The Wolf Road (42 page)

Soon as I’d figured that, a weight came off my back and the world—the trees, the snow, the boy—they were clear and bright and I was too. I was going to catch Kreagar but I weren’t ’bout to use a boy to do it. That’d make me no better’n him. I’d track him myself and find him myself and I’d sure as shit kill him myself. That’d make it all the sweeter. Catching him using all them smarts Trapper taught me would be the sting in the tail that bastard deserved. He’d know it too, that his own stupid self, using me for arms and legs, damned him.

I smiled, my face aching with the cold, and felt a surging a’ triumph and freedom what I ain’t never felt afore. Kreagar was going to pay for what he done and I was here to collect.

Felt me a strong urging to go say goodbye to the boy. Then I’d go into the woods and I wouldn’t come out without Kreagar’s head in a sack or Lyon’s hand patting me on the shoulder. That boy was grace and good and all them things what I weren’t. I caught him in a snare all them months back and I weren’t ’bout to put him in another trap.

I came out the trees at the back a’ the house, out a’ view a’ the barn and the kitchen windows. The boy didn’t run from me, he weren’t afraid or quiet like he was ’round his daddy. I thought he might’ve, like he’d a’ known what was in my head a few minutes ago, but he smiled when he saw me, waved, and said, “Make a snowman, Elka.” That set my heart in my throat and I felt like I was choking. Made parting all the worse. Figured I could have a few moments. Few little memories I could take with me.

I dug my hands into the snow and piled it high up with him, patted it down into something like a ball. He threw a lump a’ snow at me, what hit square in my chest. Shock a’ the cold in my collar made me gasp and I looked at him like thunder.

But he just laughed. Giggled. Threw another.

I ain’t never played in the snow afore. Snow was a toil to get through, it weren’t for fun or frolic. I laughed with him, giggling like a damn idiot. I threw a snowball at him and it hit him square in his chest, not hard-like, but it was a fine hit. He cried out all loud and flopped down in the snow, saying I’d killed him. Then he went still and all my muscles froze up, like I was seeing a picture a’ what might a’ been.

Then. “Elka?”

I spun ’round, saw Penelope done up all in heavy coats, sprinkling a’ snow in her hair, and my heart near stopped.

The boy saw her a second later, pure joy lit up his face. He sprang up, shouted out, “Penny!” and ran to her, hugged her ’round the legs.

Penelope hugged him back and looked at me like I ain’t never seen her look at me. I don’t even know what it was in her eyes. Confusion? Disappointment? Horror? I couldn’t speak to ask. My last words to her were ’bout hunting and then she finds me here, boy lying still, playing dead at my feet. Felt sick for it.

She went to say something but then a hearty voice interrupted. Mark, coming ’round the corner a’ the house. Saying hello to me and what you doing here and Josh is having a great time.

Suddenly they was a family. The boy was telling his dad ’bout the snowman what was in truth just a lopsided lump. Here’s his eyes. Here’s his shoulders. Here’s his legs.

“I was on a walk,” I said, all but jibbering, though no one was paying me no attention, save Penelope.

“Elka,” she said, sharp and cold, “don’t you have to get on? Moose won’t hunt themselves after all.”

Tears pricked hot in my eyes and I nodded. Mark looked at me, smiling and happy that I’d kept his boy busy for a spell. I said sure, yeah, ’course I did.

“See you later, at the cabin,” Penelope said, snow reflecting white in her eyes, turning ’em into mirrors and making her look like she got a barrier up where there ain’t never been one afore.

I nodded, felt like I’d been slapped right in the face, stunned out a’ myself. I looked at the boy and smiled.

“Bye, Josh,” I said, then I knelt down ’side him and whispered close, “You ain’t gotta be afraid a’ the man no more. I’m gonna get him and you gonna be sleeping safe tonight.”

I looked up at Penelope and that frown in her eyes. She didn’t know what I said, but when the boy hugged me, wrapped his short, skinny arms ’round my neck, her frown softened up.

I walked away without another word. I felt Penelope’s eyes heavy on my back while I was going. Wondered what she was thinking, but in truth, I already knew it. That bridge we’d built ’tween us, that one what was wobbling already, I’d just gone and dug out the foundations. I’d set the whole damn thing on quicksand and it weren’t going to be long afore it swallowed up us both.

