The Wolf Road

by Beth Lewis

  I weren’t following no one up through life. Sure Kreagar taught me skills but I weren’t going to walk his line, ’specially knowing now where that line took him. Certain things I did when I was with him, certain steps I took along his path, are things I’d rather be forgetting. When I was staring into the flames of his hut I swore I’d never walk in another man’s steps ever again and I just hoped all them gods out there would forgive me for ’em afore too long.

  Weren’t no telling what was along that road going north out a’ Genesis. A road is a draw to thieves and unsavory types. They go where the fools go, and I weren’t no fool.

  I went back up the hill to where I left the wolf. He weren’t there, a’ course. Can’t be expecting a wild thing to stay in one place for too long. He knew my scent, he’d find me when he wanted feeding or comfort. I was fixing to walk when my eye caught something that sent midwinter chills all through me.

  Boot prints in the dirt.

  Right where I’d left Wolf. Right where, not a few hours past, I’d been lying on my belly staring out over the ridge. They was half a foot bigger’n mine. The right had a chunk taken out the tread and the left was worn down smooth on the inside. I knew them boots. I’d cleaned them boots and set ’em to dry by the stove after rain. Running prints, walking prints, they ain’t that clear. These been made on purpose, these were a message made special for me.

  The forest turned silent. Every sound turned mute by my heart beating in my ears. Kreagar was coming up right behind me, snapping at my heels. He had stood here, looking down at Genesis, knowing right where I was. Was he still here, behind that log, over that rise, just waiting for me to come back? I spun on my heel, looked for sign a’ him on every branch, every twig, then I saw it. Brown smear a’ blood on a tree. I wondered brief if it was his or someone he’d killed. My mind went dark and cold. I could smell him in the trees, see him moving ’tween the trunks, hear him whispering my name.

  I ran.

  Made a path in zigzags and switchbacks. Covered up my tracks best I knew how. I kept the road mostly in sight and picked my way through the woodland. That night I found a shallow cave and made me a rough camp. Tried to forget them boot prints, what they meant, who they meant. I built a big fire in the mouth a’ the cave so bears wouldn’t be tempted to go cozying up to me. I ate my last can a’ the reverend’s food and soon as that first bit of meat hit my stomach I realized just how long I’d been without a proper meal. I guzzled all that can like one a’ them gulls taking a whole fish in its gullet.

  Dog tired by fear and days a’ stamping through woods meant I didn’t have no trouble sleeping. Next morning I woke to cold sunlight and quick spotted bear tracks, but thankful no boot tracks, close to my cave. Them bears must a’ come over for a sniff and didn’t fancy taking on the fire. At least it let me know they was awake and roaming. I kept north for two more days, didn’t see hide nor hair of Wolf, and I got a little worry in me for him. I hoped he weren’t hurt or nothing, hoped he was keeping fed and clean, hoped I’d see him again soon.

  I didn’t see track nor trace a’ Kreagar neither. Must a’ lost him, must a’ run rings ’round him and sent him following my boot prints over some cliff. He weren’t right over there, behind that dead fall, weren’t in that cave or hollow, no sir. He was long gone.

  Hell if he was.

  But that’s what I had to tell myself, else I’d go mad all alone in them woods, seeing demons and devils in every shadow. I had to keep going because we was sharing this forest and it weren’t that big.

  Forest trees had turned to spruce and pine. All drooping boughs and thick needles. They gave off a heady smell of sap and resin and I sucked it in. Usually I didn’t much care for pretty smells, my nana would a’ told you that, but I was learning to look at them things as all part of the forest. Them smells had a purpose. They told critters not to go chewing on the poison leaves and sent signals to bees and other buzzing flies letting them know which flowers to feed off. ’Sides, it was more friendly on the nose than the rotten mulch a’ some woods.

  I spent three more days walking north. Made sure I covered my tracks and could see that road least twice a day. Saw a horse and cart dawdling like a fat snail trying to slide up a rock and one time I spied a line of men, packs on their backs what looked like they weighed twice their carriers.

