The Other Boy Who Cried Wolf
You may have heard of the village where a shepherd boy lied about seeing a wolf so often that when a wolf actually showed up and he cried for help, no one believed him, and his flock was devoured. It’s an important tale with an important moral: the fate of liars is that no one believes them when they tell the truth.
But perhaps that isn’t always so.
Across the river and on the other side of the mountains from that boy who cried wolf were another lush valley, another village, and another flock of sheep in need of stewardship.
Now, this village was living in a time of peace and prosperity. Long ago, wolves had roamed this valley, stalking out of the woods by the dozens to descend on the town and the flocks of sheep it relied on, and something very much like a war broke out between the villagers and the wolves. After much fighting and blood shed by wolves, sheep, and people, the villagers triumphed, and drove the wolves not only out of the village, but out of the woods and across the land.
Afterwards, the people vowed that, should a wolf ever return to their hamlet, they would kill it on sight.
Every night, a villager, with their dog, was assigned to keep watch over the flock. When a wolf dared come, the watchman would cry out, the village would spring to action, and the wolf would be swiftly killed or driven off. There was but one tragedy. One night, a wolf attacked and killed the man on watch. As his wife was dead, his son, Paulo, went to live with his aunt and uncle, and grew up with visions of revenge against the wolves who took the father he could not remember from him.
But for fifteen years after that, the village only dealt with the occasional coyote or fox, until a time came when most of those keeping watch had never seen a wolf. Some expected the wolves to return; some lived in deep fear of it; some started to take their responsibilities less seriously. But Paulo, uniquely, yearned for it. He stayed alert with a vengeful eye, hoping for the chance to shed the blood of the beast that killed his father. He had visions of himself leading an army against a pack of fierce wolves, slaying the beasts left and right, saving his home from them, and being welcomed back a hero.
But despite Paulo taking on more night shifts than anyone else for several months in a row, it was his friend, Michael, who was on guard one night and who screamed at the top of his lungs, “WOLF! WOLF! THERE IS A WOLF!”
People sprang from their beds and grabbed their weapons and ran out to the pastures. They arrived just in time to find Michael and his beloved border collie, Jasper, wrestling with a snarling wolf on the ground. By the orange light of their torches, they saw Michael draw his blade and drive it into the wolf’s belly.
The wolf had killed a sheep, but Michael’s and Jasper’s bravery had saved the flock, and the whole village celebrated him. A feast was held in his honor. Jasper sat at his side and ate well cooked mutton, and enjoyed the adoration of those who came to pat his head and scratch his belly.
Paulo watched these celebrations with envy. If he had been on watch, he thought bitterly, perhaps he could have slain the beast, and then he would have been the one to get a celebratory feast. It wasn’t fair that it should be Michael. Michael’s parents were alive! They had claim to more sheep than almost anyone else in the village. Why should he also get the glory of killing the first wolf the town had seen in years?
So the next time Paulo was on watch for the night, he looked over the flock extra carefully, his ears alert to all noises, his eyes wary of all shadows. And then, in the darkest part of the moonless night, out of the corner of his eye, he saw a shadow lumbering. He drew his blade and ran towards it. “WOLF! WOLF! THERE IS A WOLF!” he screamed, darting through the flock, screaming “WOLF! WOLF! WOLF!”
Again, the villagers sprang to action, running out with their weapons and torches. But after an hour of searching, they found no wolf. Paulo sighed with frustration. “It must have run back to the forest,” he grumbled.
Michael saw his friend’s dejection, and said, “But see? No sheep have been harmed! You frightened it off!” He beamed at his friend proudly. “Let us celebrate Paulo’s bravery!” The village burst into applause and held a feast for Paulo the next day.
But in the throng, they also realized something disconcerting: Two sightings, so close together, after so many years without one? The wolves were returning.
Vigilance would have to be increased.
As discussions hummed around the tables about how to prepare stronger defenses, Paulo, reeling from the adoration, stood up and asked, “Why wait for them to come to us?”
