A lone wanderer. If he stops to ask if you have a minute to talk about becoming a werewolf, about the coming Great Pack, will you listen?

Today’s story is the first of two parts of “A Reading from the Gospel According to the Wolf” by Rob MacWolf, who would argue turnabout is only fair, and you can find more of his stories on his SoFurry gallery.

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You're listening to the Voice of Dog.

And today's story

is the first of two parts of

A Reading from the Gospel According to the Wolf,

by Rob MacWolf,

who would argue turnabout is only fair play,

and you can find more of the stories

on his SoFurry gallery.

Please enjoy A Reading from the Gospel According to the Wolf, by Rob MacWolf,

part two of two, Read for you by the author himself.

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord

Of the god of earth and altar that our forefathers adored. Though

to last until that promised land is more’n I can afford

I’ll last a little longer yet.

On that you have my word.

The sun overhead was merciless and relentless and he paid it no mind.

The sands, tumbled with all manner of gravel and weed and long-forgotten fence fragments,

stretched far away

until they reached the shattered knees of the distant mountains.

Northeast, he supposed by what the sun was doing to the back of his neck,

but that was of no account.

They were between him and where he was going,

so they were what he faced,

never you mind what the sun thought of it.

The faded sign by the highway’s tar-weeping shoulder asked him

“Where Will You Spend Eternity?”

He knew perfectly well.

But he suspected the ghost of the sign was only being rhetorical,

so he didn’t bother to answer.

He had more important things to do with his answers. Later.

Tomorrow, god willing,

after he got past those mountains still tantalizing him in the distance.

That maybe would mean walking through the mountains all night, but it wouldn’t be the first time he’d done that.

He hummed to himself as he walked.

I have seen it in reflections of the mountains on the clouds.

I have felt it in the dance of ghosts among the lonely crowd.

I have tasted it in apple groves by terror’s wing unbowed.

It is soft as distant thunder.

It will soon be very loud.

On the other side of both the mountains and the night, he caught a ride.

The semi truck passenger seat was comfortable

and probably would have smelled unfriendly to a human nose, but it was still heaven

—well, as near to it as anything on this feeble earth could be,

mustn’t blaspheme

—and he was weary to the roots of his soul.

But he managed to talk a little with the trucker

before sleep claimed him.

The trucker’s name was Curtis.

Well, he said, it’s nice to meet you Curtis.

How long had Curtis been on the road? Why,

Curtis had been on the road about five years now, for one company or another.

And had he ever seen anything powerful strange,

out in the middle of nowhere,

or felt as if there were a wilder, truer, more wondrous world around every corner,

if only the way to enter it could be found?

Yes, Curtis would allow as he’d seen a thing or two he couldn’t rightly explain.

“But mostly,” and Curtis wanted to emphasize this,

“I don’t pay em no mind.

I care about making runs on schedule,

getting my shifts done,

and not lettin the company find out if I do a hitchhiker or two a kindness from time to time, if you know what I mean.”

He did know what Curtis meant.

He took the hint

and relaxed back in the seat,

let the desert outside turn to plains, let the hum of wheels on highway lull him to sleep,

let sleep show him the world he hoped for,

the promised world,

where he no more need hide or run,

where all would be welcome because all had become

One Pack, in his god’s great mercy.

He slept the day, and the rest of New Mexico, away.

The truck pulled up at a stop, in northern Texas according to Curtis.

The night was already filled with cicadas

and every sundog-bright halogen streetlight had its own powdery galaxy of moths.

“Welp,” said Curtis,

“This’s where we part ways.

I suppose you had some sorta sky-pilot pitch you wanted to make,

but looked to me like you needed the sleep more.

I guess I can give you a minute, if your

conscience ain’t gonna let you be on your way without at least taking a shot at me.”

So he told the trucker.

And the trucker listened,

more politely than most,

and when he got to the part about the bite

his eyebrows went up,

deftly, and he made a small noise in the back of his throat that might have been a laugh. But it would’ve been uncharitable

to think Curtis was laughing at him,

so he didn’t. Curtis didn’t ask to be turned.

