UPRIVER STORIES: BOOK TWO, THE FRENCHMAN'S TALE COPYRIGHT 2004 BY SHANNON LAKE        (SAMPLE CHAPTER)
		Upriver Stories: The Frenchman's Tale, CHAPTER ONE I think that I was born in 1866. I learned to speak English when I was maybe fifteen or older. Or maybe three or four if you are counting in human years. I learned from listening to people. My mother, Mahala, taught me my first words. You would call them sounds. Barking, sniffing, grunting, it is the language of Canine. Our singing you call howling. We sing to the moon and to each other. We also possess the ability to imagine pictures and send them telepathically to our loved ones. It was then, as a young one, that I learned the language of the land. I learned how a trail is marked by a scent, carried on a breeze that accompanies all movement within the forests. I learned how birds and small creatures warned the universe of dangers observed from their vantage points among the treetops. I learned the scent of the water rushing through the  yet unbridled creeks of the virgin woods. I was perhaps five years old when I saw my first white man. Mahala had kept me close to her side. She told me of the Indians. She told me of the ancient ones, and the giants. She said the Indians were changing, that the whites had brought change. I ran with the pack on hunts and killed and ate with them. I had been told by my half-brother, Javier, about the whites.  He said they were loud and  carried long smoking sticks that shot powerful poison rocks out their ends. He said they cut down the trees and dug up the earth. We had seen many Indians. Javier was eleven  months older than me , if I am remembering correctly. He had only seen a few white men before that day. Mother had said for us to stay away from them. Javier and I were chasing and eating mice one afternoon in a sunny meadow, when I saw them. First two white men dressed in buckskins. Then two more. They carried the long sticks I later learned to call rifles. I saw the pale blue eyes of one man creature looking at me over the barrel of the gun. “Run.” Javier hissed, snapping at the back of my leg with his teeth. I turned and did as he said. I heard the shot ring out and my brother yelped in pain and terror. He made it into the cover of the blackberry vines where he fell. He lay there for nearly two days before he died. My mother and I had tried to feed him,help him;but, the poison of the lead killed him slowly. We cried and sang for two weeks. Mother still left food beside his body until his bones began to show through his fur. I became very shy without my brother to give me confidence. The years passed and as I grew older I began to have the strangest dreams. In my sleep I would see the white men and their guns trampling the long grasses and cutting the quiet of nature with their angry shouting. Over and over again, I would dream that one of these men was calling my name and chasing after me. I would wake with a start every time the man would catch up to me and reach out his hand to grab me. After Javier passed away, I was lonely. Though I did my duty as a brother, watching and protecting them, I would not let my other brothers and sisters get too close, for I feared losing them also. We would sing in the moonlight together often. It was then when I felt the closest to my family. Our cries were a sort of prayer. It was always to tell Sister Moon of our gratitude for her light. Gratitude was important in our society. We thanked the deer and the elk for their meat, the Sun for his warmth, and the Earth for her shelter. Mother Mahala said that we learned this from the first people. She said that long ago, in the time of the giants, they had been our brothers and sisters too. She said that there were still some of us on both the canine and human sides who were both man and wolf. I am both. I am Jacques La Fayette, son of Mahala, who is a daughter of Canine royal bloods of the families of Wolf and Dog. I am Jacques La Fayette, son of Amil La Fayette, who is the bastard son of a milk maid named Marie-Louise La Fayette. My father was a werewolf in the traditional sense. A man most of the time, he became a wolf during the full moon. On one such night he met Mahala. I am the result of that meeting. When Mahala was young and curious, she would leave Javier, her first pup, with her mate and   take a walk alone some nights. Mahala was paired with Guillermo, the father of Javier and all my siblings. She had met the Mexican Lobo, my stepfather, Guillermo, as she wandered alone after most of her own mother's clan had been killed by a trapper. He had taken her  as his pup first and later his mate. They had gone together in search of the missing buffalo. Many people say that wolves mate for life, but there are those exceptions to every rule. It happened one night that Mahala and her clan were singing for Sister Moon, and she became   distracted by the call of one whom she did not recognize. It rang sharp and clear in the crisp darkness, same; but, not same. There was a slight difference which she was never really able to describe to us until we were older and knew the