Wolf Hunting (A Wolf in the Land of the Dead Book Book 3)

by Toni Boughton

  The earth was cold and hard and stiff blades of grass poked at her skin like little swords. Nowen crawled under the vehicle until she could see Dempsey’s tree-trunk legs. Her wolf stirred at the noise from the walking bear. No, you can’t come out and see it. It’s not a bear; it’s just a big human.

  “Raphael, I’m not in the mood to discuss this again.” Dempsey said, and Nowen had to agree with her wolf that the big man sounded just like a bear.

  “You are not being careful with the lives of the people here.” The other man, Raphael, had a voice that seemed to come from a smaller, lighter man than Dempsey. But as he continued speaking there was steel in his words. “The party last night was a mistake. Inviting all those people was a mistake. Rescuing those idiots from the highway was a mistake.”

  There was a slurping sound and Nowen caught the smell of burned coffee. Dempsey swallowed. “Damn, but I do miss fresh coffee.”

  The other man sighed.

  “Raph, I trust you and your judgment on a lot of things. Heck, we wouldn’t have made such a success of the fort if it weren’t for you. But I’m not going to change who I am just because the world has changed. God led us to this place, and He led us through the winter. It was a bad winter - we lost so many to illness.”

  Raphael made a slight choking sound, and Dempsey paused. When the big man continued his voice was gentler. “But we lived. And we live! I will celebrate that fact every day that I have left. The party last night was needed for our people to put the trials of winter behind us.”

  Nowen watched the two sets of legs. Raphael wore battered work boots with the cuffs of his worn blue jeans tucked in. Now he turned and walked away a few paces. From the angle she guessed that he was staring out at the prairie and forests beyond the fence. “Ok. Fine. Last night was necessary. Even though we could ill afford to spare the cow-”

  “Henrietta was old; at least she went out in a blaze of glory.”

  “-or the food, even though we put out a welcome mat to every damn unclean creature out there, I will agree that our people’s morale needed the boost. But inviting all those others - the Levvies, the Moores, that weird cult that calls themselves the ‘Goat Children’ or whatever-”

  “‘You shall love your neighbor as you love yourself’. Raph, the best way to get friends is to be friends. And give us some credit.” Demspey’s voice strengthened. “Harmony and I negotiated several new trading contracts last night, including an opportunity to get some of those goats from the Children of the Goat. In addition, we made very sure that our neighbors saw our strength.”

  There was silence for a few moments. A tuft of grass tickled the end of Nowen’s nose and she fought the urge to sneeze. When Raphael spoke again there was begrudging acceptance in his voice. “I wondered why you wanted everyone armed. I’ll...give you that much - it may be possible you know what you’re doing. But you know me; I’ve seen too much bad stuff since the Flux to go into every situation with open arms, singing ‘Kumbaya’.”

  Dempsey laughed and his stolid legs moved over to next to Raphael’s. There came a sound like two chunks of wood slamming together and Raphael staggered forward a few steps. “Now, my old friend, anything else bothering you this beautiful morning?”

  “Yes. The new people.” Nowen tensed, focusing all her attention on the conversation a few feet away. “What are we going to do with them?”

  “Skin them and throw them in the cooking pot, of course.” Nowen dug her claws into the earth. Her wolf hovered on the edge of tearing free. Take down Dempsey, then Raphael, then find Sage and Everett and make for the forest.

  The big man laughed, loud and long. “You know, that gets less and less funny each time you say it.” Raphael’s words carried a distinct touch of disdain. Slowly Nowen relaxed. “You know what I mean. Your first instinct is to take them in. My first instinct is to worry that they’re spies for someone.”

  Another slurping sound, and another whiff of burnt coffee. “Yes. The girl and the man seem nice. And yes, I know appearances can be deceiving.” Dempsey paused, belched, and spoke again. “Still, I feel good about those two. The woman...she is different. And very wary. But only the good Lord knows what those people have been throw since Satan let his unclean loose on the earth. She may well have very good reason to be wary.”

  “Can we take them in, though? Our supplies are stretched to the limit, at least until the first crops come in. And that’s if they come in.”

