A Happy Meeting
#2 of Where the Cool Earth Flows
And part two. Once again, I hope you enjoy it.
As always, comments are appreciated and requested.
continued from "Summer's Twilight"...
Toran looked up at the blazing sun, squinting at the angle of the bright yellow orb, shielding his eyes with one hand. It was just after noon, and what few clouds had been in the sky when he had broken his camp in the predawn had long ago burned off. It had been a hot summer so far, hot enough that the prairie grasses were burnt yellow and brown, the rivers merely muddy tracks on the good days, baked dry like clay in a kiln on the bad ones. Of course, the ranchers were used to dealing with dry years, droughts common enough in this region. Lowering his gaze back to the ground beside the boulder where he was standing, Toran knelt down and pushed aside the dead sage branch that obscured the hoof print he had been examining. In a normal year, the soil would have been wet enough here in the low lying cut for the tracks to stay in place for days, where piles of stones shaded the soil. But with the drought on, the soil was more like dust, the horses tracks blown away along most of the trail he was following. But here and there, a few of the tracks were still visible, mostly those few that were by the clumps of brush or in the shadows of the rocks, where what little moisture collected here was preserved. Any of the other scouts would have given up their search the day before, having lost the trail somewhere out to the east. But Senyr and his people had taught Toran far better than that during their hunting expeditions.
Smiling slightly to himself, Toran slipped back down the pile of rocks and swung himself onto the saddle of his horse, the same ruddy red and white paint that his father had been raising for him when his wolf friend had ridden away, a little more than three years ago. Gently tapping his heals to the horse's flanks and clicking his tongue, the red haired boy guided the stallion on, riding beside the trail leading up towards the outskirts of the mountains. He had obeyed his father's wish that he stay out of the Rangers for two and a half years, the rift that had begun between them when he had become friends with Senyr getting worse and worse as the older man assumed more and more responsibility with the garrisons. Toran had known that it wasn't really his father's fault that it had happened, nor was it his exactly, but all the same, the pair had grown more and more distant as the seasons had passed.
Really, it had all begun when his father had accepted a commission as a Major, commanding the local Ranger battalion, which meant he had had to leave the ranch behind, moving into the barracks at Fort McKinnon, three days ride away from his home. As his father had asked, he had tried to keep things together, really tried to keep the ranch working properly, but he just wasn't meant for that sort of thing. He didn't have the talent for ranching that his father had, didn't have the experience to keep up with all the issues of managing the huge herd of cattle. And that meant that when his father had returned to the ranch, he had seemed so disappointed, as if Toran had done it all on purpose. And perhaps it had been the rift between them that had done it, or maybe it was simply just his father being away all the time, but his mother had gotten very sick that winter, and had never really recovered from it. Ever since then, every time he and his father had run into each other, Toran had gotten the distinct impression that the man somehow held him responsible for her illness.
And then, as the years had gone on, things had gotten worse in the east. The casualty figures from the battles fought over there had been horrific, a hundred thousand casualties in the first three months alone. And as a result, the draft quotas in all the territories had been raised, then raised again, and raised a third time. Which naturally meant that the Rangers had expanded accordingly. His father had gone from commanding a small battalion of Rangers to commanding a makeshift brigade six times that size. Which of course meant his father hadn't been able to make very many trips home, which hadn't down anything good for his mother, or the ranch for that matter. And of course, the war causing shortages of even simple goods hadn't helped much. And then, to cap it all off, barely a year ago now, a notice had been sent to all the towns and ranches, a notice that stated the minimum age of the draft was to be extended soon. Which of course meant that Toran had had to make a choice. He could join up with the Rangers and serve under his father, or wait around to be drafted into the regulars. He had actually been very close to choosing the latter course, but the horror stories of the badly wounded men who had sought refuge in the Territories had convinced him otherwise. But news of his enlistment as a Ranger had been the final straw, so to speak.
