CHAPTER 1: THE CRACK IN THE FOUNDATION
The wind in the Bitterroot Valley doesn't just blow; it whispers secrets that most men are too proud to hear. My name is Silas Vance, and for forty years, I've built a life out of dust, sweat, and the unwavering belief that I knew the difference between a friend and a foe. I've survived blizzards that froze the breath in your lungs and market crashes that turned millionaires into beggars. But nothing—nothing—prepared me for the day I broke the heart of the only creature that ever truly had my back.
Cooper came to me as a ball of fluff and teeth, a blue-merle Australian Shepherd with one eye the color of a summer sky and the other as dark as a storm cloud. He wasn't just a dog; he was the foreman of the Vance Ranch. He knew the rhythm of the 500-head flock better than I did. He could sense a coyote two miles out and a change in barometric pressure before the clouds even gathered. We were a team. Or so I thought.
The trouble started on a Tuesday, the kind of day where the heat hangs heavy like a wet wool blanket. I was coming up the ridge on my ATV when I saw it—a flash of movement near the creek. Cooper was in a dead sprint, his body a blur of silver and black. But he wasn't herding. He was hunting. I watched in horror as he launched himself at one of my prize ewes, a yearling I'd raised from a bottle. He hit her hard, teeth bared, tearing at her neck.
"Cooper! No!" I screamed, the sound tearing from my throat like a jagged piece of glass.
By the time I reached them, the ewe was limping, her wool stained crimson. Cooper stood over her, his chest heaving, his dark eye fixed on me with an intensity I'd never seen. He didn't look guilty. He looked… defiant. There was blood on his muzzle, dripping onto the dry earth.
I've seen dogs "turn." It's a sickness of the soul, a throwback to the wild that some domesticated animals just can't shake. Once they taste the blood of the animals they're supposed to protect, they're gone. You can't train it out of them. You can't beat it out of them. The law of the ranch is simple: a sheep-killer doesn't get a second chance.
But this was Cooper. I couldn't pull the trigger. Not yet.
"You traitor," I whispered, my voice thick with a betrayal that felt like a physical weight in my chest. "After everything? After the nights we spent guarding the pass? After I pulled you out of that frozen lake?"
He barked once—a sharp, demanding sound—and tried to lung back toward the flock. I grabbed him by the scruff, my fingers digging into his thick fur. He didn't snap at me, but he struggled with a desperate strength. I dragged him back to the main barn, every step feeling like a mile.
I didn't put him in his kennel. I wanted him to feel the weight of what he'd done. I dragged him to the "Cold Cell," an old, windowless root cellar we used for hanging meat during the hunt. It was damp, dark, and smelled of earth and old copper.
I threw him inside. He turned around, his blue eye catching the last bit of light from the doorway. He didn't whimper. He just watched me.
"You stay there," I growled, my heart hardening into a stone. "You don't eat until I decide if you're worth the lead it'll take to put you down."
I slammed the heavy oak door and slid the iron bolt home. The silence that followed was louder than the wind. I walked back to the house, the blood on my hands staining the porch steps. I told myself I was being just. I told myself a man is only as good as his word, and my word was to protect the flock.
But as I sat on my porch that night, watching the silhouettes of the sheep moving in the lower pasture, I didn't feel like a master. I felt like a man who had just locked his own soul in a box and buried it. I didn't know then that the "sheep" I was protecting were the very things that were going to eat me alive.
I let him sit there. One day. Two days. The scratching at the door stopped on the third. The barking stopped on the fourth. By the fifth day, the ranch was eerily quiet. My neighbor, Miller—a man who'd been trying to buy my land for years to build some fancy "eco-resort"—started coming around more often, offering "help" with the flock. He told me I'd done the right thing. He told me the dog was a liability.
I believed him. I believed the man in the clean clothes and the shiny truck. I believed my own eyes, even though they'd only seen half the truth.
On the fifth night, the moon didn't rise. The world went pitch black, and that's when the screaming started. Not from the dog. From the sheep.
CHAPTER 2: THE HUNGER IN THE DARK
The fifth day of Cooper's imprisonment was the coldest. Not because of the Montana weather—the sun was actually beating down on the corrugated metal roof of the shed—nhưng cái lạnh đó tỏa ra từ chính tâm can tôi. Every time I walked past that heavy oak door, my heart did a painful stutter-step. I hadn't heard a sound from him in nearly forty-eight hours. No whining. No scratching. Just a heavy, suffocating silence that felt like a judgment.
