The Wolf Road (30 page)

“What happened to him?” I asked.

The doctor looked at them shoes with red eyes I could see even through the shadows. “He was found two days ago in the woods. His…legs were gone.” Tears rolled fat and free down his cheeks. “They were cut off like he was jointed. We found”—he almost couldn’t get the words out—“we found a fire. There were…there were bones.”

He dropped the shoes and broke down, sobbing into his white sleeve. Burning bile rose up in me. Rain soaked me to the skin but I couldn’t feel it. I was all burning, raging, hating darkness. I told myself it couldn’t be. Couldn’t be him.

“Did your boy have his hair?” I asked. I had to be sure.

The doctor looked up at me, confused, like I was talking in tongues. “How do you know about that?”

Goddamn him. Kreagar killed the boy but the bears and wolves found him afore the law did, took the meat right off his bones. Every bit a’ rage I had boiled up inside me. I saw everything Kreagar had done in that doctor’s eyes and I cursed myself for bringing hell down on him. Kreagar followed me right to this good man’s door.

“I…” I said, trying to pick out all the right words, but there weren’t no right words. There’d never be right words again. “I’ll find the man what did this. I swear it. I’ll find him and I’ll kill him. Ten times over, I’ll kill him.”

He looked me with iron in his eyes. “How’d you know him?”

“Don’t matter how.”

Doctor stood up. “You brought this monster to my door and it doesn’t matter?”

I shook my head, sent rain drops flinging. “He’s been hunting me all winter.”

He sneered. “Wish he’d caught you. Wish he’d killed you instead of my boy. My beautiful boy.”

A deep-down sorrow surged up in me and turned the world black. “So do I,” I said. “And he still might, ’less I get him first. I’ll do my damnedest to get him first for what he done. I swear it up and down.”

The doctor reached down and picked up the shoes. He flung ’em at me, all the fight gone right out a’ him, and said, “I hope your friend knows what you are. God help her.”

I caught the boots. Weren’t no need for a thank-you. This good, kind man was far beyond thank you. He was broken, and it was me what broke him. Kreagar may have held the knife but I was his hand. I always was.

I held them boots close to my chest and I ran. Ran through them streets till they all started looking the same. The rain weren’t showing no signs a’ stopping and the day was fading into night. I found my way to a whisky den, the doctor’s words and his tears ringing in my ears. I needed to drown him out. I was seeing all them things what I done, might a’ done, could a’ done. Seeing what Kreagar done when he was Trapper and I was blind. I saw it all laid out in front a’ me like the Mussa Valley from the top a’ the ridge. All them memories tried to force their way back into my head. Felt like they would kill me stone dead if I let them.

They found bones.
Doctor’s voice was hot in my ears. I needed something hotter.

“Three fingers,” I said to the bartender, and pointed to a bottle behind the bar.

He poured me a drink and took my money.

Firewater burned my throat and sent white-hot spikes into my gut.

Colby’s dollars, those what had paid for my body, got me two more glasses and change. That was enough.

Kreagar’s words stuck in my head like porcupine spines.
Think on why I ain’t killin’ you.

I took another drink and the spikes dulled.

I was never the type a’ person to hide my truth at the bottom of a bottle, but I weren’t near close to strong enough to face it right then. Seeing that doctor, kindest man I ever met, gutted and bleeding because a’ me was more’n I could take.

I just weren’t that strong and it was ice clear that I never was. I had to clear the devil and angel off my shoulders. I had to throw the weight a’ all this off my back.

I stumbled out the bar and saw right what I needed to do. The jailhouse, lit up in the dark, stood watch at the top a’ the hill. Its eyes right on me. I started walking toward it, through the empty streets, feet sloshing in the mud. Toward Lyon and all them questions she would ask me. Toward a jail cell and a life a’ chains. I’d tell her everything I knew ’bout Kreagar and she’d catch up. At least I wouldn’t be running no more, I said to myself. At least it would finally be over.

Hand grabbed mine, excited voice said in my ear, “Elka, I found them.”

