"A man's got to have a code, a creed to live by, no matter his job." — John Wayne.

There was a low howl among the trees. The storm blew the window of this small shack open. The fitting for us all was tight, but warmer than the outside. It, however, wasn't made for four people. A table, a chair, a latty, and a tiny kitchen area were all that remained inside. They looked past their time and had seen far better days. The shack creaked and reeked of an old house smell. Despite that, no morsel of prog or sign that the other owner would ever return.

There was no outhouse on the outside. Mark had joked a few times that the man we had spotted died from the cold trying to find one. That wasn't the truth of the matter, from the scant clothes and the smell in the hut. Two men had lived here, and it seemed more than a friendly visit. The one we found was left to the elements. He couldn't be over twenty summers old. The man's pale body laid face down, entrenched in the snow under the lodge pine, a small trek away from the house. When we flipped him over, it was easy to tell that the man was a Southerner, from jet black hair to brown eyes. He was sick, scrawny, and frozen. He wore foreign brown dirty trousers and a white long sleeve with no mule-ears — the poor bastard. Mark had picked him clean for his last remaining worth. Who knows what happened to the other? He was dead if he had gone dressed as scant as the former. The two couldn't have spent much time up here. They would have known from the beginning that clothes like those weren't good. Without a thick coat, it wasn't enough in these parts of Yurikit Mountain. Judging from the empty prog cans on the floor, they had chewed through all their supplies — what a tragic end to a pair of runaway lovers. The hunger was something, at least for the moment, we had in common.

Our stomachs were empty for days now, as the hunt had endured, and this blistering cold continued. We had been filling what remained of those inbred Bull Prosecutors with lead plumbs. Now on this mountain bordering New Merico was the final one.

Weak bloods, Saul had called us for letting the last one get away. He always had something to say. The inbred was crafty, though I gave him that — something Saul wouldn't admit. My stomach growled a complaint, and the horses, almost on cue, neighed outside. They hadn't been fed today, but that wasn't the real reason they complained. They knew us by smell now for what we were in these half forms, but there was no other way to keep warm. Don't kill the horses. Saul had said before he left. His eyes had lingered the longest on Mark and not that lickfinger Richard. My hand flicked my hair from my face. Like, if I would ever do that or allow someone to do it to my prized horse.

Still, maybe Saul was right. I had never once hunted my own prog or the others like he did. To him, despite our age, we were still nothing but pups. A life in constant civilization had given us the idea that we were something else. Half breeds now, maybe?

We relied on our barking irons more than anything else, to a fanatical degree. It kept our true senses dull. Saul had scolded us, saying we had forgotten our way. Forsaking the old ways of the Aniwahya clan, keepers of order, or so my father would say.

Saul was always a traditionalist, though he never outright expressed his views. Maybe it was the fact that the geezer was four hundred years older than us. Still, he wasn't even close to being the oldest in the clan.

To Saul, I was nothing but a young whippersnapper with a rebellious flair. Who could blame him? I enjoyed following my path, the thrill of riding my horse with the wind on my back and shooting my barking irons, drinking, and watching the ocean with its vast depths calling me. Maybe it was luck that I got a job as a deputy. No one then drew as quickly as me. I dread what I would have had to do to survive otherwise. House cleaning, waitress, or I dare not to think of becoming a lady of the line? To go back home to Pa to hear what? I told you so. That was not an option.

Still, was this right?

Getting a whiff of myself, I realized how foul I was from being on the road for so long. There was nothing I could do about it. I etched a smile when I remembered what Mrs. Davis had once said to me: a lady must have ethics.

In my brown mule-ears, matching faded trousers, and a gray now dinged shirt. I suppose I wasn't the most lady-like for civilization. Saul always liked to say that I was the same as my father. My father, that man, as if he had any positives.

My father would have agreed with all that had happened. Was this right? Winston's death and this much chaos. So many people died because of what they saw. This wasn't justice; I had turned my eye in blind pursuit. Saul and Richard had been ruthless. The village had to go. That influence, my impulse, was that of my father in me, too. Was this what being an alpha like my father was meant to be?

