Siege Line

by Myke Cole

  “They’re lookin’ for you, Grampy,” Mankiller said. “They put the town under siege. Lotta folks dead. Army sent a small force. Some of ’em are killed. Ollie’s holed up at the station with the survivors.”

  “Jesus,” Plante whispered. “How’s Joe?”

  Mankiller gestured at the sledge, and Plante knelt at Yakecan’s side, putting one tiny, gnarled hand on his forehead. Yakecan had wet himself during the trip, and Mankiller hadn’t had a chance to clean him up. Calmut hadn’t had much time to feed him either, and the great walrus bulk of her former deputy was already beginning to waste away.

  “What happened?” Plante asked.

  “I sent him to get help,” Mankiller said. “Not sure what happened after that, but he stumbled back into town wet and frozen. Guess the bad guys dunked him in the lake.”

  “He’s alive,” Plante said. “He’s still in there.”

  “Yeah,” Mankiller said. “Was wonderin’ if you could do somethin’ about that.”

  Plante shook his head. “I can only call the tháydÿne from the next world, sweetheart. This man is alive. Ah, poor Joe. He’s a good guy.”

  “I figured.” Mankiller swallowed a spasm of grief at the news. “Had to ask.”

  Plante looked up at her, eyes damp. “What are you gonna do?”

  “What can I do, Grampy? I’ll keep him alive. He’s got a sister in Yellowknife. When all this is over, I’ll let her know. I imagine she’ll want to take him.”

  Plante shook his head. “Jesus.”

  The name was pronounced Sezús in Denesuline, but Ghaznavi recognized it. “Did you say ‘Jesus’?”

  “Yah.” Plante nodded.

  “You believe in that? I thought you were some kind of shaman.”

  Plante shook his head. “Ain’t too bright, are you? You think I’d pray to the Great Beaver Spirit? Dene been Catholics for two hundred years.”

  Mankiller smirked. “Longer.”

  “Anyways, you’ll be freezin’ your ass off out here,” Plante said. “I guess everybody should come on in. Be cramped, though.”

  Plante made no effort to help, and it was for Mankiller and Ghaznavi to wrestle Yakecan and Schweitzer’s limp forms to the tiny shack.

  The wolves formed a tight knot around them. A few tentatively licked Plante’s hand or nuzzled Mankiller’s hip as Plante led the way inside.

  The interior was a jumbled, dirt-floored wedge hacked into the hillside. It was furnished in no discernible style—an old cable spool used as a table, a milk crate beside a folding chair. An ancient mahogany wing chair stood in the corner, upholstered in white with delicate pink flowers. The shack had no electricity, and the cast-iron woodstove did little to warm it, though it did fill the room with a cheery, dancing light that was surprisingly comforting after the alien green cast of the aurora. The hillside that made up the shack’s back wall was invisible behind an enormous stack of cordwood, much of it rotting and crawling with beetles. Plante slept on the same old army cot he’d used when he was in the service, said he’d gotten so used to it that he couldn’t sleep on anything else. It took up the corner of the shack opposite the wing chair, the olive-green fabric long since gone to gray, threadbare and full of holes.

  Every spare surface in the place was covered with the books her Grampy so dearly loved. Moldering green leather-backed classics by ancient Greeks and Romans. Grampy had read to her from them incessantly when she was a girl, but apart from liking the stories about the battles, they never took. Mankiller remembered the names, however: Polybius, Herodotus, Homer, Titus Livius. A stack of Bibles towered closest to the cot. Grampy took pride in claiming to have read the Good Book in Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic. Mankiller had no way to verify the claim, but she had her doubts.

  Ghaznavi settled Yakecan on Plante’s cot at a gesture from the old man, froze as a shadow uncoiled from behind the wing chair and stepped out into the light.

  It was another wolf, rail thin, ribs showing through its sparse, gray-white pelt. Plante had strung a garland of dried mountain avens around its neck, the florets yellowed and bare of petals. Its narrow snout rose defiantly, and then the flickering gold eyes caught Mankiller and it started forward, whining deep in its throat.

  Mankiller felt unease mixing with grief as she always did at the sight of the creature. “Setsoné.” She knelt and took the narrow head in her hands, gently cradling it to her chest.

