The Wolf Road (25 page)

I can’t right imagine what Penelope must a’ thought when she woke at sunup. A big damn wolf lying on top of me. Me not moving ’neath it. Soon as I’d seen that black smudge in the firelight last night I knew I’d been right. It was my Wolf howling out his warning ’bout Colby while I was on the boat. He must a’ come round the edge a’ the lake, over them mountains what would a’ killed a man for trying to climb ’em.

Took me a good hour to explain to Penelope why I weren’t dead and she weren’t dead and she weren’t hallucinating and I weren’t crazy. All while Wolf sat beside me, looking at Penelope like she was something he hacked up after dinner and weren’t at all sure what it was he ate. He was bigger’n when I left him outside Genesis, and finally I felt like my world was whole again. I ruffled up his fur, scratched him behind the ears, rubbed my thumb cross that black smudge, and wrestled about with him in the dirt. All while Penelope stared, like a bug-eyed fish, and winced and gasped every time he showed his teeth or growled.

“Don’t show no anger or fear toward him,” I said, “and he won’t rip your arms off.”

“How…” she said, “how can you do that with him? He’s a
wolf.
”

Wolf looked up at her then, burning in his eyes, and she pushed her back into a tree trunk.

“Way I reckon it, men killed more wolves than wolves ever killed men,” I said. “I know who I’m more afraid of.”

Penelope was still pale, like moonlight struck her face and didn’t let go. The poultice may’ve helped the pain, but it wouldn’t cure the rot growing in her blood. That would need more smarts and potions than either of us had.

“It’s stopped pussin’ at least,” I said while I freshened up the poultice.

Wolf looked over my shoulder. Look a’ sneering on him. He weren’t taking to Penelope, kept his distance like she was the cuckoo a’ the pack.

“All this walking, not much food,” she said. “My body can’t fight it by itself. I need antibiotics.”

“Where’d they come from?”

Wolf gave one a’ them low yelps and I scratched his neck to calm him.

“Halveston,” she said, wincing when I put a fresh dressing on her leg, “a pharmacist.”

“Come on then,” I said, and stood up, “we got to get you there.”

One arm over my shoulder, we made our way over the final ridge ’tween us and Halveston. Wolf trotted behind. Felt like he was shaking his head at me as if to say, What the hell are you doing carrying this meat sack around? Get rid a’ her, get to Halveston quicker. Couldn’t expect a wolf to think much else.

Took us hours to get to the top a’ the ridge ’tween the mountains. Hours were worth the view though. South I saw the lake stretching farther than I could see. Town a’ Ellery at the tip, barely anything from this far away. The road north was just a scratch on the land, like a scar running through the world.

North? Hell. If I thought the road was ugly, it weren’t nothing compared to the land. Black clouds sat brooding in the far-far away, hanging over a landscape turned alien in the Damn Stupid. Craters and holes the size a’ the Mussa Valley, showing stripes a’ colored rock and fat plumes a’ smoke coming from everywhere.

World up here, scarred and angry, don’t give up its goods no more, least not without a tooth-and-nail fight. Made me sick all them trees, all them critters, what must a’ died when the bombs fell. Them bombs weren’t even meant to fall on our land. It was a mistake, a “guiding error” or some such nonsense the old’uns said, what meant all their bombs fell at once in the wrong places. They was meant for the down-south cities and places humans already wrecked, they was meant to kill people not the wild. They filled the sky with smoke and poison and turned the thunderheads feral and vicious. Old’uns said they stopped the water running and all the lights went out. They left behind a world of burnt rock and scraps a’ green and no one never said sorry. I figure the wild don’t think us humans deserve what it’s got no more and tell you truth, I think it’s right. Staring out at that land, all ripped up ragged like it weren’t precious, like it weren’t alive and breathing, like it was just some nothing anthill to stomp out. Hell, staring out at that near broke my heart.

Trees weren’t tall and bright and needle sharp up here. They didn’t pierce the big blue like them in the Mussa. Even though it was spring, there weren’t no fresh life. These were trees grown up in sorrow and hard soil, green was dark, trunks was twisted and stunted, and I could hear ’em weeping. Right across the mountains, right across the low plains and torn-up land, them old wailing voices carried strong on the wind. The North was raging, low and slow like only land knows how.

