Season of the Wolf

by Jeffrey J. Mariotte

  He picked up a few dishes, balancing them precariously. “Call me if you need anything,” he said. “Or she does. You know the phone’s always on.”

  “It shouldn’t be. A doctor deserves a day off, same as the rest of us.”

  “Not when he’s the only one in town.” He tucked the top dish under his chin and held them that way, between hands and head. He was in his late sixties, same as her, bespectacled and on the portly side, but he had a jaw like FDR, like Dick Tracy, taut and firm. It was a good way to carry things, for him. “Could you get the door please?”

  “Of course.” She passed him, pulled it wide.

  On his way by, he raised an eyebrow in farewell. “I’ll be back in the morning.”

  “Get some rest!” she ordered him. She thought she’d have to go down the steps and open his car door but he managed, setting the dishes on the floor and the passenger seat. She closed the door and went back into the living room, sat in the big chair that Mike loved so much—he wouldn’t be needing it, after all—and clicked on the flat-screen. The picture was so much sharper than her old TV.

  She had barely settled in when she heard a knock at the door. Dr. Steinhilber, no doubt. He had decided he wanted a couple more dishes, maybe one of those pies. She rose, dragged herself wearily to the door, and opened it. “What did you forget?”

  But it wasn’t Dr. Steinhilber.

  “Oh!” she said. “I thought you were the doctor.”

  “Sorry to disappoint,” the visitor said. “How you doing, beautiful”

  “I’m well. I’m sorry, you can’t see Marie,” she said. “She’s sleeping.”

  “That’s okay, Deborah honey. Maybe I just came to see you.”

  She giggled and started to blush again.

  Then she saw the knife.

  * * *

  Deborah Morgenstern was a useless old crone, a biddybitch, withered away like a dried-up apple. Doing her was easy, almost fun, and it was also a way of easing back into what had never really been a habit, but could probably have been more accurately described as a goal.

  She had started to scream but he shut her up with a quick shot to the throat. She fell backward, tripping over her own scrawny legs, and he shoved inside, slammed the door and locked it. When he turned back to the old biddybitch Morgenstern, she was gagging but trying to get to her feet. She glared at him through teary eyes, and he could see she was trying to tell him off—she had always been good at that. He took a big step onto his left foot, then brought his right up in a fast, swinging kick that caught her just below the nose. It broke under the toe of his boot, spurting blood everywhere.

  He finished her fast, with a quick slice across the throat he had already damaged. She bled like a pig, but he already knew he’d have to burn these clothes.

  Anyway, she was incidental, an in-the-way busybody fucking biddybitch who he would forget in minutes. What he really wanted was Marie. She was younger, slim and sexy, with a face that would have been pretty if she just had a little money to spend on the right haircut and makeup. Life had worn her ragged, but then being married to Mike Hackett would do that to anyone. At least she was shut of him now.

  Biddybitch had said Marie was sleeping. Had to be upstairs, in the master bedroom. He had been in the house once before, remembered thinking that Marie deserved a nice place, a bigger one, with a walk-in closet full of nice clothes instead of the giveaway auto parts T-shirts and discount-store jeans she mostly wore.

  A light burned on the staircase, but the upstairs was dark. Dr. Steinhilber had been the last to leave, and no doubt he had sedated Marie. That would make things easier. He found the bedroom and went in, leaving the door open so light from the stairs would illuminate his path.

  She was out. Curled on her right side, covers tucked up around her, she looked like she hadn’t budged since someone had arranged her here. He drew back the blankets, admiring her slumbering figure, and she moaned and moved her arms a little. She was wearing sweat pants and a long-sleeved Pennzoil T-shirt. Her hair was short, a dirty blond, her face unlined in sleep.

  Yes, she was a fine-looking piece. Hackett had never treated her right, never done her as she needed to be done. He realized that he had always been aware of it, of her unspoken longing for what he could offer. Funny it had never pushed itself to the forefront of his brain until now, when her hopeless, hapless husk of a husband had left her behind.

