Roadkill

Epilogue

My name is Catcher.

I’m running, my brother by my side. No, not really my brother, but he is of my pack and that’s the same thing. He saved my life once, years ago. And I’d saved his soul today. He is Rafferty; I remember now, if I’d forgotten for a while during the fight. I remember more. I remember me. I remember my life. I remember how we came to be running toward the trees under a huge bloodred moon. I remember telling my cousin to go live his life and his saying I was his life; that not only had I saved his soul, but that I’d given him one to save; that I was his family, the best part of him.

He was right. Family should always be the best part of one another.

My name is Catcher and I think this is the last time I’ll know that. Soon I won’t remember that any more than I’ll remember fries and birthday cakes. I won’t remember a spray of freckles across a beautiful woman’s breast and her lips soft under mine. I won’t remember my mother’s Christmas cookies, the brightly colored birds of the rain forest, card games, skiing a black diamond slope, drinking a six- pack and climbing to the dorm roof to howl at the stars. They are the best memories anyone can have. And I had had them. That counted; it did.

But that was then; this is now.

I feel night wind in my fur as I run, the smell of game in the trees, my pack by my side. There’s a life to be made here, a good life for a Wolf… or only a wolf. There is a cliff up ahead; it’s waiting for me.

My name is Catcher.

Finally I’m standing on the edge of that cliff. It’s not a cliff beneath my paws, but it is a real one all the same. I don’t see it with my eyes. It can’t be felt by my flesh, but I can feel it in my mind. I can’t see what’s below. I’m not afraid, though. I’m not afraid, because I have family at my side. I have my cousin who is my brother. He is my pack. With all that beside me, how could I possibly be afraid?

It is now. It is always now.

Now is good. Now could be the best.

Is the best.

My name is Catcher.

My name was Catcher.

My name… my name…

I am…

I am lost, I am found, and then I am free and I am happy.

When I jump over that edge, someone leaps with me, shoulder to shoulder. I smell kinship on him. Kinship is all. I’m not alone.

Never alone.

I land, earth below me, moon above. I am wolf. We are pack.

And that is all I need.

“For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack.”

– Rudyard Kipling