Max looked at Mrs. Tebbe just as her face tilted upward and her knees buckled. Max moved a fraction of a second faster than David to go to her aid, but Mrs. Tebbe stumbled back and thrust both hands toward them as if warding off an onslaught.
"Stay away," she demanded in a voice surprisingly strong. Somehow, she had staid on her feet. "I'm not going anywhere. Just don't either of you touch me."
Chapter 35
David Alma Curar's Shack
Morning. Waxing Gibbous, Nearing Full Moon.
Doris wasn't sure what had awakened her first: the smell of coffee, the pounding of something being nailed or the gentle nudging at her shoulder. They all seemed to come at once. She propped up on one elbow and looked into Pierce's bespectacled eyes.
"David asked me to wake you before the hammering did," he said.
From her place on the floor, the shack gained a little height. The men had insisted she have the mattress from one of the cots; thin, but better sleeping than the captain's bedroll or the metal webwork of the narrow bed, padded with blankets.
Doris sat up, clad only in blouse and slip, but modesty in such close quarters was inconvenient. There was privacy enough in turning her back to the men as she pulled on her skirt, leaving the girdle and those oh-so-rare stockings where they lay rolled in a corner. She would be changing clothes soon, anyway, would be back in flannel and dungarees. Likewise, she didn't bother to fix her hair into the snood, balled and bunched against her discarded lingerie. She finger-combed her hair as best she could, tying it into a ponytail with some twine.
Tucking her blouse into the skirt's waistband, she turned to see what Mr. Alma Curar was hammering. Upon the weathered wallboard to the right of the doorjamb, he was nailing thin silver plating, each sheet about two inches wide and twelve inches long. She helped herself to the coffee and watched in silence as he finished up that board, then began lining another, leaving one board bare between.
She looked over at Pierce, in jeans, his plaid shirt unbuttoned, exposing his undershirt. He sat on his skeletal cot. He was edgy, though obviously trying to remain calm. His forehead had a fine sheen of perspiration. The place where he sat was the farthest point from the silver- lined wallboard.
Alma Curar stopped hammering a moment to face Doris. "If you don't mind," he said, "there's a small mallet in the chest. We need to line the interior with silver. Every other board should do."
Doris set her cup down. She looked at Pierce again, and thought about asking if he were all right. The best she could manage was, "You look like you need some air."
He shook his head and raked his fingers over the bright silver fluffs at his temples.
Alma Curar said to him, "Why don't you take charge of breakfast then, Max. You'll feel better doing something."
The captain looked down at his hands and rubbed his left thumb across his right palm. "Sure," he finally said, and stood.
/ / / /
The day was well into the afternoon before Doris and Alma Curar were finished silvering the shack. The interior walls were columned in the pale metal, every other board, and the two windows were blocked by wooden X's, likewise silvered. The plating wasn't polished to mirror perfection like the jewelry that constantly graced Alma Curar's wrists and throat. The wall's silver was in basic, tooling form so its luster was hazy, reflecting a muted glow on everything.
Perhaps it was this haze that made Pierce seem so pale. Clad now in her camping garb, Doris nailed the last plating against the door and turned to see his moist, pasty face, a hint of blue beneath his magnified eyes.
"You really do need to get some air now," she said.
"I can handle it," he replied.
Mr. Alma Curar straightened from stuffing his hammer and leftover nails into a burlap sack. "She's right, Max. There's no need for you to suffer like this right now. Why don't you go for a walk."
The captain looked at them both as though he thought they might be trying to trick him. But finally he said, "All right," and left the shack without so much as buttoning his shirt.
Doris took the mallet over to the healer and handed it to him. "Now what?"
"Now I suggest target practice. I don't want to silver the floor and table until tomorrow."
"Good Lord, even the table? What for?"
"We'll use it to shield ourselves and block the door."
Doris didn't ask for more details, something Alma Curar obviously noticed. He said, "You don't seem very curious about why we're doing all this."
"I'm not sure I want to know."
"Well ... you'll need to know. But it can wait until tonight."
/ / / /
They ate supper outside around a fire, to give the captain as much time as possible away from the silvered interior of the shack. The sun had set an hour ago, leaving behind a remnant of orange to struggle against the press of night. There was no sign, yet, of the moon.
Their meal was eaten in silence. They all knew what had to be discussed and it seemed the men were as reluctant to begin as Doris. Most of her after-dinner coffee was drunk before the first words were spoken. They came from Pierce.
"I have to stay in there tonight, don't I?" he said, addressing Alma Curar.
The healer nodded, the gesture shifting the effects of the fire light against his face. "If you want to call it sleep. I doubt any of us will be getting much. Tomorrow we'll complete the work early, try to rest as much as possible in the afternoon. Then tomorrow at sunset...I'm going to chain you, Max, to your cot."
