The Wolf Tree

by John Claude Bemis

  “You ain’t even known who I was.”

  “But I wanted to find food, and there you were. What about my father? If we help Quorl, how long will it take?”

  “I know what you saying, Yote. And I know how terrible you want to find your daddy. But I reckon we’ve got to help this Quorl, as you’re the one with that Toninyan and all.”

  “I guess you’re right,” Sally said soberly. “I think I know how to find his Tree. I found the answer the other day, when we were trying to find food. Remember? The rabbit’s foot—or this Toninyan that’s the lodestone—it couldn’t help us because the food wasn’t lost after all. We were. But I read the answer. My father wrote, ‘place what is lost in your thoughts and follow.’ I suppose that’s all I have to do.”

  “Then try, Yote. Ask the rabbit’s foot—or whatever you do—to see if it’ll hit on that Tree.”

  Sally cupped the rabbit’s foot in her hands. It was pointing toward the northwest. She closed her eyes and began thinking of the Great Tree, unsure how to imagine it.

  The rabbit’s foot jerked. She opened her eyes to see it rotating ever so slowly around in her palm.

  “It moved! I just seen it.” Hethy gasped. “That ain’t the same way, is it?”

  “No,” Sally said. “I think …” She looked up. “It’s pointing north.”

  Hethy nodded. Sally put the rabbit’s foot in her pocket and sat on the grass, her knees to her chest and her thumb anxiously in her teeth.

  It was not long before Quorl returned. “I am still too weak to catch any game. I dug up these roots. Put them in the coals to cook. They’ll nourish you.” Then he sank down with exhaustion and closed his eyes.

  Hethy stirred up the fire. The roots looked like small yams, yellowish and rock-hard. As they split and blackened, Sally examined Quorl’s wounds. Some of them were bleeding again, and she cleaned them and put fresh compounds on him.

  As she did this, she asked, “Are you sleeping, Quorl?”

  “No,” he said, and he opened his eyes.

  “I can work the Toninyan.”

  “You can find the Great Tree then?” he asked, sitting up.

  “Hopefully.”

  “And you’ll help me? You’ll guide me to it?”

  Sally tried not to let her reluctance show. “Yes, we’ll help you. But, Quorl, you said the Great Tree leads to other worlds.”

  The hopelessness had left Quorl’s eyes, and although he still had a mad glint, it was madness born of returning optimism. “Yes. It does.”

  “My father is in the Gloaming. Do you know this world?”

  “Not by this name, but the paths of the Great Tree are as many as the blades of grass on this prairie.”

  “If we help find the Great Tree, can you guide me to Father using the Tree?”

  “Yes! Yes, child. Who knows how far you would have to travel across this land to reach him. But crossing the Great Tree … I will lead you to him more quickly. I pledge this to you. What is your name? Oh, I seem to have forgotten all my courtesy. Please, tell me your names, girls.”

  Sally could not help but laugh—laugh with excitement at the prospect of crossing the Great Tree to reach her father, and laugh at the strange enthusiasm that animated the rougarou now. Even Hethy, who was poking the baking roots from the fire, smiled at the rougarou.

  “My friend is Hethy Smith. I’m Sally Cobb.”

  Hethy chuckled. “I call her Yote.”

  “Why is that?” Quorl asked.

  “’Cause I thought she was a coyote when I met her. See, Yote was out on the prairie, all alone….” Hethy told Quorl about how she attacked Sally on that night, and as the girls ate, they began to tell Quorl about their lives—Hethy’s sad tale of Omphalosa and Sally’s pastoral life at Shuckstack. The rougarou listened intently. And although the roots weren’t particularly tasty, they filled their stomachs, and the girls felt good after eating them.

  Whether it was because he was energized by the anticipation of finding the Great Tree or because Hethy’s compounds were helping him heal, Quorl was eager to begin their journey.

  “Which way is the Great Tree? Have you asked the Toninyan?”

  “To the north,” Sally said, gathering her belongings to depart.

  The two girls and the limping rougarou set out at midday. Quorl stubbornly ignored his injuries, but by late afternoon, Sally could see he was obviously tired. They camped for the night on the open plains.

