“It had been a particularly snowy winter in Oregon. Charles Morris, trudging through the snow drifts on his snowmobile, grumbled about it every time and looked forward to the arrival of spring. His house was right by the woods, and the elderly man, no matter the season, always enjoyed the spectacular beauty of the wilderness. Of course, the road leading to his house was not a pleasant one, but Mr. Morris tried not to pay much attention to it. He had recently moved here and hardly considered himself an old-timer.
The fact was that after 15 years of working a hazardous job, Mr. Morris’s health had deteriorated rapidly. His cough, shortness of breath, and high blood pressure caused him to reconsider his attitude towards life in general. The endless medical examinations, the therapeutic and prophylactic treatments, none of these worked, and in the end, they left the old man feeling dejected.
Fortunately, among a panel of doctors, there was one physician who advised Mr. Morris to change his place of residence and move to an area with cleaner air. Thus, selling his place in Louisiana, Mr. Morris bought a house in Oregon where, away from the hustle and bustle of the metropolis, he could finally breathe clean air.
A lumberyard keeper, Charles lived like a true hermit, feeling at one with nature every second of the day. In time, Mr. Morris had become addicted to fishing and spent all his free moments on the lake. He rarely went to the store, preferring to stock up on groceries, especially during the winter when the beautiful landscape was covered by snow.
One day, while atop his snowmobile and on his way back from shopping, Mr. Morris saw a small gray beast running across the well-trodden path. In the process, the mysterious little thing nearly got run over by the skids of the snowmobile. Mr. Morris stopped and looked around. The old man got off the snowmobile and, seeing a series of small footprints leading into the bushes, stepped closer.
There, among the thickets covered with a thick layer of snow, Mr. Morris found a little wolf pup watching him warily through its beady eyes. “Hey, little fella, what are you doing out here alone in the middle of the woods? You must be lost or did you get caught by surprise in the blizzard,” Mr. Morris asked excitedly. Of course, the wild creature couldn’t give the elderly man, who was trying so hard to become friends with him, a real answer.
All of a sudden, the gray pup climbed up on his paws and, wiggling his black nose from side to side, began breathing in air noisily. Mr. Morris turned around and saw a bag of groceries lying in the basket of the snowmobile and understood at once. “Oh, so you must be hungry, right? Give me a sec, little guy. I’ll be quick,” said the elderly man. He took a folding knife from his pocket and cut off a strip of meat for the wolf pup. The pup, grunting happily, accepted the treat, almost biting Charles on the finger.
When the wolf pup had eaten enough, it crawled out of its hiding place in the bushes and fearlessly approached the old man. “Well, what am I supposed to do with you? I can’t leave you in the woods. You’ll die out here. Come with me. I live alone, and you won’t be a bother,” suggested Mr. Morris and put the animal behind the pouch on his down jacket.
To his surprise, the wolf pup behaved calmly, as if he had ridden in a snowmobile all his life. When he arrived at the house, Mr. Morris opened the door and, pulling the little forest animal out from behind the pocket, invited him inside. The little wolf fluffed up at first, ruffling his fur as he smelled an unfamiliar odor coming from the man’s home. Then, he shook himself off as if to clean himself up and stepped hesitantly over the doorstep.
“Look at you, all well-mannered, just like a real lord. That’ll be your name, won’t it? Lord,” Charles said in admiration and closed the door behind him. In the heat, the wolf pup warmed up and, after eating another portion of meat, laid down to sleep by the fireplace. He didn’t look like a woodland predator; he looked like a puppy, thought Mr. Morris, wiping away a tear.
Lord lived in his house for about a week, and then, when the weather improved, he begged to go outside. Once there, after giving Mr. Morris a long grateful look, the wolf pup ran off into the woods. “Well, I guess he must have felt the call of his ancestors,” beside the old man, watching the pup fleeing.
The wolf pup had been gone for about two days, and when Mr. Morris had mentally bid him farewell, the wild predator came to him himself. He found the old man at the lake, where the man, taking advantage of the good weather, decided to fish. “Ah, so you remember, you little brat!” exclaimed Mr. Morris, petting the wolf pup in response.
Lord turned and twisted and licked the old man’s cheek. From then on, the wolf pup paid periodic visits to Mr. Morris, mostly in the evening or evening hours. Often, his arrivals coincided with the worsening weather conditions, which would consistently bring blizzards and cold weather to the area. For this reason, Mr. Morris jokingly called Lord a barometer for his innate sensitivity and alertness.