voices of men. She followed this strange sound and it grew louder with each step. She was almost upon the source of this sound when suddenly it came again, even louder from immediately behind her. The sound seemed lower to the ground than it had originally. It was an approximation of a moon song, with the unfamiliar to my mother's ears, ring of human corruption. She said the being that made such sounds stepped out into the light. He was a long-legged   black wolf with strange eyes that seemed odd shaped and had too much white around the  dark irises. He bore the scars of battle done fiercely and without care to preserving one's looks. A great slash across his back leg was bald and pink. His muzzle had been laid open with a sword across the nose, now wrinkled with scar tissue. He stared at her with open mouth, panting. He lowered his head and came nearer, ears laid back. He rolled onto his back before her adopting a submissive posture. Their noses touched and he began to lick her mouth. She was in season again for the first time since my brother was born. Javier had been the only survivor of Mahala's first litter. My mother and the black wolf mated in the woods that night. Then they slept beside each other in the long grass of the meadow. When the sky was barely blue the next morning, and the stars were blending into the sunlight one by one, Mahala heard a rooster crow from afar. She raised her head and yawned. Looking down towards her sleeping lover, she was shocked to see that what lay sleeping beside her was not a wolf but a man. He had dark straight hair and bushy brows. He was naked and she could see the scar on his leg.  He snored lightly and turned his head, mumbling. Observing his nose, she found that it had been cut with a sword, and scarred in healing. His hairless skin and the frightful hairy thing standing up between his legs sickened her. She knew that he was the wolf. She also knew that she now carried his child. Angrily, she bit his thigh, and he awoke, shoving her aside with a powerful thrust of his arms. He sat up and began cursing. “ Eh, Bien? Qu'est-ce que vous avez?” He said. “What the hell is wrong with you? Woman, do you not know me now? You knew me last night. Look into my eyes again.” He told her. “ I have not changed.” She licked his hand apologetically and ran away into the forest. “Name the baby Jacques if it is a boy, after my friend killed in the war!” He yelled after her. Soon she had given birth to me and this time, there were no other pups. I was large, and Mahala had terrible pain bringing me forth. Javier had sat outside Mahala's den and cried for her, as I was born on a full moon night. Mahala said that my father came around some, but still, I have never met him.            Guillermo treated me as his own, and never questioned my mother. He was good to her and to all of us. He was killed in a fight a few years ago with a dying old Bull Elk that landed one powerful hoof strike against Guillermo's skull. He was killed instantly and thrown a distance away by the blow. Mahala finished the bull so that the pack could eat, and then she herself refused food for weeks as she mourned Guillermo. Growing up I did not experience the change every full moon. Javier had said something about me coming out of our mother all pink and hairless; then, watching me change into a black furry pup before his very eyes. He had called it a dream. Until I was two or three years old as a canine, I had no reason to suspect otherwise. As a young pup, I watched my siblings and learned the ways of the natural canine. I felt I was different, though I wasn't sure why. I learned from Mahala's way most often. She was quiet and crafty most of the time. She was without a doubt the leader of our family. Her mind was always working on the problems of survival. She urged the pack onward following the herds. “I know it is a beautiful night, and there are many things to explore, Pilar, but you must keep up with the pack.” She would scold my sister. 'Guillermo, listen!” She would tell Father, cutting him off as he tried to tell us kids a legend. “Jacques, stay close to me tonight. There is a shadow on the moon that I don't like the looks of.” I heard her say more than once. I grew into a handsome dog. Of course, I am not bad looking as a man. But, as a dog, I was a young adult and had some young adult thoughts and desires. My family had hinted that I should mate with a cousin, Yolanda, who would be at the next harvest gathering. Of course, I should  mention that the harvest gathering is the full moon of October each year. It is a night when the many packs meet in the desert land to sing together. Yolanda wouldn't have me. Neither would any of the others. I went alone after that night. I had looked back once at Mahala, and the rest of my family. Mother had looked at me, understanding that we were both right; I was different. She knew I had to go, and nodded her blessing, sending me the image of a reunion in the future. On my own, I wandered for months, barely aware of the passing of time. I was able to scavenge from others, take a few farmers' chickens and lambs, and find shelter. I had no aim but to keep wandering. I went from the southwest to the plains and east, then north all the way into Canada.  