The Wolf Tree

by John Claude Bemis

  “Conker! It is me,” she said, holding him afloat and reaching for the edge of the well. “Can you see it is Jolie? I have you.”

  He choked and sputtered and bobbed back down. Pulling him by his massive arm, Jolie coaxed him to clutch the well’s rock lip.

  “Can you pull yourself up?”

  Conker did not answer.

  Jolie rose from the water and broke back the stems of the overhanging plants hiding the well. In the dim starlight, she saw his eyes, wide and searching and full of fear.

  “Take my hand. I will help you up.”

  Conker did as she said. Jolie pulled with all her strength until the giant planted his feet on the rock and stood up from the well. His legs gave out as he rose, and he crashed down into the bracken.

  “You are weak, Conker,” she said, kneeling by him. “You have been asleep a long time. Rest here before you get up.”

  Conker was crouching on his hands and knees. His hair had grown thick and wooly during his long sleep. Jolie ran her fingers soothingly across his head. Conker began trembling and shaking. His skin was cold.

  “I will build up the fire. Stay here. I will be back to help you in a moment.”

  Jolie rushed to collect the wood and uncover the coals. In minutes, the fire was ablaze.

  Conker was as she had left him, still planted on his knees and still shivering. “Can you crawl?”

  He did not answer, but at her urging hand, he followed her to the fire. Conker sat with his knees tucked to his chest, shaking. “Let me get you soup and tea,” Jolie said. “It will warm you, and the herbs will help restore your strength.”

  Dashing to the small cave where she hid her food from prowling animals, Jolie brought out dried fish, herbs, and roots. As she prepared the meal, she kept her eyes on Conker. Although the well had nourished him, he was thin, his face gaunt, his body weak. She brought a wooden bowl over to him and held it up to his lips. “Sip slowly. You have not eaten in a long time. It is hot.”

  He gulped and, despite the heat, ravenously consumed the entire bowl in several swallows.

  “Can you take this cup of tea while I get you more soup?”

  Conker looked in her eyes for the first time. Recognition came over him. He nodded and held the wooden cup. Jolie spooned out more soup and brought it over.

  “Take more, but try not to eat it too fast. Your stomach might not be ready for so much.”

  Conker sipped at the soup and the aromatic tea, his gaze shifting anxiously.

  “You are in a safe place,” she assured him. “It is a well used by my siren sisters. For healing. You were badly injured. Do you remember?”

  Conker’s bright white eyes stared at her, and he cocked his head. Then he closed his eyes, wincing. She was not sure whether he was troubled by what he remembered of the train or if he could not remember at all.

  “It is okay,” she said, thinking this response would do in either case. “There is much to tell, but it may still be too soon.” She touched his neck and broad shoulder. “You feel as if you are warming. That is good.”

  Conker finished the soup and let the steaming cup of tea warm his hands. The night wore on, and Jolie was eager for Conker to speak, eager to help her friend in so many ways. He needed his hair cut. She would have to get him to try walking. But she made herself remain patient. As the faint light of dawn pushed aside the stars, she decided that the soup had not given his stomach trouble and that he should eat something more substantial.

  “Conker,” Jolie said. He lifted his head weakly. “I am going to catch us something for breakfast. Wait here. Do not get to your feet until I can help you. Agreed?”

  He nodded, and after watching him a moment longer, Jolie took the conch shell knife and set off to hunt.

  When she returned an hour later, Conker was sitting as she had left him, staring into the fire. She plucked the turkey and skinned the groundhog, and built up the fire to roast the game.

  “How long?” Conker’s voice was little more than a croak.

  Jolie spun around. “You can speak!” She smiled tentatively.

  “How long?” Conker repeated.

  Jolie took a deep breath. “You were badly injured, Conker. The train … do you remember what happened on The Pitch Dark Train?”

  He nodded slowly.

  “You should be dead. The explosion. If you had not been wearing Redfeather’s necklace—”

  Conker’s hand went to his chest. He clutched the copper head on the necklace, squeezing it tightly. “You look … different, Jolie.”