Doris's eyes darted between the men. She expected Pierce to look stricken, but the mix of resolve and resignation in his face told her this was something already discussed between he and Alma Curar.
She cleared her throat and asked, "You made silver-plated chains to hold him?"
Alma Curar almost smiled. "Silver or otherwise, the chains won't hold him long. The silver hurts, Mrs. Tebbe, but it's not deadly unless it finds a vital organ. The chains are to keep him from changing his mind. Once the sun sets on First Night, anything can happen. Mrs. Tebbe, I have something for you."
Alma Curar left the circle to go into the shack. When he returned, he was cupping something in his hands. He sat down again and gave her his small cargo: a silver choker and two polished silver wristbands, beautifully tooled, seeded with turquoise. The choker was plainer but still polished and curiously graceful, rather like an elaborate dog collar. All the jewelry was over two inches wide.
"You need to start wearing them now. Don't take them off until this is all over."
"They're lovely," Doris replied awkwardly, even though she knew they were given as armor rather than gifts. She examined them more closely in the firelight.
Alma Curar looked amused. Captain Pierce looked away.
"Thank you," the healer said. "I didn't have much time to tool the choker, but then its function is to be protective, not decorative."
Doris slipped on the wristbands. "Did you make these, too?"
Alma Curar sobered. "Yes, quite a few years ago." He turned his gaze to the fire. "They were my wife's."
A pall fell over the threesome. Pierce was watching Alma Curar frankly, but Doris couldn't fix her eyes on either man for long. The healer cleared his throat and took the choker from Doris's hands. He opened the choker against its little hinge and was about to bring it to Doris's neck when Pierce said, "Let me."
Doris pulled away in surprise. The healer cocked his head as if unsure he heard the captain correctly.
"Let me do it," Pierce repeated. "If I may...Mrs. Tebbe."
"But ...Captain..."
Pierce was already moving closer, and he held out his hand tentatively, as if daring to touch his fingers to flame. Gently Alma Curar lay the choker in the captain's outstretched palm, where even in the dimness of fire glow against night, the pentagram could be seen. As soon as the silver touched his skin, Pierce began to tremble.
Still he held his own, gritting his teeth as he clutched the choker in both hands, managing in spite of the tremors
to set it against Doris's throat, where he fastened it. By the time he was finished, sweat was trickling from his scarred hairline. For a lingering moment, he rested his damp fingers against her breastbone, just below the silver, then left the circle abruptly.
"Captain...!"
Alma Curar touched Doris's arm, reassuring. "I think he'll be all right. Let's give him his moment. It will be the last time we can let him out of our sight."
Doris strained to see the captain through the night's veil. "But he might do something stupid..."
"I don't think so. He's come too far. We'll give him five minutes."
Tense, her wrists straining against the silver bands, Doris set her elbows against her knees and stared into the fire a moment, then squeezed her eyes shut to wish, wish, wish that when she opened them, she would be at Tulenar. In her bed in the morning, startled awake from this nightmare.
She could get up, go to the administration building, chance upon Mr. Ataki as he headed to a block manager's meeting. Mrs. Tamura, still clad in crisp nurse's white, could just be leaving the Social Services Division after submitting a stack of routine medical reports.
And when Doris walked into her office, Arthur could already be seated, waiting for her. Smiling for her.
"Full Wolf Moon."
Doris's eyes snapped open at the sound of Alma Curar's voice. The fire's smoke wafted across her face to sting them. She pulled back and wiped her hand across her eyes, then hesitated when she saw the dull sheen of the pentagram in her palm. She clinched her fist and pressed it against her leg.
"What was that you said?" she asked.
Alma Curar stared at the fire, took the thick stick they had been using as a poker and pushed one of the logs deeper into the flames.
"Full Wolf Moon," he repeated. "It just came to mind. Something I was once told by a friend. Nez Perce Nation. She'd said that was the name of the moon in deep winter, at its coldest and cruelest. When the wolves would leave the forests and press the camps of the people."
It was everything Doris could do not to groan. She picked up her coffee cup and drank, even though it was cold. "It's no good trying to cheer me up, Mr. Alma Curar."
The healer actually chuckled, but the humor was short lived. The night weighed too heavily on them.
"What's going to happen tomorrow?" Doris asked at last.
"We'll finish silvering the shack," Alma Curar replied. "The idea is to trap the beast inside, at the first moment of emergence. You and I will be blocking the door, with the table shielding us. It's my hope that all this silver will confound the beast, addle it, give us the advantage in striking. If all goes well, the actual killing may only be a matter of minutes."
"If we do it right, what happens then?"
"At the appropriate time, the beast should disintegrate and Max should return. But the timing will be delicate."
"What if we do it wrong?"
"We'd better not."
"What about... I mean, you've not once mentioned the wound, Mr. Alma Curar. If we strike true, how will we care for it? Shouldn't we have a medical kit, at least?"