  “I will let them know they are welcome to stay, if they pull their weight. Raph, all my life I have set my trust in God. I will continue to believe that He will show us the way.”

  Raphael sighed. He kicked the ground and Nowen had to dip her head to one side to avoid the divot of grass that flew her way. A loud whistle split the air and Raphael laughed. “Harmony wants us for something, I’d say.”

  “Oh, yes. I’m not eager to see what it is this time.” The two sets of legs moved away from Nowen. “About the new people, Raph; don’t go looking for trouble where there isn’t any.”

  Nowen waited until she was sure the two men were long gone before she slid out from under the motor home. She looked around; the group at the gate was smaller now but, conversely, more people were moving around inside the fort. She headed back to the fire pit and her companions.

  Nowen found Sage and Everett awake, yawning and bleary-eyed. The blonde woman from last night reached them just as Nowen did; she set a small pot of some pale brown mush on the ground, dropped a couple of spoons in, smiled at Everett, and then vanished back into the fort.

  Nowen crouched next to them. Sage offered her the pot but Nowen wrinkled her nose at the bland smell of overcooked grains. More beef would hit the spot. Or a fresh, very young rabbit. She clasped her hands together and watched Sage and Everett pass the oatmeal back and forth between themselves. When it seemed that their appetite had been sated she spoke.

  “When are we leaving?” At her words their motions stilled. Sage looked quickly up at Nowen and then away, but in that small glance Nowen saw a burning anger. She looked at Everett, who seemed to be avoiding her gaze also. His eye, she noticed, was on Sage. Nowen waited for someone to say something until the uncomfortable silence began to chew on her nerves. Finally she threw her hands up in the air. “Ok, what? What is it?”

  Sage was looking at the horizon, and in the early morning light the girl’s face was a tableau of sorrow. Her dark, dark eyes, however, glowed with a deep-burning fire when she turned them on Nowen. “I don’t want to leave, Nowen.”

  Nowen was conscious of Everett’s gaze on her. “We can’t stay.”

  “Yes. We can. I spoke to Harmony last night, while you were out looking at the fence or whatever.” Each word Sage spoke was calm and deliberate but beneath them an immense anger surged. Nowen’s wolf bristled at the pup’s challenge. “We can stay here, and make a life. All we have to do is pull our own weight.”

  Nowen stared into the girl’s eyes. It seemed very important suddenly to not look away. “We have a job to do. We need to find Vuk, and get rid of him.”

  Sage’s body trembled like an aspen in a storm. “No, Nowen, that’s your job.

  That’s what you want to do.”

  In the small space between their bodies it felt to Nowen like an unknown wild animal had come to crouch there. Everything she and Sage had done since the battle in the churchyard seemed alien and strange now. Slowly she straightened, looking down at the familiar head of wild russet curls. “It’s what we want to do. It has been, ever since Suzannah was killed.” Nowen voice stumbled over her words as she fought for even ground. “Isn’t it?”

  Sage shot upright. In her surprise it was all Nowen could do not to take a step back. The wolf was in Sage’s eyes as the girl spoke. “No. No, it’s always been what you wanted to do, Nowen! You wanted to leave Eli’s place, and you wanted to head north, and you wanted to stay at the ski lodge! Why, of all the times you didn’t give a shit about anyone else’s opinion did you give in that time? Suzan
nah could still be alive, and things could be almost normal again...but no! It won’t be normal, ever again, not even if we stay here, and do you want to know why?!” Tears were running down Sage’s face but her words were harsh and fierce.

  “Because you decided to make me this...this...thing!”

  Shock and confusion sluiced through Nowen’s veins like snow melt. Nothing seemed to make sense, not least of all the words that Sage was saying. “Are you saying you’d rather be dead?”

  Now it was Sage’s turn to look lost. She stared down at her hands, the missing fingers noticeable in their absence. “I think...I would have liked the chance to choose.”

