As you're cleaning up after lunch, you hear a distant roll of thunder, and check the weather on your phone. "It's going to get a lot wetter. I'm not completely sure my tent can keep it out. Options: den up for the day, and maybe put up with damp butts? Or pack up and head out?" You put out your left hand for the first option and your right for the second, so he can pick by nosing one of them. Or, you suppose, indicate he doesn't like either option by refusing to pick, in which case you'll have to go fur. You really need to work on understanding Wolf while human.
You think about it for awhile. A sleepy, rainy day isn't much of a bother, but you've been in this place several days, now, and are getting bored. There's nowhere new to look at anymore, now that you've been out fishing. You nip the hand to indicate you'd prefer to leave. You want to get back to traveling.
"We could go visit Dad. We could make it in about five hours from here, I think. You'd need to be Rusty for a bit, but you need a rest from shifting anyhow. And then we could be in the Boundary Waters in time for me to spend the full moon in wolves-are-spirit-guides country. Wanna?"
You nod emphatic agreement, then rush over to the cooler and make a dismay noise when you see you've both eaten all the fish. You can't go stay at your friend's family home without bringing a food gift. "You clean up. I'll be right back," you tell him, as clearly as you can manage— a paw set forward for wait— a quick hop back and forth into the brush, then you take off running. The geese are still stupid and unwary, and you plow a furrow right through a damp, sleepy flock about a mile away from camp. You grab one by the wing, shake it firmly, then break the neck. There. Good. A good quick kill, almost clean. Head up, dragging the wings and head a bit, you stumble-trot back to camp. It takes significantly longer getting back, and Bel's waiting for you. "There," you say, relieved to drop the goose at his feet, and shake out the water and the stiffness built up in your shoulders.
You heard the commotion among the goose flock, saw them take flight above the trees, so you're not surprised. You turn from loading the bedding into the truck with a rather touched smile. "A gift for my dad? That's really thoughtful!" You pack it into the cooler and then give Erskin a big hug, lakewater and all. You really wish you could introduce him to your dad in human form. But maybe it's best to spare him the 'you're dating my baby, your intentions better be honorable' treatment. Your dad's not too terrible about that, but he still enjoys embarrassing you, the way you suppose parents always do. "Where's that flashlight those folks loaned us? Cool, and I'll have to return the blanket from the boat guy too." The thunder is much closer when you've finished breaking camp. You've got the heater going in the truck just to keep the windshield from fogging up, what with all the wet gear in the back. One more quick check around to make sure you haven't forgotten anything, and then you bid your campsite farewell. Dropping off the blanket is straightforward. Returning the flashlight might take a bit of talking. "Don't worry, I'll act normal," you grin at Erskin as you park behind their RV. You jog up to knock on the door in the worsening rain. "Hey," you greet the man who answers the door, "Carl, right? I guess my cousin borrowed a flashlight from you the other night." You offer it. "If I'd known when I ran into you the other day that you were the nice folks who filled him and his dog full of steak, I wouldn't have been so standoffish."
You watch from the window as Bel goes through actually a rather sophisticated lie, which is accepted, and a package of what is probably food is pressed upon him in exchange for the flashlight. When Bel gets back to the car you give his face a congratulatory wash, then stick your nose in the package. Biscuits! Human biscuits. Well, could be worse. You eat one immediately.
"You? Are going to get fat." This prospect does not upset you. Nor him, from the way he goes at those ginger snaps. You grab a handful for yourself before he can finish them off. "These are mine," you explain, arranging them on the dashboard. "Even though I'm not eating them all at once, I have dibs." He accepts this; you left him most of the package anyway. The full strength of the storm hits as you leave the park road for the highway. You turn your music up just a little so you can hear it over the wipers. It feels good to be moving on.
After biscuits, you curl up and have a nap in the front seat, then yawn, stretch, and have a nap in the back seat. Then you want to go out and you chill your nose on the window glass and then stick it on various part of Bel's skin until he pulls the car over at a rest stop. After a short, wet jog it's back in the car for more naps, and brief and joyous period of leaning your head out of the car window before it starts raining hard enough to drown you. After that you're really bored and so you resort to periodically changing the radio channel to make loud static noises with your paw, in an attempt to be obnoxious enough that Bel will pull the car over again and wrestle with you.
When you get bored with swatting his paws away from the stereo and grumbling at him about it, you propose a game: like I-Spy, except whatever he picks, he says it in Wolf, and you have to figure out what he's saying.
You look at him doubtfully. Play a game in a method of communication he can't parse, and hope it won't just be frustrating for either of you? Well, you'll give it a try. "I see... you," you say, giving him an easy one.
You look out the front window, then back to him so he won't guess from where your nose points. "I see a shipping truck, with blue and yellow writing on the side. It's in front and to the left." Patiently, you repeat, "Shipping truck," and "In front and to the left," a few times. He should at least get his direction instructions learned.
