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.13.

Because of the nightmare I suffered the previous night, I still was very tired. There was no way I'd last long being cuddled up so closely to Bagheera, in Baloo's bear-hug. Moist, warm breath and a rough tongue in my face woke me up. "Hmmm... I want to sleep more", I exhaled dreamily. "The pack needs to hunt, and they'll appreciate my help", the feline smiled. "And we're all tangled up against each other. I'd find it rude to wake you up when trying to get up." Baloo raised himself up slowly, so we wouldn't tumble onto the ground. After getting back on my feet myself, I briefly leaned against the rock face and yawned. "Have a good day, you two.", Bagheera said while yawning himself. "I'm going to head over to Council Rock to see what the pack wants to do with the hunt." After the panther had left, Baloo looked at me and shook his head. "You're all covered in wounds and bruises." "Yeah. That tiger left more than enough souvenirs for me to remember him by. And I have a feeling these won't be the last." "You are safe here, you know. Shere-Khan will think twice before to show up here. I'll break that tiger's neck if he does. And like Bagheera said, he would face Luri." "He'll continue to be a menace where he lives though. And to humans who venture out in his territory. And he wants to get me." "Pardon me for saying this, but I don't care much for the humans. They are quite horrible, if what Bagheera told us about them is all true." "Well, I'm human", I grinned. The bear grabbed me and slobbered me all over. "Gah!", I snerked. "Serves you right for being smart to me", the bear chuckled. I embraced Baloo and leaned in against him. "I think I'm going to my den and sort my stuff out." "Are you going to live there again? It's a bit further away from us than before." "I don't know yet. It depends on how I feel. I want to be close to you all, but there are times when I want to be by myself, and I just love to swim in the lake and use the waterfall to wash myself. And I do need a wash. I smell of wolf, panther and bear slobber all over", I grinned. "I've never understood your urge to wash yourself like you do. Of course you smell of us. Is that such a bad thing?", Baloo asked. "It means you smell of where you belong." "Well, like Maki said, I can't reach everywhere with my mouth like you all can. And I don't think I'd particularly like cleaning myself with my tongue like you all do. So I just wash myself under the waterfall or in the lake." "That is why she asked to help you out. I am sure the others wouldn't mind to either. It's what they do for Mowgli. He doesn't even give it a thought." "I am not Mowgli. I was born and raised in a human society, which means I've been taught habits and behaviours that make absolutely no sense here, I know that. But it's how my brain is wired up. I can't just change that in the blink of an eye. It took me quite some effort already to simply be able to greet others like you do here without my brain telling me it is something different." "You're unique and wonderful in your own way", the bear smiled. "Alright. I'm going to have a wander around the forest to look for berries and vegetation, as I'm feeling a bit peckish.

With a gracious arc, I dove into the cool water of the lake. While streamlining my body, I floated under water for as long as I could endure before surfacing. Using my arms as stabilizers and rudders, I floated around in a seated position. I've always enjoyed swimming, ever since I was a toddler. I swam competitions as a kid, and done some scuba diving in my early adult years. I felt as much at home in the water as I did on dry land. After swimming a few stretches across the lake, I got out and walked to my den to grab a towel out of my backpack. While drying myself off, I looked around the interior of my den, contemplating about how I would go around restoring some of the wooden support structure that had started to rot, and making in a bit more homely. I hung the damp towel over a branch outside to dry, and went about unpacking my backpack. My machete, bowie knife, a few cans of soup, dried toast, my first aid kit and a small box with tools. To my surprise, I saw the big black box I didn't remember packing and had been wondering about for a while. I placed it on the den floor and unclipped the two locks on each side. A yellow note was placed on top of a black styrofoam cover. 'In case of problems, call on 7100 Hz. Bawa.' Puzzled, I took the styrofoam cover off and saw a portable HF transceiver, COAX wiring, a rolled up end-fed wire antenna, a coil box, a battery and a small folded solar panel charger. "Well, at least calling on the 40 meter band means I won't have many problems clearing the forest and covering the distance to Balaghat", I mumbled to myself. "They must have found my HAM radio registration card among the other burned remains of the car wreckage" I closed the box and put it next to my toolbox, against the rocky wall of my den.

