Chapter 433

The Prison Planet

... A few minutes later, he heard Lobo shake the water off in the passageway and, a second after that, the same sound from the second wolf. Looks like we’re going to have an interesting night, he thought as he raked a big pile of sliced potatoes into a skillet and put them on the fire.

Lobo slowly walked into the cave, followed closely by the new wolf, while Morales pretended to not notice them. He heard another low growl from the new wolf, but again, Lobo hushed the sound with a touch of his muzzle.

“Bear steaks tonight,” Morales called out while trying to project unconcern, and at the same time attempting to keep track of the new wolf with his peripheral vision.

As he turned to put a steak in the second skillet, he got his first real look at the wolf, which caused a grin that he didn’t try to hide. “Ah ha,” he told Lobo. “Got yourself a girlfriend, I see.”

She wasn’t as big as Lobo, but neither was there a huge amount of difference in their sizes, particularly their heights, although she did appear to be quite a bit thinner and had less bulk. Morales could see that she hadn’t been eating as regularly as Lobo. Her coloring, he noted, was a bit lighter and her muzzle was a tiny bit more pointed than his. Both of the wolves were drenched from the rain, of course.

Lobo whined at him and sat. A moment later, with yet another glance at Morales, the second wolf sank to her rump, then after a moment, slowly settled onto her stomach to began licking the bottom of her right front paw while keeping a watchful eye on the human. Now that he focused on her foot, the swelling was obvious.

Lobo whined, then looked hard at Morales before putting his muzzle close to the other wolf’s foot. Lobo’s concern was visible by his action, and Morales could “feel” his friend’s concern as well.

Morales, thinking about first aid for the strange wolf’s foot, said, “Oh, shit, Boy. You’re going to get my ass killed. She’ll eat my fucking lunch if I touch that foot.”

As if understanding, Lobo whined at Morales before touching her with his muzzle yet again, then lay beside her.

Fuck, everything was going along just fine, he thought. I managed to kill the fucking bear, dress him out and get the meat into the ice cave, and even managed to save most of the oats. Now this! What the fuck am I going to do? No way in hell is that wild animal going to let me even touch that foot, let alone do anything to help it heal – if there is anything I can do. But dammit, she obviously needs help. Unconsciously, while quietly grumbling aloud, he went about preparing their meal. Then, after another glance at the wolf, spoke to her for the first time, “Good grief, Girl, you’re half-starved. You’re gonna love this big old bear steak. Bet it will be the first cooked meat you’ve ever eaten.”

Then a thought struck. Hmmm. Even with Lobo communicating with her, she still seems less afraid of me than I would imagine she should be. I wonder if some of those scientists fed her from time to time. I’ll have to see if I can find anything in their notes when I get a chance.

While the food was cooking, he retrieved another board for their guest to eat on. This one was much too long and wasn’t sanded smooth like Lobo’s, but Morales would take care of those details after they ate. For now, he just wanted a place to put her food other than the dirt floor of the cave.

He put the board down as near to her as he dared, which certainly wasn’t very close. Even so, she growled as he did it, but again Lobo touched her with his muzzle. “You’ll understand in a minute,” Morales told her. “I know you’re used to eating your food on the ground with the hair still on, but I’m not going to put a perfectly good steak in the dirt.”

He knew she couldn’t understand him, but when he spoke to her, he used the softest voice he could muster, hoping it would help to calm her. By the time Lobo’s steak was done, the new wolf’s steak had cooled sufficiently. Again approaching carefully, he put the steak on the board before slowly pushed it closer to the new animal.

“Bet you’ve never had a bear steak before,” he told her as he backed away.

Lobo came to his feet and approached the food before turning to whine at her.

She came to her feet, looked at Morales for a moment, then at Lobo, before cautiously limping over to the food. Grabbing the steak, she began to turn, probably with the intension of moving to what she felt would be a safe distance, but she was not able to make the turn, because Lobo blocked her, again touching her with his muzzle.

Frustrated, Morales watched her lay the giant steak on the hard-packed dirt, put a foot on it and tear off a piece with a set of teeth that rivaled Lobo’s. Sighing, Morales muttered, “Well, shit. Lobo, I guess you’re going to have to teach her some table manners. Like don’t eat your steak in the dirt,” he told his friend.

Lobo whined back, then they both watched while she spent the next few seconds devouring the steak – in other words, tearing off chunks and basically swallowing them whole. Morales decided that ravenous was too mild a term to describe her appetite.

He had put her pile of potatoes on a plate to cool. Eating one to test it, he forced a smile as he boldly walked over to rake the potatoes onto the board while avoiding eye contact with the new animal.

She growled at him, but had apparently decided that he was only going to feed her, because she immediately began downing the potatoes with a vigor that was only slightly diminished.

Morales put Lobo’s food on his much smoother board even as she began licking hers, the potatoes already gone. Morales worried that she would get a splinter in her tongue, but it didn’t seem to happen. Although he heard a quiet growl coming from her while she ate and cleaned up her plate, she did seem to realize that he wasn’t going to attack or hurt her. Each time the growl became a little louder, Lobo would touch her with his muzzle and the sound would stop for a while.

