THE GOODLANDS - My Debut Novel

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Part One

 GONE WESTERN

 

“Go quietly, alone; no harm will befall you.”  ― John Muir

 

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CHAPTER ONE

He was flat on his back and barely conscious when the brown and gray canine roused him with her soft whine and accompanying bad breath, panting in rapid rhythm. She had just finished rolling and rubbing on his open backpack and was standing near his side, licking his bloody shoulder. He flinched as she ratcheted her head sideways and moved her soothing tongue from his shoulder to the open wound on his forehead.  

“K-Dog, is that you, pal?” he whispered.  

With squinting eyes, he followed the canine’s flaring nostrils upward, until he saw two yellow eyes glaring at him with uncertainty. Small, pointed ears were alert and attentive. It blinked and turned its head away in submissive behavior. Knowing it wasn’t his pet, Sam avoided displaying dominance towards the wild creature. He held his breath as the she-wolf looked up and listened intently to something in the last light of day, then stepped carefully over the human and walked toward a game trail leading into the darkening timber.  

The lobo looked back, shook her head, and twin strings of slobber created an arc in the twilight. Then she trotted confidently into the darkness, accompanied by the scent of her mother, stolen from the human evidence bag. She stopped once and emitted a faint whine, then howled for her lost pack as the cries converged with the wind.  

Oddly, Sam Rios, a Law Enforcement Officer for the US Forest Service, did not fear the wild creature, but as she disappeared, he exhaled in relief. Searching in the wolf’s direction, he saw only black silhouetted statues of Ponderosa pines displayed against a backdrop of disappearing sky. He could not recall any details or why he was on the ground, but his mind’s eye summoned up four dead wolves hanging on a fence and a gunfight.  

If only I could remember what happened. Sam stretched his wounded body upward to peer deeper into the woods, lost his balance, and rolled downhill, landing in a shallow stream of icy water, which racked him in pain. He shivered and screamed in anguish, sending chills along the mountain’s spine and the predators paused to listen.  

Sam knew he must struggle to remain in survival mode, but warm fluid dribbled into his eye, pain stabbed at his chest, and he could not move his left arm. When he tried to escape the water, its sandy bottom hugged his body tighter.  

Then he heard the shouting.