Red/Wolf (Working Title)

Chapter 10: Best Friend Sorrell

Chapter 10: Sorrell

It was a pleasant surprise that it was a slow Friday. I just assumed it was because of Roux's annual fish fry. Although Roux was our completion it was always friendly competition, our fish fry festival was the following week. Charlotte made sure of that, out of courtesy.
Charlotte was my boss, as well as the kindest woman I had ever met. She was like a grandmother to me. She knew my mother when she was my age. That was how long Charlotte's Cajun Cuisine stood. My mother first performed at this very restaurant. When Charlotte was hard up for business, she decided to have a showcase to raise funds. My mother was one of the acts, she later went on to be a famous blues singer.
She even had her own booth. It was the booth that my father had taken her on their first date. It was no longer the exact booth. It wasn't salvageable after the hurricane, but when Charlotte put her mind to something it got done, and she decided that her business would not sink, and she was able to rebuild better than before.
I admired her strength. She would never take no for an answer and she was quite a pistol as well when it was necessary. Not only that, since she was such a giving person, the small town was more than willing to help her rebuild as well.
That is why my mother wanted us to move back, because it was like a big family.
I decided volunteer to take out the trash hoping I could see my friend Rufus. The sky was still a bright pink, as the sun was setting as it awakened tiny diamonds across the lake that ran across the side of the restaurant.
Directly behind the restaurant was a large mass of trees, where Rufus would hide waiting for me to throw him a few morsels of food. It had only been a few month of him being bold enough to come out and allow me to pet him, but he was quickly becoming one of my closest friends, if not my best friend. He knew all my secrets. Although he was a wild animal, somehow I felt confident I could trust him.
I heard the cracking of dead leaves with each step. He was close. I whistled. "Here boy. Come and get it." I made out two luminescent amber eyes sparkle in the shadows of the trees. I whistled again. "Come on, boy!" He then crawled out on his belly and stood up when he was in plain sight.
He took a moment and moved his ears from back to front, and looked around. He then darted in my direction, but went right past me, and while trying to stop slid in to an aluminum trash can and accidently knocking it over.
"Shh." I let out a quiet chuckle. "Quiet, do you want someone to hear you? Real graceful Ruf."
He began sniffing my hand, smelling the beignet I brought from the kitchen that fell on the floor. I put it in my other hand, and he fallowed it.
"No, I am not giving this to you." I lifted it up in the air. He got on sat down, lifted his paws up in the begging position and began to whimper.
"How could I say no to that face." I pet him on the head and tossed it into his mouth.
Rufus, was a little bigger than a great dane. He was very large for a wolf. He his fur was a light beige with hints red, and black on his back and on his tail. He was to my chin sitting down and I was 5'5, and yet he had my complete and total trust, but I had a burning question.
"Rufus, be honest with me. Are you out there eating people?"
Rufus turned his head to the side as if confused at the allegation. I would always wonder if he was picking up my body language or he could actually understand what I was saying. His mannerisms would always be in tune to my conversation. If I said something funny he made a strange barking noise that almost seemed as if he was laughing to, if I told him something sad he would whimper and he would snuggle close to me, as if consoling me, like he did when I told him of my mother's passing.
I had not expected him to just tell me if he had killed that little boy, and I am unsure what I was expecting from him, but I had to look in his eyes and ask him. The look on his face was shear confusion, maybe he just did not understand what I was talking about, or did not understand why I would accuse him of something so heinous.
I tried not to think that he would do such a thing, because if he would kill a human, then I am sure he would have very well attacked me, and he never did. I let out a sigh of relief as if somehow the answer had just fallen out of the sky, but I decided to trust by own deductive reasoning. Rufus was not a killer.
I scratched Rufus's head. "I know you wouldn't hurt a fly. I just had to ask."
Rufus licked my hand and then looked up at me. His eyes were like gems and were so amazingly deep that it sent chills down my spine. It was like he could read me inside and out. His eyes were filled with warmth and love, like we had been friends forever, and just like I trusted him with my life, he trusted me as well.
He gave me a wet lick on my face and left thick slobber on my cheek.
"Ugh!" I moaned wiping the wet kiss. "You are a real class act Rufus. Thanks a lot."
He began to so the odd bark. He was laughing at me. "You think this is funny?" He laughed again.
"Well, I have to get back to work, so you are lucky." I gave him a scratch behind the ear. "I'll see you later."
Then he turned round, was walked to the edge of the woods and looked back at me one last time as if to say goodbye for now. I gave him a wave as I admired his beautiful eyes glimmering in the moonlight. He then darted into the woods into the unknown.
I went back to work and continued to think. If Rufus wasn't the one killing people, then who or what was it?