Chapter 6

The world was in twilight, the grey moment between day and night, and I was moving amongst the people. I'd left the house, sneaking away because I didn't need or want my brothers to follow me. I thought perhaps that I was looking too far when there were a lot of people living on the reservation.

The Native Americans knew me already; most of them had seen me at least once, during the Awakening, but little beyond that. I was more like a rumor, I suppose, a ghost maybe, and some of them understood and accepted me, but many didn't. I had little knowledge of that, however, just as I knew next to nothing about any of my neighbors. Except for Joe and his family, White Cloud and a few of the tribal elders, I hadn't spoken with anyone. My new Master could be among them, I thought, and I was trusting my spirit to guide me. It seemed as if I should recognize my new Master instinctively, if I could only find him.

The first stars appeared as I moved through the reservation cautiously and for the most part it wasn't concentrated as a real town might be, but sprawled across the valley. There were large trailers and small houses here and there, with fields and small tracts of land, much of it wild and overgrown, to separate the families. I couldn't say how many people were there, but it seemed like a lot and I became hopeful as I ran and crept and even crawled through the reservation.

I watched the people moving about, many of them outside to enjoy the warm summer evening after their dinners, or visible through their windows as they sat inside, watching television or reading or whatever it is people do. I could smell the place and the humans, strong and strange smells, different from the home in which I lived, but familiar all the same. Too strong though, those scents and the sounds as well, too loud were all these people and I felt overcome at times by my senses. I was nervous and my heart would leap at every alien noise.

I was determined though, and so I was moving as a wolf might, from shadow to shadow, staying low and wary. I approached from downwind so much as possible, though even when I was caught by the shifting breeze the people didn't seem to notice me at all on the air. I didn't completely trust these humans, not for any real reason except that I was not one of them. It was very much like trailing the pack in the hills, on those occasions when I would venture high and look for Chance, my mate. I would be wary of the other wolves and watch them from a distance. This was the same for me and if I was always struck by the differences between my human self and my animal nature, now I was also reminded of the similarities.

"Who's that? What are you doing there?" A woman had spied me and it was late already, the sun having long set, but she'd caught me moving as I crossed her yard, wanting to look through the windows into her trailer.

She wasn't so old and pregnant maybe, sitting in a chair and smoking. I could smell the acrid smoke and it made my nose itch. She had a dog with her and children inside. I could hear them arguing and a man's voice yelling something, probably telling them to be quiet, or go to sleep. The dog was what caught my attention though, even more than the woman who was staring at me. It was a male and large, like a German shepherd, and he was up and barking at me.

I gave him soft barks of my own and stepped back, into the shadows as the dog came close, jumping from the porch with shoulders high and his head low. He was curious and protesting my late visit, but that was all. The woman said nothing more, or if she did I didn't hear her. Perhaps she thought her dog would run me off, but I was waiting for him, getting down to meet him and he sniffed me for a moment and then stood there as I pressed my nose close to his belly to scent his sheathed prick and the musk there.

Being a female, I was no threat to him and dogs had always liked me anyway. He nosed my cunt and satisfied himself, deciding I wasn't in heat, and so the animal went back to the woman. He paused long enough to mark the nearby leg of a rusty swingset before laying down close to her feet with his head and ears up, staying alert but relaxed.

"Get out of here. Go on. I don't know what you're doing, but do it someplace else..." the woman was telling me and her words meant very little except that there was no Master for me there.

Sometime later, maybe a week or more after my futile and incomplete search of the house for a newspaper, the paper which advertised for things like dog girls and presumably Masters, I brought up the subject with Joe during one of his evening visits.

I was signing a check, slowly and deliberately writing my name on the bottom so that Joe could buy more food and vitamins and soap, and all the things that we needed and which I'd always taken for granted. I was also paying the two boys, Jay and Mike, for the work they did everyday, although Joe told me they should be paying me, since they were having sex with me as often as they could. He promised me he'd talk to them about that, but I hadn't complained or anything and I didn't mind it very much anyway.

"Joe?" I asked and my voice cracked even on that one simple word. I hadn't spoken in a long time. Not since the funeral.

"Huh? Yeah, Dare. What is it?" He looked at me with some surprise and I think he was used to my silence.

"I ... We..." I looked at my three brothers who were sitting on the floor because it was cooler than our bed, " ... need a Master."

"Ahhhh..." The big Indian licked his lips and blinked at me and I wondered if I'd chosen the right words or not.

"A new Master," I tried, keeping my eyes on his. "For us."

"Right. Yeah, well..." he cleared his throat, " ... I'm not exactly sure how to go about finding you one of those." He chuckled softly and I tilted my head.

"Why?" I asked.

"I don't even know how Jim found you," he scratched his head. "I mean, there's probably a lot of guys who'd love to meet you, but you have to be careful."

"Careful." I nodded because that sounded important.

"Yeah, like ... Well, you have a lot of money for one thing, Dare," he said and I just shrugged, which made him laugh. "Right. I know you don't care, but you need to think about it. Um, you have to find a man who understands about your uh, situation. Right?"

