Wolver's Reward (31 page)

He wasn't afraid. He wasn't. He knew he
wasn't because that was the day he stopped being afraid. A little
insulted by Reb's accusation, he felt the need to correct her
impression.

"It was after the third Mate died, not
Forest's mother, she was the one before. Forest was about the same
age as Christina. You know, the little dark haired one with the
ponytail."

"The one that hides her face in her hands and
giggles every time you walk by," Reb verified.

"Yeah, that's the one. Forest didn't giggle,
though. Like you, she knew what she was, and she knew what fate had
in store. Two days after the Mate died, the Alpha came for
Forest."

"Stay still, bitch" the monster said.

Those words lit the match that ignited
River's anger.

"Stay still, bitch."

That was what they were all expected to do,
the Mates, Forest, River, all of them. Stay still and let them do
what they wanted. Stay still until you died.

That was the first time River saw the red
mist. That was the first time he forgot to be afraid.

"I tried to stop him and I paid for it. I
thought I was going to die, but the good news was that he wore
himself out beating me and left Forest alone. It was a couple of
days before I could move again, but the whole time I laid there, I
knew what had to be done and how I was going to do it."

Fire and ice. The burning fire inside him
made his thinking cold as ice.

"I killed him, Reb. I went to the kitchen,
told Cookie the Alpha wanted cake. He liked cake. I took it to the
Alpha and told him Cookie sent me with it. He didn't even look at
me. Why would he? I was nothing but a dog, a dog that drove a knife
through his back, a knife I stole from the kitchen while Cookie cut
the damned cake. I stood there looking at him, blood rolling down
his back and soaking into the seat of the chair, and I didn't feel
a thing. I half expected the mantle to fall and smother me, or some
big spirit wolf to come and rip my throat out, but nothing
happened.

"I closed the door behind me and went to get
Forest who was supposed to be ready to run. She wouldn't go without
Meadow. Dakota and Ranger and another pup they called Crow, all
woke up and started whining about going, too. That woke up Skeeter
and next thing I know, all of us are sneaking out through the
cellar and running toward town. We're almost there when I finally
figure that's just where they'll look." River laughed, though it
wasn't funny. "I'd planned a murder, but didn't plan what happened
next."

"What did happen next, River?"

"They ate the cake. I'd stuffed it in my
pocket."

"And after that?"

River shrugged. "They lived, or most of them
anyway. You know about Skeeter. Crow died later. Drowned. Hmph. I
guess a River took him twice. They lived in the hills for a little
over two years in abandoned houses, shacks, a cave, and once an old
school bus."

"You keep saying they. What did you do for
those years?"

His shoulders rose again. "Everything the
monsters taught me. I lied, I cheated, I stole."

"You kept them warm. You kept them fed. You
kept them safe. You didn't sleep."

"I killed a man, a human, in a gas station
bathroom. He thought I was prey, but by that time I was done being
prey. I tried to kill another wolver. I tried to bash his brains in
with a rock, but I only knocked him out. That's how Rabbit Creek
pack caught us. They sent us to Wolf's Head. The pups became theirs
and a load off my back."

"Liar."

River, who'd been staring a hole in the
ceiling while he spoke, let his eyes bore into Reb. "It isn't a
lie."

"You loved them. You love them still."

"I don't do love, Babe. I never learned how,"
he compounded the lie. If he told her the truth, he'd have to admit
how much it hurt when love was taken away. How much it would hurt
when an Alpha took her away.

Chapter 24

Reb and Darla worked side by side, Reb
stacking the wood Darla split with the powerful strokes of her ax.
The task seemed endless. All of the cabins required wood for winter
heat. Using the formula found in one of the many books they'd
brought with them, the amount they would need seemed impossible to
achieve. Fortunately, Darla liked chopping wood, and had no qualms
about bullying others into trimming and dragging in deadfall. Reb
did her share and it was currently her turn to stack.

