The Howling h-1

by Gary Brandner

  In the cozy back room Oriole put a big pot of coffee on the stove and cleared off an old kitchen table for their game. She produced a worn deck of cards, a pad of paper, and a yellow stub of pencil.

  "The first hand'll be just for practice," Oriole said, "so you can get the hang of it before we start playing for real."

  An hour later Karyn was down $2.80, and Oriole was enjoying herself immensely. Oriole was an aggressive player, if not overly shrewd. Karyn's mind was not on the game.

  "You've lived here a long time, haven't you, Oriole?" she asked as the other woman carefully added up the score of the last hand.

  "All my life."

  "I was wondering…" Karyn hesitated, unsure how to proceed.

  Oriole looked up and her bright little eyes met Karyn's. "Anything at all you want to know about what goes on in Drago, I'm the one can tell you. Not that all that much goes on here."

  Karyn smiled in agreement. "It's not really town gossip I was after. I was just wondering… well, for one thing, why aren't there any pets in Drago? The sheriff said the people here didn't keep many animals, but I haven't seen a single dog or cat on the street."

  Oriole scratched thoughtfully at her nose. "Guess I never thought much about it. Let me see, there's some people named Hemphill on the other side of town from you folks. They keep chickens. Used to, anyway."

  "That's not quite what I meant," Karyn said.

  "Never cared much for dogs and cats myself," Oriole said.

  "Maybe when you're out here closer to nature you don't feel the need to have an animal in the house."

  "Maybe that's it." Oriole scooped up the cards and began to shuffle.

  "Is there much wildlife in the woods around here?" Karyn asked, keeping it casual.

  "We see deer sometimes. Raccoons. Chipmunks, squirrels. That's about it."

  "Nothing… dangerous?"

  "Lordy, no. If you start climbin' the mountains you might run into rattlesnakes, but you won't find them in the woods. It's too cool and damp for rattlesnakes."

  "What about coyotes?"

  "Well, now, I suppose there could be a coyote wander in through the pass once in a while. You get into the high desert just the other side of the mountains, and they got coyotes over there. Why?"

  "I've heard something in the woods at night. Howling. You know Lady, our dog, has disappeared. I wondered if something out there could have got her. Maybe even a wolf?"

  "Well, I don't know nothing about wolves." Oriole began dealing the cards, snapping each one firmly down on the table.

  "I'd like to find out more," Karyn persisted. "Is there a library? Somewhere I could get books?"

  "Not in Drago. Nearest library's over in Pinyon. If you want to call them, they'll send your books over with the mail. Tell 'em you know me and it'll be all right."

  "Thanks, Oriole. If I can use your phone, I think I'll do that right now."

  "In the middle of our game?"

  "I'll be right back. This business has been on my mind, and I'll feel a lot better about it when I've at least done something."

  "Okay, help yourself. The phone's out on the counter next to the register. I'll heat up the coffee."

  Through the operator, Karyn got the number of the library in Pinyon. The librarian there, a Mr. Upshaw, apparently had little to do to keep him busy, and was eager to help Karyn find the kind of books she was looking for, and he said he'd be glad to send them over. They settled on The Wolf by L. David Mech, Never Cry Wolf by Farley Mowat, and World of the Wolf by Russell J. Rutter. All were of recent publication, and all dealt with the wolf in its natural state. For good measure, Karyn asked for the National Geographic book on North American mammals.

  Karyn and Oriole played gin for another hour, during which Karyn lost another two dollars. Oriole cheerfully accepted an I.O.U. and said she hoped they could make their card game a regular thing. Karyn said she hoped so too — if she could afford it — but really was relieved to get away. Oriole Jolivet was cheerful company but she had hardly anything besides gin rummy to talk about.

  Karyn took her time walking back to the house. Rationally she had given up hope of ever seeing Lady again. Still, sometimes she would start at a sudden sound from the woods, thinking it was the bark of a small dog. But it was always something else. Or nothing at all.