  Life was like that, he guessed. Brains were unknown territory to those who carried them around. His rarely steered him wrong, and he knew what he was doing now was only proper and correct.

  He was doing it for her. It was what she needed.

  “Marie,” he said softly. “You’re coming with me, okay?”

  She mumbled something and moved her head to the side. “Don’t suppose you can walk.” Another mumble. She wasn’t walking anywhere.

  No matter. He had brought a pair of handcuffs in with him, and he fastened them around her wrists. Not too tight, just enough to restrain her. Her eyes fluttered open, then closed again, and her moan was louder. He used his bloody knife to hack off two sections of sheet. The first he balled up and stuffed in Marie’s mouth, and the second he twisted into a narrow strip, tying it around her head and over her mouth to hold the gag in place.

  Now her eyes opened and understanding dawned. He could read the terror in them, see her fighting for consciousness. Still, her struggle was hampered by the drugs, more by the cuffs, and yet more by the secret longing that burned in her breast. He hoisted her over his shoulder, ignoring her kicking and squirming, and carried her down the stairs and into the backseat of his car. He closed her in, then got behind the wheel and drove away.

  “I’m sorry it took me so long to figure things out,” he said into the darkness. He knew she would be able to hear him, to understand his meaning. “Don’t worry, though, Marie. I’m finally going to give you what you’ve been craving.”

  14

  Going the way George said, instead of following her own path back, felt wrong. But he had always been more comfortable in the woods than she was. Sure enough, after only a few minutes of hiking in as straight a line as the trees would allow, she saw the lights of their home, and then she was there. The chicken yard gate was still open and the chickens were scattered. She scooped up a couple that she passed along the way and put them back in, but suspected that most of them were lost.

  Hurrying inside, she gave Kyle a crushing hug, congratulating him on his bravery and thanking him for staying put. Then she snatched up the phone and hit Morris Deeds’ personal mobile phone on the speed dial. He answered on the second ring, and Gloria took a deep breath, then told him in as briskly efficient a manner as she could what had happened and where George was.

  “He has his radio on,” she said. “So your men should be able to find him okay.”

  “I’m on the way,” Morris said. “I’ll bring Ortega with me. Don’t worry, Gloria, George knows his way around. He’ll be fine.”

  “I know. But thanks. I trust him, but that doesn’t mean I don’t worry.”

  “Of course. You stay put, and we’ll be there directly.”

  She hung up the phone and looked at their son, watching her with interest and concern. His eyes were still red, but he had stopped crying and had been entertaining himself with action figures when she got home. “Are you all right, Kyle?”

  He nodded gravely. “When will Daddy be here?”

  “Soon. He’ll be back soon.”

  “Okay.”

  “I promise.”

  Kyle raised a Batman toy toward her. “If you want, Batman can keep you company till he gets back.”

  She almost declined, then thought better of it and accepted the toy. “Thank you, Kyle. And Batman. That’s a big help.”

  Carrying the toy to a chair close to the window, she sat down to wait.

  * * *

  The wolf was on the move again.

  Wherever Gloria had hit it hadn’t been a vital spot. The beast had lost
some blood, but not enough. George heard it crashing through low branches, less graceful than it would ordinarily have been. At least she had done some damage.

  It cut around to the north, following the floor of a canyon. On a couple of occasions, George thought he might have a shot at it, if only there were better light. Once he did squeeze off two rounds, but they went high. If the wolf continued in this direction, it would lead past the Church in the Woods and eventually toward town.

  George froze, listening. In the darkness of the trees, his best hope of tracking the thing was by sound. He heard the whisper of paws scraping across pine needles, not far ahead, and a steady chuffing sound that he thought was the wolf panting with exertion.

  Then from behind, he heard something else.

  He whirled around. His flashlight’s beam cut the darkness, but didn’t penetrate far. His eyes were as accustomed to the dark as they were going to get, and he couldn’t see anything beyond the screen of pines silvered by moonlight. The sound came again.