  “There wasn’t time-” Nowen started, but the girl kept talking. “Just the chance to choose. You make the choices, Nowen, and we just - kinda trail along in your wake. Yes, at one time, I wanted to make Vuk pay for Suzannah’s death. But now?” The girl raised her head and looked around the fort. The sunlight set fire to her hair. “I don’t want to spend the rest of my life on the road. I was hoping we would settle some place in the mountains, but this will do just as well.” Sage brought her eyes back to Nowen’s face. This time, there was no sign of the wolf, just a deep and tired humanity. “I want ordinary, or as much as is possible now. I want people to talk to, and people who will talk to me. I want some of those things back that I lost. You can go, if you want. I’m staying.” On those words Sage turned and walked away, disappearing into a passing group of people.

  Nowen looked at Everett. “Does she expect to find all of that here? I don’t understand. We just found this place yesterday, and now Sage is acting like she’s come home. I’m still not satisfied that everything here is on the level.”

  Everett was shaking his head before she’d finished talking. “She laid her argument out pretty effectively, I think.”

  It was all she could do not to bare her teeth. “These people could be dangerous.”

  “If they wanted to kill us, Nowen, they’ve had plenty of opportunity so far!”

  “Then there’s another reason they want us alive.”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know, but I’m going to find out.”

  Everett threw his hands up. “Damn it, Nowen, talking to you sometimes is like arguing with a brick wall. Relax for once.”

  She rounded on the grey-haired man in a fervor. “What am I doing that is so wrong? Being suspicious of strangers? Preferring to stay on the road and away from large groups of people that could do us harm? Trying to protect the members of my pack?”

  Everett looked away, crossing his arms over his chest. “Of course none of those are bad things. But sometimes, you just have to go on faith. I’m being cautious too, you know. I’m also willing to take a chance that there are still good people out there. I don’t know why you can’t just do the same.”

  Nowen snorted. “I haven’t come across that many trustworthy humans.”

  “And how many people have you tried to get to know?”

  She had no answer for that.

  “Look, it hurts nothing to stay for a day or so, if Harmony and Dempsey will let us.” Everett paused, and she could see the effort it took for him to say what he said next. “Don’t tear my throat out for this, ok? Maybe it has to do with your memory loss, but you seem very comfortable with the life of a wolf. Sage is human. She misses those things she once had; so do I. You can’t give her all she needs, Nowen.”

  She looked at him in silence. She heard his words but it was like a foreign language to her; the concept behind mourning lost things made no sense. Or am I the foreign one? If not for Vuk, I would change right now and go home to my mountains, never to leave again. Finally she broke the uncomfortable pause. “Ok.

  I’ll give it a couple of days.”

  Everett grinned. “Thanks. I’m going to go find Harmony or Demspey now and have a talk. Coming?”

  Nowen managed a weak smile in return and motioned for the grey-haired man to take the lead. He turned and headed toward the front gate, where a small group of men and women were gathered. She glanced once at the open prairie beyond the fence, where dew-laden grass shimmered like fire in the sun, and then followed him.

  The middle-aged man wrapped his fingers around a curl of barbed wire and moaned. A stiff breeze flapped the rags of his flannel shirt and corduroy pants around his mold-colored body as he shoved his face into the small gap between fence posts. A piece of wire slid into one of his yellow eyes and the orb deflated, grey liquid draining from the puncture. His lips were gone, eaten away by decay or birds, and in his blue-green-grey face the broken teeth looked enormous.

  Nowen raised her crowbar and jammed one end through the Rev’s forehead. Instantly the unnatural life in the jaundiced eye was gone and the man’s body sagged downward. “Damn.” she whispered. The Rev had been pressed so close to the wire that the barbed points had sunk into his flesh. Nowen worked on the body with the crowbar until finally the rotted thing fell free from the fence. The stink of the undead man rose from his corpse and she wrinkled her nose at the odor.

  Beads of sweat dripped into her eyes and Nowen wiped them away with the back of her gloved hand. The sun was out in force today, just like it had been every day of the past two weeks, and the weather had warmed up considerably. She scrubbed the end of her weapon in the grass to clean away the bits of brains and ichor, then stepped back from the fence. Here, at her designated section near the back of the Fort, the fence was clear of Revs. She pulled a red strip of fabric from her pocket and tied it to the fence. In the next day or so a body removal crew would come along and drag away the Rev.

