Wolf, WY

by A. F. Henley

  With the precision of a chemist, Randy measured and poured. With the caution of a surgeon, he folded and stirred. He was so engrossed in his task that he almost missed the sandy-haired child that slipped past the kitchen window. It was such a quick flash, such a deliberate avoidance at being seen, that it brought to mind the dash of a fawn.

  The sigh that Randy hissed over the breaking of his concentration could have made rattlesnakes applaud had they, in fact, had hands. It wasn't that he had issues with children, but having them run loose unattended and uninvited on his property was an insurance claim waiting to happen. Randy abandoned the dough, snagged a dishtowel, and walked to the sliding door that overlooked the backyard.

  A girl crouched beside his woodbin, long, disheveled braids hanging down her back, and Randy frowned. It was definitely not been braids that he'd seen pass the window, he was sure of it. He scanned the yard once, and then did it again. Just when he'd convinced himself that he must have been mistaken, another child popped up from behind the woodbin, pointing excitedly. Randy shook his head and weighted the gesture with another sigh—the smallest of the O'Connell men, complete with scuffed knees, muddied feet, windblown hair, and an already roguish smile. Which meant, Randy assumed, the braided wanderer beside him must be his sister.

  Both kids were flush-cheeked from the cold; they were mittened and scarved, but their heads were bare and they wore running shoes. His mother would have had a fit, so Randy had no doubt that Sir Vaughn himself would have busted a blood vessel. Randy grimaced and eyed them sympathetically. Oh, kids, I see an 'appropriate outdoor clothing' lecture in your future.

  The girl fell onto her knees and dipped close to the ground, trying to peer either under the bin or through the hole in the bottom corner. The boy listened to whatever she was babbling, then looked up and glanced around the yard. When he confirmed—Randy could only assume—that they were alone, he scrambled up and over the lip of the bin, landing on the collection of logs inside with a thud.

  "Oh, no," Randy mumbled, reaching for the hoodie he'd slipped off when the mixing had begun to prove taxing. "Hell no, you don't, little boy." That was the last thing he needed—one of Vaughn's babies with a broken leg in his yard.

  They both heard the click of the lock before the door slid open. As if of one mind, they froze, locked eyes, and turned to book it out of the yard.

  "Stop right there!" Randy ordered, using his most commanding voice. It was a tone both children took to mean 'run like the wind'. Fortunately, their option was to either run past Randy or out into the surrounding wilderness. Both kids wisely took the choice of attempting to barrel past him, and as they did—arms, legs, and elbows flying—Randy took the lawyer's approach instead of the physical one. Breathlessly, the entire sentence coming out as one long word, he shouted, "You can either explain to me what you're doing back here, or explain it to your father. Your choice."

  They both stopped dead. They turned.

  "That's what I thought."

  As Randy walked forward they seemed to shrink together, like puppies seeking one another's body for protection. But though their eyes were wide, their jaws were set. Though they trembled, they stood in silence.

  "Care to tell me why you're in my yard?"

  Their silence confirmed that they cared not to.

  "Or why you felt it necessary to risk life and limb to leap into my woodbin?"

  The boy lowered his head. Hiding a smirk? Randy narrowed his eyes. Well that would most definitively make him his father's son.

  "And you, Miss, would you like to offer me insight as to why you felt it necessary to crawl around my lawn on your knees like a dog? Or why the hell you don't have boots on your feet, or a hat on your—"

  It was their expressions that shut him down. They stared blankly, still silent, with tight lips, hands clasped behind their backs, and their legs spread like little soldiers waiting disciplinary action. The concept bothered Randy even more than the thought of Vaughn's curling lip and derisive attitude. No way was he going to rant and rave just because he thought that's what Vaughn would want him to do. Fuck that.

  "Fine." Randy nodded, folded his arms over his chest, and lifted an eyebrow. "If you choose not to speak willingly, then you leave me no choice." He dropped his voice and threw in a heavy Bela Lugosi accent that even to his own ears came out sounding like it belonged more on Sesame Street than in any kind of thriller. "I vill 'ave to force it out of you."

