TO CATCH A WOLF

by Susan Krinard

  But he was alive.

  Dim sunlight found its way through the canvas stretched overhead. The small space was crowded with crates, some of which served as platforms for other unidentifiable objects. The cot was the only furniture in the tent, save for a folding chair and small table.

  Outside the canvas walls, Morgan could hear the noise of a busy camp. Dogs barked, horses whinnied, and men's voices made a continuous drone.

  They had brought him here. They had saved his life. A string of curses came back to him in all their crude inventiveness, but his throat was too dry to speak.

  He tensed his muscles. One by one his fingers obeyed his commands. He was not a prisoner. He could tear through those walls of canvas as if they were tissue, once he regained his strength. He felt the healing of his wound, flesh knitting hour by hour.

  He concentrated on shifting his legs. A wall of gray pain dropped behind his eyes. He fell back among the blankets, breathing harshly through his teeth.

  A wave of human scent blew into the tent, riding on dust-laden air.

  "Ah, you're awake! Very good, very good. It did seem touch and go for a—No, no, you mustn't try to move just yet!"

  The voice was the first he had heard, the one that belonged to the old man with the whiskers. Harry French. Morgan blinked the haze from his eyes. The bulky silhouette resolved into a stout, gray-haired gentleman in a patched black coat, bright red waistcoat stretched over a prominent belly, and trousers in gray and black checks. A white, upward-curving moustache was the crowning glory of an otherwise homely face, wrinkled with age and burned by the sun.

  The ability to laugh had deserted Morgan long before he had chosen the wolf's way. But something in that comical face and broad grin woke a peculiar sensation within him, and his belly moved in a painful heave. He coughed.

  "Oh, dear, oh, dear," Harry French's hands sketched a pattern of distress. "You must be dry as a bone. Water—yes, that's what you need, and perhaps a bit of whiskey for good measure. I believe we still have a bottle or two left." He turned as if to leave and then spun about in midstep. "Foolish, foolish. We have not been properly introduced, though perhaps you remember my name?"

  His innocent enthusiasm reminded Morgan of a wolf pup still wet behind the ears. "Harry… French," he said hoarsely.

  Harry clapped his hands. "You did understand! Wonderful. Delightful. Perhaps you also recall where you are?"

  Circus. Words were coming thick and fast now, but it took Morgan a moment to assemble the images. He had seen a circus, once, when he was fifteen and without a penny in the world. The wagons and tents had been set up on an empty lot on the outskirts of a prosperous Nevada mining town. He'd sneaked into the main tent and hid behind the risers to watch the show, until a member of the crew had caught him and booted him off the lot.

  That boy had not remained a child much longer.

  "How…" He cleared his throat, remembering how to move his lips and tongue. "How long?"

  "How long have you been with us?" Harry French nibbled the edge of his moustache. "Six days, I believe. Yes, six. You've made quite a remarkable recovery. A bit more rest, that's all you need." He beamed and rocked back on his heels. "We are your friends. No need to tell us anything you don't wish. You can rest assured that we won't give your secret away—no, no. We understand."

  Your secret. Morgan stiffened and slowly relaxed again. His anonymous rescuers could not know anything of his past, but they had seen him Change and hadn't the sense to be afraid.

  "We're all a little odd here, you see," French said, as if he had guessed Morgan's thoughts. "Oh, we're nothing at all like the big railroad outfits, with the poor creatures in cages and great star performers. I like to think of us as a family, a family of very special people. Those who have no other place to go—they find their way to me, sooner or later, just as you have."

  He drew a pocketwatch from his vest, glanced at the face, and stuffed it back in. "Dear, oh, dear. I had promised to speak to Strauss about the food stores. Strauss is our chief cook. We are running low on victuals, and I fear my accounting skills have never been—" He broke off with an apologetic sigh. "You must think me quite addled. We have not been as prosperous of late as we might wish. A series of misfortunes—bad luck, as it were. That is why we are camped here in the wilderness and cannot offer you a decent hotel bed. I do so worry about my children, and what will become of us—but I am confident our luck has changed. Yes, indeed. You will meet the others soon." He glanced at his watch again. "You will excuse me, dear boy? I'll send someone with food and drink straightaway."

