Chapter 7: Lone Wolf






     "What's the matter pop, cat got your tongue?" a red-bearded young man calls as he and a hound peer down at the gray-haired old man stuck in the top branches of a rhododendron grove.

"Wolf's more like it," Benny scowls at his twenty-four-year-old second son, the spitting image of him at that age. "You put me here, now get me down!"

"Hold your horses," Daniel laughs at the reproach and follows the loyal dog from to the ledge his master had fallen from. "I can reach your boot from here."





     The footprints in the mud around the cache site had told Benjamin Reed all he needed to know about the varmint of Cow Creek. It's not easy to distinguish wolf from dog tracks, but the ability of a single large canine to drag and bury an oxen carcass told him it was a lone wolf.

     The Kentucky Appalachians of the 1800s housed both gray wolves and the slightly smaller red wolf, though that taxonomic distinction was unimportant to the early settlers or their livestock. It was also irrelevant to the two species since they could interbreed, resulting in hybrid puppies. The habitat range of gray wolves had moved progressively west and north along with European settlement. Their growing absence in the eastern mountains had opened a habitat niche for the more secretive southerly species with the reddish coat.

     Lone wolves who had left or been driven from a pack were especially problematic for farmers. The animals forced to forage alone became desperate for food and company, haunting the hills around farms for stray stock or dogs in heat. Farmers met that threat with equal urgency to hunt and kill a rogue wolf.





     "Doggone idiot," Benny curses, swinging the horn flask and striking his son in the ribs.

"Jesus Pop," Daniel exclaims holding up his hands. "Some thanks I get for saving your sorry ass."

"Filling my horn with the char nearly got me killed, not to mention losing that wolf."

"Shit, I been meaning to tell you about pouring the rest of the powder down your old gun to save the last of that keg."

"Just don't tell your ma," Benny shakes his head while standing up straight and brushing the black smears from his chest and shoulder. "She'll have your hide and mine."




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