The Wolf Road

by Beth Lewis

  “Then the claim goes to the highest bidder and we don’t have two coins to rub together.”

  “And we don’t have nowhere to go,” I said, finishing up her words.

  We’d been at Tin River less’n a day but I liked it. It was quiet, away from people, away from danger. Felt like I was back at Trapper’s hut. I could hunt here. I could build A-frames to stretch deer hide and trade it in Tucket for steel traps and maybe a shotgun ’case a’ bears. I could build a smokehouse and make some a’ that jerky what me and Trapper made. Penelope could tend the hut, help clean the kills, keep the fire lit. Maybe we could even find a few flakes a’ gold.

  “How do we stay here?” I said. “I want to stay here.”

  Penelope breathed in deep, figured all the options.

  “We lie. Then we mine this place down to the last flake to pay off Delacroix, if she ever finds us.”

  Felt like laughing.

  “I don’t know shit ’bout gettin’ metal out the dirt. And what you mean we lie?”

  “Your parents will have claim papers somewhere.”

  She explained the whole process a’ bequeathing a claim to a relative or friend and in truth, I weren’t paying no attention. I didn’t understand most of it and I trusted she needed this place more’n I did so weren’t ’bout to lie. Long and short a’ it was, we find the claim papers, fake some signatures, then go back to Tucket and file the papers with the clerk. She said if we found gold afore we did all this, that gold was worth ’bout as much as gravel out the river.

  —

  We found the claim papers the next day, hidden ’neath a loose floorboard. Also found a mason jar near half full a’ nuggets the size a’ my fingernails. No dust. No flakes. Goddamn chunks.

  Penelope gave a whoop a’ joy at seeing it. She said we could buy new sluice boxes, fix the pump, maybe buy a wooden rocker and some new shovels. I said we’d need a rifle too, in case a’ bears.

  “How you know so much ’bout minin’?” I asked.

  Penelope was practicing my daddy’s mark on a bit a’ paper. After a few tries she got it as close as if it was his ghost guiding her hand.

  “When my father said we’d be traveling north to the mining towns, I started researching. I read half a dozen books and articles about it, and about the most common injuries and illnesses the miners get. To better treat them.”

  “Damn good job you did else we’d be up shit creek right ’bout now,” I said.

  “At least we know there’s gold here,” she said, nodding at that jar on the table. That yellow metal gleamed and twinkled in the sunlight, felt like it was putting me under a spell. I just wanted to touch it, wanted to hold it close and wanted to show what I found to anyone I saw. Here, look, this is mine and I’m a goddamn god walking now.

  “Why don’t we just buy the claim with all this?” I said.

  “Why give it up when we don’t have to?” Penelope said, smiling, and I couldn’t much argue with that.

  “Is Elka short for something?” she said, pen over a dotted line, “I’ll need to put a full name.”

  “Put yours,” I said, and her forehead crumpled up like the paper.

  “Why?”

  “My parents didn’t name me Elka. Kreagar did. What means he’ll know I’m here. What means Lyon will too. Put yours.”

  Penelope looked at me close. Sunlight came bright through the window, lit up that gold, lit up her eyes and her hair the same color. She ain’t never looked prettier.

  I’ll always remember her like that.

  “You know what you’re doing right?” she said. “You realize what you’re giving me?”

  I shrugged. “A pile a’ dirt. A falling-down cabin.”

  “A home,” she said. “A piece of the world to call mine.”

  “I’d like to hope I can stay long as I want too,” I said, smiling, showing off all my teeth.

  Turns out that weren’t all that long.

  Penelope went to file them papers with the clerk in Tucket the next day. She said they looked at her funny but stamped ’em all the same. Signatures matched and it was such a remote claim what hadn’t posted any gold finds in the last few years, they didn’t much care who dug it. No fuss. Claim was hers and weren’t no one what could take it away. It was easy, she said, easier’n she ever thought it would be.

  That made me nervous.

  She didn’t take none a’ them nuggets with her, but she didn’t come back to Tin River that afternoon empty handed neither. She had an official, bona fide claim permit and another piece a’ paper, folded in half, what she gave to me. Look a’ death on her face.

