Spirit of the Wolf

by Vonna Harper

  “Matichu. Guider of all spirit quests.”

  Matt was on his feet and standing over her without her knowing how that had happened. He took the picture from her. “Explain,” he said.

  “Wolves are pack animals,” Helaku began. “My ancestors admired that quality more than the predators’ hunting prowess. According to my grandfather, the old ones—he never considered himself old—were simple humans who learned from studying the creatures around them. They didn’t want to act like prey animals. If they were going to survive the harsh world they found themselves in, they’d better learn how to conduct themselves like predators.”

  Hearing Helaku use modern speech to describe something ancient kept her from getting sucked too deep into the past. Still, she was afraid she might lose touch with the present at any moment. Maybe Ghost Wolf—or Matichu—was responsible for this drifting sensation.

  “The old Paiutes followed bears, cougars, wolves, and other predators. They tried attacking the way a cougar does, but most times the deer or elk—even rabbits—got away. Their success rate increased dramatically when they hunted in a group. Mirroring wolf behavior regarding protecting and rearing their pups increased the Paiute survival rate. That’s when, over time, of course, my ancestors—yours, too, Matt—determined that wolves were at the top of the food chain. And thus the most sacred.”

  Cat thought Matt might object to what Helaku had just said. Instead, now looking at a home surrounded by what of the Paiutes had survived the centuries, Matt nodded. Had she ever wanted to touch him more than she now did?

  “So,” Matt said, “Paiutes prayed to Matichu before going on spirit searches?”

  “Yes.” Helaku smile highlighted the wrinkles at the corners his mouth. “I tried it myself. Because my parents were determined to assimilate, to focus on being Americans and not Indians, they didn’t pass on most of what their parents tried to teach them. Consequently, it’s taken me a lifetime to fill in the blanks.” He took the photograph back from Matt. “I’m still learning. This”—he held the photograph against his chest—“is incredible. I’ll die content once I’ve stepped inside Grizzly’s Home.”

  Helaku’s awe had Cat blinking back tears. There were only two pictures left for him to see but not until Helaku was finished talking. Going by the unease in Matt’s eyes, she believed he felt the same.

  “For all I know,” Helaku continued as he studied the dramatic cave wall rendering of pack and massive wolf, “my grandparents’ grandparents created this. It was their way of saying that everything, even other wolves, revered Matichu.”

  “Matichu,” Matt said. “One spirit wolf, then? A single entity.”

  Helaku nodded. “Symbolic, of course.”

  Cold and hot, Cat looked up at Matt. Except for his eyes, his features were neutral. “No,” Matt said, and took control of the envelope. “Not symbolic.”

  Don’t do this! she wanted to scream.

  Helaku placed the final cave photograph on top of the others on his lap. He studied Cat and then Matt before turning his attention to the nearly empty envelope. “Show me.”

  He knows. At least he suspects.

  Matt was her lover, the lighter of all her lights, a complex and half-savage man. He didn’t belong in this small cabin surrounded by the past. Instead he should be racing across the prairie with the desert air in his hair and the sun burnishing his skin.

  Those thoughts and a familiar tightening in her groin distracted her from comprehending what Matt was doing. Working so slowly she thought she’d scream from the waiting, Matt pulled out the final photographs and fanned them over Helaku’s lap. Leaning over, Helaku trembled.

  “Matichu,” the old man breathed at length. “Alive.”

  “I’m not sure we can call it that,” she whispered. “The wolves that returned to Oregon are real, alive.” Her fingers hovered over Ghost Wolf’s / Matichu’s muzzle. “He is something else.”

  “Tell me, Cat, what did you feel when you saw him?”

  “Where do I start?” She tried a light tone she didn’t feel. “Scared shitless, of course. In a way it was like being in a whiteout. If I panic, I’m dead. I knew I had to focus, concentrate. Take pictures.”

  “What about Matichu’s emotions?”

  Weren’t they debating whether the great wolf spirit figure was alive? Did the old man really expect her to answer his insane question?

