Savage Beasts - 7. The Tale of the Ungrateful Cub

Thomas rose at sunrise and walked out of the bedroom he shared with Sam into the hallway. He opened the door to the guest room a crack and peeked at his lycan guests. They were in the room with the bunk beds, and both Nelson and Xander remained asleep, Nelson on the top bunk and Xander below as befitting their rank.

He trudged down the stairs to the kitchen to start the coffee going, but the aroma of a freshly brewed pot hit his nostrils when he was only halfway down. He turned the corner at the bottom of the stairs, and found Gunnar standing in the kitchen in a pair of boxer shorts, scratching his rear and pouring himself a cup. He padded up behind the big man silently and wrapped his arms around him from behind.

“Good morning, big bear!” Thomas exclaimed. “What time did you get in last night?”

“It was around two in the morning,” Gunnar replied. “We didn’t want to wake you up, so we stayed outside and set up camp.”

“Camp?” Thomas said, and trotted over to the window. The yard around the cabin had been turned into a campground overnight, with about ten tents filling every available space. Bears of every shape and size were just beginning to emerge and stretch their weary muscles.

“How many are here?” Thomas asked.

“Twenty-seven for now, including me and Mike,” Gunnar replied, “But this is just the advance team. Papa Ezekiel has another forty on standby in Canada to come running once we have a fix on the monsters’ location.”

“Well, they look like a pretty self-sufficient group, but let them know that they’re welcome to come inside for anything they need.” Thomas told Gunnar.

“When they showed up in Sturgeon Bay out of the blue yesterday morning,” Gunnar said, “I offered to put them up in a hotel, and they laughed and called me a ‘city bear’. I think they’ll be fine, but I’ll extend the offer. I think that most of all, Grand-Papa Ezekiel and the other team leads are going to want to debrief you and the wolves as soon as possible.”

Alpha Nelson was the first of the wolves to rise. He requested that they allow Xander to sleep, as some of his internal injuries were extremely serious and he would need to rest for at least another day to recover. He looked out of the cabin window at the bear camp that had sprung up overnight and grunted his approval.

“It’s a good start,” he said to Thomas, “But we’re going to need more.”

Thomas got Alpha Nelson some coffee and breakfast, and then invited the werebear leadership into the cabin to discuss his knowledge of Christopher Arnold and how he came to be the brutal psychopath he is today.

Nelson sat at the head of the dining table with Thomas, Sam, Axel, Ezekiel, Gunnar, Mike, Joel and Jacob. After Thomas got all of the assembled bears some coffee, Nelson began telling the story.

****

Christopher Arnold was born in the upper regions of Finland in the mountainous Käsivarsi region. Arnold was not his surname at the time of his human birth, but the name he adopted after being turned by his Papa, Archibald Arnold.

Archibald was not the most loving and nurturing of werebears. He had decided early on when building his werebear family and legacy, that quantity was the deciding factor. So, he bred one cub after another without taking the time in between to give them the individual upbringing and nurturing that was widely accepted as necessary for werebear psychological development. With such a large household of cubs, he frequently pitted one against the other for his affections and tended to play favorites with the ones he felt showed the most promise.

Christopher was the quintessential middle child. Not old enough to be considered one of Papa’s elder cubs, and not young enough to be one of Papa’s special favorites.

After many hundred years living in northern Finland and tending to their reindeer herds, Archibald decided to take his entire brood of werebears west to America where the lands were bountiful and robust pioneers could purchase vast lands cheaply.

The bear family sailed to America and made their way west until they reached the Allegheny Mountains. Archibald posed as a family of Catholic farmers from southern Maryland and created what he called “Arnold’s Settlement” at the time but later renamed it Mount Savage as their village rested at the foot of Big Savage Mountain.

They started their fortune with a dairy farm and a hotel, serving the pioneers who were heading west to settle the Ohio River Valley. Archibald continued to purchase land one thousand acres at a time until he owned all the land that would eventually become Mount Savage. When the National Road was completed in the early 1800’s pioneers traveled by the thousands and the wealth of the Arnold family grew.

It was around this time that two major events in the history of the Arnold family took place. The first was the discovery of both iron and coal in the mountains now owned by Archibald, ready to be mined, which increased the wealth and power of the family a hundredfold and made them the wealthiest men in the Alleghenies. The second event was the discontent of Christopher reaching a boiling point. He raged at his Papa and demanded larger and larger shares of the family fortune.