I was sitting at my kitchen table, a half-empty bottle of bourbon keeping me company, when the "sheep" started acting strange. From my window, I watched the flock huddled in the north pasture. Usually, they spread out to graze, a sea of white wool against the green. But today, they were grouped in a tight, vibrating circle. And they weren't eating. They were watching the house.
There's a specific way a sheep looks at you—blank, docile, slightly dim-witted. But as I looked through my binoculars, I realized these eyes weren't blank. They were predatory. They were focused. And there was a new ewe in the mix, a large, ragged-looking thing I didn't recognize from the spring lambing.
"Just nerves, Silas," I muttered to myself, pouring another three fingers of liquid courage. "You're just rattled because you've got your best friend locked in a hole."
My neighbor, Miller, pulled up in his pristine white Raptor. He hopped out, looking like a catalog model for "Gentleman Rancher." He had a clipboard in his hand and a smile that didn't reach his eyes.
"Silas! Checking in on the situation," Miller shouted, leaning against my porch railing. "Heard the dog hasn't made a peep. It's for the best. Once they go rogue, they're a danger to the whole valley. I've got a guy coming tomorrow to… take care of the problem for you. Professional. Quick."
The word "take care of" felt like a physical slap. I looked at the shed. Five days. Five days without food. Five days in the pitch black. I'd treated my most loyal companion worse than the predators I hunted in the winter.
"I haven't decided yet, Miller," I said, my voice sounding like gravel.
"Decided?" Miller laughed, a sharp, cold sound. "Silas, that dog almost killed your livelihood. Look at your sheep. They're terrified. They can smell the killer just a few yards away in that shed. For the sake of the ranch, you need to finish this."
He pointed toward the flock. I followed his finger. One of the sheep, the ragged one, was standing perfectly still, its head tilted at an impossible angle. It wasn't bleating. It was making a low, rhythmic clicking sound.
"I'll think about it," I snapped, turning my back on him.
That night, sleep wouldn't come. The house felt too big, too empty without the sound of Cooper's claws clicking on the hardwood floors or his heavy sigh at the foot of my bed. Around 2:00 AM, the wind died down completely. The world became a vacuum.
Then, the first scream hit.
It wasn't the sound of a sheep dying. It was a sound of pure, unadulterated terror—a human-like shriek that echoed off the canyon walls. I grabbed my Remington 700 and ran out onto the porch, barefoot, the cold grass biting at my toes.
The pasture was a chaotic blur of motion. In the pale starlight, I saw the flock. But they weren't being hunted. They were hunting.
Two of the sheep had a smaller lamb pinned to the ground. But they weren't biting it. They were peeling. I watched, my blood turning to ice, as the woolly skin of the "sheep" split down the middle. Long, grey, muscular limbs tipped with razor-sharp claws thrust out from the white fleece.
They weren't sheep. They were wolves—massive, prehistoric-looking things—wearing the skins of my flock like macabre ghillies suits. They had been hiding in plain sight for weeks, infiltrating the herd, eating from the inside out.
And Cooper? Cooper hadn't been attacking my sheep that Tuesday. He had been trying to tear the mask off the monster.
I raised my rifle, my hands shaking so hard the barrel danced. I fired. Crack. One of the creatures hissed, a sound that bypassed my ears and went straight to my spine. It turned its head—a wolf's head, dripping with the gore of the lamb—and looked at me. Then, it began to run toward the porch.
I bolted for the shed.
"Cooper!" I yelled, the guilt nearly choking me. "Cooper, I'm sorry! God, I'm so sorry!"
I fumbled with the iron bolt. It was rusted, stuck from the mountain dew. The creature was halfway across the yard, its claws clicking on the gravel—the same sound I'd missed from my dog, but amplified a thousand times by malice.
I threw my shoulder into the door. The wood groaned. Behind me, the heavy breathing of the monster grew louder. I could smell it now—the stench of rotting meat and wet fur.
The bolt slid. I flung the door open.
"Cooper! Out! Now!"
But there was no movement from the darkness. No bark. No rush of fur. Just the cold, dead air of the cellar.
"Please," I whispered, falling to my knees as the shadow of the wolf loomed over the doorway behind me. "Please don't be dead."
