The Wolf Road

by Beth Lewis

  “Are you all right?” Penelope said ’side me. Didn’t realize how long I’d been staring and seething. Wolf nuzzled ’gainst my leg.

  “Ain’t nothing I can do for it,” I said, “this land ain’t gonna be friendly to us.”

  “That’s Halveston,” Penelope said, “gateway to fortune, they call it.”

  Close to the foot a’ the mountains was a town bigger’n I’d ever seen. That one road led right into it and more’n a dozen roads led out. It was like a dandelion fuzz, one stalk going right up to it, then all these other tiny spindles pointing every which way. Told me there weren’t all that much north a’ this place, least nowhere big enough for a road. Felt like I’d reached the end a’ the world.

  Halveston was sitting right on a dried-up river bed, saw the dark line the water took from ’tween the west mountains. Wondered if one a’ them Damn Stupid bombs took out the river, turned this valley brown. Land was spiked with tree stumps, all gray and rotting in the weather. All them trees built Halveston and was still building it. Town like this was spreading out like blood on snow, soon be big as Couver City. Much as I wanted to, I couldn’t hate Halveston. Felt my parents in them streets, felt my momma buying potatoes and dresses, felt my daddy bartering for a good price on his bucket a’ gold.

  Half a day down the mountain and I would be there. Right where my parents were. I saw huge buildings and wondered which one my momma and daddy lived in. My blood started heating up inside me like a stewpot on a rolling boil. They’d be so happy to see me, I thought, they’d take me up in their arms and say, We knew you’d come, and I’d tell ’em all my stories. Of the thunderhead and the flying table, of the crazy Reverend, the poison lake and sailing for two days in damn first class accommodation. Nothing a’ Kreagar or Lyon. Not never a’ them.

  We’d talk right on into daylight. All I had to do was get Penelope to the permit office.

  As if that girl heard my excitement and wanted to mess it up, her legs buckled ’neath her. She started shaking and convulsing and spitting up white foam.

  I shouted her name and held her down so she didn’t split her head open on a rock. Wolf’s ears pricked and he growled low, not out a’ anger but out a’ something else, worry maybe, or suspicion.

  I’d seen this afore, years ago and it was all kinds a’ bad. Farm boy in Ridgeway had these fits, they’d last for hours and every time he woke up, a bit a’ his mind didn’t come back with him. When his parents were out in the fields, the cows would low when the boy was sick and Mom and Dad would come running. Happened again and again until one day the cows didn’t low. Boy was lying on the floor. None a’ his mind came back. He was alive but empty. Word was his daddy took him out into the woods and left him there, couldn’t bear to kill him, didn’t have the money to keep him. I sure as shit didn’t want Penelope to come back empty. I needed her letters. I needed her. I held her tight to me, stopping her arms from flailing and her head from ragdolling all over the rock.

  Finally, she fell still. Too still. My heart went wild. She couldn’t be dead. She couldn’t die. Not this close. Not after all this.

  “Penelope, don’t you dare,” I whispered right into her hair, “don’t you leave me now.”

  Felt her breath on me. Felt her heartbeat in her neck.

  Wolf came up and sniffed her, like he was checking if she was dead or least waiting for her to be. There I was, holding this sick woman, full a’ infection and nasty, wild wolf watching over us. We was some kind a’ family right there. Wolf trotted off to the down slope a’ the hill, turned back, and barked low at me, like he was saying if you got to keep the stray, let’s get moving. Then he ran off down, saw his tail bobbing away.

  Penelope weren’t waking up.

  Wolf came back, barked again, louder this time. His yellow eyes fixed mine but worry for the girl clouded up my mind. Felt like crying and that pissed me off. She’d got under my skin, made me care for her and now she was sick as a dog and mine to nurse. Wolf took my bag ’tween his teeth and tugged. I knew what he wanted, know his mind just as I know mine. We needed to get to Halveston. Figured a town that big would have a doctor. She weren’t going to get no better lying here.

  “I can’t carry both,” I said, and he twitched his ears at me.

  “You got to pull your weight,” I said, and, still holding on to Penelope, awkwardly took the pack off my back.

