Chapter 2: Socrates

Skinner makes his first ally.

 

Socrates: Chapter 2

His ribs were nearly healed weeks later when the wolf returned. It came just after dusk, when Skinner sat crooning beside his fire, chewing on mushrooms and braiding dried gut into rope. Skinner looked up and watched as the wolf loped around the perimeter of firelight and sniffed as though searching for something.

Skinner had kept himself busy. His ribs kept him in check from much of his normal activity, so he found a way to cure hide and form a sort of flexible vest that would keep his ribs stable. Disgusted with his own lack of conditioning, he threw himself as aggressively as he could into a regimen of exercise. Starting off slow and easy, he progressed as quickly as pain would allow. By the time he healed enough to run and climb, he began to love the mountain so much that he thought of it as home.

He forced himself to avoid thinking about the world he remembered. There, in that world, he worked for a museum as editor of its publications. He suffered from asthma and constant allergies, was plagued by frequent sinus infections, and lived on flat land despotically ruled by corn and soybeans. The weather in that world, in the Midwest, was temperamental and given to extremities of heat and cold, storm and wind.

Here his breathing was uninhibited. He suffered no allergies. He felt healthy, alive, vibrant. Early in, he learned to appreciate the rhythms of his surroundings. Sky and wind, mountain and stream, cave and cliff all seemed to welcome him with the simplicity of survival. This was living. Uncomplicated by the nuances of society and all its absurdities—he had always thought of human civilization as absurd in its subversion of nature. His senses also seemed sharper here, though he rationalized this as biological adjustment triggered by survival instinct.

Despite his growing love of the mountain, he fought constantly the melancholy of home-sickness. Childhood had taught him the value of escape, but he had grown to love his life and family. Missing them was unbearable. He pushed through tears, throwing himself fully into every activity and project he could think: weaving rope, collecting firewood, fishing, hunting, trapping, and making the necessary implements to facilitate a relatively comfortable living.

“Thank God I read all that stuff on ancient civilizations,” he muttered to the sky.

The wolf huffed as though it had asked a question and was impatient for answer. Skinner shook himself free of his constant internal dialog and watched his visitor rummage casually about his encampment and scratch itself a place to sit.

“Figured you show up this week,” Skinner said. “Full moon starts tonight, close as I can figure it. Kind of late. Should have been here a couple weeks ago by my reckoning.”

The wolf stared at him. Skinner reached up and tore a haunch off the huge lizard he was cooking, and tossed it to the wolf. The wolf seemed to ponder it only a moment before loping over to pick it up gingerly and return to its spot. He circled around the spot twice before sitting down to eat Skinner’s gift.

“Ha!” Skinner giggled in a slightly drunken manner. “My dog back home used to do that.”

He grew morose at the thought, missing his life and family and the world he had known. He missed it so much he thought his heart broke. It took several minutes to realize that the dim pain in his chest was from the freshly healing ribs the boar had fractured. He corrected his posture and stared at the wolf again. It stared back, licking its chops in what Skinner took to be great satisfaction.

“Anthropomorphism,” he announced, falling back into his insulated sanctuary of intellect. “That’s what they call it.” The wolf stopped licking itself and stared at him.

“Assigning human characteristics to an animal,” Skinner explained. “Use it all the time in my poetry—did you know I’m a poet?”

The wolf remained silently attentive.

“I figure it’s time I named you,” Skinner said, scratching his unruly beard. “What’s a good name for a calico wolf with a stubby snout?”

The wolf cocked its ears, tilting its head toward him.

“Socrates!” Skinner crowed after a moment. “Of course. Socrates. We’ll have famous dialogues, you and I.”

He popped another mushroom, chewing on a root that tasted much like licorice blended with sassafras. He had watched a wounded deer eat the two together, and trying it found that the mushroom killed his pain while the root seemed to counteract most of the inebriating effects of the mushroom. It took him a full week to accustom himself to the contrast of tastes. He also found the root good for easing nausea, as well as making for a very refreshing sort of tea.

“What discourse this evening, Socrates?” Skinner talked to his wolf through the night, until he finally fell asleep gazing at the moon and speculating conversationally about the length of seasons and strange tides that might arise from such a moon.