The villagers turned to him. “We know they’re out there,” he explained. “We know they are coming into our valley, and trying to take our sheep. We already lost one when Michael was on watch, and had I not seen this second wolf, perhaps we could have lost dozens more. We know what wolves can do to a village and a flock, and to our people. As you all know, my own father was killed by a wolf. So many of our grandfathers fell in the Great Wolf War. When will we say enough? Let us go to them, now, and stop them where they are!”
The villagers nodded and murmured in agreement.
“The only good wolf is a dead wolf!” Shouted Paulo, to cheers.
Only Michael hesitated to join in the throng, uncertain in a way he couldn’t describe. But nobody paid him notice.
And so the next day, half the villagers took up arms and torches and went into the woods. For days, they searched for wolves without finding any. Paulo encouraged everyone to stay resolved, describing to them how sharp were the fangs on the wolf he drove off, how they gleamed evil by the moonlight
On the sixth day, Paulo and Michael were scouting the woods together.
“Do you think, perhaps, we should give up this hunt for now?” Michael offered. “It seems we’re not finding any wolves.”
“They are here,” replied Paulo.
“Maybe. But we are deep in the woods, far from the village. Any wolf here is probably just minding its business.”
Paulo turned to him and looked at him, incredulously. “Do you… like wolves?” Paulo asked.
“No! Of course not, not at all! But they only really bother me when they’re trying to take our sheep.”
“The only good wolf is a dead w — ” started Paulo, but, as fate would have it, this was the moment they stumbled on a she-bitch suckling three pups.
Paulo’s eyes lit up. Before Michael could say anything, Paulo ran at the she-wolf, raising his spiked club high above his head, and striking the mother with a devastating blow. Michael heard the skull crack. Blood exploded from the wound, and splattered onto the pups, which Paulo turned on next.
“No!” Michael shouted, but too late — in three successive thwacks, Paulo turned the wolf cubs into messes of fur, blood, and organs. Paulo looked at Michael, sprays of wolf blood on his face, smiling in a crazed triumph. His face fell when he saw Michael’s look of distress.
“It was us or them, Michael,” Paulo said, catching his breath.
Michael said in despair, “They were coyotes.”
Paulo looked. It was hard to tell, so mangled were the corpses. But he could see Michael was right — it had been a family of coyotes, not wolves.
“That was a big coyote,” Paulo said. Michael didn’t respond.
Paulo contorted his face in thought. Then, as if struck by a flash of brilliance, he shrugged, drew his blade to skin the mother, and said, “What’s the difference?” Before Michael could answer, he continued, “Coyotes are a threat to the flock as well, are they not? They are family of wolves, are they not? We might as well treat them like wolves, too.”
Michael saw that there was some truth to this. Coyotes weren’t quite the threat wolves were, but he had, indeed, lost a lamb to a coyote last year.
Paulo returned to camp with the body of the coyote — which was as big as a wolf, and might as well be called one, he insisted — and the story of how he fought her. How she had leapt at them to protect her pups, gnashing her teeth and swiping her claws. Michael looked at Paulo confused at this re-telling. That was not how he remembered it.
Michael asked him about this in private, but Paulo said Michael had it wrong. The way he told it was exactly how he experienced it. That was his truth, and Michael had no business telling him otherwise.
Michael said “of course,” and wondered if maybe he had mis-seen. Or perhaps he was misremembering? Perhaps the coyote had jumped out from the bushes and almost bitten Paulo’s arm clean off. Or, he reasoned, maybe the truth was somewhere in the middle of his Paulo’s perspectives, and so it was understandable if Paulo remembers it the way he did, and Michael the way he did.
Either way, Michael didn’t want to call his friend a liar to the village, and so didn’t mention it again.