I folded my fist. Tom, what the hell have I done? I should have listened to Winston.

Tanner muttered repeated words of incoherent words and broke my thoughts. Even in the dark, his thick white fur was visible to me like the day. "Always keep your lead pusher clean. Your lead pusher is your life. Without it, you're dead. A Smith and Wesson will always win the battle. Even dead men still shoot."

A near-death experience could change a man, and Tanner had seen his fair share. Winston's burial had taken its toll. We couldn't bury him in the church. Winston wasn't religious, nor could we leave him to the crows. Saul and I had dug a spot for him to rest under the trees. There was no grand ceremony, just more tears, and regret.

Tanner continued muttering to himself.

"Tanner, could you shut up? You're sounding like an old croaker!" Richard's slanted, round, yellow eyes met mine for a moment, exposing his stained white fangs. "Karen, do something about him. He sounds like one of those fanatics. Next, he's going to be a member of that damn cult."

I didn't say a word to Richard, or Tanner wasn't in a mood to crawl his hump. His mutters lessened again on their own as time passed while I fell back into my own thoughts. What am I? Am I a monster that doesn't know how to bear its fangs? Or a wander stuck between two worlds? Brother, what would you think of me now? You were supposed to take over and create a new clan to be alpha. How could this happen?

The words Tom would say to me fell from my mouth in a whisper. "It only takes one action to change the world." Of course, there was no answer in the tiny space. A blanket of darkness covered us as the candlelight flickered. It was the only simmer of hope, revealing the shadows of three others. Tanner had continued to mutter the same thing over and over. The entire time while he was reading the Count of Conomor. No one bothered to tell him something anymore.

Richard had been lying flat. He waited for the hunting hour. In the dark, he was still uglier than a new-sheared sheep. Mark was naked as he was born. The bottles of Apple Jack told his story. He was more than likely on a barrel fever. Richard had to be tired by now of taking him outside. Still, Richard kept Mark's lead pusher out of range least he shot one of us by mistake. Even he could be good for something. On the floor between my legs were my barking irons. No one brought up the incident.

They were probably going to the bed-house by the time we got back. On the latty, their clothes rested and folded, with their hats on top. My clothes remained on with the occasional fur springing here and there, and my white hat was on the table.

There wasn't much jawing. No one wanted to admit that they, too, were scarred by their actions or inactions. What would Winston say now, or Tom? What would he tell me? Should I care this much about what happened to people I didn't know? I exhaled. None of this was correct, and Winston, you were right. I did nothing at all to stop it, but my heart ached to finish it.

My left hand wouldn't stop shaking. I had tried to soothe it for hours, but nothing had changed. Instead, it continued to sweat as I wiped it on my black fur. I wish, like Mark right now, that I could been in the sun. I couldn't drink while on duty, even if only one of them remained. We could get him tonight, track him in the night as he swayed around like a fool in the dark. He's as dead as a can of corned beef.

Still, that thought, that man, that priest on his last breath as he coughed up blood, called us animals. He was now waiting his turn in a cold meat wagon. I had never taken the word to heart until yesterday. Why did it have to play out like that? He got shot four times for seeing something he shouldn't have. He saw us change. I didn't even know he was there. I panicked for a moment and got my hair in the butter, trying to talk sense to him, but it was mere nonsense, I suppose. He saw what we were, and Saul sneaked upon him from behind and shot him with a Bull Prosecutor's lead pusher. He didn't even blink an eye about it. It was him or us, that's what he said, but maybe it could have gone a different way. It would only lend more to what the Bull Prosecutors said about us. Saul's answer was the same: to think about the clan. It was always about the clan. That's why I didn't want to come back. I had ventured off alone to find my way, away from this, to end up in this. We were supposed to be the heroes, not the same as the Bull Prosecutors we were chasing.