  On the fourth day I climbed up a slope a’ loose rock and shale and came out on the top of a wide flat-top ridge. No trees up this high and some scraps a’ snow still clung in the shaded parts ’neath boulders. Fresh, cold wind blew right through me and for the first time in a while, I buttoned my coat right up to my chin. Wished I had a hat then. Trapper had a hat and he never complained a’ chilly ears. Once I put on one a’ my nana’s big-brimmed fancy hats and she said I looked like a toadstool. Didn’t wear no hat ’cept in the rain, though I wanted one just then. That wind was fierce and pushed ice right in my eyes. Didn’t stop me from seeing something that made my stomach churn up like a whirligig.

  Big damn lake. More like an ocean to tell the truth, I couldn’t see the end of it, even from the top of a mountain. I gulped hard and swallowed sand. I didn’t like open water like that. Weren’t no trees, weren’t no food ’cept slippery fish, weren’t no firm ground just rocking wood. At the southern edge of the water, there was what looked like a dock. People like ants was running about in a line ’tween a square thing on the water, guessing it were some kind a’ boat, and a row a’ squat buildings. Couldn’t tell if they was carrying anything, too far up, but I could see a cart and I wondered if that was the same one I spotted on the road.

  That same road stopped dead at the edge of the lake. Mountains rose up either side of the water as far as I could see, and the road didn’t have no forks or curves nowhere. Road changed into a boat. I hated boats.

  “Son of a bitch,” I shouted on that mountaintop. I shouted it loud and over and over and didn’t care even if them people on the boat or Kreagar in the trees heard me. Hell, I hoped they did.

  I ain’t never been on a boat, but I seen them down the fat end of the Mussa, carrying lazy folk from Clarks down to White Top, near halfway to Couver, just so’s they wouldn’t have to walk. Felt like spitting on them and I did more’n once. Trapper and me used to have contests on how far out into the river we could spit. He taught me the right way to do it, hock one up, use your whole body for distance, then let rip. Trapper won till I turned thirteen, then I spat one and hit the first mate right in the middle a’ his forehead. We stopped playing after that. Trapper didn’t like to be beat, ’cept when we was last buck hunting. Was just ’bout a week afore I met Lyon in Dalston, and then he liked it when I pulled the trigger first. Said it gave him warm pride feelings in his chest, like he was passing on a legacy. I thought about that buck sometimes, thought about the jerky drying in the smokehouse afore Lyon burned it down. Shame, ’cause that was some fine tasting meat.

  I looked out at that boat and figured I’d have to suck it up if I wanted to get to the North, and put some real distance ’tween me and Kreagar. Boats are just like carts but with no horse shit. That’s what I told myself anyways. I scrambled down that mountain and by nightfall, I’d joined a trail a’ fools heading to the dock.

  There was a line a’ buildings running close to the water. Eating houses, boardinghouses, even a whisky den. Wooden crates stacked up along the dock with a bunch of spring-heeled boys and hard-set men running them onto the boat. The heavy ones they lifted with a rusting crane and set ’em deep ’neath the deck in the cargo hold. Farther along the dock, people were spilling out of the whisky den, sodden and steaming and taking their revelry right onto the streets. Tiny electric lights like glow bugs in glass jars were strung up ’tween tall posts and made that street look like the starry sky. Trapper never trusted the electric, said even afore the Damn Stupid people lived without it and were happier for it. Now it all came out a’ generators and most people turned up their noses, but, shit, those lights were magic to me.

  Smells of al
l kinds came at me, sour sweat from them dockworkers, spiky gin and whisky, a woman’s flowery perfume laid on thick, and the water, musty smell of lakeweed dried up by the sun and diesel fuel leaking out from the boat engine. Above all that, I smelled something that set my stomach growling like a snared wolverine.

  A hut halfway up the street coughed out sweet smoke, cherrywood I think, and was crowded out by hungry fools. I followed my belly, ’tween groups of rowdy men and women, all shouting their joy to anyone who came by.

  They was all shouting some version of “We’re going where the riches are, we’ll be back here in six months and buy this whole dock with rubies picked right out the rocks.”