After that, the hunting party pursued coyotes as well as wolves, and on that front, had much more luck. At Paulo’s insistence, they simply called coyotes ‘wolves,’ and so, as if by magic, dozens of wolves were killed when before none were, and the hunters returned to the village triumphant. Michael looked around, surprised at the people gleefully tallying up their ‘wolf’ kills, but he did not wish to ruin their joy, and so stayed quiet.
Paulo, having gained much respect for his recent leadership, warned the villagers more wolves were still out there. They needed to be on constant alert. Curfews would need to be instigated. They would need to have three people on watch every night, not just one. And, he thought, who says wolves only come at night? They would need a watch in the daytime as well.
One night soon after, little Andrew on watch cried “WOLF! WOLF! THERE IS A WOLF!” The village was roused, they came out with their torches and knives and clubs, but no wolf could be found.
“I’m sorry, maybe I was wrong,” said Andrew apologetically.
“Well… It’s best to sound the alarm, if you thought you saw a wolf,” said Michael to comfort him. Some people murmured in agreement, and Andrew felt better.
“No no,” said Paulo. “If you think you saw a wolf, you did see a wolf. That was your truth. We need not question it.” Some people murmured in agreement to that as well. Michael looked at Paulo curiously. “We all know,” Paulo continued, “that there are wolves around. Perhaps my father did not believe his own eyes, when he thought he saw a wolf, and hesitated to sound the alarm! So do not let people say you did not see what you saw. If you have the dreadful experience of seeing a wolf, that is your truth!”
The people cheered. Andrew smiled. Paulo beamed.
Michael frowned. He spent his wolfless nights on watch, scratching Jasper, his beloved border collie, behind the ears. But many others ended up fighting off wolves only they had seen.
And then, one night a few weeks later, little Andrew was on watch again. “WOLF! WOLF! THERE IS A WOLF!” he cried at the top of his lungs. The villagers, as they were now accustomed to, leapt out of bed and ran to the pastures with their torches and weapons, and this time, they did indeed find Andrew chasing an animal.
“I stabbed it!” Andrew said excitedly. “It is wounded! This way!” They gave chase, and Andrew and a group of villagers cornered the animal and clubbed it viciously. Its pained yelps filled the night, until they did not.
But when they stepped away, everyone saw that the animal was not a wolf, nor even a coyote-they-called-a-wolf.
It was a border collie.
It was Jasper.
Michael ran to his dog. It whined as Michael petted it and its lifeblood poured onto the grass. Michael bowed his head into the collie’s fur as it died. Andrew dropped his knife. “Oh, Michael… I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
Some in the village dropped their heads in sadness and shame. And just when Michael began to collect his beloved companion in his arms to give him a proper burial, a voice he well recognized called out —
“Do not be sorry.”
Michael slowly raised his head and turned to Paulo.
“You thought it was a wolf,” said Paulo to Andrew. “That was your truth.”
Michael — keenly aware that he was the only person in the village who had recently killed a confirmed, actual wolf — clenched his jaw.
“You had no choice but to act,” Paulo continued. “In fact, we must consider… We use these dogs to herd our sheep. But are dogs not the direct relative of the wolf? Does not a dog have wolf-ness inside of it, just as do the coyotes we now recognize as wolves? For all these years, as wolves have tormented our sheep,” — Michael gaped when he saw some villagers nod— “is it not possible that the dogs we thought were looking over the sheep were, in fact, helping their wolf cousins?! Were there not dogs in the village the night my father was killed?!”
Some of the villagers looked skeptical at this, but others were wide eyed at the realization of this very real possibility.
“We must fix this,” Paulo said firmly. “We have been surrounded by wolfness, all along.”
There was a pregnant pause of anticipation.
“Bring out the rest of the dogs!” Paulo should.
Michael stood up, furious, but before he could, a woman cried out, “No!”
There was silence. The group turned the woman, who said firmly, “My dog is no wolf. He will not be harmed.”
Paulo stepped towards her. “There is no dog without some wolf,” he said.
“My dog,” the woman repeated firmly, “is a dog.”