  “Who’s . . .” Ghaznavi began.

  “That’s my wife,” Plante said. “Wilma’s grandma. She was the first one I called back. That’s how I knew I had the inkoze.”

  The effort of the greeting was clearly all the wolf could manage, and it hobbled quietly to the base of the stove and slumped down before it. Plante quickly retrieved a threadbare gray blanket from behind the chair and draped it over the creature.

  “Is she okay?” Ghaznavi asked.

  “She’s old,” Plante said, sinking into the wing chair, “and they don’ eat so good once they come back. It’s a strain to put the soul of a woman inside an animal. ’Specially if it’s a big soul, and Mary’s soul was as big as they come.”

  The wolf whined briefly in response, flicking her eyes toward Plante before closing them and heaving a sigh.

  “So, what’s goin’ on, Wilma?” Plante asked in Denesuline again.

  “Hell if I know, Grampy,” she said. “I told you everythin’. Helicopter showed up with a cage full of things like this one.” She jerked a thumb at Schweitzer. “Attacked the town, tryin’ to get me to roll and give you up.”

  “And you came here,” Plante said. “You shoulda come sooner.”

  “I didn’t want to risk them followin’ me.”

  “Why’d you risk it this time?”

  Mankiller let her shoulders slump, took a shaking breath, held it for a moment before letting it go, and finally spoke the truth that had been battering at her since she’d first seen that Yakecan had failed in his radio run. “Because I don’t know what else to do. Because I can’t protect anyone no more. I’m tapped out, Grampy. I need help.”

  Plante nodded. “What do you need?”

  “Bullets, food, medical supplies. As much as we can fit on the sledge. You’ll be tight for a bit, but I’ll make good on it. The Army sent a flight of helos to help, only one got shot down and the other bugged out, but I know they’ll be back. We jus’ need help hangin’ on ’til they get there.”

  “That’s what you want from me, Wilma? Supplies?”

  “I was hopin’ there was somethin’ you could do for him.” She gestured to Schweitzer, slumped beside Yakecan against the cot. “He’s the only real weapon we got against them. They’re so much stronger than living folk.”

  “He’s dead, Wilma. If I knew him in life, might be I could put his soul in an animal who’d have him, but what good would that do?”

  “Dunno.” Mankiller turned her hands in useless circles. “You shoulda seen him, Grampy. He could jump high as a building. They can all do that.”

  “So, how come he’s lyin’ there like a sack of beans?”

  “The Director, that’s the enemy leader. They fought and I guess it got the drop on him.”

  Plante was silent, staring at Schweitzer, his tiny, gnarled hands resting in his lap.

  “Sir,” Schweitzer said, “what you can do, it’s a known quantity. I was created by someone else who could do it, and I’ve met others who can do it as well. There has to be a way. There are plenty of dead bodies back in town. Some of them are hard operators; if you could put me into one of—”

  “Why?” Plante interrupted him.

  “Excuse me, sir?”

  “Why do you want to fight? Why do you want to help my granddaughter? The Canadians are nothin’ to you, the Dene even less. You’re an American, or you were.”

  “I still am. The bastards killed my wife. I mean to make
them pay for that.”

  “That’s it? Revenge?” Plante leaned forward, looked deep into the silver flames of Schweitzer’s eyes. “No, I don’ think it is.”

  “It is, sir. I need your help to do it.”

  “Dëne hél hani,” Plante said, looking away.

  “Sir, I don’t understa—”

  “He’s callin’ you a liar,” Mankiller said.

  “I been callin’ spirits for thirty years,” Plante said. “I touch each one, and I know ’em. Even if I didn’t, I’m an old man, and I seen a lot of the world. Man don’ get snapped in half and come beggin’ for a way to get back in the fight just to punish someone, even if they did kill his wife.”

  “What makes you say that?” Schweitzer said, and Mankiller knew he was lying. She’d worked too long in law enforcement not to be able to hear it in the pitch and timbre of a voice.

  “When your loved one dies, it’s a tragedy,” Plante said, “but tragedies make a man mourn. They don’ make him fight, not like you’ve got the fight in you. Only one reason a man does that.”