  “How far away is the Great Tree?” Quorl asked the following morning. They had been walking since sunrise, and the weather was warm and windy.

  “I don’t know how to read that from the rabbit’s foot,” Sally said. “Although, when it led me to Hethy, it began shaking and such just before I found her.”

  “Is it doing that now?”

  Sally took the rabbit’s foot from her pocket. “No.”

  The rabbit’s foot pointed due north, and they continued for miles and miles. Quorl was healing much more quickly than the girls expected. Hethy continued to collect yarrow and wild indigo to make new compounds for his wounds each night, although she still convinced Sally to place them on the rougarou. Quorl managed to catch a few prairie dogs, but neither girl was particularly keen on eating them.

  “They ain’t much better than rats,” Hethy scoffed. But Quorl knew the prairie plants and found more tubers and roots and wild greens to keep their stomachs sated.

  Later in the afternoon, Sally looked up from her walking. “Look at those clouds,” she said, pointing to the west.

  “A storm.” Quorl narrowed his eyes and sniffed at the breeze. “We’ll have to stop soon. I’ll make you a shelter.”

  They soon reached a creek, where Quorl began digging into the soft earth in the bank to make a shallow cave. As the storm front moved toward them, the sky darkened with an ominous green-black wall of clouds. Lightning flashed in the distance, and the thunder pealed long and low across the prairie.

  While Quorl worked on the dugout, Sally and Hethy collected firewood and searched out the edible plants Quorl had shown them. Sally picked up the dry branches silently, her thoughts far away.

  “Something bothering you, Yote?” Hethy asked after a time, as she dug up some turnip-like roots growing at the creek’s edge.

  Sally looked over at her. “I keep thinking of Father, Hethy.”

  “What’s there to worry you? You traveling all this distance, with no way to get into that Gloaming. Now you can. Quorl’s going to take you to him.”

  Sally hoisted the limbs in her arms. “I know, it’s just I thought I understood the Incunabula. I thought I understood the Verse of the Lost. But what if I’m bringing danger to him? What if giving him back his hand brings him some harm?”

  “Like that Mister Nel?”

  “Yeah.”

  Hethy screwed up her nose. “But didn’t you say Nel was grateful to you for doing it?”

  “Yes,” Sally replied.

  “Then don’t let it fret you none.” Hethy toted the bundle of roots and corms and nuts in the skirt of her dress. “Come on, Yote, let’s get on back and get a fire going and you’ll feel better. You’ll see.”

  The girls returned with the wood to find Quorl inspecting the dugout in the creek’s bank. “This should protect you from the storm,” he panted. “But if the creek rises too much, we’ll have to leave. Let’s hope the storm passes quickly.”

  A clap of thunder underscored his words, and the daylight dimmed ominously fast. Hethy quickly started to build the fire in the mouth of the dugout, while Sally prepared the supper to cook. The drops began—big as a man’s hand and then smaller and faster, scattered with tiny, crunching balls of hail. The girls backed against the dirt wall, the fire warding away the wet. Quorl lay on the pebbled bank outside with the rain soaking him.

  “Why don’t you come in?” Sally called over the din. “We can try to make room.”

  Quorl shook his head. “Rain and cold make no more difference to me than warmth and sunshine. They are a
ll just elements—none better or worse than the other.”

  Hethy raised her eyebrows at Sally. “That’s good for us he feels that way.”

  Hethy poked at the fire with a stick, and then adjusted the pot cooking their stew of wild plants so that it sat over hotter coals. Sally opened the Incunabula to the Verse of the Lost and again read it.

  “You still worrying on that, Yote?” Hethy asked.

  “I just can’t believe I didn’t realize it was a warning.”

  “What was?”

  Sally ran her finger beneath the final lines as she read aloud, “‘But even restoration might in time extract a cost, as the vessel can be made a beacon for the lost.’ See, Hethy?”

  “You know I don’t understand that crazy book.”

  Sally leaned back against the dirt wall. “I thought the cost was the lodestone’s powers, not some cost for Nel.”

  Hethy settled beside her and looked over at the book in her lap. “Hum, maybe it ain’t as bad as you think. What’s that last part there mean about the vessel and the beacon?”

  “The rabbit’s foot’s the vessel. And it’s a beacon because it guided Ray.”