Paulo sighed. “We must rid our society of its wolfness. And dogs are lousy with it,” Paulo said, and there were murmurs of agreement. “We must acknowledge that even non-wolves can enact wolfness! So anyone who enacts— or defends — wolfness must be considered a wolf-supremacist. Does anyone disagree?”
The woman who had tried to defend his dog withered under the glares of some of the other villagers. Michael wanted to speak, but his voice caught in his throat.
“Find all the wolves we once called dogs,” Paulo called, “and bring them to justice!”
The villagers sprang to action. Some brought their own dogs gladly, some despairingly, some wrenched their neighbor’s dog out of their neighbor’s hands. When anyone fought to protect their dog, they were called “wolf supremacist” and were mocked, even beaten, by their neighbors.
A young child carried his little terrier up to Paulo. “Maybe my dog is a wolf,” he said, sniffing through tears, “but he never hurt a sheep!”
Paulo smiled sadly and knelt next to him. “He probably didn’t. But he has benefited from his wolfness. He has maybe has not preyed on the sheep, but does he not bark and chase them for his own amusement? No, this micro-preying will not do. I’m afraid he has grown up in structural wolfness. And the only good wolf is a dead wolf.”
The child nodded sadly and handed Paulo his Jack Russell Terrier-wolf.
And so the dogs were slaughtered. As their corpses were burned, Michael saw Paulo smiling, his canine teeth gleaming long in the light of the fire and the moon.
***
In the coming months, there were marches and protests against wolves and wolfness. People started to question the wolf watchers themselves — had they, as the dogs had, in fact conspired to let the wolves attack the sheep herd occasionally, to keep the villagers afraid, so that they could cling to power? In fact, had not the villagers preyed on the sheep they claimed they protected? Many of the young, most radical villagers refused to eat mutton any longer, as it was a clear indication of wolfness.
How deep did this wolfness go, some people asked, and also answered: it was foundational.
There were grumbles, of course. Some villagers thought matters were getting out of hand. But such dissent could not be tolerated, lest the wolves take advantage of their skepticism and take control.
“It’s clear,” Paulo announced one afternoon, “That there are pro-wolf sympathizers in our community. We hear your wolf-whistles, the seemingly innocent things you say and do that are actually signals to the wolves. We will tolerate it no longer.”
“Down with the Lupusarchy!” someone from the crowd shouted, and the villagers cheered.
Schools taught children about structural wolfism that had so long plagued their community, and the ways it had hidden itself in plain sight. People read books and went to seminars to learn how to rid themselves of any implicit wolfness that lurked inside them. Departments were formed, and important citizens, recognized for their contributions in the fight against wolfism, were selected to helm them.
A group who called themselves “Antiwolf” wandered the streets. They left graffiti on walls and occasionally would spur some of the protests to outright riots against structural wolfness. But when any villager questioned this, someone would ask, “You’re not pro-wolf, are you?” and the questioner would stop, for fear of being labeled a wolf-supremacist.
Foxes were also called ‘wolf’ now, for simplicity.
Wolf sightings increased twentyfold.
* * *
Amongst the creatures of the forest, word spread. A fox who had wandered near the village and barely escaped with his life met a wolf and told him of his experience.
“There are sheep there?” The wolf asked, salivating.
“Oh, plenty. More sheep than you could dream of,” the fox explained. “But it is their policy to kill all wolves on sight.”
“But you are not a wolf,” said the wolf, “you are a fox.”
“They call any animal they don’t like a wolf,” the fox said. “That’s their truth.”
The wolf thought about this. He was tired of hunting, and the thought of all the sheep there appealed to him mightily.
He had a cousin who had, once, done something either very daring or very stupid. With a simple costume, he had convinced a girl in a red cloak that he was her grandmother and had eaten her whole. He would have had a long delightful rest had not a hunter nearby seen through the farce and opened up his stomach with his blade.
If only there had not been that hunter, this wolf thought. Or, if only he could not have seen the farce…
The wolf mused on this, and thought about this fox that they called a wolf.