  It was unmistakably the sound of something breathing.

  He strained to hear it, to determine how far off it was.

  And his radio squawked, static drowning out any other sound. George recognized the voice of Chief Deeds, although he couldn’t make out more than a couple words. One of them was “forty.”

  “I’m not too far from the church,” he replied. “To the south and east a little. Over.”

  More static. He couldn’t tell what Deeds was trying to say, so he repeated his location and cranked down the volume. Listened.

  The breathing was closer. More than one of whatever it was. Coming up behind him.

  Wolves?

  Had he been following one without realizing that the rest of the pack was tracking him? Wolves hunted in packs—it wouldn’t make sense that there would be one out by itself, unless it was one of those proverbial lone wolves.

  He hadn’t thought this through.

  Letting Gloria take the rifle and go back to the house by herself. Stupid. He should have gone with her, let this animal go. Two were better than one.

  The church wasn’t far away, though. He could hole up there, call Gloria, make sure she was okay. He’d have better radio reception, maybe, and could call Deeds on his cell. Anyway, the radio had a GPS chip, so the chief could find him.

  Forget the wounded wolf. It could live or die, he didn’t care.

  He struck out toward where he believed the church was.

  The first wolf came about two minutes later. George heard heavier footfalls, then a snarl. He looked behind him just in time to see it soaring through the air, mouth open, fangs gleaming. He tried to dodge, and his ankle twisted beneath him. He fell.

  George threw out his left arm, to steady himself. A fang caught sleeve and flesh, rending both, and then the thing landed hard, spinning around the way canines can do. George bit back the pain and raised his Glock, squeezed off a shot.

  The round punched a hole in the wolf’s skull. Still it managed two steps toward him before dropping.

  Close behind, another wolf yipped.

  George broke into a sprint. Around the animal’s body, tree limbs slapping against him. His left arm bleeding, numb.

  The world receded into two things, the narrow cone of light ahead of him and the sounds of his pursuers. They’d given up the quiet approach, and were charging through the trees, yipping and growling.

  George held the Glock over his shoulder as he ran, pulled the trigger. The report, so close to his right ear, was deafening. Another mistake. Chances that he had hit anything were almost nonexistent, but half his hearing was gone. The wolves sounded more distant, an illusion.

  Another wolf lunged from his right. Black fur, pink tongue, white teeth. George halted his progress, backed up. The wolf corrected, seemingly in mid-air, and his maw caught George’s right thigh.

  George let out an agonized scream, clubbed the beast’s head with the Glock, then shoved the muzzle into its fur and yanked the trigger. The blast echoed in the night and the wolf fell away.

  George tried to run. His thigh was shredded, gushing blood. The leg wouldn’t support his weight. He tried anyway. He could see the church now, light streaming through the big window behind the altar. Someone—Pastor Calderon, he thought—stood in the parking lot, looking his way.

  “Calderon!” George cried.

  “Who’s there?” he heard. “Is someone…?”

  “Gil!” George called. The man was staring right at him. “It’s me—”

  But his shout was cut off by more wolves, one hitting from behind and one from the left. Their fangs tore through clothing, flesh, and muscle. Another snagged onto his right hip.

  George, already slipping into shock, hardly felt them.

  PART TWO

  15

  Morris Deeds had been hoping to sleep in. The day before had been a long one, and difficult, what with the early-morning search party, the discovery of Hackett’s body, sending men back into the woods to recover it, then visits to Marie and Dr. Steinhilber and a meeting with Alden Stewart, and generally trying to calm everybody down, himself included. Finally an emergency summons from Gloria Trbovich had sent him and Officer Tommy Ortega into the woods looking for George. A second call, from Reverend Calderon, had ended that search in the worst possible fashion.

  He had closed out his night with a couple of drinks and a sleeping pill, a combination he both frowned upon and relied on from time to time when a day became overly draining.