  Chapter Seven

  When Karyn came within sight of the house she was surprised to see the Galaxie already parked in front. She had expected Roy to prolong the trip to Los Angeles at least until dark. She was also surprised at her indifference to seeing him. It had never been like that before. Unconsciously she slowed her steps as she neared the house.

  In their year of marriage Karyn had known only pleasure in being with Roy. Now after he had made excuses for leaving her, she found herself wishing he had stayed away longer. She walked on slowly toward the house.

  Roy was moody and distant in his greeting. Since Karyn was not anxious to talk either, she did not press him. They ate an early dinner, preoccupied with their own thoughts. After dinner they sat apart in the living room and pretended to read.

  They both started at the sudden crunch of automobile tires on the gravel outside. Roy shot Karyn a questioning look. She shook her head.

  There was a knock at the door, and Roy crossed the room quickly to answer it.

  Out on the small porch stood a woman carrying a shopping bag. She was tall and thin, with a bony, big-featured face. Her gray hair was indifferently cut; she wore a shapeless tweed suit and heavy-rimmed glasses. The woman smiled at Roy. She had a good smile that softened the lines of her face.

  "Is this where Mrs. Beatty lives?"

  Karyn moved in beside Roy. "I'm Karyn Beatty."

  The woman's smile took in both of them. "Pleased to meet you. My name is Inez Polk. I live over in Pinyon and I happened to be in the library today while Al Upshaw was getting the books together for you."

  Roy turned to Karyn. "What books?"

  "I called the library in Pinyon today from the Jolivets'," Karyn explained quickly. She turned back to the thin woman.

  "I was intrigued by your selection of books," said Inez Polk, "so I offered to drive over here tonight and drop them off."

  "It was kind of you to take the trouble," Karyn said.

  "No trouble at all. I'm glad for the excuse to meet you. The fact is I get bored to death sometimes over in Pinyon. I teach English there to junior high school students who consider it just another dead language. I'll grab any chance I get to talk to somebody new and interesting."

  Inez Polk looked from Karyn to Roy and back again. "If I'm interrupting something, please say so. I appreciate frankness."

  "You're not interrupting a thing," Karyn said. "Please come in. Can I get you a cup of coffee? Or a drink?"

  "Have you any wine?"

  "Burgundy?"

  "A glass of burgundy would be nice." Inez took the four books Karyn had asked for and stacked them on the low table in front of the sofa.

  Roy leaned down and fanned the books so he could read the titles. He looked quizzically at Karyn. "Wolves?"

  Karyn walked past him into the dining alcove, where she poured two glasses of wine from a decanter. "Yes, wolves," she said shortly. "Would you like some wine, Roy?"

  "No, thanks, I think I'll get a little exercise. Take a walk before it gets dark." Roy brushed Karyn's cheek with his lips, said goodbye to Inez, and left the house hastily. Like a man set free, Karyn thought.

  She carried the wine back into the living room and sat down on the sofa with Inez. In a very short time the two women were chatting warmly. Inez Polk was intelligent and witty, and shared a surprising number of Karyn's interests and opinions. It had been a long time since Karyn had felt completely relaxed with a stranger. By the time she refilled the wineglasses they were fast friends.

  "So what is it with you and the wolves?" Inez said, getting around to her reason for coming.

  "You won't laugh?"

  "Try me," Inez said. Her express
ion was dead serious.

  Karyn told her about the howling in the woods; how it was far off at first, and quite close the night Lady had disappeared. She told Inez about Roy's skepticism and the sheriff's explanation that it was coyotes.

  "And you think there's a wolf out there?" Inez asked.

  "I don't know. It sounded like a wolf to me. If that's what got my dog, it had to be as big as a wolf. Lady was no fighter, but I don't believe a coyote would attack her."

  "And nobody else has mentioned a wolf?"

  "No."

  "Mm-hmm. Well, maybe there's a clue in those books?"

  Both Karyn and Inez were quick scan-readers. They divided the library books and went through them, and soon they had learned more about wolves than they really wanted to know.