The creature behind me let out a guttural growl, its hot breath hitting the back of my neck. I closed my eyes, waiting for the end, knowing I deserved it for being the kind of man who would starve his heart to protect a lie.
Then, from the absolute blackness of the shed, I heard it.
A low, vibrating rumble. Not a growl of anger, but a war cry.
Two eyes snapped open in the dark. One blue. One dark. They weren't weak from hunger. They were glowing with a feral, protective fire that five days of darkness couldn't quench.
Cooper didn't run past me. He launched himself over me.
CHAPTER 3: THE TEETH IN THE DARKNESS
The impact was like a physical shockwave. Cooper didn't just jump; he became a blurred streak of silver and shadows. He collided with the lead "sheep-wolf" in mid-air, a hundred pounds of starving, righteous fury slamming into three hundred pounds of ancient malice.
The sound they made wasn't animal—it was industrial. The tearing of flesh, the snapping of bone, and a guttural, wet gurgle that made my stomach turn. I scrambled backward into the dirt, my rifle forgotten for a split second as I watched my dog, who hadn't tasted water or food in five days, fight like a demon possessed.
Cooper was smaller, leaner, and clearly weakened, but he had something the monsters didn't: a soul. He wasn't fighting for meat. He was fighting for the man who had betrayed him.
"Cooper! Get back!" I yelled, finally finding my grip on the Remington.
The creature he was pinned to—a massive, gray-furred nightmare with patches of blood-soaked wool still clinging to its hide—flung Cooper off with a violent heave. My dog hit the side of the barn with a sickening thud. He slid to the ground, his legs shaking, his breath coming in ragged, wheezing gasps.
The monster didn't go for him. It turned its yellow, slit-pupil eyes toward me. It stood on two legs for a horrifying second, its front claws dripping with Cooper's blood, before dropping back to all fours to charge.
BOOM.
The Remington kicked against my shoulder, the muzzle flash momentarily blinding me. The .30-06 round caught the thing in the chest, blowing a hole through the matted fur and the stolen sheepskin. It skidded across the gravel, twitching, before falling still.
But the silence didn't return.
From the darkness of the north pasture, more "sheep" began to stand up. One by one, the white silhouettes elongated. The gentle baaa-ing of the flock was replaced by a synchronized, rhythmic clicking of teeth. There were dozens of them. My entire livelihood hadn't just been thinned out; it had been replaced.
I looked at Cooper. He was struggling to stand, his blue eye clouded with pain, his ribs showing prominently through his coat. I felt a wave of self-loathing so sharp it nearly brought me to my knees. I had done this. I had weakened my only defender right before the gates of hell opened.
"I'm sorry, boy," I choked out, reaching into my pocket and pulling out a crushed granola bar—the only thing I had. I tossed it to him. He didn't eat it. He just looked at me, then turned his head back to the treeline where the rest of the pack was gathering.
Suddenly, headlights cut through the darkness. A truck was speeding up my driveway. Miller.
He slid to a halt, gravel spraying my boots. He didn't get out with a gun. He got out with a flashlight and a smirk that looked entirely too calm for a man staring at a field of monsters.
"Silas! I told you to handle the dog!" Miller shouted over the idling engine. "Look what you've done! You've agitated them!"
"Agitated them?" I roared, pointing at the twitching carcass near the barn. "Miller, look at that thing! They aren't sheep! They're… I don't even know what they are!"
Miller didn't even flinch at the monster. He shined his light directly into my eyes, blinding me. "They are a natural correction, Silas. This land was never meant for your pathetic little farm. It belongs to the old things. The things that were here before your granddaddy brought his fences and his 'order'."
A chilling realization washed over me. The way Miller had encouraged me to lock up Cooper. The way he'd been hovering. The "eco-resort" he wanted to build wasn't for tourists.
"You brought them here," I whispered, the cold barrel of my rifle feeling heavy.
"I just stopped the 'control' measures," Miller said, his voice dropping to a smooth, predatory purr. "The wolves were always in the mountains, Silas. They just needed a little help getting past your dog. And you gave it to them. You gave them the keys to the kingdom."
Behind him, the pack began to trot forward, their movements fluid and predatory. Cooper let out a low, vibrating growl, moving to stand between me and the approaching shadows. He was trembling from exhaustion, but his teeth were bared, white and gleaming in Miller's headlights.