He smiled.
And swiftly killed the fox.
* * *
“I would like to live in your village. I have brought you a wolf-skin,” said the old woman with the furry snout and the long fangs, unfurling the bushy- tailed, red wolf skin for Paulo, who inspected it with approval.
“The only good wolf is a dead wolf,” Paulo said, gauging how the old woman would react.
“Oh, I completely agree,” she said grinning.
“I don’t mean to be rude,” Paulo said, “but some would say that you… resemble a wolf.”
“I was assigned wolf at birth,” said the old woman with a sigh, “But I identify as a grandmother.”
Paulo squinted curiously.
“That’s my truth,” said the grandmother with a sharp-toothed grin.
Paulo smiled. “So it is.”
* * *
“Is it not unjust,” said Paulo to the crowd of villagers who had come to hear him speak, “that some people have more sheep than others?” Paulo’s grandmother, who had recently arrived in the village, nodded sagely beside him. Those who had questioned this grandmother’s strange appearance had been driven from the village by Antiwolf.
“Is that not the way of the wolf, to take more for itself?” Some of the villagers nodded, looking with hatred at those who owned more sheep than they did.
“Henceforth, all sheep shall be shared equally!” Most of the village erupted in glee. Michael was one of the few who did not. He was a good shepherd. His father had been a good shepherd. His grandfather, who had fought in the Great Wolf War, had been a good shepherd. They had protected their sheep well.
“But, it has come to my attention that we have overlooked something,” Paulo continued, dropping his voice gravely, “Something of vital importance.”
The villagers hushed.
“Is it not a known expression to ‘beware the wolf in sheep’s clothing?’” Paulo’s grandmother again nodded. “We must daily inspect the sheep, to make sure no wolves lurk among them.”
The crowd murmured.
“And what will you do to the sheep that are wolves?” Michael asked, scowling at his old friend.
“Dispose of them,” Paulo said with a cold smile.
In the years that followed, as the villagers enjoyed their increasingly shrinking portions of sheep for dinner, the increasingly many sheep-that-were-identified-as-wolves were slaughtered and brought to Paulo’s house, where he and his grandmother — and his grandmother’s friends, who kept arriving at the village with their old-lady glasses, and flowery dresses, and lupine fangs and claws — disposed of them.
God only knows how.
* * *
And so, the flock dwindled, and Antiwolf marched the streets and protested wolfness in every form, and grandmaphobic was the worst thing you could be. Grandmothers (Gentle! Wise! Equitable! The exact antithesis of the wolf!) flourished in number, as more and more people identified as such.
Paulo and Michael saw their boyhood fade and became men. Paulo grew fat and hairy, and wore a long, thick beard. His police force, largely which, unusually enough, consisted of grandmothers, guarded the town from wolves and the wolf-adjacent very efficiently. However, there was simply not enough food to go around, with so many wolves-in-sheeps-clothing discovered and needing to be disposed of.
And so, the last person in this village to have fought and slain a wolf grew thin and weak and frail. One day he was brought before Paulo.
“Why do you not speak out against wolfness?” Paulo asked, as he took a bite of a juicy wolf chop.
“I am no fan of wolves,” Michael replied, his eyes darting to Paulo’s grandmother.
“Yet,” said Paulo, “You do not march in the protests. You have not done the work to rid yourself of your own wolfish nature. You do not attend our seminars, nor introduce yourself with your species identifiers. Why?”
Michael looked at his old friend, and then, despite himself, laughed. Paulo looked confused.
“Did you even see a wolf that night?” Michael asked.
“I see wolves every night,” Paulo replied gravely.
“But that first night. Your first night on watch after I killed the wolf in the pasture, you said you saw a wolf, too. Did you actually see one or not?”
Something like sadness washed over Paulo’s face. “I thought I did,” he said. “I really thought I did.” And after a sigh, his regular countenance returned, and he casually took another bite of wolf chop.
