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Picture Credits:
The mangy pup struggled, whined and snapped in vain at the cruel jaws of the trap. Both hind feet were caught and crushed by the rusty steel. A chain secured the trap to a thick pine. Rufus, the old grizzly, contemplated making a quick after breakfast snack of the helpless cur, then thought better of it and decided to set him free. He’d grazed on salmon most of the morning, then munched assorted wild berries along the trail and most recently feasted on some sweet, fat grubs discovered in a rotted stump. Besides, wolf meat had a rather bitter taste.
Rufus ambled over to inspect the trap. At the sudden appearance of the bear’s intimidating bulk, the preoccupied pup abandoned whining, redoubled his efforts to escape from the mute, relentless monster biting his feet and began to howl.
“Be still!” growled Rufus. “I am going to get you out of that thing, so settle down before a creature less charitable happens by, hears all the commotion and decides to make a meal of you. I thought about it myself, but I’m too damned full already.”
Bracing his giant left forepaw against the pine, Rufus grasped one side of the trap in his yellow incisors and pulled the other wide against the powerful spring tension with his right forepaw until the jaws almost relatched. “Quickly now! Crawl free!” roared the bear.
The pup scrambled forward in a frenzy on his scrawny forelegs just as his rescuer released the blades with a resounding clack! “Hellfire! I damned near caught my own nose in that infernal contraption!” complained Rufus.
Now, as you may have guessed, Rufus was a kind old grizzly, in spite of his somewhat brusque façade. He gathered up the wounded wolf pup and took him down to the stream. There, he washed the blood from the pup’s mangled (and now swollen) hind feet in cool water and wrapped them in healing leaves he stripped from some Bushes along the bank as he’d been taught by the wise mother bear who’d raised him.
“You seem abandoned, so I guess we will have to find some benevolent she-wolf or couple to adopt you, little Swollen Feet. You can’t be seen running around the forest with the likes of me, no respectable wolf-pack would take you in!” he chortled.
That evening, Rufus the grizzly sought and found his old wolf friend Django and turned Swollen Feet over to him for delivery to the wolf couple Paul and Mary. The pair were hunting dinner outside their cave near Mount St. Helens, not far from where he had rescued Swollen Feet from the trap. Mary was grief-stricken, since she had recently lost all four of her new-born whelps in a dreadful volcano eruption. The she-wolf and her husband were more than willing to take little Swollen Feet back to their lair and raise him as their own.
The months passed quickly and Swollen Feet grew to be a beautiful specimen of a wolf, although the episode with the horrid trap had left him with a slight, almost imperceptible limp. One day, while wrestling with some adolescent friends, one of the juvenile wolves called him a fake whelp.
“Whatever do you mean?” queried Swollen Feet.
“Paul and Mary are not your real parents, “ quipped the juvenile. “Some dumb old grizzly dug you out of a trap up in the mountains and dropped you off with them. You are probably a bastard!” he taunted.
Highly distraught, Swollen Feet ran deep into the Corona woods where he hid for several days. One bright morning, while Swollen Feet was munching a freshly killed hare, the red fox, Wiseass from the nearby woods at Fosters came along. “I know who you are,” spoke Wiseass. “Do you?”
“Well, I thought I was the whelp of Paul and Mary,” answered Swollen Feet. “But some of the other whelps called me fake!” he exclaimed. “Who am I really?” he queried.
“I cannot tell you everything,” snapped the fox, “but my psychic powers tell me that you will kill your father and have some whelps with your mother.”
Devastated, Swollen Feet decided the only way to avoid the horrific prediction of Wiseass was to run even deeper into the forest beyond Corona to the Anhauser Bush. In a narrow passage between two massive cliffs near the crossroads to Fosters, Anhauser and Corona, he encountered a savage wolf-pack lead by a vicious and aggressive gray male. The lead male challenged Swollen Feet to a pissing contest. Whoever could send a stream the furthest up one face of the cliffs while standing on a high boulder between them would be the winner and could continue first on the way to his destination. Gray wolf (whose name was Liar) began first. He lifted his right rear leg so vigorously whilst peeing that he flipped off the rock and fell headlong to his death below. The rest of the pack leapt on Swollen Feet to take their revenge, so he had no recourse but to pee in their faces, whereupon all but one choked and suffocated in the hard stream.
Meanwhile, the cougar Mellencamp, who some folks said was part eagle and even had a little woman thrown in for good measure, lay curled and purring (wings folded) on her rock at the crossroad. She was grinning like her relative from Cheshire and had a riddle for Swollen Feet to solve. The skulls and bones of wolves and others whom she’d eaten when they had failed to answer her riddles surrounded Mellencamp. “Who is the world’s oldest DJ?” snarled the freakish lion. “Di-di-dick Clark!” stammered Swollen Feet (which, in fact was the only answer). So, Mellencamp had to throw herself down from the cliffs and the way to Anhauser Bush was now free.