  Jolie stuck the game together on a spit and placed them over the fire.

  “You’re … taller.” His voice gained strength. “You seem older.”

  Jolie prodded the logs to increase the flames.

  “Jolie?”

  She rose. “I need to get more—”

  “How long have I been asleep?”

  Jolie bit at her lip and turned. Conker stared urgently. “Almost a year,” she said.

  Whatever he had been expecting, she could tell he had not imagined it could possibly be that long. He sank back, his arms trembling to support him.

  “Your body was broken, Conker. Only because of the well have you healed.”

  Conker was taking shallow, rapid breaths. His jaw clenched tight, and he ground his teeth as he tried to speak. “Where … where is it?”

  “What?” Jolie asked, getting closer to Conker.

  “The Nine Pound Hammer.”

  “I do not know, Conker. I did all I could just to save you.”

  “It’s lost then?”

  The roasting meat crackled, sputtered fat onto the flames. “You have been through so much, and it will take time for you to regain your strength. Please do not worry now.”

  Conker laid his forehead on his knees and was silent. Jolie continued to stare at him, hardly believing he was finally awake after so long. And now she felt as if she had done little to prepare herself for what to do next. Pulling her gaze away, she checked on their breakfast, rotating the spit.

  “Where’s the others?” Conker asked, lifting his head slightly.

  Jolie shook her head. “I do not know.”

  “Ray? Nel? Si? You ain’t seen them?”

  “Not since we jumped from the train.”

  Conker looked at Jolie for a long time. “You’ve been alone, watching over me for … a year?”

  “When I fell in the river, I found you first. I do not even know what happened to Ray. I knew only one way to save you and that was to take you here.”

  Conker reached out his enormous hand and Jolie took it. “I don’t even know how to begin thanking you, Jolie.”

  “You are my friend, Conker. I am just glad you are better.”

  “I’m weak. I feel it. But that meat smells real good. Is it near ready?”

  “Soon.”

  “Tell me what has happened. Tell me what you’ve done these many months.”

  “It will be a boring story, I fear.”

  “I want to hear it all the same.”

  Jolie began the story that began atop The Pitch Dark Train. She told how she carried Conker to the well. She told him of the passing seasons and her dreadful thoughts of losing Ray and the others and her resentment toward her siren sisters for their abandonment. She told Conker about Cleoma and of the sickness in the Terrebonne.

  “What should we do now?” Jolie asked Conker. “Should we search for those pirates you befriended? They might know where Nel has gone with the others.”

  “I’ve been thinking on it while you were talking. I want to find Nel, to let him know I’m alive. He must think I’m dead….” A deep sorrow broke on Conker’s face. “But before that, can you lead me back to the trestle over the Mississippi?”

  “I could find it again. But why?”

  “We’ve got to look for the Nine Pound Hammer.”

  “Maybe Nel and the others found it.”

  “Maybe,” Conker said. “But we don’t know where they are. Fir
st, the river. I need you to search the river for it.”

  Jolie nodded. “Yes, when you are strong enough to travel.”

  “After that, Jolie, I think you ought to go back to the Terrebonne. The Gog is dead and your sisters have returned. They need you. You’ve spent too long looking after me.”

  Even after he had finished the entire turkey and the groundhog, Conker’s appetite only seemed to grow. He was able to get to his feet but was still too weak to help Jolie hunt. She set off on her own, using her siren song and her conch shell knife to capture more game. Conker walked around the stream, gathering strength slowly.

  That evening Jolie was amazed at how much Conker ate. No sooner had one meal been cooked than he was ready for another. She emptied every root and tuber from her cache in the cave, baking them in the coals until they were tender enough to be eaten.

  By the next day, Conker was getting stronger. He tired quickly, but he was able to join Jolie to search for berries and nuts. As Jolie cut his hair with her knife, Conker asked, “What is this place?”

  “The spring?”

  “How did you know it was here?”

  “I heard about it from my sisters. There are other springs like this—with waters that heal. This one is called Nascuits ai Élodie, or Élodie’s Spring.”

