Alpha of Smoke

abe

e whispers next to me in the dark. "Or wi

re that bed with Joseph before our older brother became too sophisticated to sleep upstairs with us youngins. He sleeps on the cot next t

to hear that I don't think we'll be leaving the only home either of us ha

it's all settled in her little mind. So eas

always been more like me, longing for something new, something unexpected. A wide open space to run free. He doe

rass so tall, even my human form would have trouble seeing over the top of it. In my mind, a herd of buffalo appears, and I am t

the buffalo and the world together. He'll be just as handsome in his human form, and all the girls will wish they were the one to feel the

dom I feel pulling at my heart. But I haven't quite reached a deep slumber

uns

like some of the places we've heard tell of to the west, but we have our fair share of hu

tten acquainted with yet. Robert and Alice are both asleep, their breaths coming even and slow, and outside my window, I hear only the normal sounds of night. The faint clip-clopping

eam. Perhaps my particular field of bison was about to be invaded by gun toting humans who wanted their furs more than th

hear the

g my arms through and tying it tight before I slip my feet into the old pair of slippers Ma handed down to me earlier in the year when my feet got too big for my old o

the direction of the still sleeping children, but I tak

and he looks back at me for only a second. I see that recognition on his face; he knows I'm here, and he's not sending me back to bed like

a hollering into the night. It's all screeches and wails, and it's Ma who has the good sense to shout down the road to the crowd that's beginning to assemble to send for Doc Milligan, our pack healer

or it. Bright drops of red blood dot the porch. In the dim light, it's hard to see, but I can smell them trailing off down the road, into the woods behind the h

ke. His face is scrunched up in a grimace like nothin' I've ever seen before, and the bright red spo

ing his life, and for what? So some human can feel proud and mighty? So a new homestead

ut hesitance and pulls the sheet down to reveal a bullet hole in Henry's back. My uncle

him in a no-nonsense voice. "Get me the sharp

d stumbles off to

?" Aunt Lena sobs, holding

e waiting to see if he's co

tten how to open drawers and comes back with what my mother has asked f

aces but doesn't so much as moan. She's digging for the bullet in his back, and I find myself ch

the table about the time Doc Milligan rushes in, blurry eyed but ready to d

all know they won't never be clean again. When Doc Milligan looks at the m

uncle wraps his arms around his girls. "Please, Doc.

ep back toward the window, wondering if maybe she was right. Maybe I shouldn't have come. I a

hopper. Chasing him through the woods on a spring day. The time we snuck up on Hanna and put that frog down the back of her dress. A tear slides do

ut I knew the moment my cousin left this earth to be with the Moon Goddess. A small shudder went up my spine, and everything stopped moving for a moment, even the earth. T

next day would bring, and that on down the line, there'd be a lot more moments just

k Pa and me both knew one of tho