The Carcass

Already it was dawn but the air was still cold and the rains were colder yet. I lay waiting for the children under the cover of a gnarled pine where the earth was dry and the darkness of night found its last respite. The rain fell in sheets. The scent of elk saliva and marmot droppings hung densely in the air the way a stillwater pond trapped the smell of fish and bugs. The graying dawn. I watched a trickle of rain run between the digits of my left paw. My belly growled. The rain slowed to a drizzle.

By the time I heard them, the autumn sun had burned holes through the clouds but everything was still wet and cold. I watched the boy and the girl weave under the canopies of the short pines. Flashes of brown. Flickers of gray and white. I announced my location with a song. The girl replied. Before her voice fell, she skidded to a stop at my side, digging her nose into my neck.

“Good morning,” I said, nuzzling her. 

The boy came crashing through the pine. He squeezed his narrow snout between us. “Did you find anything to eat?” 

“And good morning to you too.”

In the long gray light, the siblings looked as thin as coyotes. Thin summer fur and the faint shadows of bones. But they smelled healthy, and I hoped their winter coats would come after the first good meal. It wouldn’t be another half-moon until the first snow.

“Hungry,” the boy whined, licking the corners of my mouth.

I had nothing to give him, so I leaned away. A low rumble escaped my throat. I stopped myself, but not before the children heard. 

Instantly, the girl pinned her ears back. “Don’t be mad,” she muttered.

“Yeah don’t be mad,” the boy said. “We haven't eaten since yesterday morning.” 

He looked at his sister. She swished her tail in acknowledgment.

“I’m not mad,” I said with a sigh. I never meant to growl at the children, but sometimes they were impossible to deal with. 

“Promise?” The girl’s ears slowly unfolded.

“Yes, I promise.” I wagged my tail and made sure she saw.

By now her brother was nipping at her snout and cheek and she wasn’t having any of it. She pawed him and he clawed her back, each leaving a muddy pawprint on the other’s light-brown fur. They growled and snapped teeth at each other. Then they were running, dancing, pirouetting around the trees like two gusts of mountain winds.

I stood and stretched and shook the dust and mud and pine needles from my fur. Then I tested the air for scents. Fall was a dangerous time for the children, especially after a lean summer. Without our parents, I couldn't protect the children from all the dangers by myself. I was willing to die trying. But with nobody providing for the children in the winter, they would also die.

A gust of wind brought the day-old scent of two grizzly bears and the faint territory markings of a puma. Thankfully, none of the scents were fresh. 

I gave the all-clear barksong. “I know where the food is. Come.”

***

I took the children through the pines, following the trail of my scent from the night before. The ground was mossy and waterlogged. My pawsteps squelched. In no time, I was wet from claw to belly.

We walked until the trees became shrubs and the shrubs became grass and the grass became a slippery ridge with piles of stones. Finally, as we vaulted over the last rockpile, a lush valley opened up below us. Yellow trees dotted the forest.

I stopped, closed my eyes, and swept my nose along the wet earth. The morning sun was bright in my face and warm against my aching shoulders. A whiff of old meat told me the carcass was still where I left it, tucked away at the bottom of this slope. 

“Smell that?” I asked the children.

The boy’s tail flicked against my shoulder as he sniffed the ground. The girl ignored me. She was too busy staring at the forest.

“Close your eyes,” I instructed. “This is an important scent. If you’re hungry, look for this scent. It will keep you alive.”

“What is it?” the boy asked.

“A pile of dark brown fur that smells of rotting bones” was what I wanted to say. But I didn’t. Instead, I grinned and said, “Exactly what you need to grow big and strong.”

“Will it be enough for all of us?” the girl asked. There was gravel where she stepped and each step made a sharp crunchy echo.

“It’s for you and your brother.”

“You’re not eating?”

“I’m not hungry. Once you grow up, you don’t feel hunger as much.”

“Liar,” the boy said. “You must have already eaten.”

Before I could stop myself, a sharp rumble slipped from my throat and I snapped my teeth at the boy. Instantly, the boy’s fur bristled. He squared his shoulders and folded his ears. He bared his teeth at me and a snarl rippled from behind the two sets of unblemished white fangs.

I raised my tail to match the boy’s. “Watch yourself,” I hissed.

The girl stepped between us. Her tail was tucked between her legs. She pinned her ears so tightly they’d all but disappeared. “Please, don’t get mad. He didn’t mean it.”

“Yes I did! He’s eating all the meat Mom and Dad gives us! That’s why the meat’s all rotten and old when it’s our turn to eat. He’s keeping it all for himself. Otherwise he’d be hungry too.”

“No, he wouldn’t do that,” the girl said. “You know he wouldn’t. Ask him.”

I studied the boy in the warm light. His nose was glistening. His muzzle was unscarred and his fur was perfect except for the unseasonal thinness. His amber eyes were narrowed on me, full of uncontained rage, as if I were some kind of stranger. Yet he was barely a yearling. Just a starving orphan with every reason to be angry. I dropped my head and lowered my tail. I could feel my face softening. “I’m sorry,” I said quietly. “I know you’re just hungry. Come on. There’s enough for everyone.”

The boy said nothing. I shook my fur. Dewdrops quietly splattered against the still-wet earth. 

We descended the rocky trail, one at a time. The ground had a steep incline, so I showed them how to use our claws for grip and our tails for balance. I also showed them how to break a fall, but that wasn’t intentional. The rocks were simply too slippery.

When we arrived at the bottom of the slope, my fur was full of dirt and pebbles. I shook myself clean. Then I inhaled. A rancid meatiness permeated the air. The children smelled it too. I could see it in the way their ears perked up and the way their tails swished. 

It wasn’t another dozen steps before the three of us surrounded the carcass.

The girl bent to sniff it. Her nose touched the mud and leaf coated sinew. “What kind of animal is this?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” I answered honestly.

“You didn’t ask Mom and Dad before they left?”

“No. I never got the chance.”

“Did they say anything else?” the boy said.

“No.”

“Nothing at all?”

“Only…” I stopped mid-sentence and closed my eyes, feeling a shiver creep its way down my back and into the tip of my tail. “Only that they loved you very much” was what I wanted to say. But I couldn’t say it. I couldn’t protect them forever. They would find out eventually. 

There was a faint crunch in the far distance and I turned to scan the forest. When I looked down again, the boy was already eating. Then his sister joined him. Finally, with the autumn sun warming my back, I bent and tore a strip of gray meat from the edge of the carcass, fighting the slimy texture of rot as I swallowed.