That was ok. If he was meant to find his place in the pack—in this life, that is

—then this conversation would be a seed of curiosity that would bear fruit, why,

whenever Curtis next met a willing werewolf.

If not, if Curtis never did hear the call of the

pack, at least it wouldn’t be because nobody ever called to him.

He committed the matter of Curtis, of gratitude to him,

and of his to-be-hoped-for coming to the pack to providence, with added thanks for sending the ride,

and turned his face north,

to the night and the highway once again.

It occurred to him

that Curtis had never asked for his name.

Just as well. He wouldn’t have known how to answer.

Mine eyes have read despair upon a thousand faces writ.

Mine ears have heard the silence and are more than sick of it.

My soul is wondrous weary of a world that’s full of shit, But it is not yet a quitter.

For flames that it has lit,

The road he followed north turned east some time after midnight.

That was fine. He trusted providence to bring him where he needed to be.

In a rest stop some ways west of Oklahoma City he ran into a werewolf family.

For flames that I must kindle on at least one pyre yet,

For things that I remember that mankind must not forget,

For love I must abandon for the things I’ll never get, I will endure.

Mine eyes will see at least one more sunset.

You wouldn’t have known to look at them,

they all wore their masks well.

Even the infant, screaming in mother’s arms, why,

nobody would have had any cause to suspect of being anything but human

unless they looked very closely at the little teeth as it wailed, and wondered

what a baby needed with such sharp canines.

He didn’t need to look to know them.

He could smell it plainly.

They smelled tired, and worried, and lost,

but mostly they smelled of the wolf.

Of the pack. Like a tiny foretaste of paradise,

gone sour and stale through long neglect.

Providence, clearly, had guided him to them to tell them to keep up their courage,

the day of the great pack,

when all wolfkind would be one family

under an everlasting autumn sunset,

was at hand. Maybe to help them, if he could.

He watched them. A man, two women,

a child, an infant.

A car just a little bit too small and just a little bit too old.

A conversation over a payphone,

the kind where you’re swallowing all the anger you can to keep it from

showing up in your voice.

He couldn’t hear from here, not over the roar of the interstate,

and his ears weren’t what they’d once been.

But he didn’t need to hear the specifics,

he knew too many variations of the story already.

The jobs that paid, that lasted, that didn’t screw you over,

those were too close to the cities, or the suburbs.

Had too many prying eyes.

Not safe for a werewolf, especially not one with a family

and children to worry about.

That left packs drifting,

chasing jobs that vanished like water-shadows in the highway heat

as soon as you got close,

and took hope with them.

And without hope,

what was there left to hold a pack together?

The man wasn’t angry anymore,

just listening to the phone,

bitterly sullen, no longer answering.

Possible the call might even have been hung up.

He made up his mind and approached the picnic table.

One of the women, in the blue jeans, was trying to keep the kid occupied. The other, in the skirt, had managed to hush the baby.

He said hello. Didn’t try to sit at the table.

Watched them both pull their respective child closer as they straightened up.

That was all right,

they didn’t have any reason to trust him yet.

So he made eye contact,

smiled a trustworthy smile,

and gave them one. His older

brother—may his soul run free in the pack’s endless wilderness

—had come up with the trick. He called it

the wolf wink. Had once done it right behind a B. of E.P.M. caseworker’s back.

It took practice,

but once you learned it was as natural as breathing.

He shifted his eye,

just his eye, from human brown

to wolf gold. Held it a second so he

was sure the mother in the skirt had seen,

then let it slip back.

He saw her gasp, then relax.

“Can I help you?” she said.

Her voice was soft and tired beyond description.

No ma’am, he told her, I’m the one helping you.

Did anyone ever tell you that

you were part of something holy?

That drew some puzzled eyebrows, so he pressed on,

in hopes momentum would carry away doubt.

He told them about how the werewolf was the instrument of providence,

here to undo the woe of the human world,

and that a great pack

was coming. He explained how the wolf-god had given the gift of the first bite to his human children so

they wouldn’t be left behind by their wolf siblings.