"You surely are occupied with something." With a shock, I turned around to find Sura sitting in my den's opening. "You startled me. You're not hunting with the others?", I asked. "With experienced wolves like Vermillion and Akru, and Mowgli helping out, I asked if I could be excused for once. I wanted to spend some time with you." He walked in and sniffed the various boxes and cans of food. "You're going to live here again?" he asked. I sat down on the sandy floor. "I don't know yet. At least I want to have a place to retreat to if I feel a need to be alone, and I like it here." Sura sat down next to me while splaying his ears. "I don't want you to be alone." I leaned into his side. "It's nice to see you and Lala are mated and have cubs. And Akru as well." "Lala likes to tease and make fun of you, but she means well. We want you to know that if you're feeling bad and you feel like being looked after, you're more than welcome to come to our den. The same counts for Akru and Maki. But I guess Mother already has you covered pretty good." "I love to spend time with you regardless", I smiled. "You're my wolf brother." The wolf tenderly nibbled my nose and cheeks. I closed my eyes and inhaled the his scent while rubbing my mouth over his lips. Sura took me in a blissful, warm wolf kiss. "I'm so happy we're all together again", he softly whispered. "After Mowgli told us what happened with Shere-Khan, I felt horrible. I felt I chased you away from us, and that I would never have a chance to make things right with you any more." The wolf licked tears off of my cheeks. "You humans have such an interesting way of showing emotion." "I'm all messed up. My emotions are all over the place. I must've cried more the past few days than I've done in my entire adult life. I'm still hurting over what happened. I can't process it and give it a place yet." "You've been through a lot, brother. You came back here expecting to be united with us, but in stead found your entire world here crumbled and destroyed. I'm part of the cause, and I'm very sorry for that." I embraced the beige-black wolf and buried my face in his thick chest fur.

"Hey Sura, Matthew." Mowgli and Akru were standing in my den's opening. "Can we come in?" "Of course, you're my brothers", I smiled, rubbing my face dry. "Matthew?", Sura asked. "My human name. Feel free to call me like that if you want." "We've caught a buffalo!", Mowgli grinned victoriously. "Did you make the kill?", Sura asked. "No, one of the hunters did. But I chased it around! We should all go and feed." "Oh, I remember that one time", I said to Sura. "I'll never forget that. But you made the kill and proved yourself worthy to everyone." "You killed a buffalo?", Mowgli asked in awe. "Uh... Well, Bagheera and the wolves did most of the foot-work on that one. I just finished it off. But sadly, Sura got badly injured when the buffalo charged him, and almost died because his wounds got infected. I had to race to the human town to get medication for him." "Mother never let me made a kill", Mowgli said while looking to the ground. "She thought it would be too dangerous." "It is dangerous, little brother", Akru said while nosing him. "Though back then you were still a small cub. Now you've grown." "My kill wasn't planned either, Mowgli. If it offers a bit of comfort to you, I wasn't intended to do it. I was only to chase the animal and direct it towards the hunters. And I wasn't proud of myself at all. I'd rather never do it again." I looked at all my stuff. "Alright. You go and eat. I'm staying here to sort out my den." "You're not hungry?", Akru asked. "I have some food here." Sura, Akru and Mowgli nosed me and walked off.

I couldn't keep my eyes off of the black case containing the radio. I decided to assemble it and have a listen. I climbed up on top of the rock where my den was in, and tied one end of a piece of rope around the trunk of a tree and the other to the clip on one end of the wire antenna. I ran it all the way down in a slight angle towards another tree standing year the waterfall, and used another piece of rope to neatly hang it up. The folded up solar panel unfolded into a one square meter panel with a stand under it, so that I could place it under an angle, and aim to to where the sun was. I connected the wiring to the battery, and ran the feed and the coax coming from the antenna's coil-box to the transceiver. "Well, here goes nothing", I said to myself while pushing the on-off button on the transceiver. Static noise filled the air. I turned the big dial knob around a bit. The radio was tuned in to the 20 meter band. and I randomly had a listen in. I heard a few Indian stations, Chinese stations, a few Russian ones. And I could've sworn to have heard one or two stations from Italy and Germany too, but those were deep in the static. Then I selected the 40 meter band and turned the dial until the display read 7100 Hz. I only heard static. I left it on while collecting some twigs and branches for making a fire to heat up some soup.

"Baava, yah Chadha hai, aapakee kaaryavaahee kaisee hai?"

I almost dropped my piece of toast into the can of hot soup.

"Namaste Chadha. Main ek samaashodhan mein aa gaya hoon. Yahaan jang lagee dhaatu kee pattiyaan hain. Kya yah vah shivir ho sakata hai jahaan de Berg kee baat ho rahee thee?"