“It was my truth,” he said simply.
***
And as the food supply dwindled, and townspeople starved, and anger at the wolves who obviously caused this famine reached a fever pitch, Paulo, spurred by his grandmother, reminded everyone that werewolves existed. That humans who took wolf form must live among them. That they were the ones responsible, undoubtedly, for the ill fortune that had struck the village these last years, and probably had been the ones who let the wolves take sheep from them all along. People glanced askance at each other, looking for signs of wolf. No one dare accuse the town grandmothers, though, who were only genetic wolves but did not identify as such. To accuse them of being a werewolf was grandmaphobic. The best way to not be a wolf was to publicly show that you were ridding yourself of your own wolfness. So, many did. People introduced themselves with the species identifier ‘Human/non-wolf.’ Shop owners put signs on their doors, “This shop is human owned!” and “Wolves have no home here!” and “Non-wolf lives matter!”
Identifying werewolves was a civic duty rewarded with a shank of lamb, if a villager named a person that the Department Of Anti-Wolfness could confirm was a werewolf. It was remarkable, how many people’s competitors in business, or personal and political rivals, were, in fact, werewolves.
And one day, Paulo’s grandmother grabbed Andrew, who had been identified as a werewolf by a neighbor who had long coveted Andrew’s property, and began to drag him away.
“I am not a wolf!” Andrew screamed. “Please! Please! I am no wolf!”
“Let him go!” Michael screamed, stepping into the square, staring at Paulo’s grandmother with fury in his eyes. “The only wolf here is you!”
There were gasps in the crowd.
“That is grandmaphobic,” Paulo’s grandmother said with a sly, toothy grin. “Only wolves are grandmaphobic.” Members of Antiwolf grabbed Michael and dragged him away.
He was brought before Paulo, who looked in shock at his friend, bloody and bruised from his interrogation with the Department of Anti-Wolfness.
“Michael,” Paulo said sadly.
“He is a werewolf,” his grandmother announced. “The committee has confirmed it.” She grinned, drool dripping from her sharp teeth. “He called me a wolf.”
Paulo hesitated, looking at his old friend.
“I am no werewolf,” Michael said weakly. “Paulo. You know that’s the truth.”
Paulo inhaled deeply through his ever-more snout-like nose, and his eyes flashed with anger. “No. That is your truth. The village has had centuries of your truth,” he declared. “And we’re tired of it. It’s time to let other, non-wolf voices be heard!”
As Michael was dragged out, Paulo’s grandmother leaned close to him so that only he could hear. “Stupid little boy,” she said. “The only truth that matters is ours.”
***
Werewolves were burned not at the stake, but at the rotisserie.
Michael dangled over the pyres that had been built beneath them, waiting for them to be lit. Paulo approached. His beard scraggly. His hair wild. His ears pointed. His face elongated. His fangs always a little bit bared.
“You know,” Paulo said, gently tightening the ropes around Michael’s wrists, “that first night, when I said I saw a wolf — ”
Michael shut his eyes, knowing what was coming.
“ — I don’t think I really did.” He looked at Michael with what looked almost like an apology.
“No,” Michael said sadly. “I don’t think you did either.”
“How do you want him?” asked Paulo’s grandmother, lighting the pyre.
“Medium-rare,” Paulo replied. The old woman turned the skewer slowly.
As Michael rotated, he wondered when he could have stopped this. When Paulo thought he saw a wolf? Or suggested they seek out wolves in the forest? When he killed a coyote, or lied about how it happened, or suggested they call coyotes wolves? When not seeing a wolf was deemed the same as seeing one? When dogs were called wolves? When wolves were called grandmothers?
When, Michael wondered as his life burned from him and the village grandmothers howled in triumph, was the right time to tell the boy who cried wolf and believed it — and so many others believed it, too — that no wolf was actually there?
_________________________
{Author’s note: if you are an artist or illustrator, I would like to self-publish this. Please let me know in the comments if you would be interested in creating the artwork}