As it was theirs, now, to give to humans who were worthy,

who asked. Someday all the humans, one by one, would accept the Bite

and join them, and there’d be one pack, and then

there’d be peace.

He knew from experience it was a lot to hear all at once.

“Uh hello. Something wrong here, mister?”

said the man returning from the phone.

No, he smiled, nothing wrong.

You got a wonderful pack, he said.

And it isn’t fair the times you got to go through but you will get through them.

There’s a place in the Great Pack for you, one day.

Here. He dug in his dusty pocket and handed him a handful of bills.

Hundreds, fifties, a twenty or two.

Use them to get your pack where they need to be.

“I can’t accept,” the man sputtered.

He smiled back and said he thought the fella would find that he could.

Wasn’t like HE had any more use for the stuff.

He’d left human things behind when he started this pilgrimage.

He left them at the picnic table,

considerably more hopeful.

He noticed the rings the women wore matched,

the man’s fingers were bare.

Huh. Hadn’t suspected.

Took all sorts to make a pack, he supposed,

and there’s more than just the wolf you can hide behind your human mask,

if you need to. He prayed for them

as he walked north again through

the plains. The grapes of wrath are planted in the souls of all my tribe.

They are wet with silent weeping.

They are watered deep inside.

I foretell a mighty harvest where the bones of saints abide.

For a harvest moon is rising

and it brings a rising tide.

In Missouri he ran afoul of the law.

He was heading east, about half an hour past a town called Nevada,

and wasn’t that ironic considering where he’d started from?

When he heard sirens.

He jumped and stumbled,

fell to his knees,

and by the time he’d scrambled to his feet again the black and white sherrif’s car had pulled in front of him

and he had to shield his eyes from the lights,

and there was a megaphone-distorted voice that demanded:

“Sir what is your business here?”

Nothing, officer, he said,

and in his mind he was praying frantically

—oh Lord in the Uttermost West defend me in this hour of peril,

be my safeguard Father of All Packs, or if this be my hour to come to thee let me be found worthy

—but out loud he only said,

I’m only walking officer, I hope I haven’t offended anyone?

A hard-faced woman,

tight blonde bun and disapproving lips in a crisp brown uniform,

stalked toward him out of the painful burst of blue and red lights.

“I need to see your ID,”

she sneered at him.

What for, officer, am I being arrested?

“I need to see your ID,”

she repeated, as if he hadn’t said anything.

So, with great disgust,

he fished the card out of his wallet,

the one that said a name he no longer recognized and a picture he knew was a mask,

and handed it over.

Because he could see

she wasn’t wearing a camera,

her gun was on her hip,

and he knew, even if she didn’t,

what would happen if she decided to use it.

She looked at the ID.

Didn’t give it back.

Repeated the question,

“What is your business in this area?”

I’m only passing through, officer, he said again,

fighting to keep a grip on the panicking animal

inside. Am I free to go?

“You were sighted passing by a school back in Nevada,”

she smelled like bleach and gunpowder and vulcanized rubber and he wanted to run.

Is that against the law, officer?

“Don’t make smart remarks,”

she snapped, “I happen to care about the safety of the children of this community!

First Fellowship Church reported a broken window this morning as well!”

He hadn’t been anywhere near a church, he knew,

and he suspected she wouldn’t care, if he said so.

The prayer in his mind changed

—please let no one have reported the beast that stole a chicken from their coop this morning,

let not my weakness of hunger have betrayed me,

the young fella I talked to in the park, let him not have reported what I told him about the pack and the bite,

let him have taken no offense at my offer of a place therein,

let him not have borne witness to this the accuser into whose hands I am delivered

—but all he said was that was a shame,

he hoped it wouldn’t happen again, but was he being arrested?

Was he free to go?

She looked at him a long time,

twisted one bootsole into the roadside gravel as if snuffing a cigarette.

“I could take you in,”

she said, “for obstructing traffic on a highway.”