The strain of having her only son, as well as her husband, forced away from home, on top of all the other troubles, had been too much for Toran's mother. In the early autumn, after months of suffering through sickness day after day, she had taken a turn for the worse, and then passed away soon after. And of course, that had about ended the already strained relationship between Toran and his father, making it all the worse that he had to serve under his command. After that, the ranch had been left under the watchful eye of his father's oldest friend, an old hand who knew the business of ranching better than anyone, a man too old to fight, and Toran had gone off to training at the camp outside the Territorial capitol. He had learned the business of soldiering easily enough, but more than that, he had discovered that his friendship with Senyr had set him apart, and more than just his defiant decision to wear the bright Pyre hawk feather no matter what anyone said. He had valuable, and very rare, skills, skills that he had learned over years of close friendship with the hybrids. The cavalry soldiers who trained the Rangers saw it too, and he had quickly been tapped to be a Ranger scout, one of the rare few who were trusted to be out on their own for long periods, tracking the people the Rangers dealt with. And since he had come back from the capitol, Toran had swiftly gained a reputation for being able to track anyone, anywhere, through any terrain.
The work had been easy enough at first, the Rangers dealing with the same things that the Torius cavalry had before them, bandit gangs and so on, none of whom had any real skill at evading pursuers, especially the highly trained Rangers. But lately... lately, the number of raids and crimes in the region had increased by quite a large margin. Despite the continuous expansion of the Rangers, there never seemed to be enough of them to keep order, even with constant patrols crisscrossing the Territory. Toran and his fellow scouts rarely saw the inside of the Forts anymore, and then only to pick up supplies and new orders. And personally, Toran quite liked it that way. It gave him an excuse to spend his spare time searching the wilds of the Territory for any clue as to how earth could flow like a liquid. Of course, he hadn't found anything on this trip, or any other for that matter, but still, he looked everywhere he went.
Peering ahead, Toran sighed and closed his eyes wearily. Three days ago, one of the homesteads far out from the towns had been raided. The family that lived there had survived, barricading themselves inside their home, but their horses had all been stolen, and the feed barn had been burned down. It had been one of many such raids in recent months, meant, it seemed, only to terrorize. Fed up with the raiders, the Rangers had finally had enough. So this time, they had sent Toran to track down the raiders once and for all, the rest of the scouts fanning out from the forts to try and find any clue that could help them.
The Rangers had of course expected the number of bandits and raids to increase as the war went on, the hardships of the conflict making people desperate, but this was different. The raids had been too efficient, too organized to be the random work of bandits. Sometimes, four or five raids would take place at the same time, and always, the culprits would ride away into the wild and disappear before anyone could catch them. Toran opened his eyes and looked towards the mountains in the distance, the red stone shimmering before his eyes in the heat. The plains stretched on in that direction for many miles before reaching the foothills, and it would take him at least a couple of days riding to get that far, assuming of course that the trail continued on that way. But as he rode, he found his mind drifting back in his memories, back to another day like this, when the sweltering heat made everything shimmer, a very special day in his past...
***
Toran walked along the deck outside the general store, taking care to stay out of the blistering sunlight streaming down out of the bright blue sky. It was rare enough that he be invited along to accompany his father on the infrequent trips to the town, so he didn't mind that it was taking much longer than usual for his father to conduct his business. Their ranch was very self-sufficient, so they only needed to go into town about once a year or so. And usually, if Toran behaved himself, he got to come along, which had all sorts of benefits, not least of which was that he got to pick out some candy from the store, a luxury that most kids in the territories didn't get. Grinning to himself, Toran swung the small sack of jawbreakers on its string, resisting the temptation to eat one right now. Jawbreakers were some of his favorite candies, but he had learned his lesson last year, when he had started sucking on one before even getting into the wagon. His legs had slipped out from under him when he had climbed onto the wagon for the ride home and the candy had almost knocked his teeth out.