  “What’s a beacon?” Hethy asked.

  “Like a lighthouse or something. Something to help people find their way in the dark.”

  Hethy looked at her. “Like the Darkness in Omphalosa?”

  “No, like when Ray was trying to find our f—” Sally stopped.

  “What is it, Yote?”

  Sally was thinking. What if it was like the Darkness?

  “The vessel can be a beacon for the lost,” Sally murmured. “When Mother Salagi covered the rabbit’s foot with that powder, she and those seers saw that a spike needed to be made.”

  “To stop that awful clockwork?”

  “Yeah,” Sally said. “They said the spike would be ‘a light to pierce the Dark.’”

  “Like that lighthouse you talking about.”

  “Yeah,” Sally uttered, half-dazed.

  The girls were quiet a moment. Hethy finally turned to Sally. “Is that poem in your book saying the vessel is the rabbit’s foot and it’s got to be made into a spike?”

  “But Father,” Sally said. “If I save him, if I help him get back his Rambler powers, then the rabbit’s foot will be gone.”

  “Yote?”

  Sally slowly brought her gaze around to Hethy. The whites of her friend’s eyes seemed to glow from her ashen face.

  “Yote, you can’t give back your daddy his powers, can you?”

  Panic swelled in Sally. Her hands trembled against the pages of the Incunabula. “I have to, Hethy! I have to save Father!”

  Lightning struck the prairie nearby, shaking some dirt loose from the back of the dugout. Quorl looked up at them curiously. Hethy and Sally moved closer together, Hethy clutching Sally’s shaking hands and shushing her gently. “We’ll figure it out, Yote. Don’t you worry. Maybe you ain’t got it right.”

  She crawled over to lift the pot from the coals. Taking turns sharing the spoon, they ate the stew while the storm rumbled past.

  Sally didn’t know if she had been wrong to help Nel. She didn’t know if Ray would ever return again. She didn’t know if the Verse of the Lost meant that the rabbit’s foot had to be made into the spike.

  But she did know with certainty one thing. She had to have her father back. One way or another she had to save him.

  Fortunately the storm was fast-moving and brought little rain over the night. The creek rose, but not enough to endanger their camp. They woke the following morning to clear skies and a stout wind.

  As they continued north, the wind lashed the prairie in sudden gusts, blowing the girls’ dresses and hair in tangles. Sally could not stop thinking about her father. Had Mother Salagi meant for Ray to bring their father the rabbit’s foot so he could make the spike? What was she going to do?

  They stopped midday by a pond and refilled their flasks. Quorl trotted away from the girls, going up onto a rise and surveying the plains. Hethy sat on the ground, her head cupped in her hand.

  “You okay?” Sally asked.

  “Feel a little dizzy is all.”

  When Quorl returned, he looked anxious. His ears were flattened and his tail drooped. As he approached the girls, he said, “Get on my back. I’ll carry you.”

  “But your leg …,” Sally began.

  “My strength is returning. We need to move faster and we can only do so if I carry you.”

  Sally exchanged a worried glance with Hethy. “Is something wrong?”

  He lowered to allow them to get on. “Do as I ask.”

  Sally climbed onto Quorl’s back, and Hethy got on behind her. Sally dug her fingers into his silver-blue fur and clutched the loose skin about his neck.

  “Do you have a good grip?” he asked.

  “I reckon I do, if Sally does,” Hethy said, encircling her arms around Sally’s waist.

  “Hold on tightly,” Quorl said, and he began to trot, eventually breaking into a faster pace on the flat expanses.

  Sally was amazed at how easy it was to keep her balance. Quorl moved fluidly, despite his healing leg. Sally kept her knees firm against the rougarou’s ribs. Hethy seemed to get the worst of the ride. Sitting closer to Quorl’s hips, she bucked up and down, and complained endlessly in Sally’s ear. But squeezing herself to Sally’s back, she kept on throughout the afternoon and into the night.

  The girls fell asleep at some point, and Quorl slowed to a loping gait. Sally opened her eyes occasionally, and each time the moon was in a new position against the vast field of stars. Quorl stopped and was sniffing at the ground when Sally woke at last.

