Arctic Roots - 14. The Best Laid Plans

Adam woke in the hotel room in Fairbanks to the sound of the shower running in the bathroom. After a minute, the water stopped, and Axel stepped out into the room drying himself off.

“I’d get a hot shower this morning if I were you, Cub,” Axel said. “I don’t know what the opportunities for bathing are going to be after we head north today, so make this one count!”

Adam spent a long time under the showerhead, scrubbing himself well and luxuriating in the feel of the hot water running down his body. After he finally had enough, he quickly dried off and got dressed, sensing that his Papa was ready to go.

They had a few stops to make in Fairbanks before they could head out on the Dalton Highway. They replenished what little of their food supply they had already consumed and stopped at a service station to have their spare gas canisters filled and their tires inspected and deflated to the appropriate pressure for Arctic Tundra driving. Axel explained to his cub that lower pressure tires would provide the additional grip that they would need should they have to leave the highway and go off-road.

That potential for off-road driving was the reason for their last stop in Fairbanks, as Axel had to meet with a local government official to receive a permit not only to travel on the Dalton Highway but to leave the Highway and go off-road if necessary. He explained that they were representatives of a large governmental body based in Canada, and that they were hunting for a hermit living alone in the bush who was of interest to their organization. The official inspected their vehicle and gave them the approval, supplying Axel with a map of North Slope ice roads and snowmachine trails that they would need to adhere to in order to safely travel from village to village across the tundra.

With that final piece of business attended to, Axel and Adam began their trek north along the Dalton Highway.

“Um, Papa,” Adam said after they’d traveled the first thirty miles, “I thought you said that this was a highway.”

“It is, Cub,” Axel replied. “The only highway in this part of Alaska, and it’s only here because of the oil fields up there at the other end.”

“A highway is a paved road with yellow and white lines painted on it,” Adam commented, “This is a gravel road full of potholes barely wide enough for the semis to pass us going the other direction.”

“Believe me,” Axel replied, “If we have to go off-road to track down the Old Man, you’ll be praying for a road like this again.”

Adam held onto the handle just above the passenger door as Axel raced down the highway, bouncing up and down with the uneven patches and wincing as the fast-moving semi-trucks roared past them, spraying their windshield with loose gravel.

The driving conditions weren’t favorable to having a conversation in their truck, so Axel cranked up the Heavy Metal satellite radio channel again and rocked out to the music as he drove along.

“Hey Cub,” Axel shouted over the music at one point, “You hear his band? I fucked…”

“You fucked the lead singer backstage in the VIP room at a concert in Green Bay,” Adam said, finishing his Papa’s boast, “You told me. Proud of you.”

“All right smart-ass,” Axel huffed, “What I was going to tell you was to listen to the lyrics of this song. He wrote it about me after our encounter.”

Adam tilted his head and actually listened to the lyrics for the first time.

“Sounds like an animal

Panting to the beat

Groan in the pleasure zone

Gasping from the heat

Gut-wrenching frenzy

That deranges every joint

I'm gonna force you at gun point

To eat me alive

Bound to deliver

As you give and I collect

Squealing impassioned

As the rod of steel injects

Lunge to the maximum

Spread-eagled to the wall

You're well equipped to take it all

So eat me alive”

“See?” Axel said excitedly, “Doesn’t that song remind you of me?”

“Oh Lord, Papa,” Adam said rolling his eyes and slapping his forehead. “Sometimes you’re too much!”

****

It was only 175 miles to Coldfoot, and with the speed that Axel tackled the gravel highway, they made it to their destination by early afternoon.

Axel inquired about a room in the hotel, but they were fully booked that night. He was told that camping was free in the designated area across from the café, and that the restrooms inside the café were available 24 hours.

“Are there showers in the café too?” Adam asked.

“No, but we offer showers to the campers by appointment for only $14,” the desk clerk replied.

“Lovely,” Adam replied, and trudged back out to the truck.