You get 'front' fairly quickly, and 'truck' comes back to you from your discussion about scent marking. But apparently the item is not 'the front of the truck'. After a while of guessing, his description changes by one small expression, and you make the connection to the semi in the left lane -- because you moved into the left lane to get around a slowpoke car in the right, so for a while instead of 'in front and to the left' it was simply 'in front'. "Cool," you say when he confirms your guess. "I learned like three words from that. Do another."
You make a pleased bounce, and almost topple out of your seat due to forgetting you're still in a moving vehicle. Catching your forelegs awkwardly on the dashboard, you look around. There, that should do— a small fast car driven by a single young man. It weaves in and out of traffic, as if it's really going to get to its destination much faster than anyone else, in this rain. "The probably-red car," you say, enunciating the concept of the elusive not-grey non-color. Probably-red is another decent term for him to learn, along with confirmed-red. "It's fast and weaving (as a chasing comrade getting in everyone's fucking way would to get to the front of the pack faster), not weaving, (as a frantic prey beast would to escape). There's a(n asshole) man in charge of it."
You understand so little of that, you'd have no chance of guessing it, except that you understood 'fast' and the culprit is pretty obvious. So once you've pointed the car out and gotten a nod, you set to trying to figure out the rest of what he said from your memory of the vehicle, now long gone. Your success is intermittent, but you're happy with any success at all, and so is he. This game keeps you busy the whole rest of the trip. Over the river and through St. Paul, then farther west, to Minnetonka of the sedate tree-shaded boulevards and modest millionaires' medium-large houses, and the water-labyrinth of the lake itself. Only when you pull into the driveway of the 1960's-ultramodern sprawl of white concrete and glass you grew up in do you realize: "I forgot to call Dad and tell him I'm coming. Whoops."
You laugh at him, hopping out of the car to stretch and groan, then do a circuit of the car to sniff around. You mark the front mailbox to give the local dogs a bit of a scare, then trot back to Bel's side. "Call him now!" you suggest. "On your phone. Pretend to be lost."
You get 'call him', somehow, but the rest isn't coming across. "Sorry, buddy, I hope that wasn't important," you shrug apologetically. "Anyway, Rusty time. Need to put the leash on until Dad's comfy with you having the run of the house, won't be long." He sits patiently for you to leash him, and keeps his frisking fairly sedate as you march up to the front door, pause under the ivy-hung porch roof to let Erskin shake off. Of course it opens just as you raise your hand to the doorbell; your dad's not unobservant and your truck's not quiet. "Sorry I didn't call -- mff." Hugs first, then talking. Yeah. "Dad, I'm soaked, you're gonna ruin your sweater!" It's nice. You missed him. "And this must be Rusty." He squats on his heels to offer Erskin a hand to sniff.
You give him your paw to shake, as well as a big gormless doggy grin and a very waggy tail. You like to keep your tail curled up over your back, around humans, for all that it's a bit of a strain. Only dogs have curly tails, and you certainly are a dog, aren't you? You lick his chin when he comes close enough. Ha, he smells a great deal like Bel. That's very cute. "You're very cute," you tell him, cheerfully. "I hope you like me!"
"Look at you, what a charmer you are!" He scruffles Erskin's ears delightedly, rainwater and all. Looking up at you, he says, "Give me a minute before you take the leash off, I want to move some fragile stuff so he doesn't knock it over." "Probably a good idea. He's hella polite and super smart, but he also gets enthusiastic sometimes." "Well, pillows are replaceable," Dad chuckles as he stands up, a faint crackling sound from his knees the only sign of age. "Go on through to the lounge, I've got a fire going." He claps your shoulder and gives you one of his slightly misty-eyed Dad smiles. "You're looking good," he adds; meaning that you no longer look traumatized within an inch of crawling under a table or jumping out a window. While he goes to gather up any knick-knacks at tail-wag height, you show Erskin to the lounge, what someone more pretentious would call a 'great room'. The house isn't strictly open-plan, they didn't really do that yet when it was built, but it has fewer and larger rooms than traditional architectural styles, and open archways rather than doors except where one might want privacy. When you were little, Craftsman style was making a comeback, and your mom furnished everything in Mission and Frank Lloyd Wright; your dad's never changed it. You like it. It's cozy without being smothering. Slate floors scattered with geometric rugs, oak-framed chairs and couches in sage green and caramel, copper and green glass lamps. The big wall of windows looking out over the back yard gives a gorgeous view of the rain-lashed lake, lit in the gathering evening only by the lights of houses and the occasional stab of lightning. You sit down crosslegged in front of the field stone fireplace, sigh at the warmth. "You know what we forgot to get?" you muse. "A brush. I would totally brush you if we had one, and you would be so fluffy."
You flop over on your side and give a mournful huff. You wouldn't mind a good brushing, if he's not going to be putting on fur to chew out any tangles himself. The fire's excellent, though. In a fireplace there isn't even any smoke. When Bel's father comes back into the room you heave yourself back up and stand at respectful attention, waving your tail in polite enquiry. Does he want anything?
