Little Wolf

By R Kane

Some men are born to protecting others while most are not. Some are called to it while others choose a different path to walk. Samuel Swift Crow is both, born and called to protect those who need it and one rain soaked night on a deserted Island off the Maine coast he must put all of his deadly skills and assets to the test to prevent a vile covenant from taking place. The former NAVY SEAL must step in to save the lives of a woman and her daughter from a malevolent beast and the ancient pact of evil that threatens to kill both of the ladies. From the start to the end this short story is a fast ride for the reader pulling them along with a slick modern focus. Can Swift Crow save the mother and child you ask? Will read on and see if courage and perseverance can win the day.

This is a stand-alone short story from the creative imagination of R. Kane.

• Language: English
• Publisher: R Kane
• Release date: Sep 26, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310207518

R Kane

In a word, if someone forced me to use one, would be eclectic. I don’t subscribe, follow, or otherwise allow myself to be associated with anything in particular. Sounds weird I know but I like it all because I can choose from it all. My music taste goes across the spectrum from country to punk, I eat all kinds of food from Southern to Moroccan, and I enjoy both fiction and non-fiction books. I love history and I’m insatiably curious about the future and new technology. I’m just a funny kind of guy, or so I’ve been told.

Book preview

Little Wolf

By

R. Kane

Little Wolf

By R. Kane

Smashwords Edition | Copyright 2014 R. Kane

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may be given away to other people. In fact, it’s encouraged so if you would like to share this book with another person, please feel free to pass it along. Thank you for reading the hard work of this author.

http://www.rkanepublications.com

‘What the philosophers call character is an incurable disease.’

Friedrich Nietzsche ‘On Ethics’, 1868

The boat ride was mercifully short and rough as hell due to the pouring rains and howling winds of one bitch of a raging storm. The dark clouds hid the setting sun as a single fishing trawler fought its way through the storm to a destination no one could yet see. Samuel Swift Crow, the last name he never used while in the teams, hadn't been back on the water since leaving the Navy some six years ago and his return was admittedly less than memorable as he leaned on the railing keeping his balance as the ship rocked. There was plenty of room on the fantail of the fishing trawler, the only boat he knew of going out to the small island off the Maine coast where Harris (the name he used while in the Military) and the others stood. The others were four men, and all were young and ill-equipped from what he saw, in gear and training, for the night ahead, Swift Crow thought. Samuel reached under his Gore-Tex jacket, past a warm fleece pullover, and felt the reassurance of the black material of the custom combat shirt keeping him warm while mentally gauging the men around him one more time. Not one of the young men wore a waterproof jacket to protect them from the rain and while he wore black BDU's with special combat boots designed custom for particular clandestine work not one of the other young fighters wore anything that looked even comparable. Hell, two of them were wearing regular jeans with cowhide work boots. They were apparent amateurs, probably ex-grunts from some Military infantry unit lured out here to the unknown by the promise of a substantial payday. What these amateurs didn't understand though, a hard rule was the fact that the more the amount of said payday grew it also exponentially increased the chance of death for whatever you were being paid to do. Hell, it even upped the gruesomeness of the way your life might end. Swift Crow had learned, more than once, that an offer of an excessive and obscene amount of money was equaled only by an immeasurable amount of unexpected danger and unforeseen consequences that no amount of preparation or experience could prepare you to face. Yeah, Samuel was older by far compared to the others, but with that age came the experience of conducting numerous espionage missions and completing 'black bag' ops for certain three-letter agencies. Too many covert missions if you asked him, which is why he had always turned down these types of offers from the peddlers looking for his specific skill set, the kind of job where you get paid that huge of money when its all over

The payment was never enough, and in the end, it never felt right to him to take the cash. Sam had seen many a good man lose his life to some stray bullet that would have missed if not for a skipped piece of intel, men whose families would never know the whys and the hows of what happened to their loved ones. No amount of money was worth burying a colleague, a friend, and brother in arms, and then having to look his widow or fiancée in their tear-filled eyes and tell them 'sorry, I don't know what happened to him.' The lying, that's what tore him up at night.

