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Once upon a time, there was a boy who brought the gnawed skeleton of a deer to the campfire. "Look at this," he said.

"What the hell?" The other settlers were tired after the day's construction, and grouchy at having their dinner interrupted. "Why would you drag that nasty thing into our campfire circle? Nobody needs to see that! We're trying to eat here!"

"This is proof that wolves hunt here," said the boy.

"It's a health hazard, is what it is. Get that shit out of here."

The boy pointed stubbornly to the bones. "Look at the marks here and here. Those are teeth marks. You can see how wide the jaws were."

"That could have been anything," said one settler.

"Yeah. Or it could be old," said another.

"I don't even see what you're talking about," said a third.

"Yeah," they all said. "Those don't even look like tooth marks to me. Those could have been made by rocks, or birds pecking. You're worrying about nothing."

Once upon a time, there was a boy who led his reluctant neighbors to the riverbank. They picked their way through the mud, grimacing, until the boy stopped and gestured at the ground.

"What am I supposed to be looking at?" said one villager.

The boy said, "It's a footprint." He pointed. "And here's another and another. Lots more."

"Lots of animals leave footprints," said the second villager. "Doesn't mean they're wolves."

"You guys told me specifically to watch out for wolves and signs that wolves are around," said the boy. "I went and studied the tracks and sign of every animal around here, under the best trackers and trappers, because you asked me to. This is wolf."

"Yeah, but," the third villager said. "Listen, kid. We can't just go running off on a wolf hunt with only circumstantial stuff. It's lambing season. I've been awake for nineteen hours. I left my boys fixing that hole in the fence so the ram can't get stuck in it again. I'm already behind schedule, and I took time out of it to come look at some mud."

The other villagers nodded. "Yeah," they said. "Yeah, we're busy working hard. We can't be dropping everything every time you see a shadow. You better have something real the next time you raise this kind of alarm."

Once upon a time, a boy awoke a sleeping village.

"What do you want?" they grouched.

"Do you hear that?" the boy said.

The villagers listened for a moment. In the middle distance, an eerie howling rose, held, and fell, only to be picked up by another and another.

"That's disturbing," said one.

"What do you think it is?" asked another.

The boy pointed to a pattern of prints outside the village gate. "That's wolf," he said. The pointing finger moved along the line of the fence. "That's wolf spoor," he said. He raised the finger to the sky. "That howling? It's wolves." He led them to a place where dirt had been clawed out from under the fence. "I came and woke you all up because I found a wolf digging under our fence. Here's a tuft of its hair. Here's where I hit it with my knife and shed its blood. If you get close to the fence, you can smell its musk. There are wolves in this valley, just like I've said from the beginning, and they're getting closer to the village sheep."

The villagers looked at the tracks. They looked at the scratches and the fur. They wrinkled their nose at the spoor. "Gross," one said.

Finally, from the middle of the group someone muttered, "Well it's not here anymore, is it?"

The others made 'good point' faces and murmered along.

"I mean. Crisis averted, right?" the speaker continued. "Nobody's sheep actually got got, right?"

"Yeah, because I was here watching and chased the wolf away," the boy began.

The speaker gave an apologetic grimace. "I don't know, bud," he said. "I've never seen one of these wolves with my own eyes."

"Yeah," said another. "No offense, but you are our wolf watchman. So you'd have an incentive to maintain the narrative that wolves are at our doorstep."

"What? But they are!" The boy gestured at the dig site. "You told me to watch for wolves. You sent me to be trained to track wolves so we'd all know I wasn't imagining or misinterpreting things. You asked me to stay up at night to watch for wolves, and now that I've seen one and chased it off, you don't believe me?"

"Hey, we're just saying none of us have ever actually seen a wolf," said one of the villagers. "Only you. And you do objectively have a bias towards wolf-spotting."