  I unfolded the paper and it was like looking in a charcoal mirror.

  “Shit,” I said.

  “They’re all over Tucket. They weren’t there yesterday. And that isn’t the worst of it,” she said, breathing heavy, pacing all ’round the room.

  “Delacroix’s men,” she said, voice going up high, scraping her hands through her hair, “the ones she had with her in Halveston. Far too well dressed for a place like Tucket.”

  My face was all over and there was people in that town what had seen it. Delacroix’s dandies had seen it too. And them nice Thompson folks.

  Penelope must a’ seen where my thoughts were headed. She put out her hand and said, sneering look on her face, “Before you accuse Mark and Josie of turning you in, I went to see them.”

  “They seen this?”

  “I asked them not to say anything, told them you were a victim, not a criminal. They’ll stay quiet.”

  I hissed out all my air. “Ain’t no tellin’ for how long.”

  I crushed up that paper and threw it on the floor. It rolled, then started to unravel. My face twisted and grew and stared at me.

  “I didn’t tell them where we were, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Penelope said.

  I didn’t care none for her tone. “ ’Course I’m worried. This my life you got in your hands.”

  She turned on me something fierce. “And what about my life? Huh? If those men find me I’ll end up chained to a bed, fucked by strangers until I die from it. They followed us to Tucket, Elka, so much for covering our tracks. I thought you knew what you were doing.”

  Time was I’d a’ slammed her up against the wall, thrown her clean out the door, but not now. I seen the fear in her, same as I’d see it in a trapped rabbit. They’re meek and mild till you back ’em into a corner, threaten their life. I had me a mite more patience these days but it wouldn’t last forever.

  “Your life is my life, you goddamn idiot.” I stood up and came up close to her, tried to keep my voice calm. “We’s tied up together now. We got to get rid a’ Delacroix. We got to get rid a Lyon and Kreagar. Shit, Kreagar finds me, he finds you, and he won’t think twice on guttin’ you like a trout. Ain’t no way I’m lettin’ that happen and I got a goddamn plan for that. A plan what’s either gonna free me or kill me.” I stopped, voice cracked at them last words.

  She looked down, kicked her feet on the boards.

  “I just didn’t count on a damn madam wanting you,” I muttered. Then a thought hit my head. “Why does she? How’d you know who she was?”

  Penelope’s jaw clenched up like a duck’s ass underwater. She took a breath and something in her changed, a bit a’ relaxing, a brick fell out a wall somewhere.

  She said, “I was sold to her, don’t you remember?”

  She weren’t kidding ’bout bought and paid for. Pity for the girl welled up in me. I had a taste a’ what it felt like to be traded for coin and it weren’t something I liked to think on.

  “ ’Course I remember that. I figured that’s how she knew you, but how’d you know her?

  “I overheard her name, her voice, when the”—she went all bitter—“sale, was made.”

  “You ain’t never said who sold you.”

  She huffed all her air out her nose and said, “It doesn’t matter now.”

  “Horse shit it don’t matter. ’Course it does. I
ought a’ find that snake and make me a damn belt out of it.”

  But she weren’t budging. I tried to get it out of her but she quick shut up like a clam and didn’t say nothing for a while. I was mad at her for that. She put me in the middle a’ Delacroix and her dandies and weren’t giving me no good reason as to why. I walked circles ’round that room with iron in my head, hot and pressing on my eyes, causing a world a’ pain.

  The whole world was coming in on us, all sides, all spikes and crushing and slicing and wanting a piece of us both. We’d had two days a’ quiet. Two days a’ peace after I buried my momma. We washed in the river. We watched the dusk colors paint up the sky. I caught a salmon out the river, full a’ eggs and ready to spawn, and I don’t have no time for fish. Except there. In Tin River I had time and I had stomach for fish and for company and, shit, I didn’t even realize when I started crying. I just wanted calm. I wanted to be free of it all.

  I went out the cabin and shouted my rage. Shouted it into the wild. Cursed the Frenchwoman. Cursed Lyon. Cursed Kreagar. Cursed all them folks what was stopping us from having a life.