Two women dragged another long length of bare
tree trunk to the diminishing pile.

"I'm glad someone has time to relax and
play," one sniffed. She pointed her nose in the direction of the
small patch of ground in front of the main lodge where River
wrestled with three young cubs.

"Time?" Reb asked with a little snarl in her
voice. "How much time have you spent hauling rock from the river?
How much time felling trees? How much game have you brought in? How
much fish have you hauled? Not as much as River, I can tell you
that. He has as much right as anyone to take a break. More, if you
want the truth." She plunked another quarter of log on the pile and
picked up another before she added with a curl of her nose, "And
he's not playing. He's teaching."

"Then they need to be in school with someone
who knows how to do it," the woman muttered as she walked away.

Reb hefted the piece of wood and looked from
it to the woman walking away.

"Don't do it," Darla warned with a laugh.

"Why can't they see it?" Reb complained.

"They will. Eventually. They're just not used
to physical labor and your boyfriend's a slave driver."

"You're one to talk," Reb grumbled and mocked
her friend's demand, "More wood. More wood. We must have more
wood." She followed Darla to the pile waiting to be cut and split,
to help her lift and drag the next piece. "Look at him."

The boys had no idea their idol was teaching
them as they played. He directed, and corrected, and shouted with
dismay when their combined maneuvers took him to the ground. They
loved it and strutted with pride at the backhanded compliment to
their prowess as a team. A satisfied nod from him was worth more
than a thousand words of praise.

River stood, tossing the youngsters off like
the autumn leaves that were beginning to cover the trees
surrounding the camp. It was only September, but fall came early in
these mountains and winter took no note of the calendar at all.

"Enough," River told them when they would
have continued to play. "Arnold's got his smokehouse ready for
another batch of fish. It's your job to go get them."

They'd found salmon in the nearby river,
hundreds of them dying after the spawn. They weren't the best
tasting, but they were free and as the old adage said, a penny
saved was a penny earned, and the pack was going through their
pennies fast. Arnold, using a design from another of the books, had
built a smokehouse to preserve the haul.

"I hate fish," one of the cubs
complained.

"You'll like it well enough this winter when
your belly's empty," River told him. "And you're not doing this for
yourself. You're doing it for your pack. Pack comes first." He gave
the boy a little shove in the right direction. "Go on. I want one
tub each and I mean a full tub. I'll be watching."

"Those tubs are too heavy."

River accepted no excuses. "Not if you work
together. And watch out for the bears. They like fish, but they
might like cub better," he called after them.

He turned, gave the watching females a nod,
and moved on to the latest cabin renovation.

"Look at him, Darla. Tell me he doesn't love
it here."

River was now carrying a bundle of shingles
up the ladder to the roof.

"I can't, because he does."

"Then why won't he stay?"

"Who says he won't."

"He does. He reminds me of it every day, two
or three times a day." Ever since she'd told him he loved those
young wolvers he'd saved. Reb was sorry she ever heard about his
past. Once he told her about it, he wouldn't let it go. "He keeps
pointing out his flaws like he wants me to see what a bad guy he is
and he's not. I know he has a bit of a temper, but..."

"A bit?" Darla stopped chopping to raise her
eyebrows and laugh. "He scared the wits out of them the way he went
after Gordon. I'm not saying that's a bad thing," she added to
pacify Reb's belligerent look. "The Alpha probably won't agree, but
that little bit of temper, as you call it, certainly got everyone's
attention. And when he tossed that lazy wolver's plate into the
fire, I had all I could do to keep from dancing like those girls on
the motel wall."

Ax in hand, she brought her arms up over her
head and swiveled her hips in a circle. The move brought a laugh
from Reb and stares from several others.

"It was pretty impressive," Reb agreed.

