back of the pack nearing the edge of the woods when Jack and his friends started firing their guns. Dodging the bullets, he caught his legs in a barb wire fence. Aadi saw the blood and ran towards him.
He tore a spare t shirt from his rucksack into strips and wrapped round the wolf’s legs.
***
The Wolf looked at Aadi and his food offering
‘Wolves don’t eat nuts’ he said.
‘What do you eat?’
‘You can bring me some fruit.’
Gonzalo thought it best not to scare the boy. He had possibly saved him from being devoured by the pack if the winter was going to be as harsh as his intuition detected. The boy might be a good food supplier which didn’t hurt either.
‘Ok I will see what we have.’
‘Aadi most people are afraid of wolves. Why aren’t you?’
‘I’m a scout’
‘um’ Gonzalo looked back at the pack a short distance away in the trees.
‘There are so many of us.’
‘You are their leader and you’re my friend. Are you afraid of me?’
‘No. You had the opportunity to let me die, and you chose to help me live. In the chaos of the fire, it would have been easy to let us all die, but you alerted us and tended my wounds. We owe you Aadi, we don’t forget such loyalty.’