Steve woke early, some bird was twittering outside the camp.
Animal was still asleep and Steve wondered if wolves dreamed in color as he watched. Animal's paws were twitching, Steve heard the stuttered whine that animals make as they sleep and dream.

Steve threw off the blankets and creakily got to his feet, stamping out some minor aches that come with being older and sleeping on the ground.

Animal woke with a start, interrupting a low growl and rose as well. Trotting over to Steve with a quick shake and an affable smile on his wolfish face.

Steve reached down and petted Animal for a moment, making sure to ruff his ears some. Then turned to the small stove and fired up his morning coffee.

Animal trotted off, doing what ever wolves do when they wander off. Maybe he was trying to coax the bird down, that was still twittering in the early light.

Steve gathered up his bedding, rolled it up with ties and stored it away in the truck. He could feel the sunshine lightly touching him in dappled kisses as the coffee began to perk.

With the sun up and the old Panhead chopper grunting along at the edge of the small meadow, Steve tossed the dregs of his coffee and closed the gate that locked Animal and his truck into the five acres that he could almost call his own.

With his current job, assuming nothing major fell apart, he would fully own this in about three more years.

The ride to the small shop was brisk, but fairly short. Some days Steve was very happy he could reach his work in less than a half hour, but other days, much like this morning he wished it was much longer.

Roberta looked up as Steve rolled into the lot. She had started working the front desk after they had broken up. There was still a flame there and if she hadn't hooked up with Taylor in the packaging department, well her eyes told the story as the deep rumble of the Harley chopper cut to silence.

After his shower, Steve padded out to the front office, his towel wrapped around his skinny ass and a few drips from his balding long hair on his back.

With a smile Steve poured himself coffee from the office pot "Morning Bobbi, any coffee in here?"

Roberta shook her long dark hair in mock dismay, "Steve!" she squealed, "You are just terrible, what if we had a customer in this morning?"

Steve considered that for a moment while he sipped off the fragrant steam of the coffee warming his hands, "No car in the lot, but they'd get over it." Steve turned back to the shop, one hand holding up the towel that was starting to slip and merrily quipped over his shoulder "So will you, Bobbi..."

Steve smiled as he heard the girl muttering something about his scrawny body not even close to worth remembering. Steve smiled because Roberta had come to him twice since they had broken off the steady relationship. Once right after she had started work at the shop and once again a few months later, just before she hooked up with Taylor.

Steve wandered back to the server room and got dressed in a pair of comfortable jeans and a light plaid dress shirt.

Steve could hear other voices as a couple of the guys arrived and started getting things ready to start up the small manufacturing shop.

Steve unlocked the computer console with his password and watched a few lines scroll by as the automatic scripts he had written began digesting the logs from the night before. Roberta and Shawn handled the phones and mail, but Steve worked the computer and the website. There were three orders from the web to process and two from mail from the night before that Shawn had input. Those could wait until after lunch, this morning Steve was testing a new script for the site.

A saw started up in the shop as Steve refilled his cup and lit a cigarette, bare feet on the server rack and a large book opened on his lap.

After a couple hours Steve had rewrote some code and run a few tests. He was ready to run a live test but he needed to get rid of some of the coffee he had been drinking.

Taylor had just finished loading the order for Seattle and with papers in hand, he headed back to the front office to let Roberta know he was done and drop the paper.

Taylor saw Steve heading into the bathroom from the server room. They nodded at each other, Steve wore an amicable smile, but Taylor was uncomfortable with Steve working so closely with Roberta. Taylors face wore more of a grimace than a grin as they passed and nodded in the hallway.

Several tens of miles away, in a wooded 5 acre lot, the neighbors heard the howl, mournful in a way they had never heard before. The wolf named Animal felt a rending in the world that comprised his pack. Folks near round had become accustomed to a few low howls during the day, quickly tapering off to silence, as the shocked residents of the nearby forests cowered from the deathly noise.
This was a totally foreign sound, sadness beyond despair, rage against a world that had no laws that could protect a packmate from the ravages of a long and difficult life.

Taylor continued down the hallway to the front office, as Steve turned into the cool brightness of the tiled Mens room.

Roberta looked up from the papers in front of her as Taylor came into the office. She felt a quick pang of guilt as she realized that she had hoped that Steve would come in to visit.

Taylor noticed that Roberta hadn't expected to see him, and knew in a flash who exactly she had been thinking of. He'd known of course that she and Steve had gone steady before Bobbi started working here, but had hoped that she had truly lost those feelings for Steve, now it seemed obvious that she had not.