As they set up their tent and unpacked the camping gear for the first time on the trip, Axel was in a surprisingly good mood.

“What’s made you so jolly?” Adam asked gloomily, “Happy to finally be roughing it?”

“First of all,” Axel replied. “This isn’t roughing it… yet. We may be sleeping in a tent, but there are actual restrooms less than fifty feet away, and the café opens from 5 to 9pm with an all-you-can-eat dinner buffet. When you’re digging a hole in the permafrost to take a shit and munching on lichen to get your daily supply of vitamin D, then we’re roughing it.

“Second, I mentioned to the people hanging around in the office that we were looking for a bushman living alone out on the tundra who goes by the name of ‘Matti’, and they said that their primary guide for field excursions was going to be getting back in tonight, and that they seem to recall him talking about a lone white man who occasionally visits the native villages. They’re going to point him in my direction as soon as he arrives.”

“Finally, our first real clue that Grand-Papa is out there waiting for us to find him!” Adam said, connecting the last pole on their dome tent. “While you’re gathering more intel, I’m going to be here in my ‘office’ getting caught up on Council stuff. Time to put this fancy Starlink wi-fi system to the test. If I’m still working when the buffet opens, come and get me, please!”

Axel spent the next couple of hours rubbing elbows with the truckers who came and went from the Coldfoot camp, hoping to find someone else who may have seen his Old Man in the last few years. At five o’clock, he poked his head in the tent where the cub was still hard at work and reminded him that it was dinnertime.

The buffet in the café was more than adequate and it clearly catered to the seasoned truckers who traveled up and down the Dalton Highway for a living. Although the food was good, Axel found that nerves prevented him from eating more than two plates full. Adam shook his head sadly at his Papa as he sat back down with his sixth plate of the evening.

“What’s bothering you Papa?” Adam said. “I’ve never seen you leave a buffet before without making the cook question their life choices.”

“It’s a combination of things, Cub,” Axel replied. “Mostly anxiety over possibly seeing the Old Man again after all these years.”

“Yeah, well,” Adam said. “I might have a surprise in store for Grand-Papa that will help to put things into perspective for him once we find him.”

Axel raised his eyebrow and looked at his cub, but just then a rugged-looking man with aviator sunglasses perched on his head walked over to their table and sat down.

“I heard that you’re looking for a white man living out alone on the tundra by the name of Matti.” he said. “My name is Alan Ferguson, bet everybody around here just calls me Fergie.”

“Thanks for talking to me, Fergie,” Axel said. “My name’s Axel and the Cub here is Adam. We’re on an expedition to find Matti and either bring him back to civilization or at least set him up with the means to stay in communication with us going forward.”

“I wouldn’t be doing ol’ Matti any favors if I didn’t ask why you wanted to find him so badly,” Fergie said, looking at the pair skeptically.

Axel sighed. He’d previously thought how he might go about explaining this to humans, but now he had to put the plan into action.

“I’m not asking you to rat him out if he’s a friend, and he isn’t in any sort of trouble,” Axel replied. “The truth is that he’s a lot older than he lets on, and I knew him way back when. You could say that he had a hand in raising me out there in the Arctic. We’re part of a group who knows him and care about what’s happened to him. We want to see if he’s ready to be a part of society again.”

“You say he’s older than he lets on,” Fergie said, staring down Axel. “That would be pretty hard to imagine, since he told me himself that he’s over four thousand years old.”

Axel gasped and his eyes went wide.

“He told you that? What else did he tell you about himself?”

“Nothing much,” Fergie said casually, “Only that he’s an immortal shapeshifter who can change from man to grizzly bear as it pleases him. You say that he raised you… what did you say your name was again?”

“My name is Axel, but back when I lived with Matti, I went by Alexei.”

“Well, ho-lee-shit,” Fergie said, leaning back in his chair. “Matti’s Cub has come home.”