  From the several species discussed they chose the gray, or timber wolf, Canis lupus, as the most likely. This wolf, they read, was the largest found in America — as big as five feet long, including eighteen inches of tail. Some huge specimens had been found in Canada weighing 175 pounds.

  Wolves were fierce fighters and exceptionally intelligent, with a diet consisting primarily of smaller animals, but when hunting in packs they could pull down prey much larger than themselves.

  The most significant fact the women found was that, except for a few hundred hanging on in the forests of northern Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, there were no wild wolves left in the United States.

  "What do you think then, Inez? Could it have been a coyote I heard? Or an owl, for God's sake?"

  The thin woman was silent for a minute while she appeared to organize her thoughts. Finally she said, "No, it wasn't any coyote. Or an owl, either."

  "Was it in my head, then?"

  "No, you heard something, all right."

  Karyn studied the other woman for a moment. "You never did tell me why my ordering books about wolves brought you out here tonight. You have some idea what this is all about, don't you?"

  "Yes," Inez said slowly. "I have an idea."

  "Well, come on, let's hear it."

  "Let me tell you a little about myself first. I am thirty-nine years old, never been married, and live alone with my potted plants, which I do not talk to, no matter how great the temptation. Every summer I take a trip somewhere alone, meet nobody worth knowing, and come back alone. I read a lot and I have a good collection of classical records."

  "Inez, I — " Karyn began.

  "No, I am not making a bid for sympathy. I like my life the way it is. Aside from a certain lack of intellectual stimulation, I like living in Pinyon. However, people there think I'm a little odd. Not dangerous odd, but kind of amusing odd."

  "What makes you think so?" Karyn said.

  "You haven't heard it all yet," Inez interrupted. "For one thing, I used to be a nun."

  "A nun?" Karyn repeated.

  "Yes, I was a Carmelite. There are quite a few of us failed nuns around today. Unlike most of the others, I didn't leave because of any argument with the Church. In my case it was a personal matter."

  Karyn studied the angular woman and tried to visualize her in the traditional nun's habit. Inez simply did not have the round, soft face that one associated with the cloister.

  "You're not going to tell me I don't look like a nun?" Inez said, smiling.

  Karyn laughed. "As a matter of fact, that's just what I was thinking. Anyway, you were telling me about why you are interested in wolves."

  "That's the point I'm leading up to. My interest is not exactly in wolves. You see, I've lived in Pinyon for eleven years, and with a lot of spare time I made a kind of hobby out of local history. Before long I noticed a strange pattern of occurrences in and around Drago. I was intrigued because the pattern seemed to tie in with my other hobby."

  "Which is?" Karyn prompted.

  Inez drew a deep breath before she answered. "Diabolus."

  "The devil?"

  "You think it's an unusual study for a former nun? Let me tell you, Karyn, that a belief in God requires a counterbelief in Satan. You must know your enemy before you can defeat him."

  Karyn stared in amazement. "All right, Inez," she said, hesitantly, making an effort at reason, "but what has… Diabolus to do with me and Drago? Are you saying it's the Devil who is howling in the woods?"

  "No, not the Devil himself." Inez Polk's eyes fell away for a moment, then returned, bright behind their lenses, to meet Karyn's gaze. "I think," she said, "that Drago has a werewolf."

  Chapter Eight

  Karyn stared at Inez for a full ten seconds after her shocking suggestion, waiting for some indication that she was joking.

  "You're serious, aren't you?" Karyn said finally.

  "Deadly serious. Karyn, before you close your mind, please hear me out. Do you know anything about werewolves?"

  "Do you mean lycanthropy?"

  "No, that's just what I don't mean. Lycanthropy is a disease, a form of mental illness in which the victim imagines himself to be a wolf. He acts like a wolf, losing the power of speech, running around on all fours, growling, and eating raw meat."

  "But isn't that what a werewolf is, really?"

  "No. A werewolf is a human being who actually, physically, changes into a wolf."

  Karyn shook her head. "Inez, I just can't relate to this. We're two grown, reasonably intelligent women. And here we sit discussing werewolves as calmly as though we were talking about fruit flies." Karyn continued very slowly, reasonably. "Inez, you were a nun. As far as I know you're still a Catholic. How can you say these things?"

