Full Wolf Moon

by K. L. Nappier

  "Yep."

  "You must have seen your life pass."

  Max took a breath. "The wolf had become a man-eater for Who-knows-what-reason. It'd made several kills in Alderquest, near the Fort. Needless to say, the townspeople were in a panic. A few of us volunteered to help the civilians hunt it down."

  "Isn't that strange behavior for a wolf? I don't know myself, it's just that I read somewhere..."

  "I understand it is. There was a veterinarian that made rounds through the county. He was sure the wolf was rabid." Maxwell smiled. "But the group of old backwoodsmen I wound up hunting with were convinced Alderquest had a werewolf."

  Mrs. Tebbe leveled a doubtful look at him. "You can't be serious."

  "They were, Mrs. Tebbe. There were four of us... I was the kid there at forty. The youngest after me was sixty-two. They even had special cartridges made up with silver casings..." Mrs. Tebbe laughed and that startled Max, but he managed to smile. "I'm not making this up. These old boys insisted I use them. I figured, sure, what the heck. We were after a man-eater and if silver cartridges gave them a boost in confidence, what could it hurt?"

  Then came the image and he lost his humor, he lost his smile. His palms felt slick, as if they were bleeding.

  "It was our party that found the wolf. Or maybe it found us. It didn't look ... surprised. We broke into a clearing in the forest and it was just standing there, facing us. You'd think it was waiting..."

  Max looked at Mrs. Tebbe but he was only dimly aware of her face, tense with attention. He swallowed and said, "It was enormous. It was the most awful and most beautiful thing I'd seen in my life. And I believe ... no, I know the others were thinking the same thing. The pelt looked like brushed silver, and the eyes... I can't come close to the eyes, how to describe them."

  He had to stop a moment, rub his palms against his trousers. "I suppose it was those eyes that froze us once we'd come upon it. It was on the old man in front of me before any of us lifted a rifle. Like it already knew who to take. I had no idea an animal could move that fast. Not a hesitation, not a glance at the rest of us. Just ripped through and..." Maxwell caught his breath, stopping himself short from telling her what the wolf had done to the old man in a matter of seconds, just before: "It came for me."

  "Oh, my God..."

  "I'm not sure if I raised my rifle or if it discharged from the force of the blow. But I remember...I remember the inside of the wolf's mouth, feeling its breath on my eyes...then red. Lots of red, lots of noise. I guess I opened my eyes... my head was resting on one of the old men's laps... the wolf was a few feet away with a hole through its chest..."

  Maxwell touched his temple. "My vision was 20/20 before the wolf attack. The doctors think it's related to the head wound. The wolf tore back my scalp, cracked the skull..."

  Mrs. Tebbe closed her eyes and put a hand to her mouth.

  "I'm sorry," he said, quickly. "I don't know why I told you that. You can see the scar, I didn't need to..."

  The image of the dead woodsman flashed across his mind again, and he felt a surge of nausea.

  "Don't be, Captain," Mrs. Tebbe replied. "Really. Here..." She handed him the napkin he'd discarded on the table. "You're sweating."

  Max looked into the mirror and saw the streams flowing down his face. He mopped at his forehead, embarrassed, wondering why he hadn't realized he'd been perspiring so heavily. He pulled off his glasses, polished them reflexively, then gestured toward his eyes and tried to smile.

  "Cost me five years worth of favors and the promise of my right arm when I retire," he said, hoping to lighten the mood. "But I managed to convince the brass to keep me."

  The attack also cost him the hope of ever getting a truly plum post. But those aspirations weren't important to him anymore. After all that had happened to him, he had acquired a fondness for the remote.

  After an awkward moment, it was Mrs. Tebbe who said, "Well. I need to get back. Thank you, Captain, for joining me."

  "It's been a pleasure." Maxwell reached for the check but, to his surprise, Mrs. Tebbe was quicker, snatching it up.

  "Now, now, Captain. I did the inviting, remember?"

  Maxwell's cheeks flushed. "Mrs. Tebbe, how can I allow--"

  "Come on, Captain. Compliments of the War Relocation Authority. If you must save your male ego, leave the tip."

  "I...well. If you put it that way."

  Max stood with Mrs. Tebbe and fumbled in his pockets long enough for her to gather her things and walk toward Mr. Yow, waiting by the cash register. He didn't have any change left and would have to over tip with a paper dollar. He didn't want Mrs. Tebbe thinking he was a spend thrift. He'd given up the last of his coins for the cabby's tip, a roll and half of pennies. The cabby had given him a squinty, perplexed look, something Max had become accustomed to and had even developed an answer for: "Sorry. I couldn't make it to the bank in time to change them."

  The truth was, since the attack, he never kept any coins except copper. Just the touch of silver made his skin crawl.

  Chapter 2

  Tulenar Internment Camp

  Twenty Miles North of Disjunction Lake

  Eastern California

  Morning. Second Quarter Moon.