  “Who was Élodie?” Conker asked as black knots of hair fell to his lap.

  “My mother.”

  Conker looked around at Jolie, his eyes wide. “Your mother?”

  Jolie pushed his head back down and continued with the knife. “Yes. I did not know her. Do you know why I am only part siren?”

  Conker nodded. “Ray told me. He said your daddy was just a normal man.”

  “All sirens have normal men for fathers,” she said. “But they are enchanted, made into husbands by our singing. My father was not like this. He was no sailor rescued from the cold sea. He gave his love freely to my mother.”

  “Who was he?”

  “I do not know his name. My mother never had a chance to tell me, and the sisters did not remember what he was called. Élodie found him injured in the Terrebonne. The other sisters say he was an outlaw who took refuge in our swamp. My mother cared for his wounds for a time. She fell in love with this man. But after he recovered, he left her. Not long after I was born, my mother left me in the care of my sisters and searched for this man. She died here. I do not know if she ever found him again. Probably not.”

  “How did she die then?” Conker asked.

  Jolie shrugged. “The sisters always said her heart had been poisoned by this wicked outlaw, for she had given her heart to him. This is not the way of our sisters. Love such as this is not … encouraged. I will not suffer the same fate as my mother.”

  Conker narrowed his eyes, but said nothing as Jolie continued cutting curls from his head.

  “The wells are rare and secluded, as this one is,” Jolie said after a moment. “They say the Spanish conquistadors sought them.”

  “Fountains of youth,” Conker said, blowing a lock of hair from his lip.

  “A siren’s heart is very powerful. It bestows longevity, vitality. When a siren dies, her heart brings forth a healing spring from the roots of the earth that contains the powers of her heart. It is through my mother’s death that you have been healed, Conker.”

  “So you reckon I’ll live forever?” He chuckled.

  Jolie lowered the knife and took a step out to examine Conker’s haircut. She gave a satisfied nod and then grinned at Conker. “No, Nascuits ai Élodie can heal, but it does not bestow immortality. I would not be surprised, however—given how long you have stayed in the waters—if you live to a great old age.”

  Conker smiled a bitter smile as he brushed the loose hair from his shoulders. “I can only hope.”

  * * *

  Over the next few days, Jolie hunted deer and rabbit and all manner of birds and game. She skinned and cooked and fed the fire. Conker helped her some with the tasks, but mostly he ate.

  “You are putting on weight already,” Jolie said one afternoon after returning with an armful of wild turnips.

  “Ain’t got much of a choice with all your hunting,” he said.

  The following morning, Jolie emerged from the well to find Conker already awake and building up the cook fire. “It’s time to go,” he announced.

  “You feel strong enough?”

  “We’ll travel as far as I can, and stop to rest if I’m too tired. I’ve got to find the hammer.”

  Jolie took two bladders that she had been using for boiling water over to the well. She pulled back the bracken and submerged the bladders in the clear green spring, filling them with the well’s healing waters.

  “We have far to go,” she said over her shoulder. “But let us hope there will not come a time that we need to use these waters.”

  Conker nodded. Soon they left the overgrown marsh, passing from the protective barrier that guarded the spring, and began their journey east toward the Mississippi River.

  “You have pushed yourself too far,” Jolie said midafternoon. They had been walking all day and the weather was warm. Conker had stumbled many times on the rocky trail along the north side of the creek.

  “Just a little further.” Conker got up on one knee but collapsed back again, panting.

  Jolie sighed. “Rest, while I look for food.”

  Conker acceded with a frown.

  Jolie had not been gone for more than half an hour when she returned with a harvest of Indian cucumber, sheep sorrel, and a pheasant. Where was Conker? Looking around curiously, she began to call but a hand clamped over her mouth.

  “Don’t say nothing.”

  Jolie dropped the food as she was pulled down to her knees. Conker released her and put his finger to his lips to whisper, “Quiet. There’s men on the other bank.”

  Jolie heard the voices. She pulled the conch shell knife from her belt, as Conker pointed through the leaves.