"Kill the dog, Silas," Miller said, reaching into his jacket and pulling out a silenced pistol. "Do it now, and maybe they'll let you walk away. I need this land clean of 'domestic' interference."
I looked at the pistol. I looked at the pack. Then I looked at the back of Cooper's head—the familiar swirl of fur I'd petted a thousand times.
"The only 'domestic' thing here, Miller," I said, my voice steady for the first time in five days, "is the man who thinks he can control a pack of wolves."
I didn't aim at the monsters. I aimed at Miller's front tire.
CRACK.
The Raptor slumped as the tire disintegrated. Miller hissed in rage, but before he could level his pistol, a shadow leaped from the roof of my barn.
It wasn't Cooper. It was something else—something that had been watching from the rafters.
CHAPTER 4: THE PRICE OF PRIDE
The shadow that dropped from the barn wasn't a wolf, and it wasn't a dog. It was a second "sheep-wolf," larger than the first, that had been lying in wait atop the shingles. It hit the hood of Miller's Raptor with a thunderous crunch, its weight shattering the windshield. Miller screamed—a high, thin sound that stripped away his "gentleman" persona—as he scrambled back into the driver's seat.
But the creature didn't want Miller. Not yet. It wanted the man with the gun.
It leaped from the truck toward me, but Cooper was faster. My dog, driven by a surge of adrenaline that defied his five days of starvation, intercepted the beast in mid-air. They crashed into my porch steps, a whirlwind of snapping jaws and gray fur.
"Cooper!" I lunged forward, but the main pack from the pasture was closing the gap. They weren't running like normal wolves; they moved with a sickening, calculated grace, fanning out to surround the house.
I realized then the depth of my stupidity. I had spent decades priding myself on being a "protector," a man of the land. But I had been blinded by a few drops of blood and the silver tongue of a man in a suit. I had punished the only soul that saw the world for what it truly was.
Miller put the Raptor in reverse, the shredded tire flapping like a dying bird. He didn't care about me. He didn't care about the "old things." He was a coward who had invited the devil to dinner and was now realizing he was on the menu. As he sped backward, one of the creatures leaped onto the bed of his truck, its claws tearing through the metal like it was parchment.
"Help me, Silas!" Miller screamed, his eyes wide behind the cracked glass.
I didn't move a muscle to help him. My eyes were fixed on the porch.
Cooper was pinned. The larger wolf had its jaws clamped onto his shoulder, shaking him with a neck-snapping force. My dog's blue eye was fixed on mine—not with a plea for help, but with a final, heartbreaking command: Run.
"Not today, boy," I growled.
I discarded the long-range rifle. It was useless in a dogfight. I reached into the holster at my hip and pulled out my .44 Magnum—the "bear-stopper." I stepped onto the porch, the wood groaning under my weight.
I pressed the barrel directly against the ribcage of the beast crushing my dog.
"Get off my friend," I whispered.
BOOM.
The roar of the Magnum was deafening in the enclosed space of the porch. The wolf's body convulsed, its grip on Cooper loosening as the heavy slug tore through its vitals. It slumped over, its weight pinning my dog to the floorboards.
I dropped the gun and used all my strength to heave the carcass off Cooper. He was a mess. His silver fur was matted with a mixture of his own blood and the black, oily discharge of the monster. He was shivering violently, his breathing shallow and wet.
"I've got you, Coop. I've got you," I sobbed, pulling him into my lap.
Around us, the circle of "sheep" had stopped. They stood just at the edge of the porch light, twenty pairs of glowing eyes watching us. They saw their alpha dead. They saw the man with the fire-stick. But they also saw a dog that was too broken to fight and a man whose heart was failing him.
They began to close in, their shoulders hunched, their stolen wool coats fluttering in the midnight breeze.
"Is this it?" I looked down at Cooper. He licked my hand, his tongue rough and dry. Even now, dying and starving, he was trying to comfort me.
Just as the first wolf in the circle crouched to spring, a low, rhythmic thumping started from the hills. It wasn't the sound of more monsters. It was the heavy, syncopated beat of a helicopter.
A searchlight, blinding and white, cut through the darkness, illuminating the pasture. The wolves shrieked, the artificial sun searing their sensitive eyes.
"This is the Montana Livestock Bureau! Drop your weapons and remain where you are!" a voice boomed from the sky.
But they weren't here for me. They were here for the "biological anomaly" Miller had been reporting for months as a way to get my ranch condemned. He'd played both sides, and he'd lost.
