Rescued by Wolves The small two seat airplane buzzed along at a hundred twenty knots. Kelli adjusted the trim to keep the plane level and looked out the window. The countryside was all rolling hills carpeted with evergreens and dotted with lakes. Minnesota in the fall could be hot and humid, but at nine thousand feet it was a cool seventy degrees. When the motor cut out she didn’t quite believe it. One moment the steady drone was there and the next all she could hear was the whistling of the wind. She went through the restart checklist, but nothing happened when she turned the magnetos to “start.” She clicked the radio to the emergency frequency. “Mayday, mayday, this is November Fiver Fiver Fiver Charlie Papa. I’ve lost my engine and it won’t restart. I’m putting down approximately one hundred forty miles northwest of Minneapolis.” She adjusted the pitch of the aircraft and looked for a safe place to put down. The hills and trees looked forbidding, but she finally saw what looked like a big meadow near a lake further north. She adjusted course and kept a careful eye on her speed as she approached. From a thousand feet to fifty feet everything happened in slow motion. She stayed just above stall speed by adjusting her pitch. Time stretched out and the feet trickled off the altimeter. The trees crept along beneath her. At a hundred feet everything snapped into fast-forward. The trees whipped past on either side. The ground rushed to meet her. She pulled up on the nose and bled off more speed. The stall warning horn sounded and a moment later the wheels smacked down into the dirt. They slid along and she tried to keep the nose pointed in one direction. The plane came to rest in the middle of the meadow and Kelli realized she was holding her breath. She sucked in air and clenched her fists around the yoke. She picked up the radio again. “This is November Fiver Fiver Fiver Charlie Papa. I’m safely on the ground.” There was no response but static. “Okay, Kelli, the best thing to do is stay with the plane. Any search party will see it,” she said to herself. She pushed open the door and hopped out. The grass crunched beneath her shoes. The wind blew gently and carried the scent of fresh air and pine trees. She walked around the plane and inspected it for damage. Everything looked normal. She opened the fuel tank and shook the wing. The sound of fuel sloshing was clearly audible. So I didn’t run out of gas. She shrugged and climbed back into the cockpit and settled in to wait. *** Kelli woke when it was still dark out. The moon was close to full and its light lit the meadow around her. She looked out over the nose of the plane and saw a pair of dark dog-like shapes standing a dozen yards from the plane. Their yellow eyes glowed in the moonlight. Her heart raced. She wiped her clammy hands on her jeans. The animals paced around the plane and she saw that they were big northern timber wolves. Another wolf rose from behind the first two. I didn’t even notice it. The three wolves circled the plane and came to a stop near the right wing. They pivoted as a unit and stared at the tree line. Another pack of wolves emerged from the trees. One of the wolves in the first pack howled and two of them charged toward the pack. The last wolf looked back at her and stared her right in the eye until she looked away. It turned back and watched the other wolves snap and bite at each other. She couldn’t see the details, but the howls and the yips were audible. The wolves sound angry. Very, very angry. A flicker of motion in the corner of her eye caught her attention. She looked back to the wolf near the plane and gasped in shock. One moment there was a wolf standing before her. Then, in the space of a second, its shape contorted from a four legged creature into a two legged human. Where there had been a shaggy wolf a moment before there was a handsome man dressed in jeans and a t-shirt. The man waved at