Peter & Max - Bill Willingham [44]
“Then again, I smell others nearby, and I hear them crashing about in the woods, wailing and moaning for someone to come along and end their suffering. Maybe I’ll end up with my full complement for the day after all.
“What do you two think? Would you like to go down as one or two? I’m generously inclined to let you decide.”
“I think you should pass us by and go far away,” Peter said.
“I’ve already been far away,” the wolf said. “That’s where I came from. Now I’m here. I was following a great army, reducing their numbers every night, sowing fear into their ranks. But those clever goblins stole a march on me while I napped, and then wandered off to get my supper. They don’t taste right to me, so, though I’ll kill them gladly, I don’t get the well-deserved feast afterwards. In any case I lost track of them.”
“I know where they are,” Peter said. “They’re the ones who chased us into the woods. If you’re their enemy like we are, then we should be friends.”
“I’ve neither friends nor enemies, and desire none,” the wolf replied. “I only have food and sport, both of which involve killing.”
“But I can direct you where to find the army you seek.”
“Then do it.”
“And in return you’ll let us go?”
“No.”
Beside him, Bo seemed on the edge of panic. He had to act now or not at all.
“Remember what I told you, Bo,” Peter said. Then he raised Frost to his lips and started to play. It was a simple tune he knew well. He didn’t want to risk any mistake now. And as he played he thought over and over in his mind: Pass us by and go far away.
“Pretty music,” the wolf said. “Possibly the only good thing your miserable race has ever done for the world.”
Bo turned all of a sudden and ran. The giant wolf immediately sprang after her, but before he’d even gotten a full stride away from Peter, he was suddenly and violently brought up short, like a dog that had reached the end of his tether. Peter never stopped playing. The wolf stood where he’d become frozen in place and shook in rage.
“What have you done to me, boy?” There was fury in his voice and it rattled Peter and all of the trees around them. But Peter played on, not missing a note. Pass us by and go far away, he thought. Far behind him he could hear Bo still running away, scrambling back down the embankment they’d just climbed, splashing through the stream, and running farther away on the other side, until she’d run far away, entirely out of his hearing and possibly forever out of his life.
“Seven times seven times the ridiculous men of your race have tried to collar and chain me, coming on me when I slept or just when I felt like an interesting challenge. I snapped every rope and shattered every chain in no more time than it took to shrug them off. Now you bind me with an insipid little tune?”
Pass us by and go far away.
Pass us by and go far away.
Clearly against his will, struggling against every step, the wolf turned and began stalking off the way he’d come. Peter played on.
Pass us by and go far away.
Pass us by and go far away.
“I’ve got the scent of you, boy and I’ll never forget it. No matter how far you send me, one day I’ll track you down again and grease my chin with you and your sweetheart. Oh yes, I can smell your love for her. Maybe I’ll make you watch me devour her, before I get to you. All of this I vow.”
Peter played on, and gradually at first, but then in faster steps and ever increasing strides, the wolf began to run. And as he ran he howled his rage to all the world, and throughout the forest, every other creature trembled in its den. Peter heard him for more than an hour after he began playing, howling fainter and fainter into the distance. Then, when he couldn’t hear the beast, he still continued to play for as long as he could, hours at least, hoping that he was truly sending the danger farther and farther away.
Finally, when