  Took me till next morning to calm down. I spent most a’ that night throwing my knife, practicing my aim, driving that blade deep as I could into the tree trunk. Penelope gave up trying to get me to come inside at sundown.

  I couldn’t be living with all the knives ready at my back. I had to rid myself of at least one a’ them.

  Hour or so after sunup, I pulled my blade out the tree the hundredth time and something clicked in my head. Back in the cabin, Penelope was already awake and stoking up the fire for a brew.

  “Reckon that in that jar is enough to pay off Delacroix?” I said.

  “Probably, but then we won’t have anything left for the equipment.”

  “Ain’t no guarantee we’d find anythin’ else in that dirt. We could spend it all and have nothin’ to give her,” I said, rubbing my face like I could make it change ’neath my hands.

  Penelope went quiet. We didn’t have many choices. We’d found us a piece a’ paradise and even though that mark on that claim paper weren’t my daddy’s, rubber stamp and the law said this place was ours now.

  “We’re stuck smack ’tween a rabid wolf and a damn dead drop ravine,” I said, “and we only got a month or so afore winter comes and locks up the ground.”

  Look on Penelope’s face said she knew it. I thought ’bout how I’d get myself out that situation. I could jump off the edge a’ that ravine but there weren’t no guarantee I’d be alive at the bottom, weren’t no guarantee that wolf wouldn’t jump after me and keep chasing. I ain’t got no time to build a bridge. I ain’t got no weapon left to fight it. All I got is to get the attention a’ something worse’n the wolf and hope I can slip away when they’re clawing at each other.

  “Lyon,” I said.

  Penelope looked up at me from beside the burner. “What about her?”

  “I can’t imagine what that Frenchwoman does is on the right side a’ the law.”

  Penelope raised her eyebrows. “Very much not.”

  “Lyon’s all about the right side a’ the law and I got somethin’ she wants.”

  “What? You’re not going to turn yourself in? Elka you can’t,” she said, firm as rock. She stood up, put herself ’tween me and the door.

  “Don’t go spittin’ glass, girl, I ain’t got no plans to end up in one a’ her cells.”

  Instead a’ pointing at me, she crossed her arms and said, “What then?”

  “You ever heard that phrase ‘Catch two rabbits with one snare’?”

  Penelope frowned, opened her mouth to say something, then changed her mind. ’Stead she said, “I’ve heard a version of it.”

  “I figured a way a’ skinnin’ both them rabbits.”

  That frown got deeper. “What do you have that she wants?”

  I took a long breath to give me time to find the words. I weren’t at all sure what Penelope was going to say.

  “I know where her son is buried,” I said, and her eyes went bug-wide.

  “How do you know that?” she said, and I heard a quaking in her voice.

  Could tell she didn’t really want to know the answer but I had to tell it. It was one a’ them locked rooms in my head and I was ready to turn the key.

  “I dug the grave.”

  Penelope helped me write the note on the back a’ my wanted poster. Every few minutes she asked if I was sure ’bout this, if I knew what I was doing. She was different. Like we’d built a bridge ’tween us in all these months and I’d just knocked out one a’ the supports. Bridge was still there, still holding, and you could just ’bout walk across it, but it weren’t wholly stable. Weren’t wholly safe. I figured it was a shock, what I done to that boy. But at the time, I weren’t at all sure what I was doing. I didn’t see a boy when I threw dirt on them bones and flesh and skin. I saw an animal. Didn’t realize the only animal was the shirtless, bloody man holding the knife.

  “I’m sure,” I said. “Two rabbits. One snare.”

  “And if it doesn’t work?”

  “Then you can give Delacroix that gold and hope that Mark fella is as sweet on you as you are on him,” I said, and winked.

  Her cheeks bloomed red and the bridge got a little steadier.

  “Read it to me,” I said.

  Penelope took a deep breath and coughed dust out her throat.

  “Magistrate Lyon, you’ve been looking for me a long time, and with good reason. I know where your son is and I will tell you if you do something for me first. In Halveston lives a woman named Amandine Delacroix. With a man who goes by the name of James Colby, they kidnap young girls and traffic them in crates via the Ellery ferryboat. Stop her and I will tell you where your boy is. Once she is in jail where she belongs, post official notice outside the Tucket general store.”

