I nodded in reply.
"Get us a beer and I'll fill you in."
George left, and I finished cleaning up the big man.
He wouldn't meet my eye as I tightened the last bandage.
"Thanks, Squinty," he muttered.
"Nae bother, ya big shite," I replied.
"How long has it been?" he said.
"About half an hour," I replied.
He grabbed my hand, tight.
"No. Since school. How long?"
"Thirty years or so," I replied. "You've been a shite for a long time, big man."
"So my missus tells me," he said, and he actually managed a smile. "Anything you need...you know where I am. I owe you one."
"That must have hurt to say," I said, smiling back.
"You have no idea," he replied. "Now, come through to the bar. I'm buying...as much as we need to forget this morning."
I shook my head.
"Too public, big man. Yon cop saw you with me. You're now public enemy number two. Welcome to the clan."
George came back with three pints of beer
I lit up a cigarette, and laid out the story. George raised his other eyebrow when I got to the good bit, but didn't ask any questions until I had finished.
I showed him my cigarette case. One face of it was buckled and tarnished, as if partially melted then re-hardened.
He took a long drain of beer before speaking.
"So the belt works?" George said.
"It would seem so."
"And this lad Turner...is he in cahoots with the Dubh Sithe chap?"
I had been thinking about that myself. "No. I think he was just a daft boy in the wrong place at the wrong time. But we've got to find him."
"That shouldnae be hard," Jim Crawford replied, choking back a laugh. "Just follow the smell."
"Any thoughts on where he might go?" George asked me.
"No. He's not from around here. All I know was that he was having some trouble with a bookie."
"Which bookie?"
I shrugged. "I never got a chance to ask him. All I know is it was to do with horses."
"Are you sure he wasn't going to the dogs?" Crawford said, and this time he did laugh, a high-pitched thing that was just on the right side of hysteria.
"I'll see what I can find out," George said, and moved to leave.
Crawford grabbed him by the arm. "Can you bring the whisky back, George? Please?"
George had one look at the fear that glittered in the big man's eyes, and nodded.
*****
I spent the rest of the morning watching Crawford get drunk, and fighting off the urge to join him in oblivion.
We didn't speak much. I'd seen him afraid. He knew it, and didn't know how to talk about it.
Neither did I.
We watched each other blow smoke until he fell asleep.
I went back to the book, and was soon lost once more in the wilderness.
*****
It was while I smoked a pipe, lost in a reverie about my cozy home in Edinburgh, that someone asked McNab about his time in the wilderness.
He had a captive, silent audience as he told his tale, the only other sound the crackling of burning logs in the grate.
"I will not tell of the ambush of my platoon, as I remember little of it, and the story is too painful to tell here so close to the damned Frenchies who did it.
"But I will tell of the forest, and of the thing I found there; the thing that will change all of your lives when you learn of it.
"I wandered in the woods for days, lost in a world of pain, for I had taken a wound in my arm. Finally, I had to rest, and I sat on a fallen log. It was with dismay that I noticed that blood poured freely from the wound. The sodden bandage hung off, and the left side of my tunic felt matted and stiff where the flow had soaked in.
"I stood, my head spinning...so much so that I sat down again, hard, to avoid falling. I sat for a long minute, waiting for the pounding at my temple to dull from an ache to a throb.
"Slowly I bandaged my arm up again, using the last available piece of my shirt, and was just about to try standing when there was the faintest of rustles from the undergrowth to my right. I turned my head that way and looked straight into a pair of green eyes.
"They belonged to a wolf, a huge gray male beginning to get its winter coat...shaggy and pale around the shoulders, darker gray along the flanks. Its lips pulled away from its teeth, showing milky-white canines and a blood-red tongue.
"The eyes continued to hold me in their stare as I stood, slowly, and backed away, trying to release my bayonet from its scabbard.
"As I backed off, the wolf moved towards me, pacing my movements, his eyes never leaving mine.
"My brain worked frantically, trying to remember all the lore I knew about the creatures. I had never seen one before. I had heard them enough...all of us had. But all I really knew was that they were bigger and stronger than the dogs the huntsmen of Aberdeenshire kept, and that they were still used as objects of fear and terror in children's tales.
"I realized I was still holding the sodden bandage. I tossed it in the wolf's direction, all the while backing away ever faster up the path.
"The wolf lowered its head to the sodden bandage and sniffed it, then, almost derisively, pushed it aside with its nose and stared at me once more. It walked forward, slowly, still pacing me as I walked backwards up the path.
"I could smell it, a heavy, musky odor. Its flanks moved with each breath, showing rippling bands of muscle. Thick drools of saliva hung from its jaws.
"I finally managed to get my bayonet out of its sheath and waved it in front of the beast, hoping that it might retreat at the sight of cold steel, but it kept coming, following me remorselessly.
"Summoning up what little bravery I had left, I took a step forward. The wolf stood its ground, the green eyes daring me to come closer. My legs trembled, threatening to collapse beneath me.
"I stepped forward again, bringing the bayonet up towards its eye. The beast sprang at the same moment, and the blade caught it a glancing blow on the shoulder, not even slowing its attack.