Thus having saved the realm from the evil monster with her riddle, Swollen Feet found a hero’s welcome upon his arrival there. It just so happened that the mayor of the Bush was recently killed on his way to Fosters where he was to inquire of some wiseass about how do get rid of Mellencamp. So the grateful citizens of Anhauser Bush offered Swollen Feet the job and also invited him to mate with the mayor’s bitch, Jolene.
All was well, until many years later when a terrible plague of locusts descended upon the Bush. The locusts were devouring everything in their path and there was scarcely a leaf or a blade of grass remaining. And as everyone knows, rabbits, squirrels, birds and other wolf prey live in and feed upon the Bush. Without vegetation for food and habitat, the prey would die, which would be the wolve’s demise. All the packs showed up at Swollen Feet’s cave, urgently shaking wool wrapped sticks, to beg him to do something about the locusts as he had once proven himself wise and their savior.
Of course, Swollen Feet is a compassionate leader and sends for the Wiseass at Fosters to investigate the cause of the plague so he can save the pack. Wiseass, the fox proclaims: “The Gods of the Forest are all furious because the death of Liar, the old mayor of the Bush, was never solved or avenged.”
Swollen Feet is shocked that no investigation of Liar’s death was ever completed, whereupon the pack replies that times were difficult back then. “Mellencamp was eating everyone who couldn’t solve her dumb riddle, you appeared out of nowhere and we were busy getting you into office - crazy shit was happening!”
“Well,” announces Mayor Swollen Feet, “whoever this murderer is, is cursed as far as I am concerned. I intend to seek him out and avenge the late Mayor Liar as if he were my own father!”
Swollen Feet summons the divine powers and consults the famous blind prophet Ray Charles in hopes of learning the truth. “Feet, my wolf” howls Ray, don’t even get into this one! Don’t even go there, ‘cause it’s some hinky stuff we dealing with.”
Whereupon Swollen Feet becomes very angry and accuses Ray of being a false prophet. “Dude, you too damn young to be giving me some lip!" sings Ray. "If you gots to know, before the sun go down you will find out you are a husband to yo’ momma and a bro’ to yo’ own chillens. Put that in yo’ fancy ass crack pipe and smoke it - mo’ fo’!”
Jolene hears the fuss and comes out of the mayoral caverns finding Swollen Feet in a bewildered and furious state. “What’s the matter Sweet Cheeks? Is there a problem? she croons. Swollen Feet complains about Ray’s jive talk. “Oh, Feety baby, don’t listen to all that blind nonsense! Why when I was younger, some Wiseass told my husband Liar that he would be killed by his own pup. But nothing of the kind happened! The poor cub died cast into a trap in the mountains. And as for Liar, he was killed by bandits or worse at the crossroads.”
“Crossroads, you say?" barked Swollen Feet.
“Why yes, between Fosters, Anhauser and Corona,” replied Jolene.
“When did this happen?” snarled the Mayor.
“Just before you arrived in Anhauser Bush, after you’d solved Mellencamp’s riddle and she jumped to her death.”
“What did this Liar look like?” anxiously inquired Swollen Feet.
“Well, he was a fine figure of a wolf, big teeth, well endowed, bushy tail – a little grayer than you are now. In fact he did resemble you, now that I think on it,” answered Jolene. “Why all the questions? What’s your problem?”
Now Swollen Feet grew frightened. Jolene’s story had evoked the memory of his pissing contest with the old gray wolf between the cliffs. Could this have been Liar?
Suddenly, a messenger wolf named Django, from Corona, arrives with news that Swollen Feet’s father Paul is dead and the city of Corona expects him to return and be their mayor. He is of course reluctant to return while his mother Mary lives, in fear of the prophecy of the Fox Wiseass from his youth. When he shares the prophecy of Wiseass with Django, the messenger tells him: “You know what? I’ll release you from this fear! I am the messenger of fortune for sure! Mary is definitely not your momma! There is nothing to fear! They adopted you as a pup.”
“How do you know these things?” asked the astonished Swollen Feet.
“Because, I got you from my pal Rufus, the big old grizzly bear, who rescued you from a trap up on Mt. St. Helens. A rusty wolf trap had crushed your hind feet. I’ll bet you still have a limp?” says Django.
Overhearing all of this depressing news, and realizing she has mated and had litters with her own whelp, who is also the murderer of her husband, Jolene returns to the cave, where she hangs herself from the stalactites in the ceiling.
Just then, Django sees Rufus approaching from the woods. “Rufus! You old codger you! Look Feet, here’s the bear that gave you to me as a cub for Paul and Mary to adopt all those years ago! Talk about heavy coincidences! Wow!"
At first, Rufus vigorously attempts to avoid Swollen Feet’s questions about the identity of the infamous cub’s parents, but finally admits under duress that they were, indeed, Mayor Liar and his bitch, Jolene. “And if you are that cub,” cries Rufus, “you are definitely the most wretched wolf that ever lived!”
With that excruciating revelation, Swollen Feet rushes into the cave to find Jolene swinging from the ceiling. He breaks off a chunk of stalagmite and jams it into both of his eyes. After what he has committed, he feels he must not see the sun. He then proceeds to wander off into the Bush in exile.
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