  Despite my ribs, despite my tired and aching body, I hauled limp Penelope up. She weighed less than a yearling buck.

  “You get the pack, Wolf,” I said, nodding to the beast and the bag.

  Felt like he was narrowing his eyes at me. Slowly, he put his teeth ’round the strap, like he was doing it only ’cause I was carrying something heavier. Gave me a low growl.

  “Don’t be whinin’,” I said, “least you ain’t got broken bones in you.”

  He started half lifting, half dragging the bag and I didn’t have the stones to tell him off. He growled most the way like a grumbling child forced to shell nuts. Every step was a cracked shell, every scrape a’ the pack was another kernel in the basket.

  “Didn’t think you was such a grump,” I said, hefting Penelope closer to my chest. Ribs weren’t happy but I told ’em to quit whining.

  Louder growl out a’ Wolf made me laugh but I’ll tell you, a mite a’ worry started nibbling at me. A wolf’s instincts are sharper’n cracked flint and he weren’t taking to Penelope. I suppose I couldn’t blame him, parts a’ her story ’bout her daddy didn’t right make sense. Maybe it was Wolf being back that made me see that. She weren’t telling me the whole true but right now, half-dead, she was telling me enough.

  Halfway down the hill Wolf veered off to the right. I shouted at him but he didn’t even turn to growl. I called him a thieving son bitch and to bring that pack back. He ignored me and I quick figured if I didn’t follow him, I’d never get my bag back. Swore at him. Cursed him. My body felt like it was going to break apart any minute, I didn’t have no time for wrong roads.

  Shouldn’t a’ sworn or cursed him. That wolf was a beast sent straight from heaven. When I found him he was sitting, smug look on him, on the porch of a shelter cabin. One a’ them small huts trappers and hunters and lost idiots can use in case a’ emergencies. They’re dotted all over the wild and they got a fire and wood and a bed and maybe even a scrap a’ food if you’re lucky. Best of all, they ain’t locked.

  “All right, Wolf,” I said, “you ain’t useless.”

  Penelope started stirring, moaning in my arms, and I tell you, the relief, the heart-swelling, damn tear-jerking, damn wanting-to-shake-her-for-making-me-worry all came over me at once. Hell, I nearly dropped her.

  I rushed into the cabin, felt the chill, stale air of a place what ain’t seen people all winter, and set the girl down on the bunk. I chucked the bunk blanket, half-eaten by moths, on the floor and afore I could turn around, Wolf had made his home on it. I stoked up the fire in the stove and shut the door. Place’d be toasting in no time. Night was coming. It’d taken longer to walk here than it should a’ on account of the extra weight.

  Maybe it was the warm or the flat bed, but Penelope soon opened her eyes. She took a minute to realize she weren’t in the woods no more, then them eyes found me.

  “Where am I?” she said, and I sat down on the bunk next to her. She was still ghost pale and I could feel the fever heat come off her body. I reckoned that fit was just the first a’ many ’less we could get her to a doctor.

  “Shelter cabin,” I said. “You started fittin’ on the hill.”

  She sat up, winced, and hissed at the movement of her leg. “You carried me?”

  Felt squirmy inside. “You save me, I save you, that’s the deal right?” I said it quietlike, squirmy coming out in my voice.

  She smiled at me and the squirmy went away.

  “Is the wolf here?” she asked, face turned grave.

  “He’s lazin’ about on the floor,” I said, “like a damn pig in shit.”

  Wolf snuf
fled and stretched, dug his claws into my boots.

  I unwrapped Penelope’s dressing. Smell a’ decay and pus and iron blood hit me hard. The veins around the cut were calmer than they were afore the poultice and I figured it had slowed the poison by a day or two. The cut was nasty, though, full a’ rot and skin tinged black at the edges.

  “Can you walk?” I said, “truth this time, no more thinkin’ this is goin’ to get better.”

  Penelope didn’t answer for a minute, looked down at the mess she’d made a’ herself, then shook her head. I gave her the flask and told her to keep drinking till she hit metal. Then I took the blanket out the pack and covered her up.

  “I’m sorry, Elka,” she said, cradling the flask like she was praying to it.

