The Wolf Road (38 page)

Penelope frowned at me and said, “You never mentioned anything.”

“I don’t tell you everything,
Penny,
” I said, winking at her. “I was wonderin’ if you good folk would mind taking her in for a few days?”

Mark’s face near exploded with happy. Even the boy perked up and said her name a few times, smacking his spoon ’gainst the table like a drumbeat.

“Of course, that’d be wonderful,” Mark said, then looked at Josie and faltered. “If it’s OK with you and Jethro.”

The husband and wife exchanged a look and Josie said, a little like she’d been bullied into it, “We’d be proud to have you.”

“Elka, are you sure about this?” Penelope said.

“It’d make me feel a whole lot better ’bout a huntin’ trip if you was here.”

Mark banged his fist on the table and a square a’ corn bread toppled off the heap, caught by the boy and turned quick to crumbs.

“Settled!” he said, and put his hand over Penelope’s.

“That’s very kind,” Penelope said, blush coming up on her cheeks like she’d flipped a switch. “Thank you, Josie, I won’t be a bother.”

“It’ll be nice to have a lady ’round the house,” Jethro said, nudging his wife, “instead of this old hen. Pen, promise you won’t come in covered in sawdust.”

Penelope smiled, said she wouldn’t, and the smiles and laughing went on from there.

I figured I could deal with these folks every now and then, ’specially if Jethro kept his cooking this fine. Maybe it would be good for me to have people in my life after so long with just me and Kreagar, then just me and Penelope. Humans is meant to be together, so they say, that’s why we make towns and cities. Wondered brief if I was going ’gainst my nature by staying out in the wild, or wanting to at least. Then I figured too many people together had made the Damn Stupid so I weren’t at all sure.

We finished up the meal and while Penelope helped Mark with the dishes and clearing, Josie took me out to the lumberyard.

“Really going to hunt a moose on your own?” she said.

“Why not? I shot plenty in my time.”

“Won’t you have trouble getting it back?”

“No, ma’am, I got myself a ways a’ doing it that served me fine so far.” And I did. Simple really, a sled, with wheels if necessary. I’d learned to haul meat on my lonesome from the age a’ twelve.

“If you say so,” Josie said, and pushed open the doors into the barn.

Sound a’ saws running off generators and smell a’ hot wood hit me. The barn, huge and square, was full a’ machines and stacks a’ smooth, even planks. A giant pile a’ sawdust sat in the far corner and I just wanted to jump into it and throw it all around like it was a snowdrift.

Whoever was in the barn when we arrived weren’t there no more. Figured a worker on lunch break same as Mark. Josie showed me to a pile a’ die-straight, perfect round tree trunks, long as I’d ever seen. Beautiful white spruce, shame to shave it down to planks, but I got to have me some storm shutters.

Afore Josie did anything, she turned on me and said, hard voice, “I saw those posters of you.”

My throat dried up.

“Should I be worried?” she said.

“No ma’am,” I said, but I was lying. They should be worried, though not a’ me.

“I built a good life here for me and mine and no matter how sweet you and your friend are, if anything threatens my family I’ll turn you and Pen into sawdust. You get me?”

I nodded. “I get you just fine.”

She held my eyes a moment longer, made sure I looked like I was speaking true.

“Help me lift this,” Josie said, and took one end a’ the top log. That was that, no more said ’bout it.

We rolled the log onto the saw bench and lined up the end with the blade.

“Hold it and push once I turn it on,” Josie said, nodded to me. “This will cut inch-thick boards.”

“Sounds right,” I said, and braced myself ’gainst the log.

Josie fired up the machine and I damn near went deaf. It was simple work and made my arms ache in that good way what meant you had used ’em right. Josie helped me cut the first log, but after that she just watched.

“This girl,” she said, loud above all the roaring, “Penelope, what’s her story?”

“What you mean?” I said, paying more attention to the wood than her.

“She a good sort?”

I looked up at Josie, then I got her meaning. She had a look a’ concern on her. “My baby brother, he’s a head-over-heels type, you know?”

I cut the last plank out that log and switched off the machine to make sure she heard all I had to say.