I clunk my feet on the wooden ground, and my mule-ears responded with a ching as I propped myself onto the wall. An animal, that word dominated my mind. Would my lover view me as a vicious monster if he knew about me? If he knew the real me, my love for him was forbidden, yet I couldn't imagine getting the mitten from him. I would outlive him, but with these feelings, I knew he would be my mate. I knew it in my heart. He traveled with me even though I told him how dangerous it might be. He was waiting for me now, back in town. What are you doing now, Ron?

This was a lick and a promise from the start, but it had to be done for my brother. That's the only reason I came. For the clan, his brutal death wouldn't go unpunished. My ears tickled from the approaching horse. I went to reach for my barking irons until I smelled who was coming. Saul, if it were another, it would have been too late. The others barely even budged like some cubs waiting in a den.

The door opened, letting the snow inside the hut with an eerie, haunting howl as it closed. I smelled it without looking. Saul was carrying fresh game, and the flavor itched my nose. I knew it was a deer. His brawny shadow dominated the room. Mule-ears rattled on the ground as it creaked in response. He paused for a moment as he placed down what he had been carrying in the middle of us all.

"Artemis gazes," Saul said.

"Don't care a continental, Winston!" Mark shouted, swaying his hands in the air and falling back onto the ground.

"Winston's dead." Richard reminded. "He has been dead for two days now."

"Shut up, you were drinking benzene, that's why you're talking like that. You, me, Winston, we are all going to the bed-house soon and then bend an elbow with..." Mark halted. He was about to throw up, and Richard rushed him outside. The door thudded, and the stench of the vomit permeated the inside. Mark released everything inside his stomach.

There was a loud thud beside me. The flashing Sherriff's badge and calloused tawny hands as Saul took his seat next to me. "You have been staring at that candle all night, huh? Probably haven't said a word since I left. Are you getting cold feet, Karen? Are you mad about what happened? Your father would have done the same thing if he were here."

No words left my mouth, leaving a still silence between us both. I hid my hand in my fur and turned my eyes the other way. Ma always told me the eyes were the gateway to the soul, and I didn't want Saul to have a clue to what exactly was on my mind. It seemed not responding dictated to Sherriff Saul that he could continue to speak.

"Remember why you are here. To kill the bastards for your brother. You're a member of our pack and we look after our own."

Tanner muttered, "A man's life is short. Like a flame, it can burn brightly or burn slow and last a long time. We are all like this flame, we are all burning at a course we can't control."

Saul ran a hand through his short black hair. He shook his head as the fresh scar across his right cheek stood out. "Are you a priest now?"

Tanner responded, "No, I am just qu —"

"Shut up, Tanner, and get some prog, get some sleep. We move at dawn."

"Dawn!?" I shouted.

"So now you have a voice, Karen," Saul replied with a grin. "He's out there, afraid, alone in the cold. It's a good way to die. Let him fight through the storm and we take him in the morning. We take away the last bits of hope that he would have. Let him fight this entire night to stay alive and then we kill him, for Winston and your brother, of course."

"He could be dead meat by then."

"I reckoned he probably still be alive, fagged out, but alive. These Bull Prosecutors are like roaches hard as hell to kill. You should eat now with the others," Saul said.

The door opened, and Richard dragged Mark to his shoulders, who was more of a burden now. He laid him down right next to the carcass of the deer and doubled back to close the door. Saul's eyes were still on me as he motioned toward the deer. "If you want to go through the storm to find him with those senses of yours, I won't stop you. Once you can find your way back here and get something to eat along the way, go for it."

I thought about it as Saul and the others ate, tearing flesh from the bones in their most primitive form.

I am a monster. Am I, though? My mouth drooled for part of the chaos I was watching. Maybe that was the natural order of things. I wouldn't survive one step outside. Saul knew this well, and I knew it too. Yet he gave me the challenge, regardless. Despite the long lapse since I had been in a den, Saul showed us we were nothing more than cubs.

My final thoughts hit me as my mouth went to work between loud chews and bloodstains falling upon my fur.

We would avenge my brother and Winston tomorrow. Tomorrow my temporary life as a monster ends. Tomorrow I could finally come home to you — the man I love. Please wait for me, Ron.