  Both faces snapped up to meet his gaze. The boy grimaced as though he'd swallowed bad milk. The girl tilted her head and twisted her lips.

  Randy took a long breath and then glanced at each of them in turn. "Let me guess, that wasn't scary in the least, was it?"

  Both answered at the exact same time. "No, sir."

  Randy huffed in mock-irritation. "Not even a little?" When they shook their heads in negation, Randy tapped his chin. "Okay. Wait. Let me try again. I think I can get this right."

  He cleared his throat, curled his lip like Vaughn tended to do mid-rant and growled, "What in the Sam Hell you young uns up to back here? Youse two trying to get yerself killt, or what now?"

  The girl sucked both cheeks in to hide her smile. The boy didn't bother. He merely blew air through his lips and said, "Not even close."

  "What?" Randy put both hands on his hips and gasped. "Come on! That was pretty damn good. I mean, I know I still have to work on the inflection a bit, but I'm trying." He offered them a grin. "It's hard to lose all that city in your voice when you've been speaking it as long as I have. But you can't tell me that wasn't at least a little on the spot."

  Their eyes rolled in the direction of one another. He was surprising them, Randy could tell.

  "Watch..." He creased his forehead, bared his teeth and pointed. "I can almost do the face even. Well, you'd know better than I would. How is it? Not bad? Or what?"

  A small smile grew on the boy's face. His sister, watching closely, slowly mirrored it. That was nice. They were slowly becoming the kids they were on the school bus instead of the kids they were at home.

  "Seriously, though, what are you doing back here?" Randy prompted, using the shift in mood to his hopeful advantage. "Did you guys lose something? I saw you looking around the woodbin."

  Even then they were too wary to talk. Even then they remained guarded.

  "I don't care," Randy insisted. "I really don't. I was just worried that you might get hurt jumping around like that." He directed his attention to the boy alone. "If those logs shift, you're going to fall. At best you'll end up with a turned ankle. At worst it'll be a broken leg." Randy shuddered dramatically. "And let's be honest, your dad scares the bejesus out of me. You fall and hurt yourself and there's no telling what he's going to do. What I am sure of however, is that I don't want him to do it to me."

  "Oh, no." The girl surprised Randy by stepping forward, shaking her head, and offering him a wounded look. "My daddy wouldn't hurt you."

  The boy cut in, nodding determinedly. "Hurt nothing smaller or weaker than yourself unless it's food."

  That had to be a direct citation. One of the many, Randy was sure, that were listed in the infamous 'Quotes and Commandments of the Great Vaughn O'Connell'. Thou shalt not allow thy vehicle to not get winterized, thou shalt not drive without sandbags, and thou shalt not harm anything smaller or weaker than thyself unless thou ist eating it. A veritable cornucopia of wisdom, this man.

  Randy felt his eyebrow drifting up his forehead, and his lip curled in distaste. He wasn't sure if he was more annoyed with the fact that Vaughn was self-important enough to preach it, or the fact that both kids knew Randy fit into the pigeonhole without a moment's hesitation. So, instead of the 'I took twelve years of karate' lie that his pride offered up, Randy went with, "Thanks, I'll keep that in mind. Still, I'd rather not have to fish you out of the woodbin and drag your broken body home."

  He paused to wait for their replies. They came in unison. "Sorry, sir."

  "Look!" The girl said, suddenly brigh
t-eyed and pointing at the corner of the bin. "There it goes!"

  A small white rabbit dashed from the box, each sprint growing longer and pounding harder than the one before until it appeared to take flight with each lunge. The only sign that its paws had actually hit the ground were small white puffs of reanimated snow. In a flash, bunny met bush, and the surrounding woods absorbed it as though it had been swallowed whole. Obviously late, Randy decided, for a very important date.

  "Come on!" The boy shouted. "Let's go!"

  With a huff and a grab, Randy snagged the sleeve of the boy's jacket. "Uh-uh. No, you don't. You want to go running off into the forest, you do it from your own property. I don't want to have to explain to Daddy O'Connell that I was the last one to see you before you disappeared off the face of the earth."

