Working Titles

Lucie Leonine had been in Monaco that day when Paradese met DiaComp.  Lucie was a medical doctor, married to a professional soccer player in the U.K., and Lucie, in her spare time, coached the women’s city lacrosse team, the “Shoreditchers”.  The small town had no college team, nor a college anymore.  Team members came from the upper classes at Mulberry Academy, area community college kids, and young working women.  The chance for that week in Monaco delighted all but the very few who found no way to cover the cost or to get away.

Thirty-three, she’d been practicing in OB-GYN for nearly six years.  Lucie had become a specialist in women’s oncology, primarily of the reproductive system.

The team played other citys’ teams in England, but sometimes managed either to get across the channel, or to play college teams in exhibition.  Lucie sought those opportunities to see what was being done in professional coaching, so she could improve herself for the team.

Down at the beach, as her team wasn’t playing until tomorrow, she was watching the volleyball.  A small beverage bar had materialized and three guys of varying ages were standing around, talking to the people who’d come for refreshment.  And she was thirsty, and she was a young woman on her own time, and as a bloody Mary would hit the spot, sauntered over.

…

This is what Lucie was thinking early that Thursday on her way from being an adultress for the first time ever in three years, about getting to her real room unnoticed, and transforming into a coach.

Lucie and Tomas, having independently but mutually concluded the inescapable truth over dinner on Wednesday that sparks were setting their little concupiscent hearts ablaze, had taken a distant room in the hotel where her team was staying.  She and Tomas split the cost.

Tomas had told her the most remarkable story, while they were not athletically engaged in other remarkable ventures, or laughing assaults on anything assailable regarding the partner; manners, speech, philosophical, religious, or political assumptions, personality or behavioral quirks and traits, while respectfully avoiding things neither could change.  That included marital, ethical, or moral stati.  Pots and kettles should not discuss comparative reflectiveness.

When Tomas was thirteen he went on what was supposed to be a long day-trip hunting deer in the Transylvanian woods, hills, valleys and meadows.  Since he’d been seven he’d accompanied his father on just such trips.  His dad four days ago mentioned how he missed bringing back a nice fresh deer that would last the family for a week or two.  His father had suffered a minor stroke, and could no longer be an asset on a hunt, rather worse than an adult having a seven-year-old along.  Tomas decided to bring his dad a treat.

On a weekend, he took their old Honda 90 trail bike as far as the logging roads and trails would allow.

But he had no luck that day; missed opportunities, missed shots, and uncharacteristic lack of stealth.  It had been a while.

He messed up on his progress back, as well.  And there were no bars on his Samsung phone.  He did think he got a text off, or hoped so.  Still a half hour, by foot, from where he’d parked the motorcycle, and well past sundown under a three-quarter moon, he heard movement.  Stopping for a long time and only breathing most quietly, he heard movement from several quarters.  Wolves, he wondered?

Wolves, indeed.  He walked and they followed, but out of sight.  Now and then Tomas saw an eye.  By a most fortunate hunch or inspiration, knowing this wasn’t getting him anywhere, and if he sped up, they’d likely chase and maybe attack, he just sat down, laying the rifle beside him.  One by one the wolves broke cover, walking slowly.  They were showing only a warning snarl, raised hackles, and modest growl.  And Tomas did nothing.

The bravest or alpha approached almost within arm’s length.  Slowly Tomas raised his left arm out to the beast, who growled just a bit louder, and backed off a cubit.  The wolf showed a hard life.  He walked oddly, seeming to favor a back leg, was missing part of an ear, and had the look of a grizzled old man.

That went on for five minutes, while two others, one with active mammaries, came within a couple body’s lengths.  The other of the two seemed just out of pup-hood.  Finally leaving the one arm raised, he motioned the first wolf forward, as if his wolfy brain would understand.  The wolf came in and sniffed his hand from three inches while Tomas managed not to freak or show alarm.  Then the animal backed away while the others did the same approach and sniff, as he’d raised his other arm as well.  Nothing more to lose, I guess.  Now he saw four more wolves just barely out of hiding.  He wondered Am I even meat enough to go around.