****

Fergie sat with the bears for a couple hours, exchanging stories. He knew more about werebears than Axel would have expected, and he understood the Lycan Council’s desire to locate the whereabouts of the so-called “ancients” who reached a certain age and then disappeared from society.

There was a native village in the far northwest of Alaska that Matti would visit several times per year. Matti was considered to be their protector and “spirit bear”; one of the last tribes on earth keeping the ancient tradition.

He offered to fly the two of them out to the village, but they both resisted that idea, and Axel related his Cub’s only other flying experience.

“If you insist on driving,” Fergie said, “It’s going to be a hell of a trip. You have a map of the snowmachine trails?”

“Yeah,” Axel said, reaching into the satchel next to his seat, “I picked up one in Fairbanks when I got approval to go off-road.”

“There isn’t enough snow left on the ground for a snowmachine, but the tundra is still solid enough to drive on,” Fergie told them. “You basically have a narrow window over the next couple of weeks before the top layer heats up and turns to muck. What are you driving?”

“We’re driving that black Mercedes G550 4×4 out there,” Axel replied.

“Nice,” Fergie said, “As long as you keep to the marked trails, and don’t try to ford any rivers, you should be able to make it there and back.”

“Where exactly are we going?” Axel asked.

“Atqasuk,” Fergie replied, pointing to a speck on the map. “You’re going to want to stick to the Highway till you get through the mountains and then start your off-road trip starting at the Toolik Field Station. Head west, keeping the mountains on your left at least until you get past the Anaktuvuk Pass before angling north, or else you’ll run into some pretty impassible rivers.”

Axel asked Fergie if the Old Man had grown any friendlier around people over the years, and Fergie laughed a bit.

“No,” he replied. “Ol’ Matti treats everyone he meets like they’re somehow interrupting something that he urgently needs to do, as if he doesn’t have millennia to attend to business. He tolerates me as one of the few humans that don’t immediately irritate the fuck out of him, and of course, he’s patient with the natives, checking up on them and helping them out whenever he can.”

“I can’t imagine having Matti for a Papa bear,” Fergie said cautiously. “It must have been… rough.”

“It was,” Axel replied solemnly. “It took me a long time… centuries… to come to terms with the way he treated me. I’m just trying to do better by my own Cub now.”

Fergie nodded his head in understanding and gave Adam a wink as he stood to leave.

“Looks to me like you’ve found more than a Cub, here,” he said. “Could be you’ve found your Mate.”

Axel nodded and reached over the table to take Adam’s hand. They both thanked Fergie for his help and information and for keeping the secret of werebears secure. They left the café and returned to their tent where they got undressed and settled into their double sleeping bag.

“You wanna fool around?” Axel asked his cub, reaching over and caressing his ass.

“Nice try, Papa,” Adam replied, “I haven’t forgotten that you still have to finish the story of your wrestling days, and what happened with Lenny.”

Axel sighed. There was no fooling his cub anymore. They were too much in tune with each other.

“We went the next morning and talked to the boss about giving Lenny a job. He wasn’t too keen on bringing on extra hands at that point in the carnival game, but after seeing how strong Lenny was and that he was capable of some pretty heavy labor, he offered him a position with the restriction that I would be responsible for him, and he would have to bunk with me.

“I didn’t have a problem with that…”

****

Lenny was a hard worker and did his best to pull his weight around the carnival. The boss soon took a shine to his cheerful demeanor and set about training him on all aspects of the carnival operations. One week, he would be happily cleaning the animal cages as if tiger and elephant shit was the most amazing substance on Earth, and then next week he was operating the carousel, jabbering excitedly with the kids and couples waiting in line for their turn on the ride. He had a knack for knowing when a couple wanted a romantic moment and would frequently stop the ride with the pair at the very top so they would have time to steal a kiss before descending back to the ground.