  "Besides," Randy released his coat, patting it down to flatten it again, "I've got a better idea." He looked from child to child. "Do either of you know how to bake cookies?"

  In hindsight, Randy realised that asking the kids in without consulting their father first had been more wrong than just about anything he'd done in his life. After all his experience and encounters with the creeps and the criminal minds of the world, he should have known better. At the moment, though, it never crossed his mind. He was just being neighborly. He was just being kind. He was just being stupid. Again. For all the excuses he would come up with later (he knew he was a nice guy, their father was right across the street, they were neighbors, after all) the only one that was actual truth was that he just didn't stop to think about how it would look.

  Both kids looked at each other, as if having a silent conversation, before the girl turned back to Randy, chewing her lip. "That would probably be fun."

  Wet shoes were dropped on to hardwood floors, soaked mittens were rested in front of the woodstove, and rosy cheeks began to lighten to a healthy peach. The kids sat in the kitchen with their legs dangling from tall stools and their fingers wrapped around warm mugs of sweetened milk. That was as close as Randy could come to hot chocolate, but neither kid seemed to mind.

  They chatted non-stop as they watched him roll and cut, sheet and bake. Then they giggled uncontrollably while he discarded the first two sets of blackened cookies, scraping and grumbling the entire time.

  Once the kids got talking, they didn't stop. With their feet swinging and their bodies in constant motion, they laughed at almost everything Randy said. When edible cookies finally appeared and were cool enough to handle, they both crunched them lovingly and reverently, their busy fingers and moony eyes telling Randy everything he needed to know: he really was the Cookie King.

  Hannah and Isaac, he learned quickly, were thrilled with their upcoming holiday concert at school, were both looking forward to the impending break, and had yet to put up a tree but had been promised that moment was imminent, as their dad just had to put new straps on the sled. Isaac was eight; Hannah was seven. Isaac was struggling to master the more difficult lessons of grade three, while Hannah was enjoying the newfound independence of grade two. Isaac loved ice hockey and soccer. Hannah loved horses, cats, dogs, birds, lizards, and rabbits. But not snakes because they were "so gross."

  Baking sheets continued to come out of the oven, and racks filled with cooling cookies. The kitchen smelled like heaven on earth, even to Randy's city-dulled senses, and his company was the best company Randy could have hoped to have. He would never have imagined that the two shining examples of human spirit that sat in his kitchen could have sprung from Vaughn O'Connell's loins, nor believed the fact that they shared DNA strings with the brooding Lyle.

  He should have noticed that the light was fading from the yard. The window was right there. The sliding glass door was only a few feet away. He should have questioned whether the kids were starting to be missed. He should have stopped and wondered what was going to happen when someone came looking for them. He didn't do any of that. And when the moment did arrive wherein Papa Bear came looking for his missing cubs, it was one of the oddest moments that Randy had ever experienced.

  In mid-bite, through an otherwise full grin, Isaac's eyes suddenly widened and his shoulders went taut. He turned to Hannah and whispered, "Uh-oh."

  Randy's kitchen did not afford a view of the front of his house; it looked out to the back and part of the side yard. There were no driveway bells or buzzers, and there were no cameras. Regardless of those facts, both kids scrambled, leaping from their stools and clutching for their jackets and accessories without explanation. They got to the front door and yanked it open at the exact same time that Vaughn reached for the knocker. They looked up in guilty horror, and Vaughn stared down in barely contained fury.

  Randy hurried for the door with his heart racing. Uh-oh, indeed.

  "Mr. O'Connell, hello." Randy cleared his throat and pasted on a smile. "How are you? So nice to see you again. I hope you don't mind that I invited the kids in. We were just baking cookies. They helped. Well, they watched. Hot stove and all, so I didn't want anyone to get hurt. But they were really good. I'm sure you've heard it a million times but you have lovely children. Extremely well-behaved."

  He was rambling a mile a minute, but it didn't change the expression on any of them. "Can I get you one to try? I mean, they're only cookies. But I just thought... Wow. You know, it's cold out there today, isn't it? Why don't you step in? The kids can finish dressing and—"

  "Isaac. Hannah." Vaughn's tone was icy. "I thought I told you not to bother Mr. Connor."

