To Protect Their Young

Part 6

Derek walked with the volunteers as he continued calling Jarod’s name. His voice was beginning to get hoarse from all of the shouting, but he refused to give up looking. He trailed slightly behind the rest of the volunteers. As he began to feel defeated and helpless, he stopped walking and fell to the ground and began to shake as he cried uncontrollably and continued to call out for Jarod between his sobs. The other volunteers had moved further down the mountainside, and now he was all alone.

A very soft noise caught his attention, and Derek stood up and looked behind him. He saw the familiar shape of a wolf. She was standing no more than ten feet away from him, yet she didn’t seem threatening or even frightened of him. She just stood there, watching him closely. Angrily, Derek took a step towards the wolf and yelled for her to get away, but the wolf did not budge an inch.

“Do you want me now? Huh? I’m all alone and I have no way of protecting myself! You can have me now!” He shouted at the wolf.

The wolf stared at Derek and no amount of flailing and shouting could make her take her gaze away from his. Even when he began to throw rocks at her, she remained steadfast and steady with her gaze. When Derek calmed down a little, the wolf began to slowly back away from him. And in the most earnest voice that a wild animal such as she could make, she whimpered at him. She turned her head to look behind her, then turned back to look at him.

Derek had had enough of this game, and began to walk away. To his astonishment the wolf growled and kneeled down as if she were going to lunge at him, until he stopped and turned back to look at her. As soon as he did so, she turned away and whimpered again. After this went on for some time, Derek finally figured out that this animal wanted him to follow her. As Derek took some tentative steps toward the wolf, she took some steps towards the opposite direction, towards the cliffs. If he stopped, she would stop. She would only continue to move if he was following.

As Derek was trying to wrap his mind around the significance of what was happening to him, there were no volunteers around, and there was also nobody to protect him from this wild animal if she decided to strike. In the face of such possible danger, Derek knew that he would have to risk such an attack as he kept matching her footsteps, with footsteps of his own. When the unlikely pair reached a clearing right at the edge of the cliff, the wolf disappeared as she jumped over the edge. Derek slowly approached the edge and looked down. He couldn’t see anything at all at first except for the outline of the wolf.

Jarod was lying in the shadows and was nestled up against the wall of the cliff. When the wolf jumped back down to the ledge, she quickly began l*****g Jarod again, and nudging him to try and stir him. As Jarod awoke, he began to groan slightly. He thought he heard his father’s voice saying his name, and it sounded so close. He wasn’t sure if he was dreaming or not, but it sounded so real to him.

“Daddy?” Jarod said in a weak voice.

The wind carried Jarod’s timid answer back up to where Derek was standing and he fell to his knees when he heard his son’s voice. He started yelling, “I’m coming to get you! I’m coming for you, Jarod!”

Jarod moaned softly in response. Derek quickly climbed down the small cliff to the ledge. When he landed softly, all he could see at first was the wolf. She had wrapped herself around the boy again. As he looked around desperately for his son, she stood up to reveal Jarod lying there. His breath caught in his chest as he finally saw Jarod, who began shivering from the cold. He took his own coat off to cover his son. As he stepped towards Jarod, the wolf let out a single yelp of finality and then she ran quickly by him and jumped back up from the ledge. She turned to look back down at him and he looked up at her and softly said “thank you”. Then she was gone.

Derek covered Jarod with his warm coat, and then used his walkie-talkie to call the search party over to the cliff. Several people came running within minutes to help Derek get Jarod back off of the ledge. Jarod looked into his father’s eyes and smiled as he was being carried down off the mountain.

“Did you see her, Daddy?” he asked.

“She came and got me, son. Otherwise, I would have never found you.” Derek said shakily. Jarod put his arms around his father’s neck. They slowly made their way to a waiting ATV that would carry them back to the farm and to a waiting ambulance. Everyone was cheering loudly all down the mountain, and t he cheers echoed throughout the valley below the cliffs. Derek thanked everyone he could see with many tears of appreciation.

Sheriff Johnson was sitting by the fire with Amy in the house when he received a message on his walkie-talkie. The boy had been found, and he was miraculously alive. Amy heard the message and dropped to her knees and cried. Then she ran to the ambulance to wait for Derek and her son to arrive.

When the ATV pulled up to the ambulance, Amy saw Derek get out and carry little Jarod in his arms. Jarod looked so frail, but his arms were wrapped tightly around his daddy’s neck and he was smiling weakly. When Amy and Derek looked at each other, all the desperation went away and they shook with relief. Jarod and his parents went into the waiting ambulance and it raced them to the hospital.

“They told me you found him,” said Amy. “How did you find him in the dark?”

Derek looked at Amy and couldn’t find the words to describe his experience up on the mountain. In so many ways, he felt like his life had been changed forever. He was given a second chance at happiness by an animal that he had once tried to kill. Why she had given him such a gift, he would never know. But between man and beast there is a commonality, and that is to protect their young. Perhaps since she had been given a second chance so long ago, she had decided to return the favor.

The End!