Once again, her questions seemed to amuse the healer. "One way or the other, we won't be needing a medical kit. This won't be pretty and this won't be easy, under any circumstance. You understand that."
"You haven't taken me for a fool so far, Mr. Alma Curar. Don't start now."
A crackle off to the right jerked their attention away. The captain emerged from the cool, inky gloom of night. Doris actually wanted to say, "Welcome back," and would have. But she spied the brilliant, round globe almost clear of the tree line, directly above Pierce's head. One sliver more, and the moon would be full.
Chapter 36
Alma Curar's Shack
Twilight. Full Moon.
Doris is clutching the ropes again, struggling against their pull, the sockets in her shoulder burning, screaming, threatening. Hold on! Hold on!
He whispers to her from behind, What are you trying to do, Doris?
"The right thing! I'm just trying to do the right thing!"
Do you even know what that means?
And it occurs to her that she doesn't. She doesn't know what she means. She doesn't know anything.
"I just have to hold them, I have no choice, I've got to hang on!"
Hang on to what, Doris? Hang on and why?
She can't answer. The ropes jerk her attention to them and she doesn't dare think of anything except to hold them, even as she feels her left shoulder pop and begin pulling from her. She cries out, feels sweat and blood trickle down her ribs and then shrieks -shrieks! -to feel an iron arm wrap her waist, another bind her between her breasts, trying to wrest her from the ropes and she clutches them more furiously than before...
The dream lurched Doris forward and she jolted awake in a panic. David Alma Curar had his hand on her shoulder.
"It's all right, Mrs. Tebbe, you just dozed off."
She was still disoriented, her senses tilted off center by a tense, virtually sleepless night. So it took a moment to remember where she was, to recall that she was sitting cross-legged behind the protection of the silver plated table, turned on its side, pinning her and Alma Curar between its bulk and the door.
She looked around and the realization of where she was and what was about to happen filled her stomach with nausea. "Oh God..."
All around her was the silver's hazy glow. On the walls, in the windows, on the floor, on her body. In addition to the wristbands and collar, silver plating criss-crossed her, lying against her half-vest like ammunition belts. Alma Curar's chest was done likewise.
And beyond them, in the corner farthest from the door lay Captain Pierce, stretched spread eagle upon a cot, his wrists and ankles chained, a sheet draping his groin. Glasses off, he was staring directly at the ceiling, the only space blessedly left unsilvered.
She tore her eyes from the sight and swivelled to look at the window near the door. The glass behind the cross of silver was deepening into indigo.
"Oh God," she said again and leaned her forehead against the shielding table.
"Come here," she heard Alma Curar say brusquely, but she couldn't respond. "Come here," he said again, and this time pulled her away from the table and held her tight against him. She held tight, too, clutching great bunches of his bright red shirt in her fists, burying her face in his shoulder, feeling him do the same, mystified by the emotion suddenly surging through her. A strength fused into being by their mutual fear, the singular grace of human need blazing as they so tightly clung, one to the other.
She heard a sob and knew the captain was watching, despairing that he was alone, chained in his corner, devoid of such precious contact. God, that she could go to him, she and Alma Curar.
The healer pulled away just enough so that she could see his face again. "Listen to me," he was saying, "listen to me. We should have moon rise in about half an hour. Are you all right?"
Doris almost laughed. "All right? Of course not! But I'm ready. I'm ready, David."
He cupped her neck and smiled before sobering once again. "Take up your bow now. I'm going over to see about Max."
As David stepped over the table, Doris picked up her bow from where it had lain beside her, took three deep breaths to calm her tremors and readied an arrow. She saw David reach down to the holstered gun at his thigh and undo the leather strap securing it in place as he tapped across the floor's silver plating. His heels left a trail of dents and scars. He knelt beside Max, who looked over at him. David lifted his sleeve and blotted Max's sweat for him, careful not to touch the wristbands to Max's skin.
"I'm scared, David," Max said, but Doris could hear strength in his voice. "I'm scared to live. I'm scared to die. I'm scared of killing you both."
"If it comes to that," David replied, "do what you can to bend the beast toward me. As you lose consciousness, concentrate on that."
Doris saw Max's throat work as if he were struggling to moisten his mouth enough to talk. His voice sounded pi
nched when he replied, "All right."
Doris saw David's need to hold Max as he had just held her. But he was swathed in silver. In the end he leaned his bound forehead against Max's shoulder, as if he were so weary he could barely move. After a moment David rose, fetched a cup of water for them all to drink from, ending back at Max's side, and held the cup to the bound man's lips. Max drank greedily, complaining of thirst, before his head fell heavily back onto his pillow. When he closed his eyes, it seemed to Doris that he was only resting, or praying perhaps. After gazing at him a moment, David touched his forehead to Max's shoulder once again.
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