Warm Nights in Magnolia Bay by Babette Jongh (best summer books .TXT) 📗

Chapter 6

Wolf dragged the mangled possum off the road when the car’s taillights disappeared in the distance. Dropping to his belly in the damp grass, he tore into the still-warm carcass and gulped down massive mouthfuls without chewing.

His eyes half-closed in bliss, he ate until his shrunken belly expanded like the hard, round ball the kids in his family had played with every evening. He remembered the tall boys bouncing the hard ball in the concrete drive, then tossing it into the air and whooping when it hit the round metal hoop.

Wolf had sat close by, watching his kids and making sure no harm came to them. The bad dogs who roamed the block knew not to come close. But the bad people whose energy leaked avarice or cunning were invited in by Wolf’s human family. They showed up with sideways glances that didn’t match their smiling faces. When Wolf growled, the alpha human beat him with a shovel.

Wolf stopped growling.

But he kept watch.

He watched the alpha’s friends most closely. Especially the one who eyed the alpha’s oldest girl and tried to catch her alone. The sneaky man only got close enough to corner her that one time, but Wolf stopped him with little effort. Before the girl recognized the danger, Wolf’s well-placed bite changed everything.

Wolf knew his job: protect his family. He did his job. The screaming, the yelling, and the severe beating Wolf received afterward confused and humiliated him, but he learned his lesson. Humans, even those he thought of as family, could not be trusted.

A wavering, bouncing beam of light crossed the road. Gravel crunched; footsteps on the narrow drive where chickens and rabbits and other tasty animals slept behind wire mesh and locked doors. Wolf snatched up the possum’s remains and ran into the forest. He dropped the dripping mass of shredded skin and bones onto a thick carpet of dry leaves.

Scraping metallic sounds announced the unlocking of the gate across the road; it swung open with a loud screech. He heard the light pattering noise of Georgia racing toward him, zigzagging over the trail he had taken with his dinner. He imagined her, nose to ground, tracking his location. When she burst out of the underbrush, Wolf backed up and sat, letting the carcass lie between them rather than guarding it, as was his right. “A gift,” he offered.

Excited and happy, Georgia rolled in the carcass. “Thank you.” Covered in the rich, oily scent of the possum’s blood and fur, she shook herself and wagged her white-tipped tail. “I have a gift for you, too. Come see.”

Wolf looked away from the flashlight’s beam that pierced the draping vines of his hiding place.

“Puppy, puppy,” Abby called. She placed a large metal pot on the grass and made the loud kissing sounds his girl used to make. “Come here, puppy, puppy. Come get some food.”

Wolf hadn’t been called puppy in a very long time. He whined at Georgia.

“Yes, she means you.” Georgia trotted a few steps toward Abby, then turned back. “Come on. She’s bringing you food.”

Wolf dropped to his elbows. “Not hungry.”

Georgia’s tail drooped. “Come on, try some. It’s good.” She showed him an image of dry kibble, resurrecting his memory of the crunchy food he used to eat.

His mouth watered at the taste memory, but his stomach was full for the first time in days, and his heart felt strangely heavy at the memory of being loved and cared for. Wolf stood and followed Georgia to the edge of the forest. He hid beneath the overhanging vines, close enough to Abby to smell the animal dung clinging to the soles of her boots. Close enough to smell the dried-meat scent of her offering.

But humans, even the ones he thought of as family, couldn’t be trusted. And this woman, who wasn’t family, didn’t deserve his trust. Besides, he wasn’t hungry. Wolf sat.

“Come on, girl,” Abby called to Georgia, who gave Wolf one last hopeful glance before obeying.

Abby turned the light away from Wolf’s hiding place. “Maybe he’ll eat it later. Let’s go back to bed.” Abby and Georgia crossed the road, then Abby closed and locked the gate. “Whew, Georgia. What is that smell? Please tell me you didn’t roll in something dead.”

Abby and Georgia disappeared behind the hedge, taking the light with them. Their sounds faded, first the crunching of gravel under Abby’s boots, then Abby’s voice growing fainter, sending up only snippets of her words on the night breeze. “…bath…sleep…food…puppy.”

Puppy. Something Wolf hadn’t been called in a long time, though Abby’s voice made it clear she was referring to him. Longing for the sweetness she seemed to offer but unable to trust, Wolf waited in the darkness until the crickets and the night birds sang again. With his heart racing as if he were cowering from a mean man with a shovel, he crept toward the metal pot she’d left for him.

Cautiously, he sniffed the food. Dried meat, rice, carrots, berries…peas… He sniffed again. Just food, nothing else. Not the sweet chemical odor of the green slime that had killed Wolf’s friends, the feral cats of his old neighborhood. Not the bitter smell of poison-laced meat the bad man had tried to feed him.

Just food. Only food.

Wolf grabbed the pot’s metal handle in his teeth and tugged the bounty he’d been given across the slippery grass and into the forest.

* * *

The Sunday morning sounds next door woke Quinn hours earlier than he would have preferred. He rolled over and pulled a pillow over his head, but the screeches and brays and whinnies still managed to slice right through.

Oh well. He had work to do; might as well get up and do it. Tomorrow and for the rest of the week, he’d be in New Orleans every day, building custom shelves for a new indie bookstore on Magazine Street. He could paint Sean’s room and assemble the furniture he’d bought in