One night, Axel stumbled back to his wagon after a particularly long night in the ring when not one, but seven different young men challenged him to wrestle. It turned out that they were the actual wrestling team from the nearby college, and there were a few moments in each match when the college boys nearly got the best of him.

He wanted nothing more than to go to bed and sleep for ten hours, but when he put his hand on the knob, the door burst open with Lenny’s grinning face shining upon him, proudly holding up plates of fried dough.

“Omigod, Axel! I’m so glad you’re home!” Lenny exclaimed, “Today the boss had me working in the elephant ear and funnel cake stand. Did you know that elephant ears are just stretched-out balls of dough that are deep fried? They’re so good though! I made you one.”

“Thanks, Bearcub,” Axel replied, taking the plate from Lenny’s hand, and pulling a piece of the fried treat apart, popping it in his mouth. “This is good stuff. You made this yourself?”

“I sure did!” Lenny replied. “And I made you a funnel cake too. You’ll never guess what we use to make it look like this!”

“Do you use a funnel?” Axel asked, grinning.

“Aw… somebody told you,” Lenny said, disappointed. “That’s okay, you can still have this one I made just for you.”

Axel decided that he wasn’t too tired to eat, and he wolfed down both plates of dough to Lenny’s delight.

They were sitting in a pair of folding chairs outside of their wagon with a little campfire going for warmth and light.

“Axel,” Lenny said.

“Yes, Bearcub?” Axel replied.

“I like it when you call me that,” He said, “I want to be a good Bearcub for you, so I asked Sheila the belly-dancer if there was anything different that I could do to surprise you when we’re… you know… when we’re together.”

“I don’t think you need to be going to Sheila for advice about man-sex, Bearcub,” Axel said, “You do just fine on your own.”

While his relationship with Lenny wasn’t a secret, Axel really didn’t want it to become a major topic of discussion around the carnival.

“No, Axel,” Lenny said, “I think she really knows what she’s talking about. She showed me what to do for you tonight after you finished your dinner.”

Lenny got down onto his knees and moved over until he was in between Axel’s legs. He reached up to grab the waistband of the wrestling trunks and he pulled them off. Axel looked around quickly to see if anyone happened to be walking by the wagons at that point and could see him sitting there in front of the fire with his cock standing at attention, but they seemed to be alone.

“Sheila told me to do it just like this,” Lenny said, and before Axel could react, the big man had swallowed his cock to the root.

Axel leaned his head back and moaned as Lenny used his tongue to lick the underside while bobbing his head up and down on the thick meat. He rubbed his hands in Lenny’s hair as the head continued to rise and fall and gasped when the big man began pulling and kneading at his balls.

“Lenny,” Axel said after a few minutes, “I’m going to come. If you don’t want it in your mouth, you better pull off now.”

But Lenny didn’t pull off, he quickened his pace and inserted his meaty index finger into Axel’s ass, slick with the spit running down Axel’s shaft and balls.

Axel bellowed and grabbed the back of Lenny’s head forcing himself deeper as he pumped his load into the man’s throat.

He leaned back in the chair, panting heavily and coming back to his senses as the big man licked up the last remnants of his sperm and looked up at Axel with a happy expression on his face.

“Sheila thought you would like that,” he said, giving Axel’s cock one last lick. “I think she was right.”

As the summer months faded to fall, the carnival was wrapping up their Midwest tour before heading to the southern states where people could still enjoy the pleasant weather. They were, ironically, just outside of Kansas City, in a farmer’s big hayfield just off a busy highway for a week’s worth of shows when Axel decided it was finally time to tell Lenny about werebears and give him the choice.

“Lenny, let’s go over across the field and sit on that stack of hay bales,” Axel said. “I have something very important to talk to you about and I want to make sure we’re alone.”

“Okay, Axel,” Lenny said, “Maybe after we talk we can fool around a little?”

“We’ll see how we feel after the talk,” Axel said, starting to walk across the field, and Lenny followed along behind, concerned. It wasn’t like Axel to turn down an offer of sex.