  I didn’t take no notice. Had me a fierce craving for some of that jerky Trapper and me used to make. He’d bring home a pig he got from town, all cut up to make for easier carrying and we’d cure it and smoke it right nice. We didn’t get pigs too frequent on account a’ the cost, but when we had ’em, they made some fine eating. I stared into that hut’s barbecue coals, hog-fat dripping in them, making them hiss, and the smell hit me hard. Weren’t as good as our pigs but on an empty stomach, that meat is chocolate.

  “You want some or you just staring?” man behind the hog said. He was a willow of a thing, years of standing behind that coal heat must a’ melted most a’ him away. Think he was a Chinaman, but I ain’t seen one afore so couldn’t be sure. He held a machete in one hand and a two-pronged fork in the other.

  The hog was crispy, golden, and dripping goodness. It had some kind of red glaze on it what was turning black at the edges. Smelled sweet but it weren’t woodsmoke, it was something in that skin. My belly was begging me for a bite.

  “What you want for it?” I said, and suddenly felt the lack a’ coin in my pocket.

  “Two dollar a plate or a gram of gold dust,” he snapped like one of them nasty turtles in swamp lakes, and served two more customers while he was talking.

  “You take silver?”

  I held up one of them spoons. The man squinted at it then laughed, all high-pitched and mean.

  “Get out of here, I not a charity!”

  Elbows and shoulders barged me out the way. I lost my feet on a slick of hog-grease and fell into the mud. Heard laughing behind me and calls of scrounger. My cheeks went hot and red and my belly ached for want of feeding. Creeping shame came over me and I felt like a fool for even thinking them spoons was worth it. I pulled them out my bag and flung ’em in the dirt.

  Rain started. Soft and unsure at first, then when I got up, dusted myself off, it came heavy and fat. Hungry people crowded ’neath the hut and shouted their orders all the louder. The street turned quick to a mud slick but it didn’t do much to turn off the drunks. One of ’em took off their shirt and shorts and started dancing naked. I ran, collar turned up, to the other side of the street and took shelter on a store’s wide, wraparound porch alongside others who had the same idea. I sat myself down on the wooden floors, back to the wall, and watched the barbecue hut serve plate after hot plate of meat and fried potatoes. My mouth kept filling up with water and I didn’t notice the fancy-dressed man coming toward me, smiling like the devil. Didn’t notice what was in his hands neither.

  “I’ve never seen a girl trying to barter with spoons,” he said, voice friendly like warm water, kind you put your feet in on a midwinter night. “Especially with Chen and his machete.”

  He was a dandy type, gray suit and shiny shoes, and even in the light cast by them strings of glow bugs, I could see a handsome face ’neath his bowler. Had both his hands behind his back and him just coming up and speaking at me made me nervous.

  “What’s it to you?” I said.

  He brought both hands out and both carried stacked-high plates of barbecue. Set my stomach growling.

  “Oh nothing,” he said, then gave a cough and his tone changed just slight enough for me to notice: “I was hungry so I got double helping, just being greedy really. You want one?”

  “What you want for it?” I said, wary. I was sat with my knees up near my chest, knife was hidden ’neath my coat so pulling it would be awkward but maybe I could do it before he caught on. “I ain’t got no coin.”

  He shook his head and sat on the floor beside me. Bit close, I thought, and I shuffled away an inch or two. He offered me the plate. The smell of that meat, all sweet sticky glaze and moist flesh and crisped-up taters, I took it off him but it took all I had not to dive my face right into it.

  “Coin doesn’t mean much, does it?” he said, and now I could see his face proper. Stubble but no beard, brown eyes and square, solid jaw. Fine-looking man. Fluttering nerves went through my chest and I found it hard to keep looking without seeming like I was staring at him. He was a good few years older’n me but didn’t have no age lines on his face nor any gray wisps.

  He took off his hat with his free hand and set it balanced on his knee. Just like Trapper did my first night with him.

  “Why you givin’ me this?” I said, and wondered brief if he’d slipped nightshade into the gravy.

  He paused a beat, sighed, and said, “Because once upon a time kindness was valued. You tried it on with Chen, with a spoon no less, you deserve it. Besides, you look like you need it more than me.”

  He nodded to the plate and I wondered if he knew my thoughts. He spoke fast, not so much as a breath ’tween words. That change in his tone, that pause, they weren’t a way I’d heard no one speak afore but his eyes and his voice had kindness and I was damn hungry.