"Instinctively I threw out my left arm across my throat, just as the wolf's jaws clamped shut. Long teeth raked my arm, opening further the already bleeding wound, and the wolf went mad in a frenzy at the taste of blood.
"I could not find sufficient angle to bring the point of the bayonet to bear. I hit the beast in the head, again and again, with the hilt, but that only enraged it further as it chewed deeper into the flesh of my arm.
"The weight of the creature dragged at me, threatening at any moment to pull me off my feet as we staggered together in a grotesque parody of a dance. We lurched left and right, and the pain in my arm flared and burned, threatening to overwhelm me.
"I only had one option open, and it would leave me vulnerable to attack, but I had to try, before tiredness took away any hope I might have.
"I swung my left arm around, pivoting with my body, lifting the wolf off the ground, screaming aloud at the sudden, white-hot pain that flared in the wound. At the same time I lifted the wolf's head as high as I could, thrusting it away from me while bringing my bayonet around in an arc.
"I hit the beast in the side, biting deep. The creature made a whimpering noise in its throat but hung on tightly to my arm as my swing turned me fully around. Our combined weight finally sent us to the ground where we rolled and kicked and gouged. I was as wild as the animal that attacked me.
"I stabbed for its heart, again, and again, my head full of blood and thunder.
"And finally, it was still.
"I rolled away and stood, panting. It took long seconds for me to get my breath.
"I turned...and looked down at the dead, naked body of an old bearded man, his chest a bloody ruin.
Guffaws of disbelief rang around the room.
"I heard near the same story from a Frenchman in Boston," Old Jack said. "I didnae believe it then...and I dinnae believe it now."
"Aye,"
McNab said. "But did he have one of these?" He went to his tunic pocket and took something out. He handed me a belt made of thick, course black hair. It felt dry and dusty in my hands. It had a buckle attached with silver clasps cunningly wrought as wolf heads that linked together at the jaws.
I examined it from all angles.
"So? What has this to do with anything?"
Once more he smiled, and I saw the predator there.
"It's a Lougrou belt. It allowed the French medieval sorcerer who fashioned it to turn himself into a werewolf."
More guffaws echoed around the room.
"And not just a wolf," McNab said, taking it from me. "It makes me a pack leader."
He clasped the belt around his waist...and suddenly he wasn't a man anymore.
His backbone curved, forcing his head lower to the ground-a head that slowly stretched and elongated as long fangs burst from bloody gums. Talons slid from under his fingernails, slithering forth.
His shirt split with a loud rip. New muscles strained tight against the man's tunic. Thick bristles of hair forced their way through his skin, the hands lengthening as the talons grew longer and knuckles popped. A long snout lifted in the air.
McNab, or rather, the thing that had been McNab, shook off the last torn remnants of his tunic and leapt forward, straight at Major Thomson.
The major's instincts kicked in. He swung on the ball of his left foot, and put his weight into a punch that knocked the beast across the room.
It came back at him again, twice as fast, twice as angry. The major had no chance in the face of such fury. He went down under it. A rolling maul of legs, fur, claws and fists tumbled across the floor.
Blood spurted, its coppery odor suddenly hot and strong in the air.
The beast rose from the body, the mayor's blood dripping from its yellow teeth.
As if from nowhere, an arrow seemed to sprout in its shoulder. I turned to see one of our Mohawk scouts prepare to fire another.
The beast howled, so loud that I thought my head would burst. Then it was gone, leaving behind a crash as it dove, headfirst, out the window.
"It would be best to get your men ready," the Mohawk said. "The pack is near."
*****
They poured into the yard just as I had fully deployed the men in a tight formation, two ranks of nine men each, their backs to the wall of the small stockade. Each man had a musket, two pistols and his bayonet.
The wolves came forward slowly, carefully, sniffing the air ahead of them. Behind the first rank of the beasts I could see more coming out of the tree line. There were at least fifty of them.
By this time I did not expect to survive, but I meant to take as many of the beasts with me as I was able.
"Rear rank...fire!" I shouted.
The air was quickly full of smoke and the stench of powder. At such short range the musket fire tore through the ranks of the beasts, but more were already leaping forward to take the place of the fallen.
"Front rank, fire!" I shouted.
A second volley hit, blasting half a dozen of our foes to a final death.
"Back rank, pistols."
The guns roared, and eight more fell.
"Front rank..." I called, but by then the beasts had closed tightly around us and it was down to hand-to-hand fighting.
The men in front of me started to club at the fiends with their muskets, then attacked with their bayonets. But although they fought well, they were not skilled enough, or fast enough, to have much impact on the weight of attack. It was only seconds before I found myself face to face with a drooling creature.
I shoved my pistol into its face and shot it between the eyes. Its head seemed to collapse inwards, and the creature fell away mewling. All around me my platoon dispatched the beasts as fast as they were able.
But the killing could not last. The press of the attack was just too heavy. Old Jack went down under a heaving pile of slavering bodies...the last I saw of him was a bloody arm waving despairingly. The Mohawk staggered past me, throat torn to a ragged ruin, blood spurting like a fountain.