“Penelope’s best sort there is,” I said, meeting Josie right in them brown eyes a’ hers. “Saved my life more’n I can count and didn’t ask for nothing from me. Could a’ screwed me over a hundred times but she’s got one a’ them pure hearts. Your brother’d never do better in this life.”

Josie, hard woman that she was, kept my gaze a bit longer, seemed she was in the habit a’ that. She must a’ seen what she wanted ’cause her face broke into a wide, white-tooth smile.

“Thank you,” she said, nodding, and turned the machine back on.

I cut four more logs and she said that was enough, told me we could take as many planks as we needed from the pile what had been treated and dried on the other side a’ the barn. She said that she made me cut ’em so she wouldn’t have to pay her hands to replace the stock. I told her fair enough and we figured the best way to get them to Tin River. Weren’t no roads for a cart, so we settled on floating ’em upriver. I ain’t never been much good on the water, last time it was in a crate, but I didn’t much fancy carrying ’em one by one through the woods.

Josie and I went back in the house and found Jethro and the young boy in the kitchen and Mark and Penelope nowhere.

Panic poured over me like rain but before I could say nothing, Jethro held out his hand and said, “They went for a walk, you know, as young lovers do.”

Then he grinned wide and Josie rolled her eyes.

Not sure why but I had a question in me what just needed to come out. “What happened to the boy’s momma? She gonna cause trouble for Penelope if she finds out ’bout them?”

Josie looked at the boy, then me, then took up a cloth and started drying a plate what weren’t wet. “Childbirth got her. No trouble.”

Part a’ me was relieved that Penelope weren’t going to get some jilted wife coming raging at her. Other part of me was sad for the boy. Growing up without a momma weren’t fun and I knew it just as well. Felt a pang in me for the momma I lost, the loving arms I’d never have.

I washed up and sat down at the table, opposite the boy. He stared at me with button eyes and I felt myself smiling along with him. He had a pencil in his fist and was drawing pictures on faded newsprint.

“What’s that you drawin’?” I said.

He lifted his hand and turned the paper ’round to me. Then he jabbed a finger down. “That’s our house,” he said. “That’s Daddy”—he pointed to a rough circle next to the square, no arms no legs just a blob—“and Auntie JoJo,” another circle, this one with a scratch a’ hair on top. Then he pointed to Jethro, himself, and Penelope and even I was there, a scratch on the corner a’ the page. There was one left, a filled-in black circle near the top a’ the house.

“What’s that?” I said.

The boy went quiet, scared almost, then said, “That’s the boogeyman. Looks through my window.”

Josie shook her head. “He has nightmares.”

Boy stabbed his pencil into the circle and started scratching deep grooves into the paper. “He’s real, JoJo, he has black lines all over his face.”

My insides turned to ice.

Josie huffed and grabbed the paper off him, screwed it up in her hands. “He’s seen those posters around town and now he thinks there are monsters under his bed.”

The boy started wailing for his drawing then when he figured he weren’t getting it back, his bottom lip wobbled and fat tears came rolling out his eyes. Josie told him to stop being a nuisance, Jethro tried to quiet him, but the boy weren’t having none of it. He ran from the room and I heard his footsteps and bawling all the way upstairs.

My head kept going back to the black circle. Was it just nightmares on account a’ him seeing them posters? Or was Kreagar right here, outside this house, marking that boy for his own? I thought ’bout telling them to leave, right now, pack up, go south like everyone else. But sitting there at that kitchen table while Jethro gave Josie a look what said she was being mean Aunt JoJo, I couldn’t say a word. If I told them what I knew, who I was, who goddamn Kreagar Hallet was, then all this would be lost to me, maybe to Penelope too. I knew that Penelope would stick by my side but I couldn’t take her away from Mark, not when they was just getting acquainted. If my plan, my damn fine plan, didn’t work, then she’d need him more’n ever, even if it weren’t true love.

I told myself it was just nightmares. That boy was young and Tucket was half a step into the wild. Him and his daddy been attacked on the road up here, caught in a snare; that was enough to crack up a young’un. Them charcoal posters just gave all that fear a face.

