The Last Wolf

by: John Cox (jcoxi@hotmail.com)

The smell of the cool fall air hung heavy in my nostrils and my chest seared with pain as I struggled for my next breath.  The pale fall moon just barely lit the trail as one footstep after another found uncertain purchase upon the soft soil beneath. The old backpack I had found in my basement made my journey over the trail even more perilous as the weight of its bouncing contents caused me to struggle for balance.  Finally, out of breath pushing through the woods ahead of the snarling wolves I skidded to a stop in front of the cliff and realized my all too certain fate.

No place to go and out of time to think.  I could either leap from the cliff to certain death or face the consequences of a million bad decisions. It would be a fight to stay alive, because there are no victims in nature only predator and prey working out their survival in an eternal dance.  We humans, in our arrogance, have forgotten this as we live out tired lives in self-contained, air conditioned and cushion safe environments. Asleep to the real nature of things, we visit zoos filled with the earth’s most aggressive creatures and believe them cute and cuddly. But let me assure you as my present situation can attest, the eyes looking back at you through those class enclosed cages see only food.  

I quickly dropped the backpack from my shoulders, grasp one of the straps with my best arm and swing as hard as I can as my first attacker leapt for my throat.  I know I connect as I hear a loud yelp as both the wolf and the back pack continue their union over the edge of the cliff falling freely to their doom. I gotta say, I really liked that backpack it’ll be missed, but it was a good trade.

As I finished my spin I could hear the second and third coming at me one on the tail of the other. I lay up a round-house kick, thinking this is an odd circumstance in which to apply the tae kwon do lessons I had so many years ago. As the kick connects another loud yelp and the faint snap of bones breaking as the ball of my foot sinks deeply into the second wolf’s chest cavity. But there is no time to congratulate myself as its body falls limp to the ground.

The third animal, having taken advantage of the opening created by my defense against its companion, sinks its teeth deep into the hamstring of my left leg. The pain is excruciating, causing me to drop to my knees just as the animal parried around for a second attack at my throat. I catch it by the neck redirecting the attack into a strange sideways summersault that took us both sliding over the edge of the cliff. 

I managed to catch myself by curling my fingers deeply into the rocky outcrop for grip, an advantage of a species descended from monkeys I guess. In pain and exhausted from the battle, I work myself up onto the precipice. Roll to my back with some sense of self-congratulations, just as a fourth wolf made its presence known, standing over me tongue dripping saliva and eyes glaring into mine. I am totally exposed there is no defense now, all the animal had to do is act and I would have been done. I didn’t even bother crying out I just lay there exhausted, accepting the fact that I was going to die.

But strangely, it didn’t attack it just stood over me for what seemed like forever, looking into my eyes as if saying, “I see your true nature and you’ve earned this gift I freely give, at least until we meet again.”  It then took off disappearing into the forest as I lay bleeding from the wound on my leg.

I am much older now; let me assure you that a singular event can forever changed your life.  Since that day I have tried to live my life, for better or worse, with the same intensity.  I visit this spot every year and have for a couple of decades now.  I am certain, that one wolf, the one that let me live, has long ago died.  But as I sit at the edge of this cliff, the crisp breeze filling my senses with the smells and tastes of autumn, a quickening comes over me and the scar tissue on my left leg begins to throb as if the creature’s spirit were reaching out to tell me “one day, brother human, not long from now, you and I will meet again.”