The wolves scattered, heading for the deep timber of the canyons. They were creatures of shadow, and the light was a poison to them. Within seconds, the yard was empty of everything but the dead, the dying, and the echoes of my own regret.
I didn't look at the helicopter. I didn't look at Miller's crashed truck in the distance. I just picked up my dog, surprised by how light he felt—how much of him I had let wither away in that dark shed.
"We're going to the vet, Coop," I whispered into his ear. "And if you make it… you're getting steak for the rest of your life. I promise."
He gave one weak, muffled bark. It was the most beautiful thing I'd ever heard.
CHAPTER 5: THE LONG NIGHT'S SHADOW
The drive to the emergency vet in Missoula was a blur of neon signs and the smell of copper. I had Cooper wrapped in my old flannel work coat on the passenger seat, his head resting on my thigh. Every few minutes, I'd reach down to feel the faint, rhythmic thrum of his heart. It was a fragile thing, beating against the cage of his ribs like a trapped bird.
"Stay with me, Coop," I kept saying, my voice cracking in the quiet of the truck cab. "You survived the dark. Don't leave me now that the lights are on."
The Livestock Bureau agents had tried to stop me back at the ranch, babbling about "quarantine" and "unidentified predatory species." I'd looked at the lead agent—a young man with a badge that looked too shiny for his face—and told him that if he didn't move his government SUV, I'd find out if his engine block could handle a .44 Magnum slug. He moved.
Miller, I'd seen being loaded into an ambulance. He was alive, but his face looked like a roadmap of regret, his expensive clothes torn to ribbons. He'd tried to play God with nature and found out that nature doesn't care about land titles or eco-resorts.
When I burst through the doors of the vet clinic, I must have looked like a madman. I was covered in dirt, dried blood, and the raw scent of the wilderness.
"Help him," I gasped, laying Cooper on the stainless-steel counter. "He hasn't eaten in five days. He was attacked. He… he saved my life."
The vet, a woman with tired eyes and steady hands named Dr. Aris, didn't ask questions. She saw the state of the dog and moved with a clinical, lethal efficiency. She felt his pulse, checked the color of his gums—pale as a winter moon—and immediately called for an IV.
"He's in severe shock, Mr. Vance," she said, her voice calm but grave. "And he's dangerously dehydrated. The wounds on his shoulder are deep—the muscle is shredded. But it's the starvation that might kill him. His body is eating itself."
I sat in the waiting room for six hours, staring at a poster of "Common Household Toxins" without seeing a single word. My mind kept looping back to that Tuesday at the creek. I saw Cooper lunging at the sheep again, but this time, the veil was lifted. I saw what he saw—the unnatural gait of the ewe, the way its wool moved like a mask, the cold hunger in its hidden eyes.
He had tried to warn me. He had used the only language he had—violence—to protect the things I loved. And I had responded by throwing him in a hole and leaving him to die of a broken heart and an empty belly.
The weight of my own prejudice was a physical suffocating force. I had lived in these mountains my whole life, claiming to know the "natural order," but I had become just like the city folks I despised: someone who judged based on appearances and ignored the truth when it was uncomfortable.
Around 5:00 AM, Dr. Aris walked out. Her green scrubs were stained with blue-merle fur and antiseptic. She looked at me for a long time before she spoke.
"He's stabilized," she said, and for the first time in forty years, I felt my knees give out. I sank into the plastic chair, burying my face in my hands. "He's a fighter, Silas. I've never seen a dog with that kind of will. He should have given up three days ago."
"Can I see him?" I whispered.
"He's sedated. But he'll know you're there."
I walked into the back. Cooper was hooked up to three different bags of fluid. His shoulder was a mountain of white gauze, and he looked so small on the oversized table. I reached out and touched his ear. It flicked, just a tiny bit.
"I'm here, buddy," I said, my tears finally hitting the floor. "I'm not going anywhere. I'm never letting the dark touch you again."
But as I stood there in the sterile light of the clinic, I knew the ranch wasn't safe. The Livestock Bureau would come with their questions and their clipboards. Miller's lawyers would come for the land. And most importantly, the things in the woods—the "sheep" that weren't sheep—they knew where I lived. They knew the flavor of my fear.
And they knew that the dog who stood between them and the man was broken.