  “I’ve got to stretch,” she said, nudging Hethy, who was slumped between her shoulder blades.

  The girls dismounted, stiff and sore. Quorl followed some scent along the grass. As Sally watched his circling, Hethy began coughing.

  “You all right, Hethy?” Sally asked.

  Hethy crouched on the ground, covering her mouth with a fist as the coughs subsided. “I’m tired, Yote. I don’t feel good.” She laid her head to her elbow on the earth and closed her eyes again.

  “Don’t sleep, child,” Quorl said, returning. “We must keep going.”

  “But we’re exhausted,” Sally said. “Let us just sleep a few minutes.”

  “No! Get up,” Quorl snapped.

  “Why?” Hethy mumbled, her eyes half-sealed.

  As if in answer, a long howl—a single reverberating note—rose in the distance.

  Quorl swung his head around, ears and tail lowered. He turned back to the girls and through his bared teeth said, “The pack has been following us. I did not want to frighten you, but there is no hiding it any longer. They have my scent and they’ll come for me. Get on and quickly!”

  As the girls mounted Quorl, another howl resounded. Quorl dashed across the night prairie.

  Jarred, Sally clutched tight to the rougarou’s neck as she felt the tiny claws of the rabbit’s foot tapping against her palm, pointing to the north. “Turn slightly to the right,” Sally called. Quorl adjusted his path each time Sally checked the foot. Quorl covered a great distance, but they could still hear the calls from the pursuing rougarou.

  “I see them,” Hethy said. Sally looked over her shoulder. Large forms, shadowed against the moonlit plains, raced toward them.

  “Faster!” Sally cried, but she could feel Quorl struggling. He might have been immune to the pain, but his leg was weakening. Fresh blood speckled the fur of his tail.

  Ahead, the land seemed to disappear, as if the prairie—which had rolled on endlessly—ended abruptly not a hundred yards before them. It looked as if they were reaching the end of the world. But then Sally saw what seemed to be a cliff, and the edge was rapidly approaching.

  “Quorl!” she screamed.

  But Quorl did not slow. He leaped over the edge, and Sally was relieved to find that it wasn’t a cliff after all. The other side was not so steep, and Quorl’s paws
caught on the sloping, soft earth. Keeping his balance, Quorl slid on his front paws as he descended until he reached the ground below.

  Strange landforms rose around them—sharply eroded buttes, their tops flat and gleaming with grass, the edges washing down into talons of dirt. Quorl had to navigate around them and, when trapped against their walls, he scrambled up the sides, slipping in the loose earth.

  The golden foot was tugging stronger now, flinching against her fingers the way it had when she found Hethy.

  “Keep going, Quorl!” Sally shouted. “We’re nearly there.”

  But this was strange to Sally. The foot seemed to tell her that the Great Tree was near, but she saw nothing around but the ghostly badlands. Where was it? Wouldn’t it be visible by now?

  A snarl startled Sally. A rougarou ran toward them, not more than fifty yards behind. She turned to peer back, and there they were: a dozen wolves in all. Their eyes flashed ferociously in the moonlight, and their teeth gleamed.

  Even in the half-dark, Sally could see their coats were not like the gray-brown of ordinary wolves she had seen in pictures. Some were all black. Others moon-white. Still more seemed a tawny gold or bright copper-red. None had a silver-blue coat like Quorl, but like him, they were large—great monsters leaping and racing closer and closer.

  The buttes surrounded Quorl, driving him into a dry canyon. The pursuing pack split into three: two groups going right and left up the sides onto the flat rim of the canyon and the third—led by a black-furred rougarou—following behind Quorl.

  The rabbit’s foot trembled fiercely.

  “It’s here, Quorl!” Sally cried. “It has to be here! Oh, where is the Tree?”

  The canyon ended. And Quorl nearly tumbled as he stopped.

  They were trapped.

  The eight rougarou above spread out along the top of the canyon, peering down savagely and snarling.

  Quorl shook his back. “Off! Get behind me.”

  The girls leaped from Quorl and huddled together against a cove in the canyon wall. Quorl turned, lifting his nose straight up. “It is here, my rougarou!” he cried. “The Great Tree is found!” He howled a powerful, ear-piercing sound.