In my travels I gained confidence and learned that I would have to interact with others if I were to survive. I learned to trust myself and to read intent in someone's body language. My dreams were strange and colorful. I began to see so many places and things when I closed my eyes. I began to dream during the day, while awake. I had formed the idea that I was meant to wander and discover. Having spent so much of my life afraid of losing my family, I now felt free of them, rather than rejected. I think it was Mahala's blood in me that made me think that way. She had never second guessed herself. She knew that she had prepared me for this. She knew I had to live among men. Eventually I became fascinated with the life I saw in the towns and settlements. My curiosity about humans was at first fueled by  the hunger in my belly. More and more of them crossed my path headed west. The smells they brought were wondrous. At night, in the towns and villages, I raided their garbage piles. It is amazing how much they waste. I watched them in their relentless pursuit to tame the land and acquire possessions. I was incredulous that among their possessions, some had counted other humans. I learned this when I met a black cowboy named Jenkins who served up a delicious rabbit stew and told some children about the days of slavery that had only recently ended- officially anyway.  I listened as he told the kids about Africa and the lands far away. It was when I approached the woods of Northern Virginia that I first  met with the human in me. The same night, I met with temptation. I was walking toward the scent of food. Her name was Dinah Leigh. She approached me with no fear, nor caution. She simply began speaking to me and somehow I understood. Well, I understood  the words she spoke, but not exactly her meaning. I felt odd sensations throughout my being. I wanted to run away, but my feet were planted. I felt queasy and out of sorts. I also could not stop staring at her. 'Well, I declare, you are stark nekkid.” She stared at me a moment. “You're not ashamed either. Where do you come from? You look like a Frenchman. Are you one of the Canadian trappers I have heard about? You're dirty as an old hound dog, child. Come here, let me get you washed up. You follow me right on over to the house, you hear? Come on, here, put this shawl around your privates 'til we get you inside.” And then she got me inside. She gave me a bath in a giant tub in her kitchen, a room filled with good smells and shiny metal pans and iron skillets, all hanging from a great rack above her window. As her strong hands scrubbed me I could only look around at her, and the kitchen of wonders. She poured the hot water over me and scrubbed some more. I became aware of her large breasts  pressing into my back. Then I became even more aware of her hands plunging beneath the water and grabbing between my thighs, as her mouth was pressing against mine. I had never felt such a thing and became quite startled and aroused. I turned and stood to face her, and for the first time, happened to glance down at myself. I was shocked by what I saw! I had no hair! Or at least not enough of it where I usually had hair. I was pink, and my legs were long and there was something else. I think I will not describe it for you, but you can imagine my surprise. My shock was soon compounded when this woman, Dinah Leigh, picked me up and carried my naked body to her bed. She continued to manhandle and confound me throughout the evening and into the next morning, insisting that I say her name loudly many times. “It's okay! My granny is deaf as a stone and the men are all out hunting wolves.” She innocently said. I left her sleeping, crawling out of her window at sunrise. And then came the change-back. A terrible pain twisted my body as I re-formed into a wolf. My bones cracked and splintered. It hurts your head the most. I hadn't even known   that I had changed into a man, until I saw myself, naked in the tub with Dinah Leigh. I spent the days hiding from her menfolk, and other menfolk. Womenfolk I like. She started it all, my Dinah Leigh. Her beauty was of a natural quality. Though she lived on a farm, her family was good and had some money. Unfortunately, much was wasted on trying to train the girl to fit into a proper society, where women are supposed to be given to fits of fanning and fainting and blushing. Dinah Leigh did not  blush. She was a robust girl of  maybe eighteen, and nearly six feet tall. What she lacked in manners, she made up for in sincerity. I recall our main conversation in her bedroom. It was me listening most of the time, except when I was hoping to shut her up if I said her name. “Does that feel like I'm doin' it right, Jacques? I've only done this a couple of times with the Mulatto boy from the next farm over. He says I'm doin' it okay, and he makes me say his name a lot. Say my name, Jacques. I wanna hear you say it with that funny accent of yours.”