  Before Morgan could frame a belated response, French was out of the tent. His words resounded in Morgan's sensitive ears for several minutes after he left.

  But what he had said aroused more feelings Morgan had abandoned as a wolf: worry, consternation, and fear. Not the sensible respect for nature's fickleness or the hunter's gun, but a dread far more nebulous.

  "He won't die. He came here for a reason, I know it. To help us, as we help him… We've needed a miracle. ... He is the good luck we have waited for…"

  Premonitions of a fate worse than mere death seized Morgan with renewed urgency. He braced himself on his arms and pushed up again, relieved to find that his body functioned in spite of the pain. He could escape. It was not too late.

  There was only one way to learn if he was healed enough. He closed his eyes and willed the Change.

  Deep inside his body, the core of his being began to shift. He felt it, not as pain, but a natural transition. It was as if each atom became fluid and reshaped itself like clay in the hands of a master potter.

  But the Change did not complete. It met the barrier of his injury and paused, forcing his body to make a decision based upon a single law: survival.

  Survival meant preserving strength instead of draining it for the Change. Morgan opened his eyes and found himself unrecognizable, neither wolf nor human. A monster.

  Instinct made the decision for him. He returned to human shape. Dizziness and nausea held him immobile for a few seconds, but he pressed beyond his body's exhaustion and clambered to his feet. Sheer determination propelled him toward the sliver of dimming light that marked the tent's entrance.

  Sunset lent the camp a certain softness that almost disguised the atmosphere of shabbiness and adversity. Tents and colorfully painted wagons, marked with hard use and frequent repair, lay scattered at the edge of a wide valley filled with sagebrush and saltbush. A herd of sway-backed horses clumped together in a makeshift corral.

  Everywhere there was a certain frantic activity, as if the members of Harry French's Family Circus did not dare to stop moving. People hurried to and fro, wrapped in much-mended coats and blankets. A man juggled several bright red balls without seeming to touch them. An impossibly slender woman balanced on a wire almost too fine to be visible to normal eyes. Dogs ran about yapping and jumping through hoops.

  The one quiet place was centered at a fire beside an open tent furnished with rows of rickety wooden tables and benches. There a fat man cooked a dismally small section of meat on a spit, attended by a mob of barefoot children who watched with the grim concentration of hunger.

  Morgan knew poverty when he saw it. He had suffered hunger many times in his life, and had traveled with no more possessions than the clothing on his back. His great advantage had been the wolf, which had allowed him to hunt and to survive under conditions that would have killed an ordinary man.

  These folk were not so fortunate. It did not take much imagination to see that they had suffered the "bad luck" Harry French had mentioned, though Morgan knew little of circuses and what made them prosper or fail.

  He did understand that no man helped another without expecting something in return. Harry French's "children" hoped for something from him, something he could not give them. He might outrun guilt, as he'd outrun so much else. If he left, now, without facing those who had saved him…

  "You're not going so soon?"

  He looke
d down at the familiar voice and met a pair of blue eyes in a pixie's face, topped by a blaze of wildly curling red hair. Here was the second of his rescuers—his captors—the one who had claimed some undisclosed purpose for him. She seemed hardly more than a child, flat-chested and narrow-hipped. The tights, knee-length skirt, and snug bodice she wore only emphasized her boyish shape.

  She was the first woman he had seen in a decade, and he felt nothing. Neither his heart nor his body stirred. He realized with a shock that this girl reminded him of his sister Cassidy, so dimly remembered. Only Cassidy's hair had been black, like his.

  The girl whistled through her teeth. "You heal quickly, don't you?" She clasped her hands behind her back and circled him, clucking under her breath. "Do you always walk around stark naked? I liked you better as a wolf."

  "Then get out of my way, and you won't see me again."

  She placed her hands on her hips. "Well, at least you can speak."

  Morgan bared his teeth. Too late, his mind wailed. Too late. "Who are you?"