Samuel pulled the black wool cap on his head down tighter and made a quick check of the deck's occupants once again, the count was still four. Swift Crow then looked at his hands and began to rub the rainwater between them in an attempt to keep the appendages clean, maybe wash away a stain even though there wasn't a spot on the tan flesh. Swift Crow then turned his attention from his hands back to the bow of the ship, which was breaking the waves with a tremendous splash, and watched as a single dock appeared out of the storm like a ghost just off the starboard side. Even looking at the pier, Samuel still kept track of the others on the deck with the usual practice. His mother didn't raise a fool, and the SEAL chiefs in BUDS didn't train one. The trawler suddenly shuddered as the captain put the engines in reverse and on cue the first mate appeared on deck ready to tie off the ship to the dock.

He reached down and picked up the single black bag sitting just against his leg on top of an old box to keep it off the wet deck. Something else the other four didn't do Swift Crow noted, obvious amateurs he told himself with a sigh. The weight of the bag in his hand brought back old feelings, pure sweet reassurance. All the tools necessary for Sam's old life felt good being back in his grasp again, even if he was about to go to war with four of the most unprepared men he had ever come across in his special ops career. The reassurance also made him ill for a split second because with that assured feeling came the old memories and dark nature of war, that side of him he had hoped was shut off but came alive now way too quickly for his liking. He watched the first mate leap down to the dock while holding the bowline in his hand and a minute later, the boat was tied off and moored. Swift Crow moved and followed the other men as they jumped down from the side of the trawler and onto the dock. The wood creaked loudly from the men's weight signaling the old pier might fall into the water at any moment, but not a soul moved to walk onto the island. They just calmly stood on the worn dock waiting till all had disembarked.

What are you looking at?

Swift Crow turned to see a young black muscular man staring menacingly at the first mate who didn't give a damn about the look because he just leaped back onto the fishing boat with the bowline in hand again. The man of color turned to walk away when the first mate answered his question with that usual Maine accent like there was never a thing to worry about at all. Well, I just watched five men carrying identical black bags land on a piece of rock that has nothing on it except some large old house and a slew of run-down shacks that was at one time a fishing village, many, many years ago. Just makes a man wonder is all. And with the exchange done, the fishing boat pulled away from the rickety dock. It slipped into the rainy haze and out of sight while the men watched.

Man, screw that cracker! The young black man spat and walked away up the pier.

Hope you don't take a good look in the engine room bud, Swift Crow thought as he watched the group move off up the pier and then rise before he began to walk after them. The words from the first mate grinding in his head with every step. All five men carried the same type of black bags, and they all rode on the same boat to get the island, this was most certainly not the normal he was used to Swift Crow thought. Whoever's running this op needs to take a day course on setting up the travel arrangements for your super-secret assault team because this group did a terrible job of keeping a low profile he surmised, and now walking in a single file line toward their final destination, we must look like a herd of cattle going into the slaughterhouse. Swift Crow made a mental note of how they arrived, maybe we should have worn name tags and had some punch on the dock while getting to know each other. The line of men continued to march along a marked path, a rope with a red flag attached every ten feet showed them the way to where ever it was they were going. No one spoke a word, just held their heads low to the wind and rain as they walked alongside the rope. First, there was nothing to look at, and then shacks began to appear on the edge of their sight, run down and ram shackled abodes popping up out the dark. Twenty minutes later, an old three-story house came into view, right on time, Swift Crow judged as night was on them and already decreasing their prep time. The house was old, just like the first mate had said, but it wasn't in bad shape from what they could tell. The Victorian was out of place on the island though, the steeple roof stood out like a sore thumb in contrast to the shacks they passed. They stepped onto the front porch, thankful to be out of the rain and cold, but no one made a move to open the door. They each just looked from one to the other waiting for someone else to be the first to open the portal.

Bollocks blokes, just open the bleeding door! The tall white man said with a British accent. Swift Crow made another mental note; this one about the man as he watched him open the door with a quick