  Doris raised the bow, sighted, took a deep breath and held it...then released the arrow. It struck just short of the bull's eye. The next one struck slightly further from the goal. The third hit the mark true.

  Over her shoulder, Doris heard, "Wow."

  She turned to Maxwell Pierce, knowing she was hiding her irritation poorly, but apparently, the captain didn't notice. Without asking permission, he walked toward the target until he was close enough to see her shots, one finger to his glasses as he peered at the arrows.

  "Where'd you learn to do that?" he asked as he walked back.

  She returned her attention to the bow. "At Sarah Lawrence."

  She sighted, repeated her ritual and fell far short of the mark. Damn, she hated it when strangers watched her shoot. It was what kept her off varsity. She set her bow and quiver on the folding chair she used as a stack table and jacket hanger, then turned to Lakeside's new commander.

  "You're here early. How're the first days going? Settled into your new office?" She removed her arm brace and protective half-vest.

  "All settled."

  "I phoned Eshelmann yesterday to say bon-voyage. He never sounded better."

  "You two didn't get along very well, did you?"

  "No." Doris tossed the leather garb onto the chair, then grabbed her suit jacket. Tugging it on, she asked, "Did Harriet tell you I was out back?"

  "I saw you as I left my car."

  "How was your drive from Lakeside?"

  "It seems longer than half an hour."

  "Sometimes it does." As she escorted the captain to the administration building, she said, "Well, come in, Captain, and we'll start the tour."

  The C.O.'s driver was lighting a Chesterfield as he sat on the back steps, but he stood quickly and held the door open for them. Doris escorted Pierc through the broad rectangle of building, walking as diagonally as possible through the sprawl of desks and folding tables. The supervisors, the social workers, the secretaries -all civilian, mostly internees- were even more exposed than Lakeside's personnel. Here at Tulenar, the only true office belonged to the Center Administrator.

  They were near the main entrance now and Harriet Haku looked up briefly from her typing as they came up behind her, then set back to it. Doris tapped the secretary's desk and said, "Get us a couple of coffees, okay?"

  Doris and the captain walked into her barren, wooden office, its walls jutting outside the building's main frame like an afterthought. She was determined to resist the comforts she had in storage until the evacuees had a few comforts of their own. She knew other Center Administrators were not of the same mind, and she considered that poor judgment. Only the necessities were here; desk, chairs, a picture of her late husband and a file cabinet filled with information that would be mundane outs
ide the camp confines.

  "Sorry we're so Spartan," she said perfunctorily as she settled behind her desk.

  The captain pulled one of the two straight-backed chairs to the side of it. "It's the same at Lakeside."

  "It's bad for attitudes, this empty space. Still, I've never seen the government move so fast. Once the Relocation was decided, the camps almost sprang up overnight. They never went into action like that while I was politicking. If they'll only be as quick now for the internees' needs, we might have an element of respect to find from our 'residents'."

  She didn't disguise her contempt for that euphemism.

  "You have a political career, Mrs. Tebbe?"

  "No, my husband did. He was a senator..."

  "Not the late Abel Tebbe?"

  She reached to his picture and turned it so the captain could see. "The same. And so you can get your focus back, I'll get rid of that question bulging behind your brow. Yes, Captain, there was a twenty-five year difference between us." She turned the picture back to its usual place. "But, even before I married, I was politically active. When I started squeaking my wheel for involvement in the camps, the powers-that-be thought they'd found the perfect spot to keep me happy and out of their hair." She smiled. "'Best laid plans', as they say."

  "I'm sorry..."

  "Excuse me?"

  "About your husband's passing. I'm sorry."

  It took a moment for the captain's words to register. The thought of her widowhood seemed to genuinely affect him.

  "Well...thank you, Captain, but... if you're familiar with my late husband, then you must know he died almost ten years ago."

  She thought Pierce was about to say more, but he didn't. Thankfully, Harriet knocked on the door and entered with the coffee service, setting it on the desk between Doris and the captain.

  Doris was already standing, pouring her own cup, as she said, "Grab your poison, Captain, and we'll get started."

  / / / /

  From the hills where the Center Administration Building and WRA officials'living quarters perched, the bulk of Tulenar Internment Camp could be viewed. The ground was raw, flat and brown beneath the tarpaper barracks, divided into blocks of fourteen. There was activity at the camp's perimeters, where the fence was being erected, and the M.P.'s motored slowly along their posts in hoodless Jeeps, keeping clear of the construction. The buses with the day's transferees had not arrived yet, so the goings-on in the camp were reasonably languid as people moved about. By eleven o'clock, that would change.

  The captain looked amazed as he gazed out at Tulenar's sprawl. "I knew the numbers. I came here prepared for the size of the camp, but...seeing it...it's like a small town..."

  Doris nodded. "Almost a thousand souls here already, Captain." She pointed to the closest set of buildings. "Each block has smaller, central buildings that hold the laundry, latrines and lavatories. Most also have at least two buildings that function as churches. Or temples. A lot of the elderly internees are Shintoist, of course, and you might as well know now, Captain. I don't much like the official policy of prohibiting Shinto worship in the camps."

