Chapter 3 — The Pact

Snow had fallen in the night, clean and sharp.

The world was quiet again, a silence so heavy it pressed against the ears.

The humans moved through it like ghosts, wrapped in hides, their breath pluming in the dawn.

And behind them — at a careful distance — padded the wolf.

For days he had followed. Never too close, never too far.

They knew he was there. They left no sign of fear, no thrown stones, no shouts.

Each morning, when the fire was stamped out, Aru would glance back — a silent invitation the wolf didn’t yet understand.

The wolf hunted for himself at first, chasing small things: hares, rats, half-frozen birds.

But hunger never stayed away for long.

One morning, the pack of humans found the tracks of elk in the new snow.

Fresh. Large.

Aru lifted a hand. The humans fanned out, silent, moving with the same precision as wolves.

The wolf watched from the ridge. He recognized the shape of the hunt, even if the tools were strange. Spears instead of teeth. Fire instead of fury.

Listen for more

Chapter 2 — The Campfire

The fire was alive.

It breathed, cracked, and whispered — not like wind or water, but something new. Something that chose to live.

The wolf watched it from the trees, eyes reflecting the orange light. Every instinct told him to stay hidden. Yet hunger and curiosity had learned to share the same body.

He came again the next night.

And the night after that.

Always the same: scraps of bone thrown into the dark, soft voices, laughter that didn’t sound like threat. The humans had begun to expect him. Some pointed. One — the scarred man — would always be the one to feed him.

He was taller than the rest, broader in the shoulders. The others moved when he moved. His scent carried no fear.

The wolf didn’t yet understand leadership, but he knew this one mattered.

Each night, the distance between them shrank.

A few steps at a time.

On the fifth night, the wolf stayed in the open. The firelight painted his fur in gold and shadow. The humans spoke in their strange rhythm, their words low and slow.

One of the women — her hair braided with feathers — hummed while she worked. The sound was like a stream under ice.

Act 1

Chapters 1-5

Chapter 1 — Hunger in the Pines

The wind moved through the trees like a living thing, sighing between trunks, whispering across the frozen ground. The wolf lifted his nose to the air, every scent cutting through the cold like a blade — snow, pine, and the faint, fading musk of a deer herd long gone.

Nothing.

He hadn’t eaten in three days. The world around him was all hunger and silence.

The pack had split after the chase — the young ones too desperate, the old ones too tired. He had run until his lungs burned, until even the blood on the snow lost its smell. Now he was alone.

The sky had that endless gray look that came before a storm. Clouds sagged low, full of cold and weight. The kind of weather that erased tracks and ended lives.

He padded deeper into the pines, paws pressing through the crust of ice, fur dusted white. His ribs ached from the hollow inside him. The world offered nothing — not a vole, not a rabbit, not even the sound of wings.

He stopped and listened.

The forest had voices if you knew how to hear them.

Snow creaked. Wind talked. Somewhere far off, a branch cracked and fell.

Listen for more

Join me on an adventure into my youth. I am at the hunting camp with my father and his friends when I discover the great possum dog.

Before there were names… before there were laws… before there were stories told around a hearth — there was hunger, cold, and the thin line between survival and extinction.

In The Night the Wolf Found the Fire, we are taken back to a world older than memory, where a lone wolf moves through frozen pines, driven by instinct and desperation. His pack is gone. The land is silent. Death waits patiently in the cold.

Then he sees something no wild thing should trust — fire.

This prologue is not just about a wolf and a flame. It is about the first moment two worlds brushed against each other: wild and human, fear and curiosity, destruction and creation. It is the beginning of a bond that would shape both species forever — a bond built not on words, but on survival, shared danger, and uneasy understanding.

The Fire and the Hound begins here — in the dark, in the cold, at the edge of the light — where instinct meets destiny, and the first spark of an ancient relationship is born.

Santa Paws and Comet Jr. waved goodbye as the sleigh rose back into the sky, disappearing into a trail of golden stardust.

The Beagle Family huddled around Molly, admiring her new collar.

“What does the bell mean?” Andy asked.

Major Rusty smiled.

“It means that kindness travels far. Farther than the woods. Farther than the North Pole.

And bravery… well, that carries into a brand-new year.”

Molly looked up at the sky, where the golden trail was fading into starlight.

Her bell chimed again—

DING…

—and she knew that someone far away was thinking of her.

It was going to be a wonderful New Year

I’ve heard folks say a deer riding home on a dog box ought to feel shameful.

They’re wrong.

This buck didn’t come off a feeder.

He didn’t step out for a photo op.

He didn’t stand still.

And he sure didn’t get taken by a bumper on the highway.

He earned every inch of that dog box.

That morning started like a thousand other coastal North Carolina mornings I’ve hunted—heavy air, damp ground, pine needles slick under your boots. The kind of quiet that only sounds quiet if you don’t know what you’re listening for.

Then the dogs opened.

Not chaos. Not noise for the sake of noise.

Just honest hounds striking a real track.

That buck knew the sound.

He’d heard it before.

He’d beaten it before.

He ran hard—through briars, swamp edge, cutovers—using every trick an old coastal deer learns if he plans on getting old. He circled, crossed, doubled back. The dogs stayed steady, doing exactly what good dogs are bred to do and trained to do.

Then it came together.

I didn’t get a gift.

No standing deer.

No pause to think it over.

That rifle came up on a deer in full stride. I was carrying a scoped M4 chambered in 5.56/.223—a rifle platform I know well. I’ve carried one most of my adult life and put thousands of rounds downrange. Some at paper. Some at steel. Some at deer. Some in places and moments that demanded absolute focus.

Familiarity matters. Confidence matters. Knowing your equipment inside and out matters—especially when you’ve got seconds, not minutes, to make the right call.

Seconds matter in that moment. Judgment matters. Knowing when not to shoot matters just as much as knowing when to take it.

When I pulled the trigger, it wasn’t luck.

It was a clean shot, taken with respect—for the animal, for the dogs, and for the hunt itself.

(Maybe a little luck)

The chase ended the right way.

Quick. Clean. Final. I didn’t have to call for dog to come help me track my deer

It was laying right there where I shot it.

Now that buck rides home on the dog box.

Not for likes.

Not for arguments.

Not to impress strangers who’ve never stood where I stood.

He rides home as proof of a hunt done the hard way.

Tonight the dogs will rest.

Stories will get told.

Meat will get shared.

And lessons will get passed down—just like they always have.

That old buck didn’t lose to luck.

He lost to tradition.

To skill.

To fair chase that’s older than social media and louder than any comment section.

That’s not something I hide.

That’s something I remember.

⸻

I didn’t tell this story to brag.

I didn’t tell it to stir folks up.

And I sure didn’t tell it to argue in comment sections.

I told it to tell the story.

Because stories matter. They’re how traditions survive when noise tries to drown them out.

My goal is simple:

to encourage folks to do this the right way.

With lawful dogs.

With fair chase.

With judgment instead of impulse.

With respect for the animal, the land, and the people who come after us.

If someone reads this and learns something—good.

If a young hunter reads it and understands why familiarity and discipline matter—better.

If it reminds an old hunter why we were taught to do it this way in the first place—best of all.

This isn’t about proving anything.

It’s about preserving something.

Because when we stop telling the story, somebody else will tell it for us—and they won’t tell it right.

—

TicBite NC

© TicBite NC 2025

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