The only car in any direction was the one blinding him with flashing lights. He said nothing.

“But you’re headed out of my jurisdiction.

So you keep walking,

or the next time so much as a stick of chewing gum goes missing I know whose ass I’m busting for it.”

He knew as well. “Don’t forget your ID.”

She shoved it into his hands,

turned and stalked

to the squad car.

He put his head down, started walking as fast as he could,

and when he was sure he must be out of the jurisdiction

he made himself walk just as far again

before he stumbled off the road,

collapsed to his knees,

and through terrified tears gave thanks that she either hadn’t noticed

the little double “W”

in the bottom corner of his ID, from the Bureau of Extrahuman Populace Management,

or hadn’t known what it meant.

Once the tears passed,

he felt lighter. Cleansed.

Like he’d left behind another burden,

unneeded on this pilgrimage.

That’s what it took,

he said to himself.

Just deal with whatever griefs and sorrows you got,

just press on through them,

one foot in front of the other,

he said to himself.

What else was there to be done?

Press on, he said.

Keep walking and you’ll get past it, he said.

And now he was past it, wasn’t he?

It couldn’t hurt him any further.

He was alright now,

right? Right? It took a few tries to listen to himself. At length, he pulled himself to his feet to press on.

For the harvest moon is rising and it brings a cleansing storm.

My nose has smelt the ozone as the thunderheads take form.

And the times, they are a-changing for the fat, for the forlorn So you’d best be taking shelter,

if you’re meaning to keep warm.

Somewhere in the midst of the riverlands, he met a woman

who didn’t believe in werewolves.

He had wound up in a small riverside town,

pleasant enough place.

Big fiberglass statue of a fish and a row of spindly trees that would have been elms in the old days before the blight,

but now they were just whatever had been leftover from the local nursery.

At the edge was a greyhound station. Well,

a stop, really. There wasn’t a building, just a bench outside a gas station, and even before the fullness of the wolf had been vouchsafed to him,

he’d seen enough of these

to know where the tickets would be:

inside, behind the counter,

above the scratch-off lottery selection and next to the cigarettes.

It’d be alright if he bought a ticket and rode a while, surely?

“Excuse me,” said a woman as he turned to step inside,

“do you have a moment to talk about

the most important news you’ll

ever hear?” He’d taught himself to expect a lot of things, when he started this journey,

but he hadn’t thought to anticipate this.

She was almost as old as he was,

and had just stepped away from filling up her big white SUV.

Her hair was bleached silvery white but her eyebrows were dark brown.

She wore a fluffy sweatshirt that said

‘STRONGER Than The

AVERAGE MOM’ with a tiny enamel American flag pinned to the collar.

And by the time he’d found his footing and remembered how to say no thank you ma’am, I’m also trying to spread the word of-

she had hurried through most of her pitch

and was already to the part where she said “

-and that’s why it’s so important

that everyone accept Him

as their Personal Savior,

because otherwise these satanic sickos

will have free reign

to prey upon decent upright Americans like you and me!

It’s the only way we can protect

our communities!” The smell of gasoline blinding his nose had begun to give him a headache.

He begged her pardon as politely as he could, but she wasn’t listening.

“The forces of satanic

might! Trying to take control of this nation!”

Oh dear. “People get possessed by all sorts of demons!”

she went on, feigning breathlessness,

“demons of vaccination

or homosexuality

or witchcraft or even vampirism

or lycanthropy!” Oh noooo.

noooo... “Now I know that last one sounds

crazy, but of course they can’t interfere with God’s perfect design,

so nobody actually ever turns into a wolf!

But the demon that has these poor degenerates in thralldom

makes them think they do!”

Oh, that headache was getting worse.

It was past time he was gone.

He contented himself

with saying that he could assure her, ma’am, werewolves

were real. And nothing to do with any demons or satans or anything.

Good day. Her eyes widened.

Her nostrils flared.

But he was already walking away, determined

not to make eye contact,

just take the last word

while he’d had it, and-

Something hit him

on the back of his head.

