By the light of the howling moon

Dave was almost always there at feeding time. He just loved helping me tend to all the rabbits. My dad had built a special little barn to house these rapidly multiplying little beasts and filled it with cages and a few breeders. It didn't take long for them to actually overfill dad's little barn. On any given day we had 350 to 400 rabbits in the barn. But this really isn't the story I wanted to tell.

Dave and I had just finished feeding and watering all those rabbits, cleaning out from under the cages and hauling all the rabbit poop off to the poop dump dad had made. It was dark already and we stopped at the stock pond in the meadow behind the house. The light of the full moon directly overhead lit up the pond enough to allow us to see the turtles and Dave was throwing rocks at them. It amazed me that he could hit his target with a rock almost every time he let one go, even in the dim light.

We had just laughed about him bouncing a rock off the back of a pretty large turtle when suddenly we heard an erie howl come from the woods not far from where we were.

"Come on!" Dave said under his breath and took off running. He always could run faster than me through the woods because he was so much shorter than I was. Or at least that's what I gave credit too, he didn't have to duck as many limbs as I did. I bolted after him and followed him up through the woods heading for the foot of the mountain.

We hadn't gone far when he heard the howl again. Now, mind you, we had to be making all kinds of racket running through the woods like that. And probably should have frightened whatever it was up there howling away long before we got to it.... but we didn't.

We found it sitting in a small clearing which allowed a wide beam of moonlight through to the ground. In the middle of the light was a pure white wolf. There was a visible aura around it, like the light of the moon was reflecting off it's white coat and just lingering around it's body.

Dave and I stood, mesmerized by the image sitting so still in that clearing. Then it lifted it's head and began to howl again. To me, it was the loneliest sound I'd ever heard, and felt as though it was passing right through me. It was obviously something else to Dave, because he only stood there for a moment before dashing off in the direction of the house.

My first impulse was to take after Dave and run, but I didn't. Instead I waited until the wolf fell silent and watched as he stood and walked to the edge of the clearing. Now I don't know if it was because he walked out of the light or what, but as he passed through the edge of light he just seemed to vanish.

I stood there in total disbelief trying to catch a glimpse of him moving through the woods beyond that clearing when I heard that howl again. Only this time it was coming from much farther up the mountain to my right. There was no way it could have traveled that far in the few moments that had passed since it vanish from sight. All the hair stood up on the back of my neck and I took off running for the house.

When I got back to the stock pond I saw the wheel barrel was still sitting there so I grabbed it. Dad would have shot me if I left that out there for one of the cows to stumble over.

I found Dave sitting on the front porch alone, and when I asked him why he'd ran he just said "I can't believe you didn't!"