  "I'm Caitlin—Caitlin Hughes. Do you have a name?"

  "Morgan. Holt."

  "Well, Holt, do you know where you are?"

  "The old man told me."

  "That old man is Harry, who agreed to take you in, and don't you say anything bad about him, or you'll answer to the rest of us." She glared at him. "I doubt that it occurred to him that you would just up and leave without a word, after we saved your life."

  The hairs rose on the back of Morgan's neck. "I did not ask you to help me."

  "You came to us, didn't you?" She gestured about her eloquently. "We haven't much to spare, nothing at all for outsiders, but we accepted you. Who else would have done that? You owe us more than running away like a whipped cur."

  Obligation. Morgan stared across the grounds and at the freedom beyond, so rapidly slipping from his grasp. "You think… there is a reason that I came," he said, pitching his voice in mockery.

  "I know there is."

  "There is no reason for anything that happens."

  "You really believe that, don't you?" She shook her head. "Whatever you are, wherever you came from, I think there is some honor in you, or you would already be gone. That's why you are going to help us."

  He met her gaze, and she took one step back. "You play a dangerous game."

  "You don't frighten me. I've seen too much."

  She was a little afraid, but she hid it well. He felt the first stirrings of grudging respect, as he had felt fear of bonds that had nothing to do with prison walls.

  "I have nothing to give you," he said harshly.

  "But you do. You have something very valuable. We make our living by showing people things they've never seen before. And you are something very few people have seen."

  "You want me to… go on display?" The idea was so absurd that it erased both doubt and fear. He turned to go.

  Her hand caught at him. His first impulse was to remove it by the swiftest means possible, regardless of the damage to her. He held himself rigid instead, and growled.

  "I can't let you go. Not until you promise to meet the people who helped you."

  Morgan recognized the trap, and that he must pay a price to escape it. He gave the girl a terse nod. The language of her body told him that she had not been sure he would agree and knew full well that she could not stop him. She ducked into the tent and reemerged with his blanket.

  "Put this on," she said, "and come with me."

  He took the blanket and draped it over his shoulders. Caitlin marched across the camp toward the nearest tent. People called out greetings in the twilight, voices warm with friendship. Morgan hunched into his blanket and deafened himself to Caitlin's cheery responses. They were not his friends, and neither was she.

  They reached a tent as shabby and patched as the others, and Caitlin lifted the flap. "Go on inside," she said.

  He hesitated. Three distinct and familiar human scents permeated the air. This was yet another trap, another way to hold him.

  "Don't worry," Caitlin said. "You could break Ulysses in two if you wanted, and Florizel is harmless. As for Tamar—" She shrugged.

  Morgan tried to lay back ears that remained stubbornly fixed in place and entered the tent.

  Two men sat at a pair of folding chairs on either side of a small table, intent on a game of cards. One of them was of average size, but his skin was pale as the moon, and his hair the same ghostly hue.

  The other was the height of a child, legs dangling well above the ground. He was dressed impeccably in proportioned trousers, vest, and coat, all made of what Morgan guessed to be expensive cloth. His boots shone with recent polishing. His features were handsome, his thick yellow hair the sort that any dandy might envy. But nature had shaped his body into a parody of a normal man's.

  Behind them stood a woman of overwhelming sensuality, lushly curved and with skin that shimmered as if imbedded with a hundred tiny gemstones. Her thick black hair fell almost to her waist. A pair of snakes wound about her shoulders and upper arms, tongues darting.

  The serpent woman stared at Morgan with dark, glittering eyes. At the table, the albino threw down his hand of cards with a breath of disgust.

  "Don't even attempt to deny it, Wakefield. You let me win again."

  The little man lifted his brows. "You need not play if you find it unpleasant," he said in a smooth Southern drawl. "I do apologize if I have offended."

  The albino snorted and looked toward Morgan. Wakefield followed his glance.

  "Ah," he said. "I see that our patient has recovered." He slid down from his chair. Caitlin went to his side, her slight form towering above him.

  "Ulysses, this is Morgan Holt. Morgan Holt, this is Ulysses Marcus Aurelius Wakefield."