When they reached the far end of the hayfield, Axel took a seat on one of the hay bales and asked Lenny to sit next to him.

“Lenny, you know that I’ve been with the carnival for a long time, right?”

“Oh, sure Axel,” Lenny replied. “You’re the star of the show. There wouldn’t be a carnival without you!”

“Yes, but do you know how long I’ve been doing this? Do you know what year I joined?”

“You must have been doing it for ten years or more by now, sir.” Lenny guessed.

“It’s been longer than that,” Axel replied. “Lenny, I joined the carnival in 1899. I’ve been doing the wrestling show for thirty-seven years now.”

“Wow, sir. You must have started when you were a teenager. You look really great for your age!”

“Lenny, I’m going to tell you a lot of things about me right now, and I want you to know that I’m not pulling your leg about any of it. Everything I’m about to say is the honest truth.”

“Okay sir, whatever it is, I believe you.”

“Lenny, I’m three hundred twenty-one years old.”

“Aw, come on, Axel,” Lenny whined.

“What did I just tell you before I told you my age?”

“Everything you’re going to tell me is the truth,” Lenny said sullenly. He didn’t like being the butt of a joke.

“That’s right. Lenny, I was born a human man in Russia, but long ago in Alaska I met a man who could change into a bear.”

“Axel, why are you telling me this?” Lenny whined.

“Because it’s important for me to tell you,” Axel said, beginning to lose patience. “It’s important for us that you know these things.”

“Okay,” Lenny replied, still skeptical.

“As I was saying, I men a man who could change into a bear. That man was four thousand years old! He smelled me and told me that he could tell from my scent that I had a bear inside me too. He said that I was kindred to the bears. He took me to his home and after a while he told me the same things I’m telling you now. He gave me a choice. He said that if he had sex with me and bit me on the shoulder while we made love, then after a few months I too would turn into a bear, and from that day forward I would never get any older. I agreed and when we made love that night, he bit me and changed me into what he was. A werebear.”

“That doesn’t explain why you’re telling me this now, Axel, and why you expect me to believe it. I thought you liked me, but you’re treating me like I’m some dumb hick. Werebears…”

“No, Lenny!” Axel exclaimed, “I do like you! I’m telling you because that first night we met, when you came to my wagon, I smelled your neck when we were kissing, and I could tell that you’re kindred to the bear too. You have a bear inside of you, and if you choose it, I can turn you into a werebear, and then you’ll never get any older, you’ll heal really fast from any injury, and you’ll never get sick.”

“I don’t know, sir.” Lenny said doubtfully.

“Let me show you Lenny,” Axel replied. “Do you have your pocketknife?”

“Sure, Axel. Here you go.”

Axel took the knife and opened it.

“I just told you that you’ll heal really fast from any injury. Watch this.”

Axel pressed the blade against his forearm near his elbow and slashed it all the way down to his wrist, opening a deep cut.

“Axel!” Lenny cried out.

“Just watch!” Axel replied, and as Lenny watched, the wound stopped bleeding and the deep cut sealed itself closed as if it had never happened.

“It’s some kind of magic trick,” Lenny said.

“No, Bearcub!” Axel exclaimed, “I’m a werebear and I can change from man into a bear. If you choose it, I can change you into a werebear so that you can turn into one too! I see that you’re not going to believe me unless you see it for yourself. Come behind these hay bales with me where the others can’t see.”

Lenny followed Axel behind the stacks of hay and watched him remove his clothing until he was naked.

“Is this just a trick to fuck me again? I told you before that I wanted to fool around.”

“No Lenny,” Axel said. “I have to take off my clothes before I shift or else they’ll just get all torn up. Watch carefully now…”

With that final command to Lenny, Axel shifted into his bear form in a matter of a few seconds.

Lenny watched with eyes that were wide as saucers, and then he began to scream.

