Posted by Caleb on October 20, 2009, 1:44 am
216.220.216.169
Caleb's mood was somber. These days it was rare to catch him in any other mood. He took joy in little. Not the bright autumn sky, nor it's pleasant changing leaves. Not even the crisp chill in the air, a relief with the pyrenees great shaggy ivory pelt, brought even a glimmer of joy to his golden eyes.
Caleb was still in mourning.
Though he tried to deny it. And in the public eye he was amiable enough, if not a little standoffish. He certainly didn't seek out the company of others.
Which was foolish. They would of made him feel better. And even not being a native of the mountain he had friends who were. Mordecai, the wolf/collie. Wingfoot, his mother. Lily the she-collie, and her grandchildren Kaden and Foxglove.
The thought of the twins brought the ghost of a smile to his maw. Fox and Kaden had grown up with his own dear son, Windigo. And they had gotten into worlds of trouble. Much to his and Lily's distress. Perhaps her's more so, for she had been a ghost, and unable to aide them as well as she might.
Caleb wondered briefly how the collie family was. Lily had described this place, Wolf Mountain, with the same rapture as his beloved, departed, mate. Kennocha.
It was her death that kept him somber and in mourning. Even two years later he still felt responsible.
Their courtship had been a fast one. Kennocha and Caleb were opposites. She was fiery temper, and prone to conflict. While Caleb was cool, rational, and unconfrontational. At first he had though her temper obnoxious and unbecoming.. But as time went by he grew to appreciate her sensuous, feminine movement, and her sly vixenish ways. He'd fallen hard. Completely enraptured. And Kennocha revelled in the power she held over him.
But then Windigo came. And the more time Caleb and Kennocha spent together the more they quarrelled. Until atlast their relationship got to the point where they stayed together only for Windigo' sake.
And it was one of these arguments that had lead to her death, or so Caleb believed, and thus held himself responsible. It was the time of thaw. And flash flooding had made the cliffs where they lived slippery and unstable. And the river's that rushed beneath them churned with angry white water.
At the den, Caleb and Kennocha had quarrelled. She wanted to return to Wolf Mountain. Caleb argued their son was too young. Kennocha snarled at him that he was always trying to control her, and their family. She fled along the treacherous paths. And he heard her scream as the path gave way and she toppled to a crushing, drowning, death.
The image of her russet body rolling under the current, swept downstream to never be seen again, was burned into his memory. As was the guilt. If he had only give in.. She would be alive today.
He had honored her dying wish. And as soon as Windigo was old enough to travel Caleb had brought him. The finish out his maturity in the land of his mother's birth. Caleb was proud of his son. Very proud. But also extremely protective. Almost to the point of smothering. Windigo, with much of his mother's brash temper, resented it.
So today it was maddening to let his son wander unchaperoned. But, at some point he would have to let go... eventually. Maybe.
Caleb shook his head to clear the thought and grinned faintly. Perhaps his son was right. Perhaps he was hopeless.
Sighing softly the great pyr turned his golden eyes upriver, to see what he could see.
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