Where did you get that scar? The Little Mouse squeaked in such a high pitched voice its tone and frequency irked the Old Wolf.
They padded along on the soft grass and heard the gurgling of the brook just to their left.
The Old Wolf breathed in a deep gulp of evening air and sighed.
“It was a long time ago and many runs from here,” he said. “Maybe I’ll tell you about it sometime but not today…not today.”
He looked off and saw the wisps of clouds curling from the jagged line of the horizon like smoke from a Man’s den. He fell deeper and deeper into thought – memory, really – with his eyes frozen on the far beyond.
“Why not today?” Little Mouse asked.
The Old Wolf did not respond and the Little Mouse wondered if something had happened. She squealed out as loud as she could, “Why not today!”
“What?” The Old Wolf snapped back to his walk and the brook and the soft grass and with frustration, the Little Mouse.
“Why not today?” Little Mousehe repeated. “Why not today?”
“The time is far past and it involves man and I do not wish to talk of man today.”
The two walked on a bit further as the hazy, orangey glow of day faded, and the first sign of evening stars appeared in the direction of the sunrise.
The Little Mouse persisted, “Are you afraid of man – afraid to even talk of man? Are you afraid of what man can do?”
“Afraid of what man can do?”
The Old Wolf scoffed. “I am not afraid of what man can do!”
“What then?” The Little Mouse scampered ahead and jumped to and fro in the path as the Old Wolf walked.
“I am not afraid of what man can do,” the Old Wolf repeated. “I am afraid of who he is.”
The Little Mouse stopped and stared up as the Old Wolf walked by with his rhythmic padding on the turf.
After a few paces, the Old Wolf stopped and turned his shoulders back toward the Little Mouse. The small creature sat on her haunches, looking up at the larger animal with a puzzled look on her face. Her string of a tail whipping this way then that.
The Old Wolf looked up, sighed and hung his head, before turning his gaze back to the Little Mouse.
“Man has done many horrible things, especially to the likes of us,” he said. “But I can run and I am stronger than Man. You can scurry and hide, and you are quicker than Man.”
The Little Mouse nodded.
“You and I do what we were born to do. We are true to ourselves and true to our creation and Creator.”
The Little Mouse nodded even more emphatically.
“But man…,” the Old Wolf looked up and away again. He stood still for several seconds so that the Little Mouse felt the Old Wolf would not finish. She dropped to her front paws and scurried in front of him. She attempted to block the direction in which he peered.
“Hello, hello,” she said. “You said, ‘But man’ and then you stopped.”
The Old Wolf moved his gaze down to his tiny companion again. Were they really companions? He asked himself, are we friends, this mouse and me?
“Yes,” the Old Wold said. “We do what we were born to do, but Man does what he wills. He does what he chooses to do. He is not true to his creation or Creator. He chooses and the makes him dangerous – very dangerous, and very unpredictable.”
The Little Mouse considered this for a few moments. The water gurgled behind her and the fading light made the form of the hulking giant of an animal before her to grow even larger.
She held up a small paw and grabbed the Old Wolf’s attention. He looked at her, waiting for her to speak.
The look in the Little Mouses’ eyes softened and glistened with both mischief and knowledge. “But, don’t wolves eat mice?”