I got to the tree line, only looked back once to see the boy with his snowman and Penelope and Mark talking close by but not paying all that much attention ’cept to each other.

That’s when I heard another a’ them crunches. Saw a shadow shift out the corner of my eye. My head muddled. Guilt throbbed through me like venom from a snakebite and I didn’t pay no mind to another fallen pinecone. Another dead squirrel.

I stalked off into the forest, direction Penelope said them fellas seen Kreagar. I had to start somewhere. Snow fell off the branches and slumped on the ground, covering up all my tracks, making the world like it was afore I messed it up.

Felt the flare in my pocket. Wondered brief if I could go back to Lyon, open up that locked door in my head, and let her do whatever she wanted with me.

But that wouldn’t rid this world a’ murdering, kid-killing Kreagar Hallet.

The fog in me cleared up so’s I could just see ’cross to the other side a’ all this.

I was the only one who stood a chance a’ bringing punishment down on Kreagar, stopping him from taking more lives. Hour ago I’d a’ baited that trap with a boy, what I knew would bring him running like a starving man to a cookout. But I stopped myself afore I did the bad and that was what mattered. The look in Penelope’s eyes was all that bad reflected back at me and it showed me what could a’ been if I’d turned to the dark ’stead a’ the light. I thanked her for it, in my head. I’d never say it to her out loud, that’d be admitting all my wrongs and that’d kill us both.

I’d figure another way a’ getting Kreagar. I’d have to, and quick, afore the winter sent him sleeping.

After all this time and heartache, trudging through the snow ’round the outside a’ Tucket, I didn’t count on Kreagar making it so damn easy for me.

I’d been in the forest, moving slow and steady, for I didn’t know how long, thinking on my sins, shivering, when I heard a shout. Sharp yelp it was, back toward the Thompson house. My shivering stopped and afore I could tell my feet, they was running. Didn’t take me long to get back to their land when I seen a shadow dart ’tween trees ahead of me. Shadow carrying something heavy. I knew what that bundle was even at that distance. I knew what the yelp was. I knew it all.

Kreagar had the boy. I’d told him I’d keep him safe. Anger rose up in me like a belch, burning up my insides.

It was Kreagar’s legs I saw in the reverend’s basement. It was him all them months ago by the poison lake, that demon what I cut, though I couldn’t be sure at the time. I’d gone a year without laying certain eye on him. But now, my head was clear, the sun was bright on snow and there he was, Kreagar goddamn Hallet, wearing my daddy’s face. Couldn’t right tell if he’d seen me too but he might a’ heard me running. I wrapped my fingers ’round my knife and pulled it free. My heart thudded so hard in my chest I thought it would shake the snow off all the trees.

They weren’t pinecones falling, I thought, they was his footsteps, his shadow, following me right from Tin River. Right to the Thompsons’ back door.

I followed his tracks and caught sight a’ him again. Too far to catch. Too far to throw my knife for fear a’ hitting the boy. Josh was flung over one shoulder, not moving, but smoky breath came out his mouth. Still alive. I still had time. My heart was thundering worse’n any storm, worse’n the sound them Damn Stupid bombs must a’ made. My heartbeat must a’ shook the world ’cause right then, heavy snow started falling, covering up all them tracks.

Kreagar’s arms filled out the shirt he was in, and it was just a shirt, untucked, flapping over jeans soaked to the knee. No coat. No hat. He looked like he’d stepped right out a’ summer and got caught by the weather. He slowed up to climb over a fallen log, icy with snow, and I saw them tattoos. Them black marks I took for dirt when I first saw him all them years ago. Stripes and swirls going out from his eyes and mouth, fanglike marks going down his chin, same both sides a’ his face like he had a mirror along his nose. Them patterns no doubt meant something to him but what, shit he’d never tell me, no matter how many times I nagged. Them tattoos went all down his chest and most way down his arms, mixing in with the wiry black hair. I always thought a’ him, when I was just a babe, as covered head to heel in spiders.

