As night fell on the cabin, CJ told Harry about the abuse she endured in her past. She told him about her short life, about how it was she ended up with Skinny. CJ never made the connection between the abuse and her chosen profession. To her, there was no emotional tie between the lecherous father and prostitution. Being a whore was something she found she could do well.

Harry had been with loose women before and enjoyed their company. Never had he considered their past, or the hell they lived through that made them do what they did. Now, listening to her, he understood that it wasn't their choice really—the profession chooses the girl. He took her in his arms and held her for a long time.

"Harry."

He said nothing.

"Harry? You, okay?"

He felt a surge of emotion, something more than passion. He tried to put a name to it. Empathy? Maybe. Or, it could have just been a sincere concern for the girl's well-being. It was an ill feeling, more like anxiety. His heart fluttered in his chest

The wolves resumed their residence around the house. They were howling to one another, and on one occasion sounded as though they were at the front door. There was no moon, so he found a flashlight and opened the door to have a look. He spotted a pair of eyes some twenty feet from the door. They reflected back unblinking and looked like luminescent globes of mother of pearl, cold, and frightened.

But they held behind them the power of the Teton Mountains.

He turned, leaving the cold outside, and stood with his back to the closed door. CJ stood before him holding a cup of coffee, which she rarely drank.

"There is a culture," he said, "that believes that, at the beginning of the world, wolves were gods from the heavens sent by the Great Wolf to Earth to carry messages to the creatures that shared their world. And people, who were primitive and ignorant, learned much from the wolves. They prayed and gave homage to wolves for their beauty, and power, their grace, and stealth, everything they worshiped in themselves."

"Where?"

"Here," he opened his arms as if to offer the cabin they were standing in as the answer to her question.

"Here?" she said demonstratively. "Right here where we are standing?"

"Here in these mountains. The Grand ol' Tetons. Thousands of years ago before any recorded history took place in Greece, in Samaria even. Before time was counted."

"Go on then, 'bout the wolves."

"And the wolves believed the people when they said, 'we love you, we will worship you,' and they allowed themselves to be worshiped. The people made friends with the wolves, and took them into their homes, and nurtured them, cared for them, protected them. But after many years of this, the people grew jealous of the untamed wolf. Those that they did not domesticate, they hunted, and they used their hides for clothing and shelter. For many years the wolves endured this from the people, until one day, the Great Wolf called them back to the stars."

"But they are still here, they never left."

"They still came to earth but avoided the people they once loved. Their messages now told of a creature that went about on two legs and ate voraciously. They warned that this creature would soon devour everything in its path leaving only darkness. That it would even consume the heavens that were the stars.

"And so the wolves have withdrawn into their own world, and when they brood, they howl to lament the prophecy they themselves have foretold."

CJ looked at Harry seemingly mesmerized by his story and said, "Get out."

"No, it's true."

"Who are these people?"

"They are long gone now overcome by time. Now, those that remain live in small reservations, or villages in the mountains of the Canadian Rockies. They drink, and fish, and make bobbles for tourists."

"Y'all are creepin' me out Harry. Shut up, will ya?"

The stuffed wolf that Harry had made friends with stood unmoved, staring back at him. "He understands," said Harry.

They both looked now at the stuffed creature with its large teeth framing a prosthetic tongue that stuck out just a little bit through a slightly opened mouth. It was panting and fully alert with ears facing front and head held high. Its bright yellow eyes nearly halved by large black slits – curtains veiling a fiery soul