  “Thank you then sir, ’preciate it,” I said, and dug right into that pork. Spices and flavors the like of which I ain’t never tasted coated that meat and sent my tongue into a frenzy. It was all at the same time sweet and sour and spicy like chili peppers and salty like you licked the ocean. I didn’t have no clue how that Chen fella did what he did, but that pork was something else and worth them two dollars the dandy paid for sure. Flavor might a’ been better but the texture of it weren’t a patch on mine and Trapper’s pig. Chen’s had a mite of toughness through it ’cause he hadn’t cured it right. Suppose it could a’ just been different breed.

  The dandy was picking at his and had barely eaten two mouthfuls by the time I drunk up all my gravy. I looked at him watching me and felt that heat in my cheeks again, that squirmy shame at my actions and how they probably weren’t proper.

  Noticed him staring, smiling, then he handed me his own plate. Found myself looking at that smile a little too long.

  I ate all what was left on his plate and I kept my belches to myself.

  The dandy tutted and shook his head and raised his arms and said, “I’ve lost all my good manners.” He shifted to face me and held out his hand. “I am James Everett Colby, up from Boston, Mass. I’m glad to meet you.”

  He raised up his eyebrows, thin and shaped over his eyes like one a’ them dressed-up ladies. Ain’t never heard of no Bostonmass. Sure weren’t in BeeCee, though I suppose it could a’ been in the far south. Kreagar always said the south is full a’ pretty men with soft hands and I weren’t seeing nothing in Colby that made that a lie.

  “Name’s Elka,” I said, cradling that plate and using my finger to get up the last morsels of pork. Ignored his handshake, that was too familiar for my liking.

  “El-ka,” he said, breaking my name in two and rolling it around his mouth. “German origin, I believe, meaning ‘noble,’ I think.”

  I scrunched up my face and said, “Ain’t nothin’ German in my name. My momma said I was raised by wild animals. Said I came stumblin’ in from the cold woods into their lives followed by a big cow elk. Momma and Daddy shot that elk and kept me. We had food for the whole winter. That’s why I’m called Elka. Nothin’ German ’bout it.”

  Some folks get funny when you tell ’em their thinking is wrong, but this Colby fella just smiled all the wider, showing off sharp white teeth. He had something of a fox in him, same twinkle in his eye that they have.

  I set the plate down on top a’ the other. That hot red
came back to my cheeks and I didn’t know what to do with my hands.

  “You lookin’ for your fortune in the North like everyone else?” I said, ’cause I didn’t know what else to say.

  “Something like that,” he said. “I’m in the import-export business; half those crates sitting on the dock are mine, supplies for the miners.”

  I weren’t right sure what import-export was and I weren’t about to show my ignorance by asking, so I just nodded.

  “You goin’ on the boat?”

  “I am. I sail at nine tomorrow morning. Will I see you aboard? Between you and me,” he said, and leaned in close, “I get terrible seasickness. It would be nice to have company for the trip. Two nights, three days, can be lonely.”

  “I ain’t got the coin for a ticket,” I said, but my thoughts was on the mention of the time. Two whole nights in a rocking wooden box. Felt queasy just at the thought and glad I weren’t the only one.

  “That’s a shame,” he said, tapping his fingers on the brim of his hat. He looked at me out the corner of his eye then said, “So where are you laying your pretty head tonight? Out beneath the stars? You seem like the type who enjoys the fresh air.”

  Hot red cheeks again. The pouring rain had turned the air cold, but I weren’t feeling it. Ain’t no one ever called me pretty before. Whippet-built, sure, square jaw, feet like a lumberjack and the armpits to match. Most Trapper ever said was about my hair when he named me Elka and that weren’t exactly a flattering comparison.

  I didn’t right know what to say to him. Colby nudged my arm and grinned, more foxlike than ever, and I couldn’t help but smile back. Told him I would be kipping in the boardinghouse. I may have had me some honey glows in my cheeks, but the rest of my senses was still sharp. I weren’t about to tell a man I just met where I’d be sleeping, no matter how much I might a’ wanted to.