  “I didn’t sign it,” she said.

  “Good,” I said. Felt sick down deep in my gut.

  “How does this kill two rabbits?”

  “Delacroix goes to jail and Lyon goes all the way back down south to Ridgeway. Ain’t no way she’s trustin’ that to her lieutenants. She’ll be wantin’ to see what’s left a’ her boy face-to-face.”

  “What is left?”

  Bones, I thought, but didn’t say nothing. We’d have a few weeks if this worked. And then winter would come down fierce on this country, making travel north near impossible. I felt the cold in the air, like Death himself breathing over my shoulder, just waiting for me to step wrong. Two rabbits gone. One big damn bear left and he weren’t going down without a fight.

  —

  Dead a’ night I went back to Tucket. The town was dark, not so much as a torch burning in a window. By starlight and a sliver a’ moon, I found the general store and the board they used for town announcements. I pinned the note up there, right ’tween posters a’ me and Kreagar.

  I weren’t the praying type but I said I few words then to the great spirit. To whatever god it was looking over me. I said I was sorry for what I done and I said I’d make it right, if this worked, I’d make it right. Wolves howled in the forests, far away in the mountains. Their voices carried on the still night, and I figured that was sign enough my words been heard.

  I walked out a’ Tucket without that weight in me. First time I had hope that me and Penelope would make it through all this. Tin River was a three-hour trek and I might as well a’ been skipping, all that happy bursting out my feet.

  But all the scheming and fear and closeness to humans and time in towns had dulled my wild. Didn’t even cross my head that someone else in Tucket was awake that time a’ night. Didn’t cross my head that they was looking ’specially for me. A year ago I would a’ run circles on my way back to the hut to throw off tailers, but I didn’t that night. I walked a crow line to Tin River and I was followed the whole damn way.

  I woke up next morning with a feeling a’ lightness all through me. Sun was spilling in through the window and Penelope was snoring soft a
nd sweet on the bed. I’d slept sound on the floor, better on hard wood than on feathers and fluff. Nuthatches and warblers made music in the trees outside and there weren’t more’n a breath a’ wind to disturb them.

  I snuck out quiet so’s not to wake Penelope, and went down to the river. Mist laid low over the water and the marsh and meadow on the far side. Sense a’ deep-down calm in the world. Weren’t no sound but for the birds and trickling water. I washed my face in the river and went out into the woods to the west a’ the cabin. I’d set up the last couple a’ snares I had a few miles into the trees and went to check for breakfast.

  Felt like home in them woods. Felt like I’d been a part of ’em since birth and before. My kin had worked this land and my blood was buried with ’em in the ground. In Trapper’s hut it took me years to feel more’n just a visiting nuisance. The way a’ Tin River weren’t the way a’ Trapper. It weren’t his house, his rules, it was mine and Penelope’s and we was making it work.

  Two a’ the snares weren’t touched but one caught a rabbit on the neck, killed it afore I even got to it. Now, normal times you want a rabbit to still be kicking when you find it. Otherwise ain’t no telling when it died and rotting meat ain’t no one’s idea of a good morning. But this little fella was still warm, and in the cold North, that mean he was fresh as if I killed him myself. I cut him free afore the blood attracted worse.

  Then I heard the scream.

  Then I heard my name in that scream.

  I ran.

  That rabbit bounced around in my hand but I weren’t letting it go. Ain’t no sense in wasting food when that girl could a’ just had a bad dream.

  But shit, I ran like I had a whole wolf pack on my tail. Felt them in the trees, running alongside me. They jumped over logs and brush with me. They leapt a patch a’ bog and caught me on the other side when I stumbled. Them wolves weren’t chasing me, they was guiding me. They was my rush and panic. They was my heart and soul and teeth and claws.

  I burst out the woods. Cabin right ahead. I didn’t hear no screaming no more. Wolves howled and gnashed at the tree line. Their growling voices said protect your pack. Protect your territory.