"Hunger in the High Country" by Andy Martin

NEW MEXICO, 1867

The aspens were like yellow fire against the pines, and the wolf, skinny, half lame, lay at their feet.

The wolf wasn’t sleeping, he was too hungry for that. He’d spent an eternity in the high country, scratching mice and chipmunks out of the rocks, cracking them between his teeth, slurping them down. Swallowing even these small morsels caused agony as they passed ribs that were still healing. The skinny wolf’s ribs hurt so bad that there was a chance he wouldn’t get up again, but he had to stay low, stay out of the breeze that turned the yellow leaves above him on their scalloped edges.

He stayed low because of the old bull.

The elk was huge, a spread of antlers wider than the wolf was long atop his head like the crown of a mountain god. But seeing how the old bull moved, slow, favoring his left back leg, seeing the clouds overs his eyes, the wolf knew that even a mountain god could die.

A week or so ago, the wolf had gotten bold or crazy or just plain sick enough of scratching chipmunks out of their holes that he’d charged the bull. He’d ignored the pain, the ache of ribs just starting to knit because the elk was so head down on his feed that the wolf thought he could hamstring the old bull. Then his claws clicked across a quartzite boulder half hidden in the grass and the bull whirled, snorting, those flashing tines cutting the air inches from the wolf’s jaws. He ducked and rolled clear under the bull as it reared up to crush him and out the other side. The wolf ended up on his paws and sprinted, yelping out of the clearing.

That near miss had cost the wolf several days, too sore and weak to so much as scratch a chipmunk from its hole. Magpies waited in the branches above him and argued about whether he’d live or die. Eventually, sick with hunger and thirst, he’d dragged himself to a stream to drink. With the little strength the water afforded him, he’d managed to nose through the leaf litter until he’d choked down enough grubs and beetles to buy another day.

Disappointed, the magpies squawked and took off, flashing white like muzzle flares.

Muzzle flare.

The wolf got up, ribs aching, legs weak, but in the flash of the magpies he had his answer. He paused, scented for the bull, and then limped across the meadow. In the shadow of a big split pine he kicked at the hard earth, lost his wind and rested, then dug again. He tugged what he found there free and dragged it to the boulder. There was more rooting in the grass and the duff, more frantic chewing, but as the moon rose, he had it all ready. The wolf retreated to the trees and collapsed, exhausted.

Now he lay under the aspens and watched as the old bull made his way into the meadow. Above them, a line of clouds fat with rain came over the snow-packed peaks and threw their shadow on the meadow.

The bull browsed his way further from the trees, closer to the boulder where the wolf had laid his trap. The wolf waited till he was sure the bull’s milky eyes were on his feed and charged. Every footstep thundered in his battered chest, and he started snarling when he was just outside kicking range. Hearing him coming, the old bull whirled, swinging those lethal tines. He rushed in, lunging then dodging, wolf and elk dancing a circle of death ever closer to the boulder. The bull slashed and the wolf snapped and bounced away, the pain in his chest there but distant because he could almost taste the bull’s flesh.

Kicking his hooves, the bull charged. The wolf bounded around the boulder and dropped like he’d fallen. Screaming, the bull lowered his head, the space between his antlers now in front of the shotgun the wolf had propped across the rock the night before. Catching the branch he’d clumsily wedged into the trigger with his teeth, the wolf pulled, the double boom of the shotgun a thousand claps of thunder to his lupine ears.

The old bull staggered across the field, one antler hanging free, his head pulped. The bull’s knees went, and he collapsed. The skinny wolf grinned and howled.

A week later, long enough for what was left of the old bull to start to go bad, and he finally had the strength to change. Later, he’d dig up the rest of his kit, his clothes, his bedroll, his gun belt. Now he sat on the boulder, the rock cool on his butt. His gamble had paid off. His chest wound, a gaping hole when last he’d been a man, was now only puckered scars and bruised skin.

He sat and flexed his fingers, marveling at the dexterity of his hands after weeks of paws. He sat taller than he had as a wolf, could see past the aspens, see clear down the mountain. Below him, wagons and cattle headed west across the plain. Somewhere down there were the men that had left him to die in the high country. As man or wolf, he would find them, and they would pay.

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Andy Martin is an archaeologist, musician, and writer who lives in South Philly with his partner and their cat. He writes about seedy rock clubs and the outdoors and his fiction has been published by DandT Publishing, Midnight Tales, Gravestone Press, the Horror Tree, and others. He can be found on Instagram as @grassapewritesandyells and as @grassapewrites.bsky.social

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