Chapter One

  It was a warm afternoon being this late in the fall; all the leaves had changed color, going from a painter’s palette of brilliant oranges, reds and yellows, painting the landscape prettier than Bob Ross could ever have imagined, to a cold dusky brown. Now they were fluttering to the ground in a last desperate act, creating Mother Nature’s blanket for the winter. The sun was just tickling the tops of the trees, dancing in and out the branches as if it were some golden-giant’s fingers being run through a head of hair.

    

  That’s when the beast waltzed out of the woods like it was on a Sunday stroll; it walked about twenty yards down Mayfair Street, and then turned left onto Center Street heading directly for downtown Bettles, Alaska. The thing was huge even by Timber wolf standards; it had to be almost four feet tall at the shoulders, and a good 185 pounds if not more. The wolf was a dirty brownish gray color, though it was hard to tell due to the matting of it’s fur, and all the dirt and grime  it seemed to have collected all over it’s massive body. Looking into it’s eyes you would almost swear that there was something going on in there, something calculating, thoughtful, something……….human.