Axel tried to tell him to calm down and be still, but it just came out in the grunts and growls of the bear-language. Lenny continued screaming as he stumbled backwards away from the giant bear that had suddenly appeared before his eyes.

Axel shifted back to his human form quickly so that he could speak to Lenny again.

“Lenny! Quiet! You’re going to have everyone coming over here to find out what’s going on!”

“Axel!” Lenny screamed, “You’re a monster! You’re a witch! Get away from me! Don’t touch me!”

The big man turned in a panic and began running away toward the old fence.

“Lenny…” Axel called after him, but he wouldn’t listen.

Lenny kept screaming and shouting, calling out to the other people in the carnival, babbling that Axel was a monster here to kill and eat them all. He leaped the fence around the hayfield and ran toward the highway.

“Lenny!” Axel yelled one last time, “Stay out of the road! You’re going to get hurt!”

Axel’s warning fell upon deaf ears. Lenny ran screaming out onto the paved road directly into the path of a pair of oncoming headlights, and within seconds was crushed by a speeding truck. The driver of the truck slammed on his brakes, but the damage was already done.

Axel could see that the big kindred human, the sweet kind-hearted man that he cared for had died instantly upon impact.

****

“Oh Papa,” Adam said, and rubbed Axel’s back as they lay together in their double sleeping bag in the tent.

“I had one opportunity to tell Lenny about werebears and tell him that he was kindred and could become one of us, and I fucked it up, Cub,” Axel said, crying softly.

“What happened after Lenny got hit by the truck?” Adam asked, “What did you do?”

“What did I do?” Axel repeated, “I changed back into my bear and I ran into the woods. I wandered. I followed the trees and the rivers and tried to stay hidden as much as I could. When winter came, I slept. When spring came, I wandered again, looking for bigger and bigger forests to roam.”

“How long did you stay as a bear, Papa?” Adam asked.

“The first time, I stayed a bear for about fifteen years,” Axel replied. “When I shifted back, it was 1951. I lived among the humans again for a while, but I had no home and no job. I lived on the streets, and occasionally people would give me food or take me to a shelter at night. Some people were kind, but most were not. Mostly I was just beaten by groups of young men at night and looked at with disgust by women during the day. I never fought back or spoke a word to defend myself from those people who abused me. It was what I deserved for what I had done to Lenny. After a few years, I grew tired of being human again and changed back into my bear once more. The second time, I stayed a bear for twenty years. I migrated north and spent most of my time in the Great North Woods. Eventually, in the early 70’s I wandered into Minnesota and into the territory of a wolf lycan pack.”

“Oh, good,” Adam said, “Did the wolves help you?”

“Unfortunately, no. They were part of a crazy cult of hyper-religious lycans who worshipped the god and goddess of the moon. After they captured me, they tortured me for weeks until they finally were able to force me to shift back into my human form again. After I shifted back human, they continued torturing me for several more weeks, convinced that I was there to spy on them. After living as their prisoner for a couple of years, the Alpha finally came to me with a proposition. He and several other Alphas in Minnesota and Wisconsin were opening a bar so that closeted homosexual wolves from their strait-laced packs would have a place to go to meet for sex and to burn off steam with no questions asked. Since I was gay and a big, tattooed tough-guy werebear, they asked if I would be the manager and bouncer of that bar. Since it sounded better than living as a prisoner for the rest of my life, I agreed.

“And that’s what I was still doing fifty years later on the day I met Gunnar and Mike, and my life finally, finally took a turn for the better.”

Adam hugged Axel in their sleeping bag and whispered in his ear.

“I’ll never let anything bad happen to you again, Papa. I promise to love you as long as I live.”

“You’re more than a Cub to me, Adam,” Axel replied, “You’re my Mate. The one that I have been searching for all my life. If all those horrible things had to happen for me to find you… I would do it all again.”

Axel kissed his Mate gently on the lips and they both snuggled together in their sleeping bag for a well-earned sleep.