"Damn it. Where is Google Translate when you need it?", I grumbled. I listened to the Hindi sentences. I recognized the voices of Chadha and Bawa and heard my surname. I turned off the transceiver to save power and decided to go and get Mowgli to help translate.

I looked at the stripped Buffalo skeleton and grinned. "You all didn't take long." A few of the hunters were snoozing in the afternoon sun and got up to greet me when they saw me. "It's good to see you again, human", one of them smiled after a few rather meaty licks in my face. Luri, Lala, Maki, Bagheera and Vermillion walked up to nuzzle and lick me. "Well, all the tasty meat is gone now!", Lala said. "You're too late to have anything. You will go hungry!" "Oh, but we can still feed him, Lala", Maki said with a grin. "Eh, no. I will pass on that, thank you very much. I don't want regurgitated, slobbery meat", I said with a disgusted look on my face. The wolves all chuckled. "Mowgli, I need your help with translating Hindi to English." "Oh, sure thing!", he said. "Why though?" "I'll show you in my den." "Oh, now you've gotten us all curious", Lala said. "Yeah, you can't wait to see what dark secrets from the human world this overgrown wolf-cub has to show, eh?", I grinned. "Oh, I'm all eyes and ears", Vermillion said. "Well, alright then. If you're all done with feeding, follow me to my den." "Are the cubs alright, Lala?", Maki asked. "Bacchus is looking after them, they can't be better", the red furred she-wolf smiled. "Well, well. You've had a change of heart about Bacchus", I said to Lala. "Oh shush, you wolf-cub!", she snapped. I looked at Vermillion, "I had to endure that for six months. Do you now understand why I fled back to the human world?" The red wolf tried to stifle a laugh, but failed utterly, followed by the others. Lala didn't know where to look.

I turned the radio back on. Static. "Hmm. Of course they're quiet now", I grumbled. I turned the dial around a bit to scan, but apart of a few digital signals, I couldn't hear anything. I dialed it back to 7100 Hz. "Human ingenuity", Bagheera nodded. "What does it do?" "Basically, this turns my voice into a signal that passes through the air, via that wire there. Someone with a similar piece of equipment can pick it up and hear what I say." "How far does it reach?" "That depends on a lot of factors. Back home, I had a similar set-up. and when all the conditions were right, I could hear signals from the other side of the world." "That's amazing", Akru said. "It's silly!", Lala said. "Why would you want to talk to someone you can't even see?" "It has its uses", I answered. "Just imagine when you'd be hunting. I could tell you prey was coming long time before you'd be able to see it, so you could position yourself in a good place to intercept it."

"Namaste Baava, yah Chadha hai. Main ek ghante mein us shivir mein aa jaoonga. Kya aap vahaan mera intajaar karenge?"

I looked at Mowgli. "Eh... 'Hello Bawa, this is Chadha. I will come to that campsite in an hour. Will you wait for me there?' " My blood ran cold. "Those fools. I told them to leave it alone and let me deal with it"

"Samajh liya. Main akela hee aaoonga."

"Understood, I will come alone" Luri licked my shoulder. "What's wrong? What fools? Why are you looking so worried all of a sudden?" "It's those two police officers who found me after my confrontation with Shere-Khan when Mowgli escaped. They are at that campsite where I met Bagheera for the first time and fought those poachers. They're looking for Shere-Khan. They are far too close to here. It's only a five hour walk." "All by themselves? Now that's a death-wish", Bagheera said while shaking his head.

"Yah vaastav mein shivir de Berg ke baare mein baat kar raha tha. To kam se kam ab ham yah sunishchit karane ke lie jaanate hain ki vah sach kah raha tha."

" 'This indeed is that campsite de Berg was talking about, Chadha. So at least we now know for sure that he was telling the truth.' " I picked up the microphone and held it in my hand, doubting whether I should respond or not. "You're going to talk to them?", Mowgli asked. "I don't know what I should say", I grumbled, putting it back down again. They know how dangerous Shere-Khan is. And telling them to go away won't do much." "Do I have to inform the others and warn them about those two?", Luri asked.

"Chadha, Chadha! Mujhe mittee mein taaze taaze panje ke nishaan dikhaee de rahe hain. Jitanee jaldee ho sake yahaan jao, aur apane saath ek shikaaree lao!"

Mowgli gulped. " 'Chadha, chadha! I see fresh tiger paw prints in the soil. Get here as quickly as you can, and bring a hunter with you!' "