The fear of the predators of this place was not so much his concern now. The sound of the helicopter and the disturbance of all the people traipsing through the forest in the middle of the night would do all he needed it to keep the forest clear and predators at bay, for a time at least.
He crashed through the forest. He wasn’t concerned with stealth so much as speed and he ran as fast as his legs would carry him. He kicked up pine needles as his toes gripped the earth with each stride. The wind rushing past him was contesting with the sound of the helicopter for dominance over his hearing and he found himself smiling. Even now, being hunted as he was, with adrenaline pumping and blood flowing freely through his veins he was truly alive.
He concentrated on the ground and the trees. There was nothing else, even the sound of the wind and the hunting helicopter faded from his consciousness. All there was in his universe was the ground, the trees, and his running. Nothing else existed.
He reached the river and slowed. He listened and studied the sound of the helicopter. It seemed to be far behind him but the sound was changing and seemed to be making a regular beating pattern. The helicopter was circling. It had found his kitchen and was studying it making several passes around it. It was the only logical explanation. Studying that place meant that they weren’t coming down the hill yet and that meant that he could cross the river in relative safety.
He ran up stream till he found the shallow ford that he had used many times and ran across. His legs kicked up great sprays of water and made a lot of noise. The water cooled and massaged his feet as they slammed down into the surface of the moving water and gripped the smooth rock bed. His toes spread and he had good footing as he crossed the river and clambered up the opposing river bank.
Once on dry land he turned back to face southward and listened to the helicopter. It was still making the same beating pattern it had a moment ago. The helicopter was still circling but the beats of the pattern were getting longer and slower. He knew that the helicopter was widening its search radius. It would take them a long time to reach the river at this pace, but he also knew that he couldn’t outrun a helicopter. He turned northward and began to run up the opposite hillside.
He let his well-conditioned leg muscles carry him up the hillside past the remains of the deer carcass he had shared with his pack a few nights ago. Her skeleton gleamed in the soft moonlight that filtered down through the trees. The skeleton was in good shape, and it was very clean. After he had run with his wolves’ other animals must have come to finish the meal. Maybe coyotes, maybe other smaller rodents, probably a combination of both.
Leaving the carcass behind he continued to run uphill. He hadn’t had any real clear idea about where he was going but his legs were carrying him on a familiar path. If the helicopter was circling it could close the distance between itself and him very quickly. He hated that damn machine that beat nature into submission with its rotor blades. By all laws of physics, the helicopter shouldn’t be able to fly. The dynamics of flight of an airplane to work in harmony with natural air currents was absent when discussing the flight dynamics of a helicopter. The blades spun at speed till the air itself is forced to lift the damn thing off the ground. That is what he had come to expect of people. Why live or act in harmony with something when you could just beat it till it served or acted in the way that you wanted it to?
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He found himself on the ridgeline of his valley. He stopped and took in his surroundings, allowing the burning sensation in his tired leg muscles to relax and rest for small time. He looked south over his valley. He saw the tiny helicopter in the distance with its bright beam of artificial light shooting out of the underside like a light saber, cutting the curtain of night as cleanly as a razor blade through butter. He could make out some other small lights making their way clumsily through the trees.
He knelt over the rock that made up this high part of the valley. He stroked the cool rock surface and rested his hand on the rough mineral. This valley had been his home for so long and now he was being forced out. He leaned over and rested his head on the rock face. He closed his eyes and there, within full sight of his lunar mother, two single tears dropped from his eyes. They made an infinitesimally small splash and he breathed in a deep ragged breath.
“Mother, please forgive me.”
He prayed for the loss of his home and his pack. He asked for forgiveness for not being strong enough to do what was necessary. He asked to be forgiven for allowing these invaders to take what they wanted and to do as they pleased with no regard for the natural laws that he had lived by for close to two years. He asked for forgiveness for having to leave his valley and all those that he had protected behind.
He lifted himself up and looked south again. The tears were gone from his eyes but the pain of seeing that machine in the air didn’t hurt any less. He stood up in one fluid motion and looked around his present location. He knew this place. This was where he had been blessed by his mother a few nights ago. He spun around and scanned the rock. He shifted and walked a few steps, scanning the ground. He trotted a few steps forward than back again. His head moved to the right and left while his well attuned eyes took in every detail of the curvature of the rock and the folds and the dirt that had collected in the crevices of the rock face. He turned around once more, and his eyes found what he was looking for. He knelt and scooped up half a pair of his denim shorts. These were his shorts that he had ripped when he changed. But this was only one half. He would need to find the other half. He wasn’t going to leave a breadcrumb for these cops to follow. He wanted his trail cold and stale by morning.
He continued to search the area in a circular pattern from where he had found the first piece of his shorts. The rock in this small area seemed to be rougher than the area he had just come from. As a result of that there seemed to be more dirt and moss growing in the crevices of the rock face. He reached down for what at first looked like the other half of his shorts, but his hand closed around a clump of dense moss. He kept looking.
He was naked and exposed on the rock face. He knew that his time was short, but he wasn’t going to leave without the evidence of his missing clothes. He looked for the other half of his denim shorts.
With little warning, he was suddenly bathed in a pool of purest white light and was deafened by a roar of wind and a terrible sound that drowned out everything else.