What is unspoken
A long controlled breath left Half's open maw and tired tongue as he listened to the dense wooded ravines before him. Dim moonlight showed his breath drifted up and to the south, dissipating slowly in the sub-zero temperatures. Tightening his mouth to retain the warmth, not yet discouraged but getting there after over a day hiking, Half continued his tracking in the snow staying downwind in case the dog tried to lay a hasty trap. It wouldn't be the first time today.
The previous trap, was a tied down green tree that was sprung on him in a narrow stream cut along a hillside. His muzzle took the full brunt of the blow, luckily it only disoriented him. Half learned early in his training to hide weaknesses, and his ambushing captor fled from the lack of effect instead of trying to fight one on one; seeing no apparent advantage. A useful trick for an equal or greater opponent, but with this lesser mutt, it was a foolish move. He has yet to catch up to him after that delay.
'Inbreed runners,' he thought to himself. His paws were bitten to numbness after a hurried under-prepared start, but he gave up caring a while ago when the sun used to be up. The warm bed that was waiting for him when the job was done was what let him ignore the discomfort. And the faster he got the prisoner, the sooner he could be back home again. And a small amount richer. Well enough to cover the necessities of living for a month. It has been too long since his last bounty, and he could not pass it up.
He growled at the top of the haphazard shaped ridge that overlooked where the prints in the snow lead. He saw nothing at all but the trail of his prey. The spacing of the paws were too close to be in a full run, so he couldn't be much farther ahead. Certainly he did not get to the lake that was another four miles yet. He had that at least.
Clamoring down the steep slope, part leaping, part sliding through the drifts that nearly consumed his wolven form, he came to the bottom and began following the trail once more through thickets and pine. 'I just need to catch him before he can get to a vehicle. This hunt will be lost if that happens, and I'll be out of a much needed paycheck.'
It was still dark when a strange sense came to Half, and he paused registering all his senses. Nothing came. 'No sounds but wind in the bows, no scent but the faint linger of the dog's trail hidden by the cold, no sight...' His thoughts were interrupted by a faint flicker of unnatural light in the distance. He lips pulled back in a ferral grin, 'that's were he is.' Quickly bounding to close the distance with the renewed enthusiasm, he came upon a narrow beaten dirt road, and a small cabin further at the end.
Looking over the road, he saw the tracks of three dogs. An adult, female he determined easily, and two small pups. 'Why would a bitch bring her pups to a place like this, in this season,' he questioned uncertain how this situation had fully been complicated. He considered calling off the hunt for a little while to ask for assistance in case there were hostages that he was not capable of dealing with, but Half was tired, and the concept of loosing his payment after all he had to suffer overcame his hesitation. He moved off the road and came towards the house slowly and quietly. Hiding his tawny and white fur within the snow and skeleton undergrowth.
The moonlight revealed a wooden log home that was built just high enough to stand in, and nothing more elaborate, a simpe hunting cabin. There wasn't even a chimney for a fire, but something was lit within and the illumination was sporadically making its way out of the wood slat shutters. 'He must be using them as protection from me,' he determined. 'Knowing that he can't lose me, he has become desperate. I can't just leap in and hope to back him into a corner and end this. This is unfortunate for the family.'
Grim and stalking low to get closer to the cabin without revealing his approach, he arrived along a wall that had no windows. Step by step his wolven form slinked along the base of the cabin to get below one of the shuttered windows, listening to what happened within.
"Darrin," a woman whispered in appeal but was hushed by his prey with a commanding exhale from his nose.
'The child's name,' Half considered.
"Mommy, I can't sleep. Can't we all," A child began to ask then was as well commanded by his prey to silence.
The woman consoled her pup with a lie. Half could tell her voice was fearful and uncertain, "be still and silent. Like your sister. I'll give you a treat in the morning if you do so."
There was movement within as people changed places. One was getting close to his position and he pulled back hoping the wind didn't carry his scent within the hovel.
The man he hunted cleared his nose and took an audible breath from the window he had been listening in from. There was a pause in his heart as he feared his inadequate training was starting to show. He hoped that he was lucky.
Within the cabin the sound of muscles under great duress were audible. Breath strained, pained, then relaxed in the exertions completion. 'Nope. And he has changed to his two-legged form,' Half affirmed.