  But Christy shook him awake shortly after six, telling him he had an urgent phone call from Althea, the department’s overnight dispatcher. He took it and told Althea to send Howie Honeycutt over with a cruiser. He didn’t know if he would have time for coffee, and though he could do police work without it, he was damned if he wanted to drive uncaffeinated.

  He dressed quickly, and when Howie pulled into the drive ten minutes later, he was standing on the porch waiting. Christy already had coffee going, as it turned out, so he drained the rest of his cup and left it on the little metal table that sat between two porch chairs, descended the three steps, and slid into the passenger seat. Howie backed out as Deeds fastened his safety belt.

  “You know where we’re going?”

  “Hackett’s house,” Howie said. He was short, at five-eight just above the departmental minimum height. Skinny, but he worked out, so his arms and shoulders and neck were big, his chest deep. He had bright red hair and a freckled face and couldn’t grow a beard on a bet, and it all conspired to make him look barely post-pubescent.

  “Everything quiet last night?” Deeds asked.

  “Mostly.” Howie described a couple of DUI stops, and four teens picked up for trespassing and vandalism when they broke into a vacant house to party. Silver Gap was a quiet town, but it and the state of Colorado and the United States all had laws, and wherever there were laws there were people who broke them.

  When he finished, Deeds said, “Althea tell you what’s going on?”

  “Sounds bad,” Howie said. “Wolves, again. First Mike, then George, and now this.”

  “I don’t know what’s brought them here, but I don’t like it.” He knew he was understating it, but he was still trying to wrap his mind around the whole thing. Colorado didn’t have wolves. But in one day he’d had to look at the bodies of two men he knew, both killed by wolves. Now he was on his way to Marie Hackett’s house, where a neighbor had reported that wolves had slaughtered Deborah Morgenstern.

  According to Althea, Bill Tyler had been walking his collie Grizelda around 5:30. Tyler lived on the other side of Deborah Morgenstern, and he usually walked his dog past her place and the old Fellowes place and the Hacketts’ and down to where the woods met the town. On this morning, Grizelda started going berserk as they neared the Hackett home, barking and straining at the leash and sniffing at the ground. As they got closer, Tyler noticed tracks, not unlike Grizelda’s but much larger. A little nearer the house, he saw what looked like blood in some of th
e tracks. Then the dog almost tore loose from his grip, and he saw a mutilated body part on the Hackett lawn. He wrapped the leash several times around his hand and investigated further, stopping when he saw a woman’s upper body and one arm, separated from the rest of her, and recognized her as Mrs. Morgenstern.

  That was when he rushed home and called the police. Deeds knew that the scene would be bad, and he knew that the dog tracks would turn out to be wolf tracks, because that’s just how his week was going.

  A little more than half the six-hundred-and-some residents of Silver Gap lived in the blocks around its small downtown. The rest lived on more isolated country roads winding in and out of the woods, and sometimes snaked between hills. Freamon Road, where the Hackett place was, had no sidewalks but enjoyed municipal power, phone, sewer, and water service; much farther out, though, the homes relied on wells and septic systems, and satellites for TV and internet.

  Howie turned onto the curving country road, and when he rounded the bend right before the Hackett place, ravens took to the air in a black cloud. “Shit,” Morris said. The presence of the carrion birds meant that Tyler hadn’t been dreaming or hallucinating. Morris was sure the man had used LSD back in his youth. He still wore his hair on the long side, had never married, and occasionally had men from out of town as overnight guests. It all added up to an untrustworthy source, as far as he was concerned.

  But by the time Howie brought the cruiser to a stop, Deeds could see some of the parts the man had mentioned. What looked like a foot sat by itself in the middle of the yard, and another mass of tissue was closer to the open front door. The Hacketts had a porch, and at the top of the steps was what he feared would turn out to be Deborah Morgenstern’s head.

  “This isn’t necessarily a crime scene,” he said. “But it still wouldn’t hurt to be careful where you step, and try to preserve as much evidence as you can. You bring a camera?”