I spun ’round to Penelope, legs covered in mud from running, hair and dress soaked from the rain. I didn’t right understand what she’d said. My blood was thick with drink and fear and I couldn’t a’ told you my name if you whispered it in my ear.

I looked back at the jailhouse then back to Penelope, saw her through cloudy eyes. Couldn’t think a’ nothing else to do so I handed her the boots. She took them without paying them no mind.

“Did you hear me?” she said, then pulled me ’round to look her in the eye. “I found your parents.”

Sat in a quiet corner of a poky gin joint called Pershing’s Rest, I made Penelope repeat them words over and over again. The rotgut got to my head and I was ready to walk up to Lyon and damn near bend over. I couldn’t do that. Not with Penelope riding on my back. She needed my folks’ money much as I did. I weren’t going to let her work off that debt, a debt what weren’t truly hers, being the pleasure a’ men like the hog.

I told her, in my slurring words, that I was sorry for even thinking a’ leaving her. She weren’t sure what I was talking about but she told me it was all right, she told me she understood and she put her arms ’round me, held me tight.

Shit, I ain’t never been drunk afore and I didn’t choose the best water for the first time. Halveston bartenders cut their whisky with paint thinner and chili peppers, ain’t no wonder I couldn’t see straight. Ain’t no wonder I was ready to give up my life because Kreagar killed some kid I didn’t know. Kreagar killed a lot a’ folk.

“Your parents,” Penelope said, clicking her fingers front a’ my face to get me to pay attention. “I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen the documents myself. They bought a remote claim just outside Tucket about fifteen years ago. No death record for either of them so chances are they’re still up there.”

“Where in the hell is Tucket?” I said.

“About fifty miles northwest.”

“Fifty miles…” I said, and planted my face in my hands. Four days’ walk, less if I was on my own and didn’t stop to eat. “Son bitch…goddamn son of a bitch.”

“Elka—”

“I thought I was done. I thought they was here and I could…I could stop runnin’, stop fightin’.” All my tears came out my eyes.

“What are you running from?” Penelope asked.

“Him.” I slammed my fists on the table. “Him, him, him. That goddamn murderin’ bastard, Kreagar Hallet. He ain’t never gonna stop till he finds me. Till he kills me n’all.”

“The man who raised you,” Penelope said like she was putting all the pieces together, “and the one who murdered Lyon’s son?”

“He killed a boy in town not two days ago.”

“That spotty clerk told me,” Penelope said, shaking her head. “He said there were”—she looked me sideways in the eye like she weren’t at all sure how I was going to react—“strange circumstances, with the boy’s legs.”

“Bears and wolves take their dinner wherever they can,” I said.

Penelope gave me one a’ her looks what I couldn’t figure. Something like confusion, something like pity. She opened her mouth to say something more but must a’ thought better of it. Weren’t nothing else to say. Kreagar killed a boy, no doubt like he’d done God knows how many times afore. Animals picked at what was left. That’s that. Just bad luck on the part a’ the boy what meant a full belly for a beast. Ain’t nothing else to it.

Penelope looked down at the table, started scratching at the wood grain like she couldn’t bring herself to look me in the eye. Then she said in a quiet voice, “Do you think he’s in town?”

“He’ll be close. Wherever I am, he ain’t far,” I said, and she looked up at me, all the strange look gone out her face, replaced with pure worry. Whether that was for me or for her own skin, I weren’t sure.

“He’s out there,” I said, “in the wild, tauntin’ me. He’s breathin’ down my damn neck waiting for me to…shit I don’t even know.”

Penelope put her hand over my fist. “Then we go to Tucket. We get the hell out of here.”

I looked up into her eyes and, as swimming as mine were, they seen her straight. She had just as much reason to want out a’ Halveston as I did. Way I saw it, we didn’t have no choice.

“You and me, Elka,” she said. “Lyon will find Hallet, Delacroix won’t find us, and if she does…well, maybe your parents can help. We’ll be rid of them all.”

The fog a’ drink was lifting off me like a winter blanket put away for the summer. I turned my fist ’round and put my fingers ’tween Penelope’s.

