His sluggishness immediately gone, he sat up and listened.
He hadn’t the pleasure of music in far too long.
The tune was cheerful, the notes ringing through the trees behind him. The Wolf followed the song where the forest gave way to an open meadow.
He smelled prey before he saw a large flock of sheep roaming through the grass and drinking from the pond. His lips shimmied along his teeth and his nostrils quivered, the instinct to stalk compelling.
There were so many sheep. He could easily catch one.
But the trill of the fiddle was more tempting, guiding the Wolf to the player, who was clearly the Shepherd of this flock.
He was near the trees, at the crest of the hill.
He swung his bow across the strings, and danced a whirlwind jig in the rhythm of masculine grace.
He was very tall, taller than the Wanderer had been. His black hair had threads of silver and fell in waves past his shoulders. His beard was thick, with more silver strands than his mane.
In the brief moments the Shepherd spun in the Wolf’s direction, he saw deep lines etched across his brow and around his eyes. But his deeply tanned skin was taut against chiseled features.
Although far into his mature years, the Shepherd moved with the agility of a man half his age.
His head bent towards his fiddle and engrossed in his playing, he was blind to the Wolf until the distressed noises of his flock made him look up.
The Shepherd saw the Wolf immediately, dropping his fiddle and bow for a rifle the Wolf hadn’t noticed on his approach.
He collapsed to the ground and squeezed his eyes shut.
“Please don’t kill me!” the Wolf begged, his voice raspy after months of disuse. “On my soul, I swear I don’t want your sheep!”
He braced himself for the clap of gunshot, but nothing happened.
When he dared to look, the Wolf found the Shepherd with rifle in hand. The barrel pointed to the ground, and the Shepherd stared at the Wolf with the clearest green eyes he’d ever seen.
“Did you just speak to me?”
The Shepherd’s voice was soothing, a mellow tenor that put the Wolf at ease.
He recognized the kind of man he most loved to travel with.
The Wolf pushed himself off the ground.
But as his head and shoulders rose, the Shepherd’s face tightened and he brought his gun to waist level, his finger on the trigger.
The Wolf lowered his back haunches.
“I don’t mean you any harm,” he said. “I just wanted to listen to the music.”
The Shepherd didn’t answer right away.
His regard swept over the Wolf, the lines deepening between his brows.
“I’ve never seen a wolf with black eyes before,” he said.
“Neither have I.”
The Shepherd smiled, his expression endearing with one of his front teeth overlapping the other. Then he bent down and traded the rifle for his fiddle and bow.
“I have an idea,” he said. “I’ll keep playing while you tell me how you came to be a talking wolf.”
So the Wolf did.
The Shepherd made a satisfying listener.
Even while playing, his gaze stayed on the Wolf and he never interrupted the flow of the story.
Sometimes the Wolf grew uneasy when the Shepherd’s face clouded over or he frowned. But the Wolf knew the Shepherd heard him and his relief was such that he couldn’t hold back.
Once he finished the tale of losing his heart, he couldn’t stop. He told the Shepherd about his parents’ murder, his terror of being alone after his grandfather died, and the isolation of being a man inside a wolf. As he talked, the compassion in those clear green eyes made the throbbing in his hollow disappear.
By the time the Wolf finished, day had become night.
The Shepherd stopped playing the same moment the Wolf fell silent.
He was exhausted.
Although he knew it was time to bid farewell, his head weighed heavy and the Wolf drifted into a dreamtime harmony.
For the first time in months, he was refreshed when he woke up the next morning. He stretched his limbs and yawned, the smell of charring meat stirring up his hunger.
He was surprised and pleased when the Shepherd set a plate of overcooked squirrel before him.
“Sorry it’s burned. I probably should have left it raw because I’m not much of a cook.”
“Well, I can help you with that,” the Wolf replied. “Or at least I could have.”
“You can still talk me through it. That is, if you want to.”
That was all the invitation the Wolf needed.
He fell into the Shepherd’s routine as if he’d been part of his flock for years.