  Yes, Matt’s expression said.

  “I have no doubt he resents me. Maybe he hates me.”

  “Because?”

  Listen to your heartbeat. Concentrate on filling your lungs. Then say what you need to no matter how insane it sounds. “Matichu wants Matt. He wants me out of the way.”

  In another room a clock ticked. The refrigerator powered up. Beyond these walls the wind increased. And inside Cat’s head, something roared.

  A dry weight settled over her hand, and she studied Helaku’s weathered fingers covering hers. “I’m an old man,” he said. “Because they love me, my children and grandchildren listen when I go on about our heritage, but I haven’t told them about Matichu.”

  “Because you think they won’t believe you?” Matt asked.

  Helaku squeezed Cat’s hand. “If they saw what she took, they would.” He nodded at the final photographs. “But only then. Without this they would make fun of their ignorant and superstitious ancestors. A question for you, Matt. When did you first accept Matichu’s existence?”

  Matt started to ram his hands into his back pockets only to stop and caress the knife handle sticking out of the sheath at his waist. “I’m not sure. Do you know who Santo is—was?”

  “Of course. One horseman knows another.”

  Watching Matt stride to the window and look out, she couldn’t imagine ever feeling more in awe of and concerned for him. Sexual need barely mattered. Where was Ghost Wolf/ Matichu?

  “Then you know how Santo died.” Matt’s voice was muffled. “I was with the group that found his body. When we were searching, I sensed something out there. Something new on the desert. More than an animal. Like a building storm.”

  “Ah, yes,” Helaku said. “Well put.”

  “You never said . . . Did you tell anyone?” she asked.

  “No.” Spinning around, Matt fixed his gaze first on Helaku and then on her. “Matichu is here.” He reached behind him and slapped the window glass. “Waiting for me.”

  “Yes,” Helaku said.

  “Why?” she managed. “Of all the people he—it—could fixate on, what makes Matt different?”

  Silent, Helaku released her hand, got to his feet, and joined Matt. Together they faced the window, and the old man placed his arm around Matt’s shoulder as best he could given the difference in their height.

  “You can’t hide,” he muttered. “You must open yourself to the truth.”

  24

  Are you ready for this?

  “Are you ready for this?”

  Startled because Cat had voiced the question he’d just asked himself, Matt loosened his hold on the reins and gave the gelding under him his head in preparation for the final climb to Grizzly’s Home, as he now thought of it.

  “I don’t have a choice.” Looking at her for the first time since they’d left the horse trailer on the desert floor below them, he noted how tired she looked. The day had been hell on her, on both of them, and it wasn’t over.

  “I’m sorry,” he continued. “I should have waited until tomorrow, let you get some sleep first.”

  On the tail of a rueful look, she rubbed her right eye. “It’s better this way.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah. Less time for either of us to back out.”

  In a few minutes they’d reach the spot where she’d left her horse before when she came to Grizzly’s Home. He didn’t know how long the on-foot hike would take and refused to speculate on whether they’d be back at her place before dark. She was right. Today might represent the limits of his courage.

  And hers.

&n
bsp; In truth, a large chunk of him wanted her to bail while they were still on horseback. He might be willing to risk his life seeking answers. He had no right asking her to do the same.

  “You don’t have to do it this way,” she said after several silent moments. “Come here in an attempt to get Matichu to reveal himself to you, I mean. Give him time. We both know he was outside Helaku’s place. A little more patience on our parts and he might have shown himself.”

  About to tell Cat that something of Matichu’s spirit-force was already in the wind, he decided not to because the words might tip him over the edge and strip courage from him. Reminding himself that, as a boy, he’d had the strength to ride to his father’s camp knowing what he’d find, he squared his shoulders.

  If he survived today, he hoped he could spend tonight in Cat’s bed. That’s what he’d use to keep him going. To face the truth Helaku had hinted at.