“Rid of ’em all,” I said.

Outside, the rain was easing and night was thick and black. Penelope talked us into a back room a’ Pershing’s and I was mighty pleased to see there was a bolt on the inside a’ the door. We both lay down that night on a single cot, ’neath the same blanket. I weren’t sure if it was the drink or the company but I slept sound and woke up at dawn with a head ’bout ready to split open. Penelope said she ain’t got no sympathy for me and made me wash my face in a horse trough before she’d give me time a’ day.

Penelope flirted her way to a good coat and, along with that lad’s boots, she finally looked like a stiff wind wouldn’t blow her over. I’d spent most all a’ Colby’s coins, what Penelope gave me a look what could melt stone for, but we had enough left over for a breakfast a’ corned-beef hash and a side a’ chili beans to share ’tween us. Tell you truth, Penelope ate most all of it. When she weren’t picking at roast squirrels on a stick, that girl could eat. My belly weren’t feeling at all right and I left it mostly empty the rest a’ the day.

We didn’t go back to the shelter cabin. Weren’t no point. We’d cleared it out when we came to Halveston and there weren’t no Wolf waiting there for me. Penelope had got herself a map from the clerk and marked out my parents’ claim in thick pencil so when we left that town, we left it with a firm idea a’ where we was going. Truth of it was, it sure felt good to have a line on a map to follow ’stead a’ just my wits and gut.

“You better catch us some rabbits tonight,” Penelope said when we was walking north through Halveston.

I mumbled that I would, and felt sore for spending all them coins. Sore in pride and sore in my head. Halveston was waking up. Hawkers shouted all ’round me, every word cutting through my ears and ringing ’round my skull like dynamite through rock. Every step was sloshing up my insides, making my mouth fill up with water and stinging bile. If this was drinking…shit. Told Penelope over and over not to let me go near a bottle again. Tenth time I said it she told me to shut up or she’d smash one over my head.

On our way out a’ Halveston I spotted the weasel man, Bilker, and gave him a smug nod. He stood there looking like he had a fish hook stuck in his lip. I weren’t afraid a’ him coming after us no more. We wouldn’t be even close to Halveston when he finally got his tail out from ’tween his legs.

We didn’t stay long on the road out a’ town. I don’t like roads, they invite trouble and questions. Half mile outside the town limits we hiked up into the forest. The line to Tucket steered us west enough to keep clear a’ the Damn Stupid craters and torn-up land in the Far North. There could be a mountain a’ gold up there ripe for picking but it weren’t worth it. I didn’t ever want to see that ravage again. Didn’t want to hear the land moaning, crying out its sorrows on the wind. I knew it was there and that was enough. Figured I might go there one day, pay my respects, say sorry for all them human ills, but now weren’t the time. I needed life around me. Penelope and my folks and my wolf. I needed the trees and critters and berries and bracken. The quiet and calm of things what weren’t changing or falling down around my ears.

This was a forest a’ pure beauty. We was too far north now for the lodgepole pines but black-and-white spruce and some a’ them alpine firs covered everything. Moss crawled up rocks and strangling ivy tightened ’round trunks. Forest was thick and the air hung round in a mist most a’ the day. Smelled a’ softness and warm and like them first days a’ spring, even this far into summer. This forest was alive, I felt it in every bit a’ me. Exciting chatter a’ squirrels and crickets, tracks and trails a’ deer and moose, no sign a’ man’s heavy hand. It was one a’ them forests what you can hear breathe in and out and what seems to curl ’round you in the night.

Penelope didn’t seem to pay much mind to the forest. I reckon all she saw was trees and more trees and I thought, That’s a damn shame. With the dead boy’s boots on her feet, she mostly kept up and we made good time that morning. My head cleared up and my gut stopped shaking by ’bout midday. Penelope must a’ noticed me perking up ’cause she started talking for the first time.

Didn’t much like what she started talking about.

“What was he like?” she said, and my insides went twisty.

“Who?” But I knew who.

“Hallet,” she said. “He raised you, and you had no idea what…what he was?”