Now that Morales was closer, he tried to see what was wrong with her foot, but all he could determine was that she was favoring it and it was obviously swollen.

With his food on his plate, Morales didn’t sit on his padded rock and lean back against the wall as he usually did while eating. Steeling himself and trusting Lobo to keep him safe, he slowly sank to his butt only a few feet from where she was again licking her food board.

As she began to move away, Lobo blocked her as he had before, then touched her with his muzzle.

After standing a few seconds as the two wolves stared at each other, she seemed to resign herself to Morales’ presence and sank to her belly where she began licking the foot again.

Lobo met Morales’ eyes and whined.

The human let out an exasperated sigh. “Dammit, she’ll fucking eat me if I touch that foot,” he tried to reason with his friend.

When Lobo whined again, Morales swallowed the bite, took a sip of coffee and tried to reason with the wolf. “Look, Buddy. I know you need a mate, and as far as I can tell, you picked a great one, but ... she’s wild. She won’t know that I’m trying to help her...”

As if understanding, Lobo reached to touch his muzzle to Morales, who almost spilled his coffee when the astonishingly clear thought came. It wasn’t words, but was a much clearer example of what they had been experiencing for weeks now. Not only was the thought clear, but with it came an assurance that the new wolf would comply, and it was all backed by Lobo’s feeling of worry and determination.

“Son-of-a-bitch,” Morales mumbled as he put his cup down to stare at Lobo, who grinned back at him.

Not quite knowing how to respond, Morales finished his meal, then went over to the chickens’ area to scrape his plate so they could eat the scraps. Junior cheeped questioningly at him, but Morales just shrugged and went to wash his plate and cooking utensils, all the while wondering if he would soon be wolf bit. And with all those teeth, that could very well be an interesting experience.

When everything was clean and put away, he took down the medic’s case and brought it as near the wolf as he dared. The contents of the case started out as an army medic’s case before the General’s people moved the contents to a larger case and added everything they thought a prisoner would ever need or be able to learn to use with the detailed instructions included, then sent it with the resupply case.

The wolf tensed when he put the case down, but Lobo touched her with his muzzle and she quieted. “I need to see her foot,” he told Lobo, wondering if he would soon regret this.

Morales slowly extended his hand while Lobo came to his feet to stand over the female and, after a moment, touch her with his muzzle yet again. Her low growl prompted a growl from Lobo, then a whine.

When Morales’ hand first touched the wolf’s foot and she began to stand, Lobo stared at her, now touching her face almost constantly with his muzzle.

With thoughts of how easily she tore the steak to shreds, Morales put his hand gently on her foot, all the while worrying he was going to lose the hand. Again, the growling started. Then frustrated, his temper coming to the fore, Morales snapped, “Dammit, Lobo, tell her I have to look at the bottom of her foot if I’m going to help her. And I don’t want to lose a hand doing it,” he finished with his own snarl.

Lobo made a sound, put a foot on the other wolf and put his muzzle against hers.

Morales, scared as much as he had ever been, turned the foot over as both wolves growled. “Shit,” he mumbled to himself as he searched the case for something to grasp with. After finding a long, slender thing that looked like a locking set of very thin tweezers, he used the instrument to probe into the area that was obviously causing trouble. Even he could see the problem area, because it was oozing blood and pus.

There was a sharp growl from the female and an answering louder growl from Lobo, accompanied by movement by both. With Lobo standing partially in front of the female, Morales knew that she would never get past his friend, and just ignored the growling while working the place open as gently as he could. There was a piece of wood that had entered through the bottom of her foot just behind a claw, penetrating almost through the fairly thin section of her foot at that point.

“This is gonna hurt like hell. Don’t let her bite me,” he warned his friend. Lobo, seeming to understand, leaned into the female, now growling louder than she was.

Morales worked the instrument into the edge of the wound. Knowing that he would get only one chance, as soon as he had the instrument clamped securely to the piece of wood, he held her foot with his other hand and yanked. The piece of broken branch came out, accompanied by blood and pus, and ... a scream from the female, but she was unable to move away because Lobo was basically lying on her now.

Morales dropped the clamp, glad he had already opened the tube of antibiotic ointment beforehand. He squeezed a generous portion into the cavity between the toes where the wound was located, while hoping some went into the wound itself. While the female alternated between snarling and whining, he quickly wound gauze around her foot, taped it generously and pulled a latex sock over the foot.

Morales wasn’t familiar with most of the drugs contained in the case, but he had been given amoxicillin before and was reasonably certain dogs could tolerate it. He hoped wolves could, too. After dumping the contents of a capsule into a piece of bread, he drizzled some of the cane syrup over it, then holding it with two fingers, held it close to the new wolf’s muzzle.

As she sniffed, “Tell her to eat it, Lobo. It will help her foot get better.”

Lobo looked at him, then the bread-wrapped medicine. Reaching out his long tongue, he licked a drop of the syrup off the piece before whining at the female who growled again. But before Morales could even react, she snapped the tidbit out of his fingers. He was almost afraid to look, but when he did, he let out a sigh. His fingers were still there.

Laying a hand on his friend, Morales spoke while hoping he was telling the truth, “Tell her she’ll get better now, but she’ll have to take the medicine for a few days.”