  A man with a dense black beard on a horse splashed down into the creek, his eyes searching their side of the bank and a stagecoach gun squared across the horse’s shoulders.

  “Alston!” another voice called from the forest on the other side of the creek. “Come on.”

  “Something moving over here,” the man mumbled, squinting and swinging the gun around in Jolie and Conker’s direction.

  Two other men on horseback emerged on the far bank: one a filthy young man with longish blond hair and a pair of pistols at his belt, the other a neatly dressed black man with a tall, crisp hat on his head.

  The black man spoke. “We’ll have time for shooting dinner later. I want to get there tonight, even if we push on through dark.”

  Alston crossed a little deeper, the water splashing up onto his boots and pants legs.

  The black man drew a long-barreled pistol from his jacket and cocked the lever. The gun erupted. Alston ducked and a bullet whizzed through the leaves past Jolie and Conker. His horse reared in alarm. “You hear me or do I have to send John Hardy here in to fish your body out of that creek?”

  Alston grumbled, scratching at the nest on his face and turning back. “I’m hungry, Stacker.”

  “You’ll eat when I say. Let’s move.”

  Alston holstered the shotgun in the saddle and joined the other two on the bank with one last gaze back toward the far bank.

  Jolie and Conker lay crouched in the underbrush for a long time after the men had moved on up the creek. Jolie’s eyes were still narrowed as she watched the direction they had gone.

  “It’s okay,” Conker assured Jolie. “They’re bandits, but at least they’re headed the other direction.”

  “They are headed toward the well!”

  “How would they know about your well? Besides, it’s protected, right?”

  Jolie stood and offered her hand to Conker. “You are right. But let us travel a little farther before we stop for a meal.”

  6

  THE ELEMENTAL ROSE

  QUIET DAYS RETURNED
TO SHUCKSTACK. NEL’S eighty-first birthday celebration was past. The terror of the dying man from Kansas was fading into memory. Ray and Marisol had left with the Everetts, catching a ride on the Ballyhoo as far as St. Louis. And Sally was working with the other children of Shuckstack on the chores that encompassed their everyday routines.

  With Mattias off with Dmitry hunting for game in the mountains, Sally had recruited Rosemary to help plant the seeds that would bring up kale and onions and radishes and other early spring vegetables. The girls sang songs and talked about the party as they worked with the hoes.

  “What do you think of Noah’s scarecrow?” Oliver called as he came around the barn.

  Sally and Rosemary turned and leaned against the hoes. Oliver held the scarecrow’s sack head, while little Noah carried the post protruding from the feet. He had a proud tilt to his chin as he helped Oliver tilt the scarecrow upright.

  “Is that my blouse?” Rosemary asked.

  “It was in the pile of patches in Marisol’s room,” Noah said. “Thought you outgrowed it?”

  “That’s fine,” Rosemary said. “Looks better on your scarecrow anyway.”

  “He looks lovely,” Sally said, waving a hand to the mismatch of worn-out clothes covering the scarecrow’s lumpy body. “You know, I sat on my straw hat and now it’s got a hole in it. You can use it if you want.”

  “Where is it?” Noah said, letting go of the scarecrow and surprising Oliver as the tall straw man tumbled on top of him.

  Sally laughed. “Under my bed. Go get it.”

  Noah set off running, his brogans slapping on the wet mud where the last snow had recently melted. He nearly knocked Buck and Si from the steps as he dashed up.

  “Slow it!” Buck barked, grasping the railing.

  Noah sprinted past calling out, “Okay, Buck. Excuse me, Si.”

  Sally was about to return to hoeing when she saw Buck and Si go over to Carolyn. She couldn’t hear what they were saying, but in a moment the two passed by the garden plot, heading for the trail.

  Si’s black braid hung tight and sleek across her shoulder, and she wore a bulging haversack. Her eyes were still darkly rimmed, but she seemed to be recovering from her injury. Buck clamped his wide-brimmed cowboy hat over his rowdy black-and-silver hair. He hoisted a pair of waterskins over his shoulder and adjusted them to rest behind his holstered pistols.