  The same silence that Randy had been presented with in the yard was back again. The beautiful, friendly kids who had been so at ease mere seconds ago were cowering like puppies over a pee stain. Randy did his best to contain his disdain, but even as he tried to keep his voice even, he could feel his hands tightening into fists.

  "It was really no bother, Vaughn. Honestly. I've never been more thrilled to have company in my life." He smiled down at Hannah and Isaac. "And thank you, both of you, for all of your help. Besides," he looked up at Vaughn, lifting his chin in defiance, "I told them they could come in. It's not their fault. They said they shouldn't—"

  "Is it not?" Vaughn's familiar lip curl infused his blank tone with sarcasm. "So it's not their fault that they chose to listen to your command instead of mine?"

  Randy choked on Vaughn's choice of wording. "Command? You commanded your children to stay away from me? What the hell, Vaughn, is your problem? What did I ever do to you that you feel the need to command them to avoid me? I'm not a creep. I'm not here to hurt anyone. Ask them! I was a perfect gentleman and completely normal! We had a good time!"

  It was more than anger over the fact that Vaughn was obviously misinterpreting Randy's gesture. Randy was hurt. He was no J.C., by any means, but he was no damn Charles Manson either.

  Vaughn didn't give Randy's questions any answers. He reached in to the hall and removed Isaac with a gentle tug. As he did, he caught Randy's gaze. "I will not do this with you in front of my children."

  Randy lost the tentative hold he'd been trying so hard to keep. His eyes narrowed. His jaw firmed. "Fine. You're welcome to send them on home and step in for a chat then so we can clear the air. Just the two of us."

  "I'm afraid I'll have to decline."

  Anger flooded Randy's chest as Hannah reached out to her father. She looked ten times smaller and a hundred times more diminished. As far as Randy was concerned, there was absolutely no reason to make the kids feel like they'd committed a carnal sin by befriending a neighbor. In Randy's opinion, Vaughn was acting like a complete and utter ass.

  "Of course you will," Randy snarled, fighting every instinct he had not to pull Hannah back. "You'd rather stand there and be the big boss. You'd rather be the tough guy and try to force them, me, and everyone you know, into a position of submission. You want your kids to see it. To know you have all the power. You want them to tremble over your supremacy."

  Vaughn looked up. He stared. His eyes flashed like forest fires, but his voice was cold wind. "Hardly. I d
o, however, expect my children to respect me and my rules."

  A laugh erupted from Randy's throat, tuned just a little too much to the side of hysteria. "This is not respect, this is fear. Congratulations, Mr. O'Connell. Not everyone can scare a child like that. Does it make you feel important?"

  Vaughn's patience seemed to snap in an instance. He hauled Hannah through the door, and growled, "Does it make you feel important, sir, to attempt to superimpose your status above mine?"

  Once again Randy was choking on his reply. "It most certainly does not. But someone needs to look out for them!"

  Vaughn pointed his kids down the driveway. "Walk!"

  They moved so quickly they looked like marbles bouncing across concrete. When Vaughn turned back, he looked ready to kill. "I look out for them. They are my children."

  Randy snorted. "That doesn't give you the right to insist they be subservient."

  Vaughn widened his eyes and replied incredulously, "That is exactly what it does!"

  "No." Randy shook his head so hard he felt his neck twinge. "It gives you the right to nurture them, to raise them, to support them, and to love them. That's it. That's where your rights end, and their rights as individuals start."

  Through gritted teeth, Vaughn replied, "What are you? Their lawyer?"

  "No. Their friend."

  Vaughn leaned in so close that Randy flinched. "Children don't need adult friends."

  No criminal in court and no overbearing judge had ever made Randy feel as tense as Vaughn managed to. He was bigger. He was tougher. Worse yet, he had a caveman's way of thinking. "How can you even say that?" Randy lowered his voice and shook his head. "Tell me you don't actually believe that."

  Vaughn's face twisted with frustration. "Look, Connor, you don't know us. You don't know a damn thing about us, who we are, or what we do. You have no idea what I have to do to make sure that... to... make life work. Don't you dare judge me."