Once upon a time, a boy sprinted screaming across a pasture. He held his sword two-handed, braced against his side. The blade was deckled with crimson. Ahead of him a shadowy hackled body lurched and limped, yelping. In the wake of the two figures, a ewe lay dying, crashed to her knees but still holding her heaving body between the retreating predator and her lamb.

"Holy shit!" their shepherd hollered, running up to his animals. "My sheep! What the hell? I thought we were supposed to be safe from attacks here!"

The boy stumbled to a halt, unable to catch up to his nemesis. He panted, staring after it into the trees.

"Yeah, what the hell?" the other villagers agreed, gathering around the stricken sheep. "Look at this! Are you kidding me? What do we keep you around for, man?"

Wearily, the boy trudged back to the little group. He swayed as he walked. The sword was chipped, the grip worn. He wondered when he could have last been truly called a boy.

"This is the fourth attack this week," he told them.

"Yeah, buddy, it sure fuckin' is!" The villagers surrounded him, red-faced. "We can't keep losing sheep like this! This is unacceptable!"

"It was wolves again," he said.

The villagers threw hands in the air or rolled their eyes. "Oh, give us a break. Always wolves with you."

The boy stared back at them. "Okay, so what do you think it was? It had four legs, right?"

"Obviously. We all saw that," said one.

"And it was hairy?"

"Don't be insulting," said another. "You could see the hair a mile away."

"Big teeth?" the boy asked, gesturing at the lamb's wounds.

"Well it didn't kill it with a hammer," the shepherd said caustically.

"These tracks," the boy said. "Canine, would you say? And these clumps of fur, are they thick and grey?"

The group scoffed and chorused variations on "duh."

The boy looked around at them all. "So all that adds up to...?"

"Lost revenue," the shepherd said loudly. "I can't afford another one like this. Hell, I can't afford this one."

"But what was the animal that dug under your fence to sneak into your pasture to kill your sheep, that we all saw, that had four legs and thick gray hair and had big teeth and left canine prints?"

One of the villagers clapped a weighty hand onto the boy's shoulder. "Kid," he said, "that ain't nobody's job but yours."

"It was a wolf! The last three times were all wolves! It's always been wolves! I've been showing them to you for years! I am your wolf watchman and I am telling you right now that wolves keep getting in here to kill the village sheep, because none of you are listening to me!"

The villagers straightened, drew together. Faces hardened. "Don't you dare take that disrespectful tone with me, boy," said the one who felt he was owed the most deference. "If you want listening, you ain't gonna get it by ranting and shouting."

Once upon a time, a boy stared from the grinning faces of his neighbors, to the animals panting alongside them, and back to the neighbors.

"They're going to protect our sheep," said one of the townspeople.

"Yeah. Fight fire with fire," said another.

The boy found his voice. "You're going to put wolves... in your flocks... on purpose?"

"Hey now, these are different. They're our wolves."

The other shepherds nodded and said things like "Yeah!" and "Our wolves!" One of the wolves was staring, drooling, at a young ewe.

"How do you know they won't, oh I don't know, just eat all your sheep the second you turn your back? As a random, non-specific example?" the boy asked them.

"They're not for eating sheep, they're for defending them," said one. "Totally different."

The boy raked his fingers through his hair. "How are these different, exactly?"

"Well, we're using them, obviously," said the first villager who had spoken. "They're totally legal. The mayor got the council to write it into the town charter. Every shepherd has the right to protect his flock."

One of the wolves was stretching its jaws wide, seeing if it could fit them around the head of a lamb. It noticed the boy watching and hesitated.

"Are you guys seeing what that wolf is doing right now?" the boy said, pointing at it.

The wolf made a split-second decision. The jaws snapped shut and it dragged the lamb away, behind its shepherd's house.

"What the hell!" The boy looked back up at the shepherd's face. "It literally just snatched that lamb out from under your nose! It did it in front of everybody!"

Another shepherd patted the shoulder of the one who had just lost the lamb. "Tragic," he said. "It always hurts, losing a lamb. I'll pray for you."