  The wind picked up suddenly, chilling the sweat on Nowen’s face and bringing to her the clean smells of new grass, pine needles, water, and - fowl? Ptarmigan, or maybe pheasant. Her stomach growled. Meals lately had been a little sparse; the weather may have been acting like spring but the ground was still frozen and the game was few and far between. Hopeful groups of hunters went out every day but returned with little more than a few rabbits and and one old, malnourished deer. At the nightly meetings with the Fort citizens ideas were tossed around, discussed, commented on, and then tabled with no action determined.

  Nowen frowned. It’s a wonder this place is still standing. Her first impressions of the Fort’s populace had been greatly overblown; by her count there were less than a hundred people living here. There was livestock - pigs, chickens, a few cows, and three newly-arrived goats - and a small store of canned goods. Attempts were being made to plow plots of land but between the cold earth and the granite rocks that sprouted like weeds not much progress was being made. From quiet mutterings around the evening fires Nowen had gained the impression that rations had been cut lately. Her own hunger gnawed at her again. Maybe tomorrow I’ll go out with one of the hunting parties. Just gotta figure out a way to make it look like I shot something and not that I chased it down and tore out its throat.

  She heard the faint ringing of a bell. Time for supper, and then the meeting, and then the nothing getting done... Nowen walked along the fence in the direction that would eventually bring her back to the front gates. A rustling in the high grass near a log post revealed a Rev. The thing was so far gone it was almost impossible to call it ‘human’ - just a leather-wrapped skeleton missing everything below the waist. How far have you crawled, I wonder? The Rev raised a mold-colored hand toward her and Nowen drove the crowbar through its hairless head and into the earth.

  Her thrust was harder than she planned and she had to lean against the barbed wire to pull her weapon free of the cold ground. A line of wire suddenly gave way with a twang, curling back on itself and scratching her across the face. Damn it! Nowen jerked the crowbar loose, feeling one of the rough-hewn logs give way slightly beneath her motion. And that’s another thing. The protective fences, logs set vertically and bound together with barbed wire, were coming loose as the earth slowly thawed. Wires were pulling free and gaps were appearing in the walls.

  For a moment Nowen found herself
unable to move. The dreariness of living like the other humans sapped her very strength. She looked to the west, where smooth hills rose gradually to the shadowy and way too distant blue mountains. She wanted to go so badly - anywhere, it didn’t even seem to matter anymore - but she couldn’t. Her wolf or her human side, no idea which, could not let go of her pack members. I’ll try talking to Sage again tonight. If I can find her. The bell rung again and she frowned at the urgency of the sound. Hefting the crowbar to her shoulder she starting walking a little faster toward the gates.

  Even from a couple of hundred yards away Nowen could see the excited swirl of people. She tried to maneuver through the milling crowd but it was impossible; she settled for standing near the fence and drawing on the wolf’s hearing. Someone was shouting at the crowd to quiet down and gradually a semblance of silence fell over the Fort.

  A voice she didn’t recognize rang out from the gate. “Dempsey is back, and he has something to tell us!” Low murmurs raced through the crowd. Dempsey is back? I didn’t even know he was gone. Now the familiar deep rumble of the big man rose above the noise of the people. “I’ve made contact with another group of settlers near Big Horn, and they are interested in trade with us! They have crops, and mechanical equipment, and an actual doctor!” The tumult of the Fort grew a little louder and several minutes passed before Dempsey was able to make himself heard again.

  “But that is not all, my brothers and sisters. Not all by a long shot! Harmony, bring me something to stand on so I share the good news with all!” There was a commotion near the gate and then Dempsey’s massive form rose above the crowd.

  “On my journey back I came across something miraculous! There are angels out in the wasteland, my people, working to cleanse our country and return it to us! They showed me the work of the devil, and the scales fell from my eyes. The unclean risen dead are the blight of Satan but I have seen the true manifestation of his evil works on this earth! I asked these messengers of God Himself to come here and show you all - and they agreed.”