It wasn’t heavy enough to hurt,

but it made him stop, made him have to clamp down to keep from shifting.

“I admonish you! You are a minion

of Satan and I cast you outta here!

Satan has you in bondage! Denying it just proves you're Satan’s liar!” She said, in a tone

that sounded like she’d have preferred to say ‘I want to speak to

your manager!’

When he shot a startled look back she had her hands balled up into fists,

her chin thrust out.

Her lips quivered.

People in the gas station were staring, they had their phones out,

but luckily they seemed to be taking pictures of

her, not him. Behind her,

the bus was leaving.

With great resignation,

he bent and picked up the object she’d thrown.

It looked like a little comic book, about the size of an index card.

The front was printed in a single color and said

‘WHO OWNS YOU?’ She must have already been holding it.

Meant to hand it to him.

Angry he’d walked away before she could.

He made eye contact, after all,

and dropped it deliberately

in the trash beside him.

And by now the woman must have realized people were staring,

and not supportively,

because she bustled back into her oversized car.

He backed up, hastily,

around the brick corner of the building.

Never underestimate what these kinds of people might do with enough metal and gasoline under them,

if you've made them look foolish.

But she just seemed to want to pull out and leave as quickly as possible.

What the hell, nobody else could see him from this angle.

So when she did pull out, as she turned the corner,

she got a second and half’s

good look through her passenger side window

at the wolf, on two legs,

dressed as was the homeless drifter she’d been harassing,

shaking its head

in sorrowful disgust.

By the time the squealing tires were out of earshot he was already hidden behind his human mask again,

and ready to duck through the wooded park to continue east on foot.

Served him right for considering a shortcut,

he supposed. So bring my bow of burning gold and arrows of desire.

So let the crowded clouds unfold and this wild wind rise higher.

Let He Whose vengeance burns most cold ignite the final fire.

Mine eyes have seen the match-head struck,

before at last they tire.

When he got to the other side of Missouri,

there was the Mississippi river.

No way to walk across.

Maybe a human could swim it.

No doubt a wolf could.

But just cause he could do it didn’t mean he was supposed to.

If providence had seen fit, eons ago,

to shape the tectonic plates so

the slightest possible tilt to the whole continent

sent the river south just here,

rather than a mile more east or a mile more west,

then providence had a reason,

and who was he to argue?

He wasn’t exactly familiar with this part of the country,

but he knew St. Louis would be, well, north.

Somewhere on his left.

He wasn’t sure how far, but either it was close and there’d be bridges there, surely,

or it wasn’t close

and he’d come to another bridge first.

So he walked north.

At first it was just walking.

Just like any other night.

Just like he’d been doing since the neon wilderness of Nevada.

But it was a warm night

in the heart of the riverland, wasn’t it,

and no night when you’re out walking past midnight is ever just walking like any other night, is it?

The sights, the smells, the feel of different winds

brushing against him

—warm and dry from the south, cool and humid from the river,

cold and parched like old bones from the northwest

—turned into a rhythm and a harmony.

And he told himself anyone who goes for a walk at night in the country will tell you it does that,

there was nothing special to it, it didn’t

MEAN anything. And knew he didn’t believe it.

No, it wasn’t just walking,

and it wasn’t just a road by the river.

Something was happening to him

or to this place or both.

He could feel the tingle of it, of the liminality of everything,

like the feeling of your body

being not fully your body

just before you fall asleep,

like he could remember from the old days, when the old man in the beat up trailer that would never again leave the RV park

had taught him to pray,

had set him free from his human name,

had first brought him into the presence of his god

—may his soul run with the pack, and find rest from grieving,

for if anyone deserved to know the way to both it was him.

Something else was in this night,

something alive, dangerous,

otherworldly, and holy.

Wait, was it the moon?

He stopped in his tracks, searching whatever parts of his memory still kept track of human things like dates and days of the week.

Was she full? No, the night was moonless, he didn’t have to shift.

As much as this felt like that, it wasn’t.

But that wasn’t a bad idea.