Roberta watched as Taylor dropped the lading papers into her basket, feeling a rush of anxiety as he turned away back to the shop. "Taylor?" Bobbi said softly, "You still coming to get me tonite?"

Taylor turned back to Bobbi, shaking his head, "Bobbi, I dunno. We've never really talked about the thing between you and Steve. Steve is a nice enough guy I guess, and I can see why you would still be stuck on him, but it's just gettin a little weird with the three of us working here together."

Bobbi could feel her face flushing in embarassment as she realized just how much her face had given away, she stammered, "Taylor, please, I know it seems weird to me also, but Steve isn't going to take me out to the park tonite, YOU are, if you still want to. And Taylor, I WANT to go with you, NOT Steve."

Taylor straightened up a little from his slumped posture, with a wry smile, he answered, "Ok Bobbi, I'll try to get through it, I'll call ya before I come over."

Roberta watched as Taylor turned away, her anxiety mounting as she wondered why she was disappointed that Taylor had not gotten angry and called it off.

Steve looked in the mirror as he dried his hands with the paper towels. He looked fine, but he was starting to feel weak. He shrugged and grinned at his reflection then turned to the door, musing to himself as he walked into the hallway, "Perhaps I shoulda thrown out that stew instead of eating it last nite." Steve looked up the hall, and could see Taylor coming back from the office, but he looked a bit odd, kinda dark.

The pain hit Steve slowly it seemed to Steve, but Taylor saw it all happen in a quick flash.
Roberta heard the laughter, rise to almost a screaming crescendo, then a sudden silence.

Steve felt his breath catch as the pain spread through his chest, then somehow, mercifully he was free of pain, but knew that his heart had given out. Steve looked up at the ceiling and wished he could see the sky instead of the acoustic tiles in the hall, then began laughing as the tiles darkened in his sight and he could no longer see them, or hear his laughter stutter to a stop. Steve was not aware that he was falling, collapsing as his body, deprived of oxygen shut down.

Animal cocked his head slightly, as if listening for the answering howl in the still and silence, an answer that could never come. Then with a bound, his greyish fur dancing in the sunlight, he raced for the corner of the fenced area he stayed in during the days that Steve was away.
The tree fall had shifted with a spring rain, and though the span from where Steve had cut it short to the tree still standing outside the fencing was over twelve feet, Animal had the foot sense and a rhythm that propelled him from the raw cut into the waiting branches of the ponderosa pine tree and into the wilderness.

Bobbi rushed to the hallway, where she saw Taylor crouched over Steves motionless body and she screamed, " OH MY GOD TAYLOR, What have you done?" Then she was bending over, looking at Taylor and Steves lifeless body, as he tried to explain in a torrent of words, "He just walked out, looked at me funny, and then made that crazy noise, and collapsed, I didn't do ANYTHING to him!"

Bobbi's voice was strident and demanding, as if she didn't quite believe Taylor, "Well, do something, is he all right?"

Taylor looked down at Steve, noticed the stains appearing in the pants and in confusion, took Steves head in his hands and shook him, "Steve? Can you hear me Steve?"

Bobbi and Taylor were barely aware of the feet of the shop workers gathering around them, one of the men said in a hushed voice, "I dunno man, that don't look good." "Yeah, looks dead to me, prolly a heart attack maybe?" came a reply from one of the other guys.

"NOoooo" Bobbi exclaimed in anguish, "Someone help please, do CPR or something!" Her dark eyes, wet and blurry from tears flashed from face to face in the surrounding men, but no one stepped up. Steve had been the Safety Coordinator, because he didn't work in the shop, and he had had the training. Steve had reqested volunteers to go to a first aid/cpr class with him, but no one had been interested.

One of the shop workers ran up the hallway with the cordless phone from the shop, "They want to know what the address is." He shouted at Bobbi, "It's 911, they want the address!" Bobbi had to think, even though she had written the address many times. Bobbi looked down again at Steve, and did not notice the phone being handed to her. Taylor looked at the phone and took it from the shaking hand of the young man standing breathlessly over him.

After clearing up the confusion of changing people, the dispatcher finally got the address verified, and a clear sense of the fact that someone had suffered a collapse, and sadly, that no one at the scene was qualified to have started any CPR. At that point, the dispatch manager had gotten the EMT unit on it's way, and the dispatch began talking Taylor through the grisley and futile attempt to resuscitate Steve.