Archibald listened to his middle Cub’s complaints but refused to give any handouts that weren’t earned. Christopher was given the option to join the new mining company that was being formed by his brothers and splitting the profits equally with them or forming his own company and keeping any profits that he made for himself. Christopher of course, chose to form his own competing company against his brothers.

By 1837, his brothers’ company was flourishing, and became the Maryland and New York Iron and Coal Company. They expanded their business and built the Mount Savage Iron Works utilizing the iron ore that the mining company was producing in great abundance.

Christopher’s company, however, failed to produce a profit in any of the years of its existence. In 1837, just as his brothers’ success was on the rise, Christopher was forced to declare bankruptcy. His Papa and brothers offered him comfortable jobs within their own businesses, but he could not lower himself to being a mere employee while the rest of the family enjoyed their riches. He demanded that he be given an equal share in his brothers’ companies.

These demands continued, year after year while Christopher remained living in his Papa’s house, battering them all with derision and scorn every day.

Finally, in 1840, Archibald had reached his limit. He disowned Christopher and banned him from the family property. He left him with enough money to live comfortably but simply for many years, wished him well, and sent him south to find his own way in the world.

In the summer of 1842, Christopher’s money was gone. Having no home and no wealth, he was living outdoors, wandering in the wilderness when he came upon a village nestled in a valley between the mountains. Except that it was no ordinary village, it was a wolf pack, blending in with the surrounding pioneer settlements. Christopher begged the wolves for sanctuary, and they agreed, provided that he accept a job and work for his keep.

Nelson was the Alpha of that pack, and although his Enforcer Xander warned against allowing a non-wolf lycan amongst their families and pups, Nelson ensured him that werebears were known for their nobility and as protectors.

The summer and fall months went well. Christopher was given a heavy-labor job in the town’s new lumber mill, and he accepted the work gratefully. He worked hard and tolerated his new wolf friends, but as time went on, the Alpha began to hear complaints that the big bear was bullying the small pups and stealing meals from them.

In January of 1843 Christopher found himself no longer welcome in the wolf pack when he was discovered in the pack’s food storage shed after midnight. No one knew how long or how often he had been helping himself to the food stores there, but once he was apprehended and an inventory could be completed, it showed that over half of the pack’s food supply was missing. Christopher claimed innocence and begged for mercy, but the Alpha ruled against him and he was summarily banished from the pack and escorted by guards to the edge of the Hacker Valley territory.

That was the last that Alpha Nelson had seen or heard from Christopher Arnold before yesterday.

The Arnold family continued their industrial rise even after Christopher was sent away. They built the Mount Savage Railroad in 1944 to link their town to the town of Cumberland where they could connect to the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, better known as the “B&O”. The Mount Savage Iron Works was the only blast furnace in the area capable of producing the heavy iron used for the railroads at the time, and the business flourished even more. Archibald and his cubs expanded into the clay, brick, and coal industries, and even began producing their own locomotives. By 1852 the Iron Works was the largest in the United States and the little town of Mount Savage had grown to become one of the industrial centers of the world.

Everything changed with the start of the Civil War. Mount Savage faced new competition from the up-and-coming industrial powerhouses in Ohio and Pennsylvania, and the blast furnaces were shut down for the last time in 1870. Archibald and the Cub siblings had amassed a great fortune, but over the next hundred years, their empire was sold off, piece by piece, until the brick works was the only industry left in the town. The Arnold family had enough to maintain their lifestyle within their massive mansion surrounded by a high privacy wall and elaborate gardens, but they would never again see the business success that they enjoyed in the 1800’s.

As the pieces of the old business were sold off, some of the Cubs chose to leave their Papa for the first time in their lives and make lives for themselves away from the family. No one knows where most of them went, and they were scattered to the winds.

****

Alpha Nelson finished his tale and looked around the table at the bear’s faces. There was a wide mixture of emotions on display after hearing the tale of their foe, the unwanted and ungrateful Cub.

“It seems that we are now able to surmise what he has been doing since you banished him from your pack, Alpha Nelson,” Ezekiel said. “Based on the information that you supplied to Thomas yesterday, he seems to have been practicing and perfecting the process to turn non-kindred into dababbi.”