  “Matichu and today’s wolf pack are united in some way,” he said. “Interdependent maybe.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Then what?”

  She drew her mare to a stop and dismounted before looking up at him. “I’m thinking about the petroglyph. The way the wolves regarded Matichu makes me believe they saw him as their alpha. Maybe their spirit leader.”

  Years ago his father had put his own spin on Native American beliefs. Matt had lost sight of what was based on tradition and what came out of Kaga’s scrambled mind. “The drawing could be symbolic. Not . . . Hell, I’m not sure what I’m trying to say.” Truth was, his own sanity felt as if it were slipping through his fingers. Maybe the only way of holding on to it, at least briefly, was by losing himself in Cat’s body.

  Not that he could now.

  “Neither do I.” She handed him the barest smile. It carved a path to his under-siege soul. “One thing I keep thinking—are you going to get down?”

  Her question reminded him that he was still on horseback. Reaching the ground, he measured the distance between them. Too close and too far apart. “What are you thinking?”

  She ran her hand down her braid to remind him of what it looked like loose and feminine. Sex. Quick and hard. Energy given and taken for what lay ahead.

  “If Matichu wanted us dead,” she said, “he would have already done it.”

  “How? He isn’t flesh and blood, is he?”

  Suddenly looking nearly as old as Helaku, she shook her head. “I don’t know. He sure isn’t smoke and mirrors. If you’re right about what happened to Santo . . . and what about Beale and those women hikers? Matichu’s hand was in that.”

  “Maybe that’s why we’re here.”

  Instead of responding, Cat took a halter and rope out of her saddlebag. After exchanging her mare’s bridle for the halter, she tied the horse to a bush. “Better do the same,” she said.

  Her suggestion got him going again. His intention, such as it was, was to walk to the cave and, if Matichu didn’t stop him, crawl into the dark space and experience it firsthand. However, going by the air’s heavy feel here, he wondered if he might not get that far.

  “You’re carrying the knife,” Cat said. “I’m surprised you’ve held on to it all these years.”

  So was he, but every time he tried to get rid of it, he couldn’t. Yes, the blade had ended his father’s life, but it represented the only connection he still had with Kaga. Forgoing an attempt to explain, he took the lead on the deer trail. The sun was low in the sky with whispers of a cool night in the shadows. Behind him, Cat’s boots made barely perceptible sounds. Once—if—this was over, he’d tell her how much he admired her courage.

  Watching Matt’s ass and the backs of his legs, to say nothing of his shoulders and lean waist, stood between Cat and what this afternoon was about. Living in central Oregon had introduced her to strong, resourceful, and brave men. She understood the courage it took to wrestle out a living here with the weather acting as one enemy and isolation another. Over the past few days with Matt, she’d come to understand strength’s deeper layers.

  In his own way, Matt was the alpha wolf.

  What, then, did that make her?

  Matt hadn’t said anything, but the way he occasionally stopped and lifted his head as if testing the air told her that he, too, was aware of the weight, warmth, and warning on the breeze.

  They’d soon reach the cave entrance, get down on their hands and knees, and crawl into darkness. They’d share their time with old petroglyphs, and the drawings would become more than images on photo paper for him.

  And maybe Matichu would join them.

  Wiping her sweating hands on her hips, Cat faced the possibility. Matichu couldn’t or wouldn’t enter something manmade, but what if nature had created the space?

  Is that what you’re waiting for? she silently asked the beast. You want to trap us in there? No escaping, Matt’s knife against your fangs?

  You don’t understand.

  “Ah, shit!” She pressed her hands against the small of Matt’s back.

  He whirled toward her. “What is it?”

  “In my mind,” she blurted. “Matichu telling me I don’t understand. You didn’t hear him?”

  “No.”

  Matt withdrew the slender blade and held it in front of him. Then he wrapped an arm around her waist. His heat bled into hers. Anticipating more, her pussy tightened.

  “Enough!” Matt’s head swiveled one way and then the other. “No more playing this damn game, Matichu. What the hell do you want?”