"What do you mean, pray?" The boy drew his arm back and pointed even harder in the direction the wolf had vanished, as if by gesturing violently enough he could make them react. "The wolf is right over there! We could go chase it or kill it!"

"Whoa there, son," said the prayerful shepherd. "Just because tragedy's hit us today doesn't mean you can just take away our sheepdogs."

"They're not sheepdogs! Who told you they were sheepdogs?"

"Dude, I thought you would be on board with us protecting our sheep from wolves," said another townsperson. "There's no need to slander the business who hired them out to us."

"Which business?" the boy demanded.

"Wolves R Us." The townsperson raised both hands in a placating gesture. "I know how it sounds, but the guy who runs it is totally legit."

The boy strode up to the speaker. "Who? Who runs it?"

"Chill out, dude. It's the mayor."

Once upon a time, a boy fell against the double doors of the town hall, shoving them open. Dust swirled in the shaft of sunlight that slanted into the gloom from the doorway. Every curtain was drawn tightly closed, blocking out the light. He staggered inside, towards the shadowy shape of the mayoral desk at the far end of the hall.

"Sir," he called as he went, "I'm sorry to interrupt you. I know the council told me never to set foot in the town hall again, but this is urgent." He grimaced, glancing down at the hand clasped to his middle. "They're inside the town walls. I don't know why, but they just invited them in like - like nothing would happen." He braced himself with his free hand.

"You're bleeding on my desk," said the voice from the mayoral chair.

The boy blinked. "I was attacked on the way here."

A deep sigh. "Well, son, I'm sorry you feel that way, but you have to admit you sure do rile people up around here. What did you say to provoke them this time? Let me guess - it was wolves all along."

"What? I didn't - sir, I'm the wolf watchman. I watch for wolves and raise the alarm when I see one. That's my job," he added. "I don't think I deserve to get attacked for doing what the town asked."

The chair squeaked as the figure within shifted position. The boy frowned, suddenly realizing something was off.

"I wasn't born yesterday," said the mayor. "We all know something's wrong in this town. People are afraid. Sheep are dying. It's bad for business. But your way isn't working, is it?"

"That's because-"

"Would you let someone else do the talking for once?" the mayor growled. "If you really cared about this place, you'd stop hogging all the attention and just admit you haven't been able to solve anything. I'm handling the problem now. I love this town, and I don't want to see you causing a panic by making a bunch of wild accusations."

The boy sank slowly into the visitor chair across the desk. "Sure, Mr. Mayor," he said, unable to muster the energy for sarcasm. "What a big heart you have."

The mayor's grin gleamed all the way up and down his muzzle. "All the better for running a town with."

"So what's your plan?" the boy asked flatly.

The mayor readjusted his bifocals with a dewclaw. "Fortunately, son, you won't have to worry about that," he said. "It's become clear to me that you and I aren't going to be able to work together. I'm going to have to let you go. Consider yourself terminated, effective immediately."

Later, the boy stood over his threadbare bed, wondering if there were any point to packing his things. He didn't own much; there had never seemed to be enough time to get a proper house built for himself, let alone accumulate possessions. It had been years since they first settled the valley. Tiredness pounded in his sinuses. His knees creaked, his wrists and elbows twinged from long use of his guardsman's sword. He would have liked to have been able to retire. Or at least take an apprentice. Or at least feel like anything he did mattered at all.

Outside, the town had been gathering. Their stares were accusing and their murmurs hostile.

"I heard he's actually been a wolf this entire time," he distinctly heard someone mutter to someone else.

He felt his shoulders tense. He expected rage to boil, but when he turned around he suddenly realized if he went postal now, the rumors would only be worse.

"There are wolves in your flocks," he told them. "They're going to continue killing your sheep until you decide to do something about it. I'm not going to tell you again."

The crowd parted for him, bipedal and quadripedal members alike. They watched him go.