  “Don’t matter none now,” I said. “You can’t walk, which means you can’t come with me to Halveston. Worst part is I damn sure need you to come to Halveston.”

  Penelope sighed, not loudlike, not like some stroppy kid, but like someone who was feeling a sight sorry for themselves. I didn’t take well to pitying yourself. It weren’t worth the effort or time and it pissed people off.

  “We’ll hole up here,” I said, “for the night. Talk about it again in the mornin’.”

  She didn’t argue, nor did Wolf, ’cept for a gentle huff when I shoved him out the middle a’ the floor. I laid down beside him and listened to him breathing. Soft in-outs, calm like he didn’t have no care in the world. I suppose he didn’t. He was warm, he was out the weather, and he was with his pack, even if he didn’t much like one a’ the members.

  Had a sick feeling in me, like before a storm. You know it’s coming but you can’t quite figure when. When I laid down to sleep that night, that’s what I felt. Even though I was with Wolf again, thing what felt right and as it should be, and with Penelope, girl what I came to see as more’n just a waste a’ space, I couldn’t find no comfort. I felt an itching at my neck, kind you get when you’re walking ’round town and keep seeing the same face no matter how many turns you take. Maybe it was being this close to Halveston and a shit-ton a’ people I didn’t know. Maybe it was knowing that soon as I walked into that town, I’d see myself and Kreagar in charcoal nailed to every post.

  Lyon’s face came into my head. All ice and glass she was, not like a real person. She mouthed something to me. Some words I couldn’t make out. Words I didn’t want to hear.

  Woke up to cold sunlight and a snoring wolf. Lyon stayed right there behind my eyes. Wish I’d known what she was saying in my head; them words was silent but something in me said they was true.

  Penelope woke up soon after me. I changed her poultice and gave her some more water. Wolf sat up, eyes like hard stone set firm on the girl. Wish I could a’ known his thoughts. What was it about her he didn’t trust? She had secrets, sure, but they couldn’t a’ been all that worse’n mine. It nagged at me something fierce and made me look at her different.

  Broad-spectrum antibiotics.

  That’s what she told me to get from Halveston. She had to repeat it a couple a’ times, them fancy words don’t take quick to my head. I told Wolf to keep an eye on her but he wouldn’t stay in the hut, ’stead he sat outside the door and I couldn’t argue with that. I stroked his head, knelt down in front of him and wrapped my arms around his neck.

  “Don’t you go nowhere,” I said right into his fur, “I need you.”

  Wolf rubbed his head ’gainst mine and I knew he’d be there when I got back. It was only when I started down the hill toward Halveston that I wondered if I would be coming back. Had me a sick feeling that Lyon was in that town, had me a sicker feeling that Kreagar was too. I told my gut that Lyon was hunting Kreagar in Martinsville, way down south. All’s I had to do was get to a doctor, find them ’biotics, and get Penelope walking. Sounded easy in my head but Halveston weren’t like nothing I’d ever seen afore and it was ready to chew me right up if I put little as one foot wrong. Turned out I was ’bout to put both feet, both hands, and the rest a’ my whole damn body wrong.

  Halveston was one a’ them towns what grew up quick. A boom town they called it, only a handful a’ years old. Filled with a mix a’ them what picked through mud for months and came back with naught but bleeding fingers, then there was those what found their fortune and threw it away on whisky and women, and last was them folk what preyed on both types; the claim runners, the brothel madams, the metal merchants what weighted their scales backward. Hundreds a’ people all clawing for yellow metal and rocks.

  Halveston was a town a’ wood and rats and rust. The town had started as just one line a’ timber buildings. Them buildings got joined by another line, then the gaps ’tween ’em got filled with huts and carts, then the town spread out in all directions. Hard-packed road turned to mud at the gate and people a’ all kinds came out the woodwork. Men, women, blacks, whites, Chinamen, them Latins from the far south, even some hard-faced yellow-hairs with voices thick like molasses. Heard they walked over the ice up in the far Northwest; Trapper said that’s what them Ruskis did in the Second Conflict, came down on BeeCee from the top. Trapper said that place other side a’ the Bering was full a’ Reds but I weren’t seeing no one a’ that color. Figured he was wrong about that so maybe I should just forget all them things he told me ’bout people, ’cept how to kill ’em if I felt the need. Figured he’d know right how to do that. People in Halveston was giving them yellow-hairs a wide berth, few were shouting words I didn’t understand. Figured folk up here blamed them for the Damn Stupid which was a fool thing to do. They ain’t responsible for them bombs same as I ain’t responsible for that Ridgeway kid whose shoes I got. Gave one a’ them yellow-hairs a smile, while them others gave them grief.