For the first few days after their arrival,
everyone relaxed and took stock of their surroundings. Their new
home didn't quite match the pictures. The idyllic setting was an
overgrown mess. The pond was clogged with cattails and other
waterside plants. Small trees and undergrowth had taken over
formerly cleared areas and vines grew up and over everything in
their path. The buildings showed the ten years' worth of
abandonment and neglect.

There would be no sitting around enjoying the
beauty of nature in the near future, but no one seemed
disappointed. Unfortunately, the lack of disappointment was
expressed in different ways. Talk abounded about what and how
things needed to be done, but for some, talking was all they did.
Others took on projects that were doomed to fail, as in replacing a
roof only to have it collapse because the structure beneath it was
weak. Disheartened, they gave up. Some preferred not to do anything
at all, content to put a pot beneath the leak in the roof and sit
back to watch it drip. Projects were started and abandoned as
interests drifted from one idea to another.

The Alpha, still weak and mostly bed ridden,
made his wishes known and left Darla and River to implement them.
Darla concentrated on the women, while River was left with the
men.

River set the example. He immediately went
out to explore the surrounding area, sometimes with Reb, but most
often with the younger wolvers in tow. He walked the grounds,
cleared paths, sorted through the furniture he found, and separated
out what could be salvaged. He took stock of what they had and what
they needed. He encouraged them to begin work.

A few worked hard. A few puttered around,
accomplishing little. A few more pretended to putter when River was
looking and immediately quit when he looked away. It bothered him
that others didn't feel his urgency to set the place to rights.

"Winter is coming. They need to be prepared,"
he warned, but it was hard to think of winter when the weather was
so balmy.

He tried to explain what it was like to spend
the winter with inadequate shelter, heat, and food, but these were
wolvers who were used to turning up the thermostat and running to
the store.

"I've lived rough in the mountains," he told
them, but never told them just how rough it was. "It's going to be
worse up here."

"They're going to freeze to death or starve,"
he fumed to Reb. "I had it easy compared to what they'll see up
here. I had places where I could steal what we needed."

He'd finally thrown up his hands when someone
pointed out there were generators in one of the sheds that were
meant to take care of heat and electric.

"Does anyone know if they work? What if they
need parts? How much fuel will they need and where will you get it?
What happens if you run out before the roads open up next spring?"
Disgusted, he turned to Reb. "I can't take it, Babe. I'm going for
a run."

He was gone for five minutes and then he was
back. He came to a stop at the edge of the pack that was gathered
for the evening meal. Anger poured off of him in waves of
power.

Feeling the force of that anger, most of the
wolvers stopped their eating and talking to stare at him and most
of them lowered their eyes in recognition of a power greater than
their own. A few shrank back and lowered their heads to their
shoulders to expose their necks in a clear gesture of submission.
An unwise few ignored the warning signs of the coming storm
completely.

Those few became the focus of his wrath. They
were shirkers, the kind who nodded their heads willingly when asked
to perform a task and then failed to follow through on the request.
River chose the worst of them, though the others weren't much
better. He strode over to the group the male was sitting with,
grabbed the plate from the wolver's hand, and threw the contents
into the fire. The man rose, fists clenched, and snarling. The
others rose with him and a staring contest ensued.

Several minutes went by before the wolver
realized his attempt at intimidation wouldn't work. River didn't
blink. The errant wolver did.

"New rule," River snarled. "You don't work,
you don't eat. And that goes for every member of this pack."

"You have no standing here," a female voice
called out. "No right."

He zeroed in on the speaker, took two steps
toward her, and pointed his finger at her nose. "Your Alpha has
that right," he told her, his voice loud enough to be heard by
everyone else as well. "He made the request a few days ago. You all
heard him. He asked for the repairs to be done as quickly as
possible. A request from your Alpha is the same as an order. I'm
here to enforce that order.

"You took an oath. You pledged your loyalty
to your Alpha and your pack. If you don't want to honor that oath,
then you pack up and leave, because I'm not going to watch good
wolvers go hungry or die while you sit on your asses and do nothing
to stop it."