I fought harder.
The fangs tried to bite but the thick weave of my tunic held, although it was ripped and torn in places. I punched a bayonet into yet another heart, but it caught between the ribs of the beast as it fell. At almost the same time, something grabbed me by the arm and pulled.
Pain flared in a white-hot blaze and my senses left me.
*****
I woke to sunlight falling on my face. Waking was a slow thing...a gray, dim light that only slowly got brighter and more focused. I tried to move but I was tied and trussed like a game bird bound for the table. I strained, testing the limit of the bonds, but something was torn in my left shoulder; the pain was so big and bright that it threatened to send me back to blackness.
"Ah...you are back in the land of the living, then?" a voice I recognized said.
I blinked and looked up into the face of McNab. I lay on a floor of dry straw. Behind McNab was the source of the sunlight, a small window, high up on the wall. I was in the cellar of the stockade.
McNab was playing with the hair belt.
He saw me looking.
"Well...do you believe me yet?"
He put the belt in the pocket of his torn trousers, opened his shirt and prodded at a wound in his breast, a wound that had nearly healed.
"Damned Mohawk ruined my surprise," the man said. "But you fought well, Captain. One might even say you fought like a wild animal."
He smiled at that, and finally I recognized where I'd seen the smile before. It had been on the lips of a fox, just before it took a lamb.
I spat at his feet.
He just smiled again.
"Not exactly conduct becoming a gentleman, is it?"
He stood, looking me in the eye.
"But then...we both know, neither of us are gentle folk."
"My men?" I asked.
"All gone," he said. "What was left of them anyway. And I'll offer you the same deal I offered them. Our little skirmish left the pack depleted. You can join us, or feed us. The choice is yours."
"The devil's choice. Damned both ways to Sunday whatever I do...is that it?"
"Think of it," he said. "Freedom...from petty rules, from social graces...freedom from gentle folk."
He spat the word as if it were a curse.
I moved, to try to release some of the tension in my aching shoulder...and realized I had been leaning against the barrels of powder. Something like hope leapt inside me. I tried to keep it from my voice.
"And if I take your deal, what then?"
His eyes took on a far away stare.
"You run with the pack. We range far and wide, under the stars. We take what we want, we go where we choose, and there is no man to tell us how to mark the passing of each day. Tell me you have not thought of it. Tell me, or damn me for a liar."
"If I could but have one last pipe of Virginia tobacco, I might think on it," I said. "I have a pouch in my satchel...next to the grate upstairs."
He forced my head to one side and exposed my neck. Then he sniffed, twice, close together, as if checking my scent.
"If you're smart, you'll take the deal," he said. "But I don't mind if you're stupid. That way I'll get to play with you for a while."
Once more he stared into my face. His eyes were green; the smoky light green of the sea on a cloudy day.
"I do believe I'll join you in that smoke," he said. He climbed up a rough ladder and left me alone in the cellar.
*****
I used my time wisely, and by the time he returned I was once more leaning against the kegs...but now their bungs had been loosened. I'd had to use my teeth, and I tasted powder on my lips. That was soon masked by the tang of tobacco as McNab put a lit pipe between my lips.
I pretended to choke, and squinted up my eyes.
"This might go better if you untied me," I said.
"Aye. And pigs might fly," he replied.
"
What's the worst that can happen? If I run, you'll get the chance to chase me down. Isn't a prey on the run more of a challenge for you?"
I got the predatory smile again.
"You may have a point there."
He untied me. As he turned away, I kicked over a keg of powder, spilling a third of its contents on the straw.
"Now it's my turn to play," I said. "You're going to give me yon belt of yours, and we're going to walk out of here. Otherwise, I drop this ember, and we both go to hell."
"You first," he said, and pounced on me. The pipe fell from my hand, and I didn't see where it went. I was too busy fighting off McNab.
He went for my throat...while I went for his pocket.
He realized my intent too late.
I pulled the hair belt from his pocket and rolled away from him.
The pipe smoldered on the floor and, even as I clasped the belt around my waist, the fire took hold and the powder flared.
I was off and up the stairs even as the change hit me.
*****
The stockade exploded behind me as I bounded to the tree line, but by then I was past caring.
I felt more alive than I ever have in my life. It was as if the wind spoke to me of joy, of freedom, of wild places. I howled to the sky, just for the pleasure it gave me.
Through moor and forest I ran, leaping gorges and scaling cliff faces like a crazed monkey. I ran through vast herds of caribou which scattered in fright before me. A bear leapt in my face and I had it disemboweled and dead before its heart had time to stop beating. I looked at the ruined rib cage...and started salivating.
And that's when it left me, as quickly as it had come. I fell to my knees and threw up until there was nothing left to heave and only my tears fell on the bear's dead eyes.
*****
There is little left to tell.
I found myself back at the stockade later that day, but there was naught left but a smoking ruin. I found Bald Tom's pack, and the materials to write this memoir, but that was all that was left to show for our time there.
Now I mean to head for Fort William Henry, and thence back to you, dearest Jennie.
The Skin Game - 03 Page 9