One day, the wolf pup came not alone but with a guest. Looking out the window, the old man was dumbfounded. Beside Lord stood another mature wolf who seemed to be Lord’s mother. “Wow, that’s one pair you could paint a picture,” Mr. Morris whispered admiringly, keeping his eyes on the wolf family.
Afterwards, the old man often saw wolf tracks not far from the house. Apart from her stealthy presence, however, the wolf mother gave him no trouble at all. Mr. Morris told no one about his friendship with the wolf family, cautiously maintaining the mystery of his great guests.
As time went on, Lord was growing into a fit teenage wolf. One evening while cleaning the house, the old man heard a loud piercing howl outside the window. Mr. Morris opened the door wide to see Lord and his mother standing 50 yards from the house with their muzzles up. The predators howled loudly, as if trying to share their forest secrets with the sky.
Much to the old man’s surprise, Lord refused to enter the house again and, after a minute or two, disappeared with his mother into the woods. “Huh, what’s the matter, I wonder? Is he offended or something?” Mr. Morris thought, then closed the door absent-mindedly, forgetting to turn the key in the keyhole.
The old man believed that in such a remote area, nothing could possibly hurt him, and thus, he often neglected his own safety. Unfortunately, this evening, this habit played a cruel trick on him. Mr. Morris didn’t notice the three men approaching his house, looking around anxiously and opening the front door. “What a stroke of luck! It’s not even locked,” muttered a nasty, smokey voice that belonged to one of the unexpected guests.
“Who are you, and what do you want?” asked Mr. Morris nervously at the sight of the heavily armed visitors. His response was a blow to the chest with the butt of a shotgun.
“All right, old man, that was so you could understand us a little better. We need to eat and warm ourselves up, and if you do as we say, you’ll live,” replied one of the bandits, who seemed to be the boss.
What the bandits didn’t know was that Mr. Morris was no coward and would lunge at them with his fists. The robbers, however, due to their superiority in numbers and Mr. Morris’s old age, were able to quickly knock him down and throw him to the floor before tying him up.
At that moment, Lord’s lean silhouette appeared in the doorway, and with a furious snarl, he attacked the uninvited guests. The robbers were confused by the sudden appearance of the teenage wolf pup. Lord fought fiercely, seeking to tear his attackers to shreds.
The first to come to his senses was the boss, who, raising his rifle, shot the wolf pup in the side. There was a loud pop and a sharp smell of gunpowder in the air. Lord, wounded, fell to the floor, refusing to let go of the bandit’s ankle clamped in his jaws. The rapidly expanding pool of blood beneath his body was a clear indication that he had been hurt badly.
“Hey, old man, what even is this? Why are there wolves here?” shouted the chief, kicking the bound old man. At that moment, the robber shifted his gaze to the door, and a cold shiver ran down his spine. What he saw was a huge gray wolf looking right back at him. She was here to help her son and his friend.
The vicious predator threw the robber to the floor with lightning speed. The other two accomplices took this opportunity to start running away, but the maddened mother wolf wasn’t going to let them. While the robbers, screaming in pain and fear, fought off their predator, the wolf pup lay on its side, breathing heavily.
Mr. Morris, who miraculously managed to free himself from the restraints, gave Lord first aid and bandaged the wound. “Come on, old man, let us go, I give you my word. We’ll go quietly, and we won’t hurt you. We escaped from prison and don’t want to go back. Have some mercy,” grunted the boss, with the mother wolf standing beside him, fangs bared.
But Mr. Morris was relentless and immediately called the police. When the police arrived on the scene, they immediately arrested the robbers and took them to the police station. Mr. Morris didn’t even witness that happen, for a wounded Lord lay in front of him on the floor, on the verge of death.
Mr. Morris never left the wolf pup, doing his best to help it survive. The wolf mother was also there, warming her baby up with her body. Three days later, Lord was gone. The mother wolf, owing to her animal instincts, stopped eating and drinking after the death of her wolf pup. This made her look frail and thin. The mother outlived her pup by only five days and died from the exhaustion caused by the unspeakable anguish and pain of losing her firstborn.
Mr. Morris buried the wolf family on the hillside not far from the house, which offered an excellent view of the woods where the wolf pack loved to hunt. In the evening, sitting by the fireplace, Charles Morris often recalled his first encounter with the little wolf pup in the woods when he had saved it from certain death.
The old man would realize that their acquaintance was certainly not accidental, for the pup had repaid him with this kindness and, at the cost of his life, saved him from the robbers.