That’s why all them folks going up for the yellow metal was fools; they lost soon as they set their compass and took a step. Sad piece a’ cold grew in my chest thinking on my parents. They left with that letter writ in their heads,
Millions in gold
,
claims are going cheap and there’s a fever of excitement in the air. We’ll be back rich as Midas. Tell my little girl, I love you.
Were my parents fools like the rest a’ them? Maybe ’cause they was my blood the earth would give ’em half a chance. Figured the wild owed me that, but right now, looking at that land, us humans owed the wild so much more.

“Are you all right?” Penelope said ’side me. Didn’t realize how long I’d been staring and seething. Wolf nuzzled ’gainst my leg.

“Ain’t nothing I can do for it,” I said, “this land ain’t gonna be friendly to us.”

“That’s Halveston,” Penelope said, “gateway to fortune, they call it.”

Close to the foot a’ the mountains was a town bigger’n I’d ever seen. That one road led right into it and more’n a dozen roads led out. It was like a dandelion fuzz, one stalk going right up to it, then all these other tiny spindles pointing every which way. Told me there weren’t all that much north a’ this place, least nowhere big enough for a road. Felt like I’d reached the end a’ the world.

Halveston was sitting right on a dried-up river bed, saw the dark line the water took from ’tween the west mountains. Wondered if one a’ them Damn Stupid bombs took out the river, turned this valley brown. Land was spiked with tree stumps, all gray and rotting in the weather. All them trees built Halveston and was still building it. Town like this was spreading out like blood on snow, soon be big as Couver City. Much as I wanted to, I couldn’t hate Halveston. Felt my parents in them streets, felt my momma buying potatoes and dresses, felt my daddy bartering for a good price on his bucket a’ gold.

Half a day down the mountain and I would be there. Right where my parents were. I saw huge buildings and wondered which one my momma and daddy lived in. My blood started heating up inside me like a stewpot on a rolling boil. They’d be so happy to see me, I thought, they’d take me up in their arms and say,
We knew you’d come
, and I’d tell ’em all my stories. Of the thunderhead and the flying table, of the crazy Reverend, the poison lake and sailing for two days in damn first class accommodation. Nothing a’ Kreagar or Lyon. Not never a’ them.

We’d talk right on into daylight. All I had to do was get Penelope to the permit office.

As if that girl heard my excitement and wanted to mess it up, her legs buckled ’neath her. She started shaking and convulsing and spitting up white foam.

I shouted her name and held her down so she didn’t split her head open on a rock. Wolf’s ears pricked and he growled low, not out a’ anger but out a’ something else, worry maybe, or suspicion.

I’d seen this afore, years ago and it was all kinds a’ bad. Farm boy in Ridgeway had these fits, they’d last for hours and every time he woke up, a bit a’ his mind didn’t come back with him. When his parents were out in the fields, the cows would low when the boy was sick and Mom and Dad would come running. Happened again and again until one day the cows didn’t low. Boy was lying on the floor. None a’ his mind came back. He was alive but empty. Word was his daddy took him out into the woods and left him there, couldn’t bear to kill him, didn’t have the money to keep him. I sure as shit didn’t want Penelope to come back empty. I needed her letters. I needed her. I held her tight to me, stopping her arms from flailing and her head from ragdolling all over the rock.

Finally, she fell still. Too still. My heart went wild. She couldn’t be dead. She couldn’t die. Not this close. Not after all this.

“Penelope, don’t you dare,” I whispered right into her hair, “don’t you leave me now.”

Felt her breath on me. Felt her heartbeat in her neck.

Wolf came up and sniffed her, like he was checking if she was dead or least waiting for her to be. There I was, holding this sick woman, full a’ infection and nasty, wild wolf watching over us. We was some kind a’ family right there. Wolf trotted off to the down slope a’ the hill, turned back, and barked low at me, like he was saying if you got to keep the stray, let’s get moving. Then he ran off down, saw his tail bobbing away.

Penelope weren’t waking up.

Wolf came back, barked again, louder this time. His yellow eyes fixed mine but worry for the girl clouded up my mind. Felt like crying and that pissed me off. She’d got under my skin, made me care for her and now she was sick as a dog and mine to nurse. Wolf took my bag ’tween his teeth and tugged. I knew what he wanted, know his mind just as I know mine. We needed to get to Halveston. Figured a town that big would have a doctor. She weren’t going to get no better lying here.

“I can’t carry both,” I said, and he twitched his ears at me.

“You got to pull your weight,” I said, and, still holding on to Penelope, awkwardly took the pack off my back.