"I know your there, come in so I can face you properly," The mutt ordered with no fear. A bad sign, Half growled internally.
His mind reeled for a long time, 'my prey has taken a stand. Picked his corner and is not moving from it unless ripped away. Someone will die tonight. If the woman and children were not here, maybe the outcome would be different, but now? I can't overpower him and keep him from the other three.' He questioned himself and what he could do in this small cabin with only his training. No inspired perfect solution was showing itself this night.
'The longer I wait,' Half determined, 'the more likely he will take a knife to the woman or the children.' He couldn't let that occur. With the dog's attention on him exclusively for this brief time, he had to act. Not give the mutt a chance to consider other avenues.
His mind rolled through the possible entrances and their effects. None seemed right. Half stood proud on four legs and approached the door with his great size, then pushed it open with a paw. His eyes reflected the small candle in the room and that was covered by a hand of a frail looking woman in rags and blankets laying on the floor with her back propped against a wall. 'She was young, maybe mid twenties,' he conjectured. A small pup was laying beside her, breathing peacefully. Red and brown and yellows were the colors of her patched fur. 'The sleeping daughter,' half noted.
On her other side, a small boy of 5, Darrin, crouched and held tight to his mother's arm, a scream of fear was hanging on his quivering lips and glossy eyes. He, as his mother, was dressed in poor excuses for clothing though beggars might say it is the normal attire. Half noted the unfilled blankets beside his mother and grew a little confused, 'the mutt couldn't have kept them so placated. Something's wrong here.'
He pulled his attention from the unfortunate family that was caught up in this criminal's escape attempt, and focused his full threatening glare on the mutt who now stood as a man before Half. He was unarmed. He wasn't threatening. He wasn't attempting to escape through the glassless shutters. He considered what this meant hidden behind a low deadly growl and raised hackles to force the mutt to submit in fear.
"I don't need to run anymore," the mutt proclaimed quietly, "let's not wake the child and go now."
Half was sent into confusion, but not one he showed visually in his wolven form to the escaped criminal. 'What was all this for then,' he tried to work out in his mind ostensibly shocked. 'You make me chase you over 30 miles in the dead of winter, and now you say; OK, you win? Something is very wrong here. These aren't strangers are they,' he wanted to ask, but knew there would be no honest answer he could determine if the time the mutt spent with them was for a meaningful purpose.
The mutt in human form motioned for the door that Half blocked, and spoke with a wavering tone that wouldn't yet betray the undercurrent of meaning, "Lets go then. I won't cause any more problems. I have nothing left to run to." He took a step forward to verify his acquiescence to the tawny and white wolf.
Half let himself into the room and moved aside in the tiny room to give the convict space without yielding his careful scrutiny. He cleared his nose as a sign that the terms were acceptable and agreed to.
The man of late twenties started or the door and his eyes uncontrollably glanced to the woman and Half followed his stare. The woman and the child in mute protest forced themselves to remain silent. 'They are family,' he finally figured. 'But how did they know to be here? How did they know tonight of all nights? How?'
The man made it to the door and his gaze caught Half's consideration and he spoke to break the thoughts that were starting to manifest themselves, "are you taking me back to prison or not? Leave these people alone. I couldn't use them as hostages. I just couldn't. And I have no energy left to run. Lets go." His voice was both demanding and pleading.
The prey wanted Half to exit the room as fast as possible and not give the three in the room another thought. 'He is protecting them,' half tried to work out. He scanned the room and noted the contents closely, a small kitchen, some dried foods, not enough for a week. There was a barrel of water barely used. There were some books that were on a small crude table by a window. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary for a dislodged pack. He didn't have any evidence to question the situation further, and his sighed in defeat. The mutt had won a small victory, or maybe it was a great victory. He couldn't tell, it didn't matter to him. He was just a hunter, and had what he came for. It was time to go home.
The wolf growled at the man finally to signal that whatever had happened here would not be upset, and he had accomplished whatever it was, but he was not appreciating being tricked.
The man said nothing in response, but simply exited the cabin.