  The dwarf executed a surprisingly graceful bow. "I am at your service, sir."

  Caitlin shook her head. "Your Southern courtesy is wasted on this one, Professor."

  "Indeed. And you, of course, have not in any way provoked him, Firefly."

  Caitlin snorted. She glanced at the dark woman. "This is Tamar, the snake charmer. And Florizel"—she indicated the pale man with a nod—"is our chief Joey. That's 'clown' in towny talk."

  Florizel regarded Morgan with mournful wariness. "This is your Wolf-Man?" he said. "This is our final hope, our savior?"

  "Florizel, you talk too much," Caitlin said.

  "I do not believe that this is the time for familial squabbles," Ulysses said. He looked up at Morgan with the same fearlessness as Caitlin's, but his came from a deeper, quieter place. He was as removed from passion as Morgan sought to be.

  "It is unfortunate that we were unable to consult your wishes, Mr. Holt," he said, "but you were insensible at the time. Caitlin is prone to strong feelings—premonitions, if you will—that move her to rash action. She often fails to apply logic when it would be most useful. She sees your particular talent as a possible solution to our quandary—which you may have observed."

  "She wants me to work for you," Morgan said. "To be one of your… freaks."

  "To be one of us," Ulysses corrected. "You were alone and on the verge of death when you arrived. Have you somewhere else to go?"

  "I prefer to be alone." Even as he spoke, Morgan did not understand why he had admitted that much to a stranger. He lifted his lip. "I am alone."

  "It is a rare man who truly prefers solitude," Ulysses said. "As for Caitlin's hopes—many of the troupers have no home other than this. It is their family. Harry took in the first outcast ten years ago, and he has never turned away anyone in need. But our troupe has faced one misfortune after another in recent months—theft of our capital, the illness of our horses, and grave mishaps of weather. We have insufficient resources to feed ourselves and nothing saved for winter quarters. We are now in a precarious position that may require us to disband if we wish to survive. You, with your unique gift, appear to have arrived at a most propitious moment."

  Morgan thought of his adopted pack, all dead, and what
it had been like to be part of a greater whole. Yet he had always been separate, even then. Always.

  "I can't save you," he said. "Let me go."

  Ulysses studied Morgan for a long stretch of silence. "You are what they call a hard man, Morgan Holt, one who has lived apart from civilization for some time. You are accustomed to caring for yourself. You are exceptionally skilled in survival. You do not care for the entanglements of emotion, and that is why you resent any debt placed upon you. Yet you still suffer the pull of obligation. Why?"

  Morgan felt as if he were being taken apart piece by piece like the inner workings of a clock. "You are smart, little man," he said softly. "But you don't know everything."

  "I believe you are a man of honor, Mr. Holt, though the world may not recognize that quality." His broad brow creased. "You have faced some great trial that has tested your faith in mankind and driven you into the wilderness. But now you find yourself among those who might begin to understand."

  Words. Accurate words, razor sharp, that wove themselves into a wire made for a single purpose. The noose was tightening inch by inch. Morgan backed away, prepared to toss the blanket and run. Caitlin held out her hand as if to stay him again, and for once she appeared as vulnerable as any other girl of her age.

  Morgan took another step and struck a warm, firm surface. Hands caught at him to steady him. He spun about to face Harry French, who held a bottle of whiskey in one broad, chapped hand. The old man blinked in surprise.

  "You should not be on your feet," he said. He looked beyond Morgan to the others. "Caitlin, why did you let him get up? You are pale, my boy, much too pale."

  "Mr. Holt is leaving us, Harry," Caitlin said.

  Harry's face fell, and it was as if the sun had gone behind a cloud. "Oh, I see. I see."

  The disappointment on this old man's face pierced Morgan's dormant heart more surely than any of Caitlin's reproaches or Ulysses's recital of disaster. For a moment he saw his father's face, and the dying of dreams. The end of all hope.

  "Well, well," Harry said, trying to smile, "we must at least share a drink before you depart. I did, as you see, manage to find one bottle."