Then very slowly with a high comforting voice pleading of St. Francis, the manner comforting the wolf and the words comforting Tomas, he moved his hand slowly and touched the wolf.  At that, the wolf turned his muzzle and sniffed with his nose almost in contact.  After five seconds, Tomas confirmed the contact, and slowly ran his left hand along the right side of the wolf’s muzzle, to the base of the good ear, and began a little scratch.  The wolf sniffed as Tomas’s forearm passed.

Continuing his hand attention to Alpha on the left, Tomas turned to the right.  The young male was very aggressively sniffing Tomas’s, hand, and sometimes attending to the rifle on the ground.  Before long, Tomas was actually petting, first the young one and then old Alpha on the left.

After another quarter hour and as just the earliest autumn snowflakes appeared, he’d made friends with all seven.  Finally, Alpha broke from the party and went and sniffed the rifle.  It was old.  His grandfather picked it up during World War Two, and passed the bolt-action to son, and then grandson.  Had Tomas’s dad kept hunting, Tomas expected his father would have gotten him a new one, or Tomas would have received a pass down next time Dad bought a new one for himself.  It didn’t happen.  As it was, he was shooting with an FEG 35M, likely over forty years old.  So, when the wolf started to paw at the stock, Tomas knowing no cartridge was chambered, he wasn’t very concerned.  Then the quick image of Alpha pawing the action if he’d had one loaded, made a big impression.  To counter the thought and safeguard the wolves, he smiled, prayed more, and then rose to his knees.  When the mechanism tossed the last spent shell, no new cartridge popped up.  The magazine was emptied on his last wasted shot, and Tomas had not reloaded.  He slowly closed the bolt.  Holding the rifle as if it were a presentation sword, he offered it to Alpha, who had skipped back at the cartridge ejection.  The wolf thought, “Oh, a pre-WWII 8mm.”  Well, Tomas imagined him thinking that.  The wolf smelled the age of the gun and the few humans whose odors were fresher, but even when he noticed the powder smell at the muzzle, being stronger than the smell at the breach, he could not narrow down the bore size.  Tomas continued to pretend read the wolf’s mind.

He placed the gun on the ground, and, as he knew exactly where they were and were sheltered by the surrounding spruce, he left it there, stood, and began walking the trail to the parked motorcycle.  Two of the canids stayed very close, a third nearby behind Tomas, and the other four arrayed further back.  Still seventy yards from the bike, the wolves all stopped, not yet within sight of the parked motorcycle.

Tomas stopped.  “What, boy?  What is it?  Why are we stopping?”  The wolf voiced, and danced around a little, and Tomas was pretty sure that he was supposed to understand something, but what?  Stay?  Keep scratching my neck?  Come back with us?  You forgot your wolf-killer?  Certainly it wasn’t, “Can I have a ride on your motorcycle?”

He just stood there, the wolf thinking, “Dunce.  I thought you were smarter.”

So Tomas petted and scratched six of them once more, the other not having approached from back on the trail, watching their “six”.

He got on his bike.  No real snow had landed, and he rode the ten illegal-for-a-thirteen-year-old minutes back to the house.  Sunday, the next day, in a different part of the woods, using his dad’s eight year old .30-30 lever-action Marlin, he took a buck that was nearly too large for the extended rack they’d had contrived for their Trail 90.  It was too big for the game frame on his back.  He unrolled a sheet of purposefully-sized heavy white plastic, secured the carcass, and tied it to his belt so he could easily drag it out.  His family were very impressed.  Were they American indigenous, the sweat lodge would have been next, and then the vision quest.  The following Saturday, totally unaware of that culture, he brought half of the deer in exchange for the rifle, though if his buddies were nearby, they didn’t show themselves.

I bet the wolf saw his kind eyes thought Lucie.  That position they’re talking about—not one of last night’s—sounds good, but I just can’t be hanging out anywhere near Tomas.  And last night’s positions were—kinda wow.  It would be a huge risk.  Tomas and I are just too good together.  It would tear things apart, and I won’t allow that.