  "Nothing I have said is contrary to the precepts of the Church. If I accept the existence of God as Good, I must also accept the existence of Evil. That's capital-E Evil. Call it whatever you want to — Satan, the Devil, the Anti-christ."

  "Do you mean that werewolves and the Devil are one and the same?"

  "No. The werewolf is a servant of the Devil. No one becomes a werewolf by chance. It's like witchcraft. In return you pledge your everlasting soul."

  "People willingly become werewolves?"

  "Once it was not at all uncommon. In the Middle Ages life could be an ugly, painful existence if you were very poor, and the price of your soul did not seem too much to pay for the powers of the werewolf."

  "But today surely there can't be people still making deals with the Devil."

  "Not many, I imagine. Not in the old way."

  "Then where would a modern werewolf come from?"

  "The curse is passed on to succeeding generations. Unless the line is wiped out, there is no end."

  "So to be a werewolf, you either have to make a pact with the Devil, or have a werewolf for a parent." Karyn was trying to be sarcastic, but it did not come out that way.

  "There is another way," Inez said.

  "What is that?" This is going too far, Karyn thought. I must stop humoring her.

  "The bite of a werewolf, if it does not kill, can infect the victim with the taint. These cases are rare, because when a werewolf attacks, he usually kills. A blessing, in a way."

  "I need a drink," Karyn said. "Do you want some more wine?"

  "No, thank you."

  Karyn went into the kitchen and made herself a strong Scotch and water. The way Inez was talking worried her, but she did not know how to ease away from the subject. She took a deep swallow of the drink before going back out.

  "I can see I'm upsetting you," Inez said when Karyn came into the room.

  "I'm sorry, Inez. I'm trying to listen seriously to what you're saying. But werewolves."

  "Why is it so hard to accept? Don't we travel to the moon? Destroy cities with the force of the atom? Transplant organs from one human being to another?"

  "But those are achievements of science. What you're talking about is superstition."

  Inez's expression of utter conviction did not change.

  Karyn took another approach. "All right, just for now let's say that these things do exist. Why here? Why in the Tehachapi Mountains of California? Why Drago?"
>
  "The history of the town, for one thing," said Inez. "In the sixty-plus years that Drago has been in existence there have been an unreasonable number of strange deaths and unexplained disappearances in and around the village. I have books at home. Documents, records, newspaper clippings. I would have brought them with me tonight, but I didn't know you. I didn't know if I should bring up the subject."

  "You still don't know me, Inez. I don't believe in your werewolves or your Devil or your God, and I don't want to hear any more about them." Karyn stopped abruptly as she heard herself turning shrill.

  Inez looked as though she had been slapped. "I'm sorry, Karyn. Please believe that I'm sorry. I had given up talking to people about this because I knew they would think I was crazy. As I told you, they already think I'm odd. I can just imagine their reaction if I told them there is a werewolf at large in Drago. I took a chance on telling you because I sensed a sympathetic feeling between us. The last thing I wanted to do was upset you."

  "Shall we drop it?" Karyn said. "I don't want to talk about it anymore." She placed her empty glass firmly on the table.

  "I understand." Inez looked around uncertainly. "Well… I should be going."

  Karyn walked with her to the door. "Inez, I didn't mean to snap at you. My nerves haven't been in the best shape lately. Please don't take it personally."

  The taller woman touched her hand. "Really, it's all right. Goodbye, Karyn."

  Karyn stood at the door watching Inez Polk walk to her car and drive away. Then she turned back and saw the books Inez had brought her from the library. For some reason she felt like crying.

  Chapter Nine

  As Roy Beatty approached the village of Drago, he breathed deeply of the balsam-scented air. He was relieved to be away from Karyn and her hangups, even for a little while. And because he felt relieved, he was twisted by guilt. Karyn was his wife. Now, when she was having problems, was no time for him to be making up excuses to go to Los Angeles, or to be rushing out of the house the minute somebody else showed up to take over the burden of keeping her company.