“Friend of mine has a skiff you can use for the wood,” Josie said, raising her chin toward the door like I’d caused the kid’s fit and they wanted me gone.

“Much obliged,” I said.

The river running just outside Tucket joined up with another branch what would take me and the wood right back to the claim. I met up with Penelope at the boat, all red-faced and giggling with Mark, and I said she’d be best staying here. Winter was close and I didn’t have much time left to bag a moose.

She didn’t argue long, nor did Mark, and Josie, who was helping me load the wood, shrugged, and said all right then.

“Three days,” I said, “four tops. I’ll come back here and fetch you when I’m done.”

Penelope gave me a hug and said good luck, shoot us a moose. Josie rolled her eyes right back in her head and Mark thanked me for giving him time with Penelope. Felt a mite sorry for Mark then, but I didn’t let it show.

The man whose boat it was, was a jolly round fella with a white beard tight to his cheeks. We said our goodbyes and good lucks and such and sped up the river dragging a dozen planks and a saw, and a bag a’ nails what I borrowed off Josie. The fella helped me unload at Tin River, hauled them planks out onto the grass to dry off, and then turned the boat around and went on his way with a hat tip and a wave.

It was all so rosy. Sun was on me and warming up the edges, all the folks in Tucket had been smiling and helpful and it made me sick in my gut. I kept seeing that little boy and the fear what struck his face when I asked what that black circle was, kept thinking what was going to happen to him. But hell, he had his family around him and even Kreagar would have to work hard to get the best a’ Josie.

I quick laid out all the wood to catch the last few hours a’ sun and packed a bag. Knife in my belt. Rifle slung over my shoulder and rounds in my pocket. It was getting close to sundown when I set out but that didn’t matter none. Cold ain’t no enemy when you can make a fire easy as I can. I’d seen moose out on the other side a’ the river, crossing the meadow northwest to southeast. Figured on going up the world ’stead a’ down.

Felt myself a little burst a’ excitement in my chest, growing up my neck and putting a smile right on my face. I was out here, on my own, no other person near, and I had me a hunting rifle. I checked on the smokehouse and figured four planks on the top would make a fine roof and ’bout the same for the door. That’d take me two hours when I got back and I prayed hard I’d have meat for smoking. Had me a powerful urge for some jerky, mouth went watery at the thought, and as I shut up the cabin and walked out into the woods, I set my head remembering all that jerky I made and ate with Trapper. We tried a hundred different dry rubs, different wood for the smoke, different age a’ meat. Took us ’bout a year but we figured the best recipe for each animal and damn, the one we had for pig was, hand to God, the best I ever tasted.

My head went through all the weights and measures a’ salt and sugar and spices what would go on the moose I’d be shooting. My belly gurgled and rumbled all the way into the wild and I was happy as a dog chewing on a T-bone.

Shame I’m a goddamn idiot.

The safety on that old rifle didn’t work, and safety weren’t my friend. One time when I was fourteen I’d tripped up, fallen hard, and my gun had gone off right beside me. That bullet cut a chunk out a tree right next to my head. Since then I ain’t never walked with a loaded gun, ’specially one with a busted safety, so on that hunting trip I didn’t have a round in the chamber ready.

I’d spent a day walking only to spot a cow moose, perfect damn size, perfect damn place, munching on grass like nothing else in this world existed.

That’s when I found out my coat had a damn hole in the pocket and I’d dropped every single one a’ my damn bullets all over the damn Yukon.

I watched that moose wander off all calm-like and I tried my damnedest to hold in all my raging. But hell, I just ended up laughing. All that song and dance I made a’ putting Penelope with Mark and keeping her safe. Well, she’d just have to stay there a day or two longer while I went back to get more bullets, or least find some a’ the ones I dropped.

I walked back ’tween the trees, breathing in all the fresh, cold air a’ the North afore I got back to the cabin. Bullets, hunting, and my plan, my damn fine plan what was going to free me a’ Kreagar and Lyon, went straight to hell, when, in the new dawn light, I saw three horses tied up outside my front door.