“Yes,” Nelson agreed. “He spoke of a bear who successfully turned a Viking into a monster a thousand years ago, but because the Viking was so aggressive and wild, it turned on the bear and destroyed an entire village in Russia.”

“Quite so,” Ezekiel replied, “I was there. It took an army of bears to bring down the Viking turned dababbi, and it killed over fifty of us.”

“Christopher said that he discovered that bear’s mistake,” Nelson said. “That bear a thousand years ago had the first part correct in only a human with extreme musculature like a bodybuilder can survive the first change, which is why the Viking was able to survive and become that monster. However, the second part is that in addition to being hugely muscular, the human must also be extremely submissive and subservient. He told me that once he breeds them, they are completely loyal and dependent upon him, and after their change, their memories and free will are gone. Only the subservience to their Papa remains.”

“Interesting,” Ezekiel replied. “Thomas, when you ran Christopher down in the road yesterday, how did the dababbi react? Did they immediately attack you and your truck?”

“No, Grand-Papa,” Thomas said, “It was the strangest thing. I ran into Christopher at full-speed and sent him flying down the road where he landed and rolled in a bloody mess, but the creatures just stood there watching and wailing. They didn’t know what to do, but all their attention was directed at Christopher and not us. That’s how we had enough time to get the Alpha and Enforcer into our truck and get out of town without a scratch.”

“So, if we can target Christopher in our attack,” Axel said, “And if we can take him out, we may be able to render the monsters helpless.”

“Good luck getting close enough again,” Nelson replied. “Yesterday he was feeling cocky and exposed himself to potential danger just so he could taunt me and my Enforcer. After that experience, he most likely won’t make the same mistake twice, unless he’s a bigger idiot than he seems.”

“Once we track him down, he only has to screw up and expose himself once,” Axel said, cracking his knuckles with a grin. “And then he’s mine.”

Nelson stared at Axel and after deciding that the bear was serious about his comment, gave him a nod.

“Now, if you will excuse me for a while,” Nelson said getting up from the table and walking toward the doorway, “I need to report this incident to the Supreme Alpha.”

“Good luck getting past Beta Justin,” Gunnar grumbled. “I reported the first attack to him days ago, and he acted like I was wasting his time over insignificant bear problems.”

“Beta Justin is a know-nothing bureaucrat,” Nelson said, turning back to the group. “I have neither the time nor the patience today for wolves such as he. I intend to speak to Supreme Alpha Taylor about this matter directly. If what you say about Justin is true, I will have him brought up on charges before the Council before the next cycle of the moon.”

****

Christopher awoke on the grass in the once-beautiful town of Hacker Valley. Now, only blood and bones remained, scattered around the streets and front lawns.

His children were gathered around him in a protective circle, curled up and asleep with bulging bellies full of wolf meat. A hunk of meat was thoughtfully laying on the ground next to Christopher. One of his adoring children must have feared that he would wake up during the night, hungry for wolf flesh.

“Time to wake, my children!” he called out to the monsters who lay about him. “I am afraid that I still can’t walk yet, as my bones will take another day to heal. Enceladus, you will have to carry Papa.”

Enceladus practically leaped for joy at the honor to carry the Papa, and he scooped him up in his hideous, hairy arms.

“Take me back to our truck and trailer, my children,” he instructed. “We must get off the streets and out of sight as quickly as possible.”

The monsters began running for the trees and the mountain from which they descended the day before to begin the attack.

As he was carried through the woods and across the mountains, Christopher rested his mind and took stock of the progress he had made to his plan so far.

His brother Gabriel was dead and turned into fertilizer by his children.

The hateful Hacker Valley pack has been wiped out. Even though the Alpha and Enforcer were somehow saved, at least they were able to witness the slaughter of their pack-mates.

Only one more stood between Christopher and his Papa. Once that one was punished for his sins, he and his children would descend upon the Arnold family’s mansion in Mount Savage. He would wipe out his remaining brothers as easily as one might stomp out scurrying cockroaches on a kitchen floor and force his greedy and soulless Papa to sign over all rights to the companies. Once he was in control of the family businesses, as it should have been from the start, he will allow his children one last feast of bear meat, even though he was certain that Papa’s carcass would be mostly gristle at his age.

Christopher smiled happily at the thought and drifted off to sleep in the arms of Enceladus as they sped through the forest.