  Pierce's reply was expected. Standard issue. But the lack of rigidity in his manner was not. "I'm sure you understand, Mrs. Tebbe, there's a risky aura to Shinto practice, oriented to emperor worship as it is. A religious practice that deifies the leader of an enemy nation, innocent as that practice may be, could be misinterpreted in confines like these. And times like these. I sympathize with your frustration, but I have to officially support that policy. However...suppose a Shintoist family, or a group of friends, have a get-together to discuss... oh, say... comparative religion. Perhaps they study rituals that relate to that topic...on an academic level, of course."

  He shrugged, and Doris understood. Given a viable way out, if no trouble came of it, he would look the other way. Okay. A good sign. There might be a difference or two between Pierce and Eshelmann after all.

  She cleared her throat, relaxed a little and brought Pierce's attention back to the nearest block. "A block houses two-hundred-and-fifty. This one's mess hall is the structure on the east end. The residents there are some of the 'veterans' of the camp. They've been here since late May, early June, and have their recreation hall pretty well established."

  "Where's the hospital?"

  "That's the double-sized, two story 'tar' at the far side of the camp. Can you see it?"

  "Yes, of course. The schools...?"

  "Elementary and high are side-by-side at the southern end of the southern most block. I'm sorry, Captain, about that clumsy question, you being able to see. I didn't mean --"

  "No offense taken, Mrs. Tebbe."

  There was a moment of awkwardness, then Doris said, "Well, let's go for a walk around one of the blocks."

  It might have seemed easy to use the standard, black sedan issued to her by the WRA. But it was bad judgment, the way Doris saw it, to drive into camp unless she had to cover a lot of ground in a small amount of time. Only WRA and military personnel were permitted to have motor vehicles. But even if it didn't make the Center red more conspicuous, driving was simply uncomfortable. The tires spewed suffocating, red clouds that engulfed the car in seconds.

  As it was now, dust swirled with every step. She felt the grit in her mouth, all the damn, inescapable dust that was as much a part of her offices and tarpaper house as it was the evacuees'. She was more aware of it when she came into the camp, though; that, and the early morning quiet. But there was always a sense of quiet in the camp, even when the place bustled. It's the undercurrent, Doris thought, the disorientation of displacement mixed with the all-too-clear understanding of what's happening.

  They walked past a few women doing the first sweep of the day, the dust billowing like smoke out their doors; past children dressed in fresh, crisp clothes already powdered with a light, reddish coating. Between two barracks, some men were picking pieces of lumber from one of the scrap piles; leftovers from camp construction.

  "By tomorrow that lumber will be serviceable furniture," Doris explained when the captain asked. "Uncle Sam isn't providing much more than food and shelter yet. Presently there are four families to each barracks. They don't have much privacy, but we hope to build solid partitions between each family as soon as more materials come in. Right now, they have to make do by stringing blankets across rope. We're encouraging tree planting, flowers...but, of course, that's not uppermost in their minds at this stage. For the time being, they're just trying to get some sort of organization back into their lives."

  "Do you have many professionals in the camp, Mrs. Tebbe? Doctors, professors...?"

  "Some --"

  "What are they doing now?"

  "What everyone else is doing, Captain. A few have filled out applications to work in their fields, but really everyone is just trying to get settled."

  "May I make a suggestion?"

  She didn't want to say, yes, of course, but she did.

  "You may consider encouraging the professionals to concentrate on career-related matters," the captain said. "Let the others take up what slack there might be while the professionals focus on the schools, hospital, what-have-you. Your residents are feeling pretty dazed by what's happened, I assume..."

  "While you're at it, assume they're worried and bitter."

  "Giving the professionals tasks equal to them might help diffuse some of that. They'll likely emerge as the leaders here. Getting them occupied as soon as you can might expedite organization."

  Captain Pierce stopped and looked around. "Sad business. Sad, sad business," he said.

  Doris had to admit, the tone of his voice seemed genuine. So did the concern in his face. And his advice was sound, if obvious. She was already working on that angle, though she hadn't particularly thought about the professionals as leaders.

  But she doubted the captain understood the opposing dynamics of the camp: the Nisei, Japanese-Americans, and the Issei, the Japanese Nationals. Already there was tension growing between the older
generations in the camp -Issei, mostly - and their Nisei counterparts, virtually all in their twenties or younger.

  Balancing two traditions was tricky enough in normal times, let alone these. And the tension was only made worse by the lack of middle-aged men, who were taken practically en masse to the nearest federal prisons months before the Relocation. With rare exception, none had yet been transferred. There were the women of the camp, of course, mostly the wives or relatives of the absent men. But to even consider women as social leaders would be anathema to the Issei, especially the eldest among them. Without the middle generation of men, the very young and the very old had few mediators.

  "Your suggestion is sound to you or me, Captain, but the evacuees see leadership in a different way."