He knew better now, though it was still seriously tempting. Pausing at the end of the deck, Toran looked around with interest at the mirages and dust devils that swirled in the distance of the plain. Taking a seat on the shaded end of the planking, the red haired boy watched a troop of cavalry trot past in column formation, probably leaving the fort on patrol. Fort McKinnon had started out as a cavalry outpost before the Territorial treaty had even been considered, but it wasn't until the treaty had been ratified that the outpost had started to grow. Settlers had started coming out that way, a small town springing up in the safety of the fort's shadow, making it more of a center of life out here than even the Territorial capitol was. In fact, the so called capitol was little more than a tiny outpost where the Torius government had insisted on setting up a court to administer the law. But it was always the Forts where people congregated in the territories. And even now, new buildings were going up around Fort McKinnon, creating streets spreading out from the walls, the population growing by leaps and bounds every year.
Then, as the dust cloud from the cavalry patrol settled back down, Toran's attention was caught by something truly out of place in the frontier town. A small group of horses were standing together over by the wall of the fort, not tied to a hitching post, yet even the rider-less horses seemed perfectly behaved. But it was the riders that caught his interest most. They weren't humans; they were wolf hybrids, their horses bare of bridles and saddles. They seemed to be waiting for something, probably more of their number who were inside the fort at the moment. But one of them, the one nearest to where Toran sat, seemed very young, no more than his age of twelve. The hybrid boy was tawny colored, and he, like a couple of the other wolves, had a bright feather braided into his hair, hanging down on the right side of his face. Toran had always been curious about the hybrids, despite his father telling him they were backward and untrustworthy, but though he had, on occasion, seen them, he had never before seen one who was so young. Watching the wolf boy, Toran couldn't see anything about him that would make him seem backward, or any indication that he was untrustworthy. In fact, aside from the fur and lupine features, he seemed like any other kid. After a few more moments, the young wolf swung down from his horse, waving to the others before walking off along the street.
The hybrid boy made it past three blocks of shops and the saloon across from where Toran was sitting before the human boy spotted trouble. A trio of older human boys was walking towards the fort, going the opposite direction as the wolf, and at first, Toran thought nothing of them, until they stopped in place, staring right at the young wolf. Obviously sensing trouble, the hybrid stopped walking, then turned back the way he came, probably intending to return to the adults, but, when he did so, the older boys started walking towards him again, picking up their pace. Toran found himself getting up to his feet, his heart beating fast in his chest. The human boys were bigger and faster than the wolf, and there was no way he would make it back to his people in time. The wolf seemed to know it as well, ducking into a nearby alleyway. Toran's father had warned him to stay out of trouble while he conducted his business with the shopkeeper and more than that, he had been told all his life that when a man went looking for trouble, he usually found more of it than he could handle. But all the same, Toran had never liked bullies, and had been on the receiving end of such an encounter a few times before. They never ended well. And hybrid stranger or not, the wolf boy didn't deserve to be singled out like that.
Before he could reconsider what he was doing, Toran had crossed the street, already heading for the alleyway as well. It didn't take him long to find the boys, the humans having cornered the smaller wolf just around the back of the shop on the right hand side of the alley. Two of them had grabbed the wolf's arms and the third was in the midst of beating the hybrid boy. Already, his furred lip was bleeding, and the wolf was staggering, having a hard time staying on his feet as the boy's meaty fists slammed into him.
"Hey!" Toran shouted, a hard edge in his voice as the large boy cocked back his fist to hit the wolf again. "Leave him alone."
"This ain't your concern." One of the other boys snarled, glaring at Toran. The others made similar faces, and the wolf boy looked at him with curiosity and surprise in his gaze, and there, under it all, a spark of hope. When Toran didn't move, the bully turned away from the hybrid, cracking his knuckles threateningly. It wasn't until he squared up with Toran that the red haired boy realized just how large he was, easily a foot and half taller than him, and much more muscled. From the look of the scars and calluses on his hands, he was probably the son of a blacksmith, or maybe a butcher, something that required a lot of hard work with one's hands. Still, Toran didn't back down from the larger boy, and the older human leaned in close.
"You gonna try and make us leave him alone, little boy?" The older boy asked, giving Toran a shove. When Toran didn't reply, he nodded, reaching down and snatching the sack of candies out of Toran's hand. "I thought so. Now what have we here?"