  People what grew from seed up here was stained, you could tell who was who quick as slapping a tick. Sallow cheeks and bent spines, most a’ them had one a’ them hacking coughs, some had twisted-up clubfeet, and I saw one what didn’t have no hands but was shelling nuts quicker’n I ever could. The locals all had a look about ’em what said they was sick but you couldn’t right place the ailment. There was just a tinge, a taint on ’em what put me on edge. You can tell a tree got rot by the color a’ the leaves and feel a’ the bark so you don’t go trusting it to hold up your cabin roof. These people was like them trees. You could stoke a fire with ’em all through winter but couldn’t right trust ’em to keep the rafters from crushing you while you was sleeping.

  Halveston was a chili pot boiling up, for every gray local there was a hundred colors and sizes and I even saw someone with tattoos like Kreagar’s on half his face. I walked ’tween throngs a’ dark-skins chattering in a tongue I’d never heard. Sounded like they was rolling them words around their mouths a few times afore sending them out. Weren’t no single word I could make out but the rhythm in it was curious. Hundred tongues found my ears; harsh spitting ones, ones like honey dripping off a comb, even a couple a’ coal-black men clicking they tongues. My boots sucked and squelched in the mud, mixing in with the talk and shouting and four fellas picking fiddles, a babe screaming somewhere up ahead, and hawkers screeching they wares. It all made tunes and music and sent me almost forgetting my purpose.

  Halveston was a drug town. A revelry town. A town a’ sins and sinners and gold and mud and cold metal-smelling air from the smelter shops. It was a town where junk was given a second chance. A yellow short bus been dug into the dirt was now growing beans and housing chickens, front end of an old Chevy been turned into a grill touting plates a’ ribs and biscuits. To say I felt right at home would be something close to the truth.

  I ain’t never much liked people, but the people a’ Halveston were all passing through, either ’tween south and their claim, or ’tween life and death. There weren’t no one here now, in the middle a’ spring and fine days, what would still be here after winter. No one was looking at me or for me. This was a town you could disappear in easy, whether running from the law through the twisting streets or through a few well-placed coins in a judge�
�s pocket.

  I asked a woman, sodden in moonshine and more mud than skin, where I could find the doctor. Slurring, she called me sailor, told me the right direction, then said come find her after, she’d show me a fine time for a good price. I laughed when I walked away. I ain’t never been mistaken for a fella afore but it gave me relief that maybe I wouldn’t be recognized.

  Barrow a’ boots outside the doctor’s office told me the rest a’ what I needed to know about this town. Dying was as much a business as living. Them boots was selling for a few bucks a pair and a kid a’ seven or so was taking the coin. No one wants to walk in a dead man’s shoes, that’s why they so cheap. Story goes you can’t take more’n five steps afore the reaper comes tapping at your shoulder. But I been wearing a dead boy’s boots for years and no reaper come for me, not yet. Hell, he wouldn’t want no part a’ me and what I done. I’m heading straight down to the devil himself.

  Seeing that barrow put all the music out my head ’cause above it, pasted up on the wall though half-covered by a poster touting toothbrushes, was my face in charcoal, right next to one a’ Kreagar.

  Sent shivers through me it did. Them shivers turned to icicles when I realized the paste was still wet. My eyes went up and down the street and I saw them white papers on every corner, every lamppost. I spun ’round and ’round but there I was, staring back at me, taunting me. Then them icicles went to sharp steel in my bones and I saw at the end of the next street, top a’ low hill, the law office. Big, dark stone and teeming with red- and black-jacket officers scuttling about like beetles. Was like a black cloud hung over that place, made the horses tied up outside stamp and whinny. Bars on every window. A jailhouse as well as an office looming over Halveston, and nowhere I wanted to be.