I reached into my pocket and felt the cold steel of my truck keys. I didn't care about the quarantine. I didn't care about the law. I had a debt to pay, and I was going to pay it with every ounce of grit I had left.
CHAPTER 6: THE GUARDIAN'S RETURN
The return to the Vance Ranch felt like driving into a graveyard. The Livestock Bureau had taped off the perimeter with yellow ribbons that flapped in the wind like mocking tongues. They had taken the carcasses of the things I'd killed, leaving behind only the dark, oily stains on my porch and the shattered glass of Miller's ambition.
I didn't care about their investigation. I went straight to the kitchen. I didn't make myself coffee; I didn't eat. I pulled a three-inch thick ribeye from the freezer, thawed it with the hands of a man performing a ritual, and seared it just enough to let the juices run.
Two days had passed since the clinic. Cooper was in the back of the truck, resting on a throne of blankets. He was still weak, his movements stiff and pained, but his eyes—those mismatched, beautiful eyes—were clear. He watched me as I carried the plate out to him.
I sat on the tailgate of the truck, the Montana sky turning a bruised purple over the peaks. I cut the steak into small, manageable pieces and fed him by hand.
"One for the Tuesday you warned me," I whispered as he took a piece. "One for the Wednesday I ignored you. One for the Thursday I let you starve. And the rest… the rest is for being a better man than I'll ever be."
Cooper ate with a slow, dignified grace. When he was finished, he rested his heavy head on my knee. The silence between us wasn't the suffocating quiet of the shed anymore; it was the peace of a debt acknowledged, if not yet fully paid.
But the mountains don't forgive, and they certainly don't forget.
As the sun dipped below the horizon, the first howl began. It wasn't the high-pitched yip of a coyote or the soulful song of a timber wolf. It was that same rhythmic, clicking screech we'd heard on the night of the slaughter. It came from the ridge, then the creek, then the barn. They were back. And they were louder.
I stood up, reaching for the heavy crate I'd brought back from the city. I didn't just bring back a dog; I brought back a message.
I spent the next three hours working in the dark. I didn't use the house lights. I used the thermal goggles I'd bought from a "specialty" shop in Missoula. I rigged the perimeter with motion-sensor floods—not the cheap kind, but the industrial-grade stadium lights that could turn midnight into high noon.
Then, I sat on the porch with Cooper at my side. He was wearing a new collar—thick, double-layered leather lined with outward-facing steel spikes. No one was ever going to grab his neck again.
Around midnight, the first shadow broke the treeline. It moved with that same deceptive, sheep-like wobble, but I didn't wait for it to get close. I flipped the master switch.
The ranch exploded in white light.
Six of them were caught in the open, frozen like statues. Without their "masks" of wool and darkness, they looked pathetic—gaunt, hairless things that had traded their dignity for a parasitic life. They hissed, their pale skin blistering under the intensity of the floods.
I didn't fire the Remington. I didn't reach for the Magnum. I looked down at Cooper.
"You want to tell them, boy? Or should I?"
Cooper stood up. He was shaking, yes, but not from fear. He was vibrating with the sheer force of his own recovery. He stepped to the edge of the porch, his spiked collar gleaming. He didn't bark. He let out a roar—a sound that started in the soles of his paws and ended in a defiance that echoed off the very stars.
It was the sound of a guardian who had returned from the dead.
The creatures recoiled. They looked at the light, they looked at the man, and they looked at the dog that wouldn't die. One by one, they turned and vanished back into the black timber, their clicking fading into the distance. They realized that the Vance Ranch wasn't a buffet anymore. It was a fortress.
I spent the rest of my life making it up to him. I tore down that root cellar and replaced it with a sunroom where Cooper spent his golden years sleeping in the warmth. I never bought another sheep. I let the land go wild, letting the grass grow tall and the flowers bloom, because I realized I didn't need a flock to be a rancher. I just needed my friend.
People in town still talk about the "Madman of Bitterroot" and his "Ghost Dog." They tell stories about the night the wolves wore sheep's clothing and how a man almost lost his soul to his own pride.
But when the wind whispers through the valley and the sun goes down, I don't listen to the gossip. I look at the blue-merle shadow at my feet, and I remember the most important lesson I ever learned:
Loyalty isn't something you command. It's something you earn. And if you're lucky enough to have a friend who will follow you into the dark, you'd damn well better be the man who carries the light to bring them back out.