TO CATCH A WOLF By Susan Krinard

“He appears to be regaining consciousness.”

“He will bleed to death if we don’t help him.”

“Help him? We know nothing about him.”

“It’s possible that whoever shot him had good reason.”

“Maybe he can’t talk at all!”

He struggled to remember how to move his mouth and tongue to form words, how to speak the name he had worn in that past life.

Morgan. Morgan Holt, who accepted help from no one. No debt, no obligation, and no charity. Yet he had come here. He was completely in their power.

With a fierce act of will, he shut away the distractions of thought and memory. He summoned up his dwindling strength and called upon the wolf within.

Nothing. Nothing but pain, and night. Blood whistled behind his ears. His heart stuttered, stopped, sprang to sluggish life again.

One of his would-be rescuers came near, and he tried to pull away. Calloused skin brushed his. He was too weak to shudder in disgust. He floated, disembodied, in a limbo where only the voices were solid.

“Come, children,” the first voice said. “Help me move him to my tent.”

“We hardly have enough food left to keep ourselves alive, let alone an outsider.”

“An outsider? Just look at him! He’s like us!”

“Caitlin and Harry are correct. We cannot leave him to die, and I believe I hear sounds of pursuit.”

“You know as well as anyone how the townies are, and how they treat those who are different.”

A face, round, male, and bewhiskered, took solid form from the fog. “Can you hear me, young man? We wish to help you. My name is Harry, Harry French. You find yourself among the troupers of French’s Fantastic Family Circus. Never fear, you are quite safe here—”

“He will die if you keep talking, Harry.”

Another face drew near: younger, more delicate, framed by a mass of red hair. “He won’t die. He came here for a reason, I know it. To help us, as we help him.”

“One of your ‘feelings,’ Firefly?” said the gentle drawl.

“Something made him come to us. We’ve needed a miracle. Maybe this is it.”

“If he survives and is willing to aid us.”

“I agree with Caitlin,” the old man said. “He is the good luck we have waited for, and we must save him. Tor!”

Heavy footfalls approached. Broad hands seized Morgan, and he was lifted in arms bulging with muscle and tight as a vise. A great void opened up around him as he lost contact with the earth. From the depths of his throat came a single, pathetic snarl.

“Do not worry, Tor. You won’t bite, will you, young man? No, indeed. Caitlin, come with me. The rest of you had better watch for those dogs and whoever is with them.”

“They won’t make it past us, Harry.”

That voice was the last for a very long time. When he woke again, he lay on a cot under several blankets, surrounded by the scents of animals and humans. He tried to sort through the smells, connecting each to its name: canvas, straw, rope, oil, metal, mildew, old cooking. His limbs were weighted; his chest ached with every breath.

But he was alive.

Dim sunlight found its way through the canvas stretched overhead. The small space was crowded with crates, some of which served as platforms for other unidentifiable objects. The cot was the only furniture in the tent, save for a folding chair and small table.

Outside the canvas walls, Morgan could hear the noise of a busy camp. Dogs barked, horses whinnied, and men’s voices made a continuous drone.

They had brought him here. They had saved his life. A string of curses came back to him in all their crude inventiveness, but his throat was too dry to speak.

He tensed his muscles. One by one his fingers obeyed his commands. He was not a prisoner. He could tear through those walls of canvas as if they were tissue, once he regained his strength. He felt the healing of his wound, flesh knitting hour by hour.

He concentrated on shifting his legs. A wall of gray pain dropped behind his eyes. He fell back among the blankets, breathing harshly through his teeth.

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