  “I don’t know what—”

  “You still got someone alive.” Plante turned back to Schweitzer. “Someone to protect. Someone you got to get back to. Tell me the truth, son. If there’s a way I can help you, I will, but you got to level with me.”

  “You said that he killed your wife,” Ghaznavi said slowly. “You didn’t say that he killed your wife and son. That’s what we call an anomaly in this business.”

  Schweitzer’s grinning skull face didn’t change, but his burning eyes flicked from Ghaznavi to Mankiller to the old man before glancing down to the dirt floor. “Patrick’s alive.” His voice was heavy, defeated.

  Ghaznavi was the only one who showed any reaction, a short intake of breath. “Where is he?”

  Schweitzer raised his head. “Someplace safe. Someplace you can’t find him.”

  “Don’t be an idiot, Jim,” Ghaznavi said. “We fucking found bin Laden; we can find your kid.”

  “So help me,” Schweitzer growled, “you find him and I find you.”

  Ghaznavi arched an eyebrow. “You don’t need to find me, Jim. I’m sitting right here. And even if I wasn’t, what would you do? Drag your spaghetti ass across the country by your knuckles to Langley?”

  “If that’s what it takes,” Schweitzer said.

  Ghaznavi snorted. “Maybe I’ll have Grampy here keep you as you are.”

  The anger was sudden in Mankiller’s throat; it took her a moment to swallow before she could choke out the words. “He ain’t your Grampy. You call him Mr. Plante.”

  Ghaznavi met her gaze before shrugging. “Sure. Fine. Anyway, don’t worry, Jim. If we did find him, it would only be to protect him.”

  “He’s plenty protected as he is.”

  “Your problem is that you don’t trust your own government. We have a long and storied history of doing the right thing. Competently.”

  Schweitzer didn’t appear amused, and Ghaznavi gave another snort that turned into a chuckle before she realized the sally had failed.

  “Patrick’s your boy, I assume?” Grampy asked.

  “That’s right,” Schweitzer said. “When I wrap up here, when the Cell is finished, I’m going to find him again.”

  “And then what?” Grampy asked. “How are you gonna raise him? You’re dead.”

  “So’s your wife.” Schweitzer pointed a finger at the wolf curled under the blanket in front of the stove. “At least you’re together.”

  Grampy smiled at that, gave a short chuckle of his own. “Yeah, I guess you got a point.” His face went sad. “You can’t protect him, you know.” His eyes flicked to the starved-looking wolf, ancient and trembling gently under the tattered blanket. “You can’t protect anyone. Not really.”

  “No,” Schweitzer said, “but you have to try.”

  Plante looked up at that, his eyes wet. “You like classics, Mr. Schweitzer?”

  “I read the Iliad, but only because I had to. I have to say I’m surprised to see you’re so into them.”

  Plante nodded. “Yeah, I guess it is surprisin’. I jus’ wanted to read about a people as old as my own, who weren’t my own. I wanted to know how white people were before gunpowder and metal.”

  “You didn’t go back far enough,” Schweitzer said, gesturing to the heaped books. “This is all Iron Age.”

  Plante spread his hands. “What can I say? Got sucked in. Anyway, it’s full of battles like that. Aemilius against the Ingauni. Alexander the Great against . . . well, everybody. Always hopelessly outnumbered, always finding a way to win.”

  “Well, call me Alexander.”

  “Self-praise is no praise at all,” Grampy laughed. “You know, I never thought Wilma would make it through basic.”

  “Yeah, I remember.” Mankiller felt the old flash of anger and pride, a weird mix that translated to love for this old man.

  “But you did,” Grampy said. “Watching you at graduation was the proudest day of my life.”

  “Maybe not the proudest.” Mankiller smiled.

  “Okay,” Grampy sighed. “I can definitely load you up with as much stores as you can carry. “

  “And him?” Mankiller jerked a thumb toward Schweitzer. “Is there anything you can do?”

  Grampy sighed again. “I don’t want to.”

  “I know it,” Schweitzer said, “but will you?”

  “I can’t promise I can find him in the beyond,” Grampy said. “It helps the more you know someone, and I don’t know this Bescho Dené.”

