He couldn’t help laughing again. With Quinn he laughed a lot. “I don’t love the term, personally. But the vanillas picked it, and for the most part terminology along with policy gets decided by the vanillas.”
“They don’t like your term for them either.”
“I don’t use it in their presence, pup.”
“My aunt’s friend does.”
“Oh yeah? Is she a wolf?”
“Um…no.”
There were only two varieties of apex, and the other was the sourest word in all of language, so Aaron didn’t give it a place in his mouth. “There you go.”
“Is it something else I’ll get later? Feeling like…” He shrugged.
Not that Aaron turned to see the motion, but the shift of Quinn’s nylon backpack against his shoulders was audible. To an apex, at least. “Like wildlife should panic and run from you?”
“Yeah.”
“Not really.” Not in his experience anyway.
“Good.”
“Now, smells. Remember, mouth open just a bit. Makes all the difference.”
As they walked, Aaron worked the exercise along with his charge. Slightly parted lips and teeth, long breath through the nose, and every scent and flavor around him magnified. He waited for Quinn’s litany.
“Okay,” Quinn said a few seconds later. “Dirt, moss, trees—wood, I mean, like branches—ferns and wild lavender and there’s this flower a little ways ahead of us—”
“Let’s sum up withplants.”
“Oh, okay. So, plants. And the deer, of course. He smells like, well, venison, I guess. And sunlight. I never noticed the air has a different scent when the sun’s out, but it does. And I can smell the creek up at the house. We’re close enough to the house I can smell it too—food and wood smoke and…”
The list of scents and flavors went on for a few minutes, and Aaron didn’t interrupt. He let the kid be specific, observant, careful. At last Quinn ran out of sensory impressions.
“You’re missing one,” Aaron said as the house came into view.
“What?”
“A fairly obvious one.” He held back a grin.
“No way.” They reached the foot of the hill on which Aaron’s home stood, and Quinn fidgeted on his feet. “Come on, what did I miss?”
Aaron pushed back the lock of his black hair that fell over his forehead multiple times a day, that had been doing so since he was younger than Quinn. “Can’t you smell me?”
“Oh…” The kid’s mouth turned down. “You’re right. That was obvious. I think I forgot it because you smell like you, but…you also smell like me.”
“Yep. The scent all wolves have in common is layered with the scent of the individual wolf.”
Quinn’s gray eyes closed, and he inhaled deeply. “I can’t describe it though. It’s like…that’s just you.”
“Good enough for now. Oh, don’t forget it’s watering day.”
“I didn’t.”
In his backpack, Aaron’s phone began to vibrate. He slung the pack halfway around to pull out the phone. Unknown number? That wasn’t typical, but a human from town might have gotten his number from somebody trusted. Might need something. Aaron swiped to accept the call and paced away, and Quinn set off at a lope toward the pole barn, where an extended-length hose and nozzle would reach the burgeoning vegetables that needed rain.
“Hello,” Aaron said.
