Tinker saw the human with the back pack leave the good smelling building. She hung back in the shadows, afraid to approach him, only thinking of getting away without being caught. The last few days had taught her that no one could be trusted. No wolves, and certainly no people. Wolves all distrusted humans. Once she had watched a large dog with a human and there had been a love between them, almost like pack members. She had remembered the dog had nipped the human under the chin and the human had ran his hands over the dog’s coat, reminiscent of a grooming tongue.<br/><br/>She ran across the clearing where a few human machines were resting and darted across the highway, onwards away from her pack and her old life. Tinker was so crazed with grief that she failed to notice the lights that picked up her silhouette in the glare. She stood stock still as the light began to droning call like that of geese in flight. Taking two more steps cautiously across the road, Tinker was hit in the hindquarters and sent tumbling tail over ears into  a ditch. The lights and the honking disappeared in the blackness of the night.<br/><br/>She lay stunned, pain had not yet set in. When it finally became clear that something bad had happened, she was primed to run, except, her back leg wouldn’t move. Tinker began to yip in pain and moan in sorrow.  Father, Mother, I’m so aloooone. Her good front paws plowed the mud and the grass but Tinker was not going anywhere. This ditch would be where she died.