  “Find me in the beyond?” Schweitzer asked.

  “I can’t retrieve you from a body. I can only retrieve you from the beyond. In order to do that, I have to put you back there.”

  “The only way I know how to do that is to destroy this body,” Schweitzer said.

  “Not like it’s doing you a lot of good as it is,” Mankiller said.

  “Absolutely not,” Ghaznavi said. “What happens if we lose you?”

  “You miss out on my dynamic conversation,” Schweitzer said. “Do you want to win this fight or not? If there’s a chance, then there’s a chance. If he can put me back into the corpse of one of the operators who fell assaulting the sta—”

  “Whoa there,” Grampy said. “Who said anythin’ ’bout corpses? I can’t do that.”

  “Sir, I know you can; it’s the same magic.”

  “Do you know?” Grampy said. “You have the inkoze youself?”

  “You know I don’t, but I know—”

  “You don’ know anythin’.” Grampy’s voice went hard. “You want my help, you gonna have to trust that I know my own business. I been workin’ inkoze for years, and I know one thing for sure: I can’t put tháydÿne in a dead body. Only livin’ ones.”

  “You can’t put me in a wolf, sir. I’m not going to be any help if—”

  “I’m not gonna put you in a wolf.” Grampy nodded toward Yakecan’s body, still and silent on the cot.

  Mankiller’s stomach turned over. She wasn’t sure what she’d expected in coming here, but it certainly wasn’t this. “No.” The word was out before she knew she’d spoken, welling up from somewhere deep and primal. She liked Schweitzer, but she didn’t know him, and the thought of Yakecan’s bent and bleeding body, starved and injured like Grampy’s wolves, being a vessel for this stranger made her gut clench. “It’s Joe, Grampy. He ain’t a wolf.”

  Grampy’s eyes turned to her, unchanged in their sadness. “Wilma, Joe ain’t comin’ back. You know that. He’s breathin’, but that ain’t the same as bein’ alive. He’ll be more alive with Jim in there. At least then he’d do something more ’n breathin’.”

  Mankiller looked at her feet, then up at Grampy, struggling with the tide of grief that threatened to overwhelm her. She knew she didn’t want this to happen, eve
n though it made sense, even when it seemed the only way of getting Schweitzer back in the fight. It’s because it means you’re giving up on Joe. It means he’s gone.

  But Mankiller didn’t say that. Instead, she said, “Will Joe still be in there?”

  “If I could even do it,” Grampy said, “I don’t know what it’d be like. Never done it on people before. Not even sure if I can.”

  “Will he be like the animals? Having tháydÿne in ’em is too much for ’em lots of times.”

  “That’s because the human soul is too much for the animal body,” Grampy said. “But in this case, it’s both people. No idea what’ll happen.”

  Ghaznavi took a shuddering breath. “Guess there’s only one way to find out.”

  “Can we even make that decision for him?” Schweitzer asked.

  “We can’t,” Mankiller said, “but I can. Joe was my deputy and my friend. Apart from his sister, I’m the closest thing to family he’s got, and I guess I know his mind better ’n anyone.”

  Grampy smiled, spread his hands. “And if Joe could talk, what would he tell you to do?”

  Mankiller smiled back. “Aw, hell, Grampy. You know he’d tell me to do it. He’d jump at the chance to help.”

  Grampy nodded. “That’s the Joe I know too.”

  “How would it work?” Ghaznavi asked.

  Grampy shrugged. “You got to go out if you’re gonna come back.”

  “The only way to release my soul is to destroy this body totally,” Schweitzer said.

  “What if it doesn’t work, Jim?” Ghaznavi asked.

  “We already went over this.”

  “Reckon we can make a bonfire out front,” Plante said. “Been a while since I had one, and the tháydÿne always like it.”

  “Nonstarter,” Ghaznavi said. “I’m not sure what kind of detection equipment they’ve got. They might even have drones. I don’t want to risk lighting up a blaze out here. What if they see it?”

  “What if they do?” Grampy smiled. “I’ll be comin’ with ya anyhow. Might be good if they wasted time and people draggin’ ass all the way up here only to find we’re gone.”