Hadn’t it been a long long time since he’d gotten to be himself just to be himself, just for the

joy of it, rather than forage or flee or prove a point?

And if for whatever reason this walk, this night, was holy,

didn’t he deserve to be in it

as he ought to, as himself?

He stepped off the road,

into the trees, until he could smell the muddy water.

He stripped off his clothes,

rolled them up tight and

tied them with his belt.

Smoothly, easily, like slipping into a warm bath,

he took off his human mask.

If anyone but his god had been watching what came back up out of the woods and set off again down the road they would have been terrified, he supposed,

but god was a wolf mightier and greater and more terrible than he,

and besides, his god knew him down to his bones.

And if anyone else WAS there, well, they’d have a sight more full of awe to see than one scrawny old vagrant wolf.

His god walked with him,

he was sure. God did not speak.

That was fine. He heard no footsteps.

Used to hunting in a pack, he supposed,

so god’s footfalls landed perfectly in time with his own where nobody could hear them,

and they landed perfectly in his own footprints

so he was sure if he looked back

he would see only one set,

clawed and padded,

in the muddy gravel.

But the smell was all around him. Wolf, so strong as to be overpowering, yes,

but underneath was incense and woodsmoke

and something warm and comforting on the stove,

and still deeper underneath rain and trees and moss

and infinite spaces to roam forever.

He walked a mile-eating lope in a state of ecstasy, and all the way his god

silently shepherded him from behind.

It might have been hours, it might have been only minutes, before he reached

the railway bridge.

He had no qualms about crossing it. He’d done as much before.

But when he took a step toward it

he felt god come to a stop.

So of course he did too.

And then he heard the whistle.

The train was headed east,

and it had slowed before the bridge,

but still if he hadn’t already been shifted he couldn’t have caught it.

Some human forms could've been fast enough, but not his.

Providence, you see?

Couldn’t ask it to be plainer.

He dashed up the gravel bank,

caught a ladder on the side of the box car,

hung on as it crossed the water.

The steel trestle beams flashed past, inches from his face, don’t try this at home, kids,

but in between them he could see, well,

just a shape. Larger than the trees.

Slightly deeper black against the night sky.

The mere outline of ears, scruff,

muzzle visible against the faint

zodiacal light. The eyes blazed like headlights when they turned to meet his.

He felt the presence vanish as the train bore him across the river and away.

He would not have presumed to ask for more, not in this life.

But as he sat on the boxcar roof

and watched the lights of distant Illinois towns whip past,

something more came to him.

It was no vision, no trance, no out of body experience.

He remained fully conscious

and even a little bored.

It was like a dim memory, from a forgotten corner of childhood,

jostled loose by an unexpected sight or sound,

but he would testify this

had never happened.

For he had never been to the lodge it showed him,

square cut logs and mossy bricks, high windows in the peaks of the roof.

Never pushed open that door.

Never seen the welcoming darkness within, smelled again the scent of his god.

Never stepped through,

closed the door gently behind him,

seen the firelight,

the sunset through the windows.

If he had ever in the past gone to that chair by that fire, laid his wolf’s head on that knee,

felt that paw stroke his ears, heard that voice

tell him he was welcome,

he was at last home,

could he have had it in his soul

to ever have left?

To be here now? Nossir.

This was no memory.

This was a promise.

He held on to the feeling of it as he lay his back on the boxcar roof with the bundle of his clothing as a pillow. Passed it

between his racing mind and

his heaving chest

to memorize and preserve

as the clouds above thinned

and the stars came out.

Should he use this story next time he had a chance to talk to someone?

Or was it too personal?

It could be confusing,

too hard to put into words the feeling of it,

what it had meant,

why it had meant it.

Maybe this had been just meant for him.

He could be at peace with that.

This was the first of two parts of

A Reading from the Gospel According to the Wolf,

by Rob MacWolf Read for you by the author himself.

Tune in next time

to find out how the journey ends.

As always you can find more stories on the web at thevoice.dog or find the show wherever you get your podcasts.

And thank you for listening

to the Voice of Dog.