Once the mutt was fully outside the cabin, he brought his muscles on themselves. His breathing was labored and strained. Fur began to surge out of his skin and his bones began to meld and shift. The mutt's form bent and brought itself to bare hands and feet in the deep snow. His face stretched in an angular familiarity to begin baring the dog form that he had held from the start of the hunt. The fur covered over his entire body in a few seconds and the mixed breed that this man was was in full display in a patchwork of browns, reds, and yellows.
'Just like the daughter,' Half wanted to scream in refusal to let this farce continue, but he could do nothing but see that his part in it would end soon. 'I have that little at least,' he mockingly consoled himself. He followed his prisoner out the small hovel.
Outside the mixed breed criminal carefully closed the door to the cabin in an act of finality for the family he was leaving for the next 20 years and began to walk along the road that circled the lake and would come out in the nearby small vacation village. They would be able to call in the Guards from there and he could get a ride to his vehicle and finally head home to his mate.
The sun was up and well into the sky before the all purpose grocery store, bait shop, and soda fountain was in view finally. They both changed to their human form and entered into the store. Half called the Guard to re-imprison the mutt. He never spoke a word as they waited that hour. Half never tried to make him. His secret was his, and there wasn't likely anything he could do to pry it from him. He was faithful and loyal to his bitch, and surely would rather die then jeopardize his pup's future.
As the mutt went into the van shackled, he gave the wolf one last look of questioned intent. Half shook his head, honorably accepting his defeat in a game he didn't realize he was playing. The mutt smiled and nodded in appreciation and the doors were close and he was taken away.
The wolf was in his human form driving back home. He called his mate to tell him the news of his successful capture and the reward that would be deposited in his bank account. "I still don't know what was really going on in that cabin on the lake."
"Are you going there now," the voice on the speaker phone asked, a tone of discouragement in this action was quite obvious.
"No. He won whatever he was playing at. I promised to let it be," Half begrudgingly said aloud for the first time.
His mate replied in mock, "how magnanimous of you, Half." the laughter was almost audible.
"So that's how it's going to be when I'm gone for two days. Just wait till I get home, I am still bigger than you," he halfheartedly threatened, then considered seriously a determined question. "Can you look up the arrest record for me again? I don't recall I ever bothered to find out why he was arrested besides the illegal weapon charge."
The voice on the other end of the phone call was silent for a long moment. The sound of a keyboard clicked muted in the background. Then his mate's voice announced a rhetorical question, "Yellow throat?"
"Yes, him, Black," he confirmed.
Black listed off some of the Guard notes on the arrest, "Knife in a public place. Stolen license on the vehicle he was driving. No ID. No papers. Nothing worth mentioning, Half."
"What about the license," he tried to exhaust all leads he had to work with. "Who's was it actually?"
"Hmm," Black thought aloud, "Um... Ah." He announced finding some obscure reference, "they linked it to a stolen vehicle used in a bank robbery, but they couldn't tie it to Yellow, so no charges were brought."
"Did they ever catch who was tied to that robbery," Half asked starting to see the connection.
Half pulled his vehicle to the side of the road expecting his intuition to be correct, and after a couple minutes of silence from Black, he was rewarded handsomely, "no. No one was caught. It was supposedly a small robbery by three masked men, but there is a huge bounty on anyone that can bring any information about this to the Guards. This doesn't sound like it was small. You don't think that Yellow was one of them do you?"
Half leaned back and stared at the roof of the vehicle. He thought on the bitch and the two pups. He thought on their abject poverty. He thought about Yellow Throats actions and his silence. He looked at each of them, and as a whole, letting his mind wander into the various scenarios that would tangent off almost of their own free will.
"Half? Half, you there," Black asked worried.
"Yes, I'm here, Mate," His response one of distance contemplation.
"You are going back for the money aren't you?"
There is a long pause, then finally he answers without uncertainty, "No."
"You know, it would be pretty nice to be rich for once," Black tested his determination.
"I know, we can make due, they can't."
"They? Dare I ask?"
"I'll tell you about it when I get home. But for now? Know that it's the right thing to do. "
There is a moment of silence on the speakerphone, then Black spoke with a mischievous tone, "I don't know if I can stay silent. They are offering a lot of money."
"You, maybe not." Half laughed then started the vehicle back onto the highway, "but I'd like to think I would be so loyal in his place. I'd like to think I would do for you, my love, what he did for his pack."