  Nerve endings scraped raw by Matt’s closeness snapped. Even before she looked toward the cave, she knew what she was going to see. Beside her, Matt tensed.

  Matichu, or Ghost Wolf, stood above them surrounded by dull black lava. His rich coat had picked up the lava’s darker hue as had his eyes. In contrast, she’d never seen anything as white as his exposed fangs. It had to be his higher elevation but she half believed he was even larger than the other times she’d seen him.

  She wasn’t afraid. She’d come too far and waited too long for anything except the sense of a necessary task accomplished. Sucking in a long breath, Matt turned them so they faced Matichu head-on.

  “Finally,” Matt said.

  Yes, finally.

  In all her years of being around horses, she’d never seen anything as awe-inspiring as the world’s largest wolf. Her earlier look at him didn’t lessen the impact.

  “You were waiting for us?” Matt asked.

  I came with you. You sensed me at the old man’s place. Don’t tell me you didn’t.

  Matt’s hold on her waist let up a little, maybe so he’d be ready to spring into action. “I have no intention of doing that. Why did you wait so long to materialize? You could have at Helaku’s house.”

  This is better.

  It was, Cat admitted. This confrontation or whatever it was should take place on ancient Paiute land and among the three of them.

  “Why have you been stalking me?” Matt demanded. “And trying to crawl inside me?”

  Matichu lowered his head a little. Don’t call it stalking. I didn’t attack you the way I did the boy.

  “His name is Beale. You nearly killed him, damn it. You sure as hell traumatized him.”

  In part so you’d know.

  “Ah, shit,” Matt muttered, so low she wondered if the wolf could hear. “He was a substitute for me?”

  The pack attacked him, not me.

  “They didn’t do it on their own.” Her calm voice surprised her. “You were behind the attack. You commanded the pack to—”

  I needed to test my power over them.

  “Goddamn it.” Releasing her, Matt positioned himself between Matichu and her. By stepping to the side, she was able to keep an eye on the wolf while studying Matt’s tense profile. “By compelling them to nearly kill an innocent man? Don’t you get it? As a result, there are idiots out there determined to blast the pack out of existence.”

  I won’t let it happen.

  “How? By waging war betwee
n wolves and humans? Wolves lost in the past. They will again.”

  There didn’t have to be war. Done right, man could find a way to coexist with the predators, but that would happen only if Matichu allowed the wolves to conduct themselves as nature designed.

  “All right, all right.” She roughly ran her fingers down the side of her neck. “There’s something . . . What you said about testing your control over the wolves—this is a new experience for you?”

  “What are you talking about?” Matt said without looking back at her.

  “I’m not sure. Trying to think things through. You’ve been here a long time, haven’t you, Matichu? Centuries. Ancient Paiutes worshipped and revered you. Maybe they were afraid of you. If you controlled the wolves that once lived here as you’re doing with the newcomers, I can understand why Paiutes created the drawings they did. They’d do whatever they could to keep you on their side.”

  Matichu had lowered himself onto his haunches while she was talking. If his cocked head was any indication, he was listening to her every word. Matt’s strong back told her the same thing.

  “You are one of a kind. Unique. Solitary,” she said in little more than a whisper. “You keep yourself separate from humans because you have little in common with them while the wolves . . . they’re the closest thing you have to family.”

  You’re wrong.

  25

  Confused, Cat rubbed her right temple. “What? Is there something the petroglyph didn’t show?”

  “Okay,” Matt broke in before Matichu could respond, if he’d been going to, “so you tested your power over the relocated wolves by having them attack Beale and later by scaring those women hikers. What about the wild dogs? The pack killed two of them, but was it their idea or done under your command?”

  The pack’s. The dogs were competition for food, pitiful competition.

  Matt hadn’t mentioned dead dogs, but given everything that had happened lately, she wasn’t surprised. The tension swirling around the three of them had her nerves on high alert. Strangely, much more stimulation and she’d climax just standing here.