"Give those back!!" Toran shouted, making a grab for the bag, but the bully shoved him again, hard enough to trip him as he moved backward. The other boys laughed, the ring leader plucking a jawbreaker from the sack and popping it into his mouth before synching up the bag once more. Toran was flushed with anger now, but strangely, as he started to get back up to his feet, Toran found his gaze tracking over to the wolf boy once again. The pair's eyes met and an idea seemed to pass between them, a plan. In an instant, they both knew what the other was going to do, it didn't need to be discussed or even signaled. They both understood. While the bullies were still laughing, Toran suddenly sprang up from his crouch, popping up onto his feet, his right hand already in a fist. The sudden, unexpected blow caught the bully right on the chin in an uppercut, slamming his teeth shut on the jawbreaker. The bullies instantly stopped laughing, the biggest bully's eyes going wide as the candied sphere lived up to its name.
At the same instant that Toran had swung his fist, the wolf boy kicked out, catching one of the other boys in the crotch, doubling him over before bowling into him as he broke their grip to run back towards the main street. As he ran past, the hybrid grabbed Toran by the arm and the pair were soon running off back down the alley together, back towards the general store, the third bully too stunned to react. Finally, when the odd pair were back across the street outside the general store, Toran and the hybrid stopped running, winded. Clutching a stitch in his side, Toran leaned back against the post that supported the roof of the veranda, finally examining his companion more closely. Toran's initial estimation had been right, he decided. The hybrid boy couldn't have been more than twelve, with bright blue eyes and long blonde hair gathered up by a band of leather, all except for a single braid, the one that hung the feather beside his face. The hair almost matched his fur in color, though it was hard to tell clearly because of the dust that currently covered him. He wore only a pair of buck skin trousers, laced up the side and dyed with a line of red and white symbols down each thigh, like a silhouette of mountains seen from a distance.
"Thank you for the help." The wolf finally panted in perfect english, holding out his hand. "I'm Senyr."
"Toran," he replied, managing a smile, reaching out to take his hand. But, before he could grasp it for a hand shake, the wolf clasped his forearm, and after a moment's hesitation, Toran did likewise. The pair exchanged a nod of respect, then let go of each other.
"Not that I don't appreciate you stepping in like that," Senyr began, sucking in a deep breath through his nose to slow down his breathing. "But I have to ask...Why?"
"I..." Toran started to say, then shrugged, untying the bandanna from around his neck and offering it to the wolf. He honestly didn't have an answer to the question. "I don't know. I just don't like bullies."
"Well, thank you again." Senyr replied, taking the bandanna and holding it to the cut on his lip. A moment or two later, the two boys looked up to find the trio of bullies hurrying from the alley, red faced and angry, well two of them anyway. The third was limping along a few steps behind the rest, looking awfully green, and wincing with every step. It took them all of a couple of seconds for them to find the two boys again and they started to run across the street towards them, then suddenly pulling up short. The trio of older boys stared at them for a few moments before grimacing and turning back to walk away, the biggest boy spitting blood on the ground from his broken teeth before he turned. Wolf and human looked at each other, bewildered, then looked up in unison when a shadow passed over them. Walking by were a group of four brawny men in dusters, the silver shield of Territorial Marshalls pinned to their breasts. A fifth Marshall, one that Toran recognized as Bill Turnman, his father's friend, was standing behind the two boys, looking in the direction of the bullies with a serious expression on his face. After a moment, the Marshall turned his gaze to Senyr and Toran, who grinned nervously up at him, wondering what he would do. After a moment, he returned their smile, obviously guessing what had happened.
"Boys." Marshall Turnman said, touching the brim of his wide hat before walking out into the street, heading for the entrance to the Fort. Letting out the breath they had both been holding, the two boys looked at each other once more, a far different grin creeping onto their lips as they realized they had just gotten away with it.
"Did you see the look on that bully's face when you hit him?" Senyr asked, handing the bloodied bandanna back to Toran, who tied it back around his neck without comment.