Smoke streamed out his nose and his hands made tight fists by his sides. I ducked quick behind a fat alder tree and watched him climb, awkward-like with that load in his arms, but he didn’t put him down. His mouth was stretched into some kind a’ smile and it made me sick and fearful to see it. All ’cause I seen it before. Too many times. When we had a fresh deer on the gutting table, when he’d come back bloody from his wolf hunts.

Kreagar got himself over that log and was gone, running, lumbering like a bear with a salmon ’tween his teeth.

In truth, I couldn’t make no sense a’ my thoughts or feelings right then. I was stuck behind that alder. I didn’t know nothing. I couldn’t a’ given you a straight answer if you’d asked me my name or what I had for breakfast. It was a muddle and all I remember, with any true clearness, was the steps that got me A to B, the throw what caught me a murderer.

All my instincts came right to the front a’ my head and took control a’ my arms and legs. I weren’t human no more in them woods. I was wild. My blood was coursing. My heat rising. All my senses fizzled and I climbed up the alder, ran along a branch, moved in them trees like I’d been born off the ground. I followed Kreagar through the treetops but he was quick, and moving branch to branch was slow. He was getting farther ahead a’ me, I was losing sight and had only my hearing as a guide.

We was far away from Tucket now, too far to hear shouting or cries out for the boy; tracks been covered up and them townsfolk didn’t have a chance a’ finding us. The snow was falling fat flakes on the world, silencing everything what weren’t me or Kreagar’s crunching footsteps.

I careful and quick stepped across branches, trying to keep ’em in eye. Panic rushed through me quick and hard as a dam breaking. My hands were shaking, sending a tremble up my arms, down my legs. I raced ’cross a gap too big and jumped onto icy lichen covering the oak branch ’neath my feet. I slipped soon as my foot touched it and fell right out the tree, landed on my back in white powder. Didn’t hurt. Fresh snow’s a pillow. But it cost me time and a mite a’ pride. Far ahead, right at the limit I could see ’tween the falling flakes, Kreagar and the quiet bulk over his shoulder vanished behind a snowbank.

“No, no, no, no,” I said over and over, smoky breath puffing, scrambling up to my feet.

Despite the weather, Kreagar’s deep tracks was easy to follow, easy to see. He wanted me to find him. He wanted me to see it.

But when I got to that snowbank, feet sinking deep in the cold, I saw two sets of tracks. One straight down the hill, one veering left. Weren’t no telling which to follow. Devil set me a trap and I didn’t have no clue how he did it. All this fresh snow should a’ covered up anything more’n ten minutes old. It didn’t make no sense. None of it made a lick a’ sense. Fear for the boy burned up in me so hot it could a’ melted the world. Panic and anger and hate, all of it. That boy was meant to be safe and back in his home with his daddy and Penelope.

Everything was bubbling up in me and clouding up my head. I followed one set a’ Kreagar’s boot prints, then turned back and followed the other. I couldn’t think in straight lines. The boy was going to die if I didn’t figure it. That darling little fella, that curly black hair, them smiles he had. I saw that pencil scratch a’ me on his drawing. Part a’ his family. Part of a pack and I was ’bout to lose him.

I swore up something fierce. Turned myself ’round and ’round and ’round till I heard it. The sound what broke the whole damn world.

No more’n a second of a scream. Cut short. Life cut short.

I homed in on that sound. Ran like it was my life being taken, like the hounds a’ hell were snapping at my heels. I dodged ’tween trees, kept my breathing quiet as I could. Didn’t hear no other sound. No kicking a’ young legs. No crying out.

There’s a thing that happens in the forest when life is snuffed out afore it’s meant to. There’s a silence that comes down on everything like a blanket. Happens for a mite when you take a rabbit out the snare, break its neck. There’s a deeper silence when you take out your blade or pull the trigger on a moose or deer. Deepest silence for a child.

The forest was weeping blood and so was I.

I was too late.

I caught a flash a’ metal in the trees. A knife twisting, changing grip. Felt that knife right in my heart, slicing cold. My legs buckled up ’neath me. I fell down onto my hands and knees and wanted more’n anything to scream all that pain, all that guilt, right out into the winter air.