"Yes," I nodded seriously.

"I just..." he held up his hands, " ... I don't know, Dare."

I finished signing the check, which I'd been doing on the hardwood floor, and I sat up slowly, leaving the funny paper and pen on the floor for Joe to pick up. My impression wasn't only that he couldn't help me find a new Master, but that he really didn't want to. Not because he didn't want to help me, I'm sure Joe did, but only because he had no idea about that sort of life. More to the point, Joe didn't want to know about it beyond what he shared with me.

"Is that why you've been going around at night?" he asked, watching my face to see if I was surprised that he knew about that. "Some people have been talking. They don't understand what you're doing."

I just shrugged, having no real answer beyond the one Joe already knew.

"You might want to just stay around here, okay?" The Indian cleared his throat and he wasn't comfortable saying this to me. "I mean, some of the folks around here, you know, they just don't ... They don't know what to think, see?"

He was telling me that I wasn't welcome around the reservation and he plainly wished that were different, but I was going around after sunset, naked and prowling the shadows. What would people be expected to think of that? There wasn't any good reason for it. None that a normal person would understand, and while I'd been safely kept by my Master, nobody had cared or even noticed. Now I was loose. The crazy girl who thought she was a dog, and that would frighten people, the way all of us are afraid of what we don't understand.

It disappointed me, perhaps even saddened me, but I couldn't blame the man for telling me. He was my only real friend and I depended on him, much more than I knew, probably. I was mostly just frustrated because there was nobody else I might ask to help me. I left Joe to sit there and went outside, wanting to run suddenly. I needed to exercise and lose some energy. I felt tight all over, coiled up and knotted. I was happy with my brothers, there was little for me to complain about, except for that longing I felt to be with someone who understood me. A Master who could own me.

The sun didn't set until late now and most often I was already asleep by the time it did, but not this evening. The pack was high in the hills now, ranging at the edge of the timberline where the mountains started, and I'd heard them many nights in a row. My mate was there. Chance was with them again and I needed him. I ran across fields and into the forest, following trails made by animals and not men. It felt good to run and my spirits were lifted in the cool shadows. I was scratched occasionally by rough brush as I passed, but I hardly noticed such things. My feet were calloused after more than two years without shoes and even the sharpest rock was a mild discomfort at worst.

I howled as I ran and entered the high meadow, startling a deer and her fawn so that they bounded quickly away. I laughed at them and kept going, working my way higher until the grass thinned and the ground became hard with loose shale and grey sand. There were trees here, spread wide apart and they were ancient. Hardy pines growing from the side of the mountain, their tops reaching a hundred feet or more into the air. I was breathing hard by then and behind me I could see the valley and the reservation spread out some five miles away or more. I howled again, calling my mate and he answered and his voice was joined by others. They were close, but still higher than I was, in the place where they'd made their summer dens.

I caught a brief scent of them as the wind shifted and then lost it as the wind changed again. They were over a dozen adults now, this small pack, their numbers swollen with the litters birthed some three or four months earlier. I was moving slowly, cautiously and announcing my presence with low barks until I could hear the pups fighting over their mother's teats, or just playing roughly with each other. Their small growls and yelps made me smile and they were there, just beyond a short ridge in a shallow bowl of dirt and rocky outcroppings.

The leader was mature, but hardly old, and thick with muscle. He challenged me before I'd come within even twenty yards of the place, dropping his shoulders and baring his fangs. He growled with real menace and his hackles bristled at the back of his powerful neck. I dropped quickly, lowering my eyes and stretching my arms in front of me. I kept my knees close to my hips and tummy and made my own soft growls in reply.

Others watched and the younger wolves barked excitedly, prancing around impatient for a fight. They knew me, most of them, but not well. I'd never tried to join them before, not this way, but merely trailed them on those occasions when they would hunt in the forest. I would find Chance then and we would occupy ourselves without concern for the pack, but this was different. I was an outsider, an intruder, and the animal's instincts told him I was a wolf, but his senses told him I was a human. It was confusing to him and he was nervous and frightened because of it.

I stayed very still, with my chin on the ground, my eyes focused on his neck, avoiding the wolf's eyes and giving him dominion over me. Chance was close, watching and making his own noises, pleading my case if you'd like to think of it that way, but this was nothing so complicated as that. It was a life and death decision; if he would welcome me to stay, or drive me off and most likely try and injure me in the process. If I'd had the body of a wolf to go with my spirit, this would have been easy and being female I'd have been welcome and allowed to stay.

He came closer, sniffing and growling and he didn't like my smell. I stank of my brothers and the bed on which we slept. I smelled like soap and dog food and Joe's hands upon my skin. I pushed myself back slowly, understanding the rejection and hating it. The wolf didn't attack me, but snarled and snapped his teeth with sharp barks that told me to leave. I crawled back the way I came, without taking my eyes from his body, ready to fight if it came to that, and several minutes later I was able to stand again.