"Hehe, yeah." Toran replied, mimicking the wide eyed look of shock. "Or the look when you kicked that other one in the jewels? I don't think I have ever seen anybody look that sick before."
"Well, serves them right." Senyr replied, stepping into the deeper shade under the awning and starting to walk along the plank walkway, headed in the direction the Marshall had gone Toran immediately falling in step beside him. "So, where are you from? You don't strike me as someone who lives around here."
"My dad owns the West Fork Ranch." Toran replied and the wolf boy seemed impressed.
"I've heard of it." He replied. "Our summer lodges are a couple of days ride west of your range."
"Really?" Toran asked, and the wolf nodded, the pair finally taking a seat at the same spot where Toran had been sitting before. "What are you doing here? I thought your people didn't like our towns very much."
"We don't." The wolf confirmed, his grin widening. "But we had a good hunt a few weeks ago and my father came to trade our extra pelts for some tools we wanted. I guess I should have been more careful walking around on my own, but I had been riding all day and I needed to stretch my legs."
"I know how you feel." Toran replied, his own grin widening as well."I know I should be used to it by now, but I still don't like being in the saddle all day. But riding still beats being in a wagon, doing nothing for hours and hours. The only reason I came was my dad allowed me to get some candy from the store."
"I'm sorry you lost it because of me." Senyr said, looking down at his paws.
"No, it was worth it." Toran assured him, putting a hand on his shoulder, meaning every word. "Friends are much better than candy."
"Oh thanks." Senyr laughed and Toran joined him, grinning broadly...
***
Kneeling in the back of the wagon, staring out at the dwindling adobe walls of the fort, Toran couldn't help but smile. He and Senyr had spent the better part of an hour sitting and talking together. Toran had never expected it to be so easy to talk to anyone, let alone a hybrid, the pair feeling the same sense of ease as two people who had been friends for their entire lives. They had been so deep in discussion that it had come as a surprise when Senyr's father had called him over to leave, and two had had to part company. But before Senyr had left, they had agreed that, in one week, they would meet up again. There was a place about a half day's ride to the west of the ranch house, a series of gullies and cuttings that even the cows stayed away from. Toran's father and the other hands never had a reason to go near the area, but Toran had always enjoyed exploring it. When he had described it to Senyr, and how to find it, the wolf boy had grinned, knowing that it was the perfect place to meet up. Then, they had clasped forearms once more, a gesture that Senyr had said was a mark of friendship and respect between the hybrids. After parting, the young wolf ran over and swung up onto his horse's back, riding away with the other wolves. Toran had walked back into the store to find that his father was almost done and had spent another hour helping him and the hands that had ridden with them to load up the wagon, grinning while he worked. After a moment more of staring off towards the distant fort, Toran's father rode up behind the wagon.
"So, what did you do while I was dealing with the storekeeper?" The man asked and Toran's smile widened once more.
"I made a new friend." He replied and his father smiled as well.
"That is always a good thing." He said, nodding. "Can't ever have enough friends. What is his name?"
"Senyr." Toran told him and a shadow crossed his father's face, making Toran frown. He had never expected his father to be bothered by him making a friend.
"That isn't a human name, is it?" He asked rhetorically. When Toran shook his head, he frowned for a moment. "I told you to be careful around them." Then, his look brightened once more and he managed a small grin. "Still, a friend is a friend. I'm glad you had an open enough mind to try."
"He was very nice." Toran offered, trying to mollify his father's obvious displeasure. "We had a lot in common."
"That is good." His father said, clearly unconvinced, but also obviously done with the conversation. "Well, enjoy the ride back to the ranch son. We are going to have plenty to do when we get there."
"Yes father." Toran said, settling back against a huge sack of milled flour and returning his gaze to the dwindling fort as his father rode back ahead of the wagon. Somehow, and he still didn't know exactly how, he knew that he had met someone special today. Senyr was...unlike anyone he had ever met before. It felt almost as though they had known each other all along, and had just been waiting to see each other again, even though they had never met before today...