Despite my ribs, despite my tired and aching body, I hauled limp Penelope up. She weighed less than a yearling buck.

“You get the pack, Wolf,” I said, nodding to the beast and the bag.

Felt like he was narrowing his eyes at me. Slowly, he put his teeth ’round the strap, like he was doing it only ’cause I was carrying something heavier. Gave me a low growl.

“Don’t be whinin’,” I said, “least you ain’t got broken bones in you.”

He started half lifting, half dragging the bag and I didn’t have the stones to tell him off. He growled most the way like a grumbling child forced to shell nuts. Every step was a cracked shell, every scrape a’ the pack was another kernel in the basket.

“Didn’t think you was such a grump,” I said, hefting Penelope closer to my chest. Ribs weren’t happy but I told ’em to quit whining.

Louder growl out a’ Wolf made me laugh but I’ll tell you, a mite a’ worry started nibbling at me. A wolf’s instincts are sharper’n cracked flint and he weren’t taking to Penelope. I suppose I couldn’t blame him, parts a’ her story ’bout her daddy didn’t right make sense. Maybe it was Wolf being back that made me see that. She weren’t telling me the whole true but right now, half-dead, she was telling me enough.

Halfway down the hill Wolf veered off to the right. I shouted at him but he didn’t even turn to growl. I called him a thieving son bitch and to bring that pack back. He ignored me and I quick figured if I didn’t follow him, I’d never get my bag back. Swore at him. Cursed him. My body felt like it was going to break apart any minute, I didn’t have no time for wrong roads.

Shouldn’t a’ sworn or cursed him. That wolf was a beast sent straight from heaven. When I found him he was sitting, smug look on him, on the porch of a shelter cabin. One a’ them small huts trappers and hunters and lost idiots can use in case a’ emergencies. They’re dotted all over the wild and they got a fire and wood and a bed and maybe even a scrap a’ food if you’re lucky. Best of all, they ain’t locked.

“All right, Wolf,” I said, “you ain’t useless.”

Penelope started stirring, moaning in my arms, and I tell you, the relief, the heart-swelling, damn tear-jerking, damn wanting-to-shake-her-for-making-me-worry all came over me at once. Hell, I nearly dropped her.

I rushed into the cabin, felt the chill, stale air of a place what ain’t seen people all winter, and set the girl down on the bunk. I chucked the bunk blanket, half-eaten by moths, on the floor and afore I could turn around, Wolf had made his home on it. I stoked up the fire in the stove and shut the door. Place’d be toasting in no time. Night was coming. It’d taken longer to walk here than it should a’ on account of the extra weight.

Maybe it was the warm or the flat bed, but Penelope soon opened her eyes. She took a minute to realize she weren’t in the woods no more, then them eyes found me.

“Where am I?” she said, and I sat down on the bunk next to her. She was still ghost pale and I could feel the fever heat come off her body. I reckoned that fit was just the first a’ many ’less we could get her to a doctor.

“Shelter cabin,” I said. “You started fittin’ on the hill.”

She sat up, winced, and hissed at the movement of her leg. “You carried me?”

Felt squirmy inside. “You save me, I save you, that’s the deal right?” I said it quietlike, squirmy coming out in my voice.

She smiled at me and the squirmy went away.

“Is the wolf here?” she asked, face turned grave.

“He’s lazin’ about on the floor,” I said, “like a damn pig in shit.”

Wolf snuffled and stretched, dug his claws into my boots.

I unwrapped Penelope’s dressing. Smell a’ decay and pus and iron blood hit me hard. The veins around the cut were calmer than they were afore the poultice and I figured it had slowed the poison by a day or two. The cut was nasty, though, full a’ rot and skin tinged black at the edges.

“Can you walk?” I said, “truth this time, no more thinkin’ this is goin’ to get better.”

Penelope didn’t answer for a minute, looked down at the mess she’d made a’ herself, then shook her head. I gave her the flask and told her to keep drinking till she hit metal. Then I took the blanket out the pack and covered her up.

“I’m sorry, Elka,” she said, cradling the flask like she was praying to it.

“Don’t matter none now,” I said. “You can’t walk, which means you can’t come with me to Halveston. Worst part is I damn sure need you to come to Halveston.”

Penelope sighed, not loudlike, not like some stroppy kid, but like someone who was feeling a sight sorry for themselves. I didn’t take well to pitying yourself. It weren’t worth the effort or time and it pissed people off.