Wolfehaven

by Foy W Minson

  She gazed at the boats across the water and reminded herself there were no submerged tracks here. With the addition of each boat to the armada, she was pleased to notice the chills she had at first experienced were becoming thrills.

  She held Daryl closer and, as she reached out to take Sarah’s hand, she became aware of Dan standing on Sarah’s other side.

  “Marvelous, isn’t it?” he asked, smiling as he knelt beside the girl. Then he looked up at Sherri and said, “I honestly don’t think there is anything evil about it. Marvelous, certainly, but not evil.”

  “Were there people like this where you came from? People that did…marvelous things?”

  Dan ran his hand through his hair like he was brushing out tangles instead of memories. “I can’t say — not for sure. I stayed away from groups. Most of them tended to be unfriendly to strangers. Until I ran into Raymond, I just solo-ed it. Seems like I did see a few things, though, when I got a chance to spy on groups. Of course, I didn’t stick around any of them long enough, or close enough, to see anything I could swear to, but I saw a few things that I walked away wondering about. Now that I know about it, I realize they were cases of levitation. Nothing like what these folks can do, just simple stuff. Without group approval and acceptance like they have here, they probably didn’t have a lot of practice to improve what little bit they could do. And I think a lot of the groups I came across were more like the one you came from where such things just wouldn’t be tolerated.”

  CHAPTER 21

  Emmie knew she would have to go faster than she liked to catch the other boats before they got too far ahead, but everyone in boat six with her gazed enthralled at the exhibition across the water. Just upstream of a rocky beach on the north bank often used for mid-trip picnicking by kayakers and countless other river visitors little more than half a decade earlier, a trio of otters had discovered a new game. They would climb up a steep section of the bank to the top of a dead tree embedded there. Then, taking turns, they launched themselves into the hollow trunk of the tree and slide a good fifteen feet through darkness before emerging at the bottom to plummet another three feet into the water. They immediately swam over to the place in the bank where they could climb out to scramble again to the top of the tree slide.

  Standing at Emmie’s side, Erin whispered, “Do you think we can we get any closer without spooking them?”

  “I can try,” Emmie responded. Still maintaining their position in the current, she edged the boat sideways ten feet. They were still near the middle of the sixty or seventy foot expanse of the river, and the otters didn’t seem to mind the audience.

  “That’s great, Emmie. I wouldn’t try any closer, though.” Turning to Jason, Erin said, “Aren’t they hilarious?”

  “Otters can find a way to play with just about anything.” After a moment, he continued, “I think this is about the place I told you about seeing two bucks fighting when Dagar, Woody and I were on our way back from Riverhill last winter. They were down there on the beach.”

  Erin looked that way before observing, “I don’t see any skeletons, so I guess they didn’t go to the death like you said they might.”

  “I don’t know, though. The scavengers have had lots of time to clean up the place. They were a pretty close match, and the way they were going, it didn’t look like either one was even close to conceding defeat. And the harem watching from nearby and waiting to see who their lord and master would be looked mighty fetching.”

  “Just like a couple of young wanna-be’s,” Emmy said with a snicker. “I’ll bet while they were pounding their antlers at each other, an older guy with a little experience and more sense came along and herded the ladies off. And the young macho’s didn’t even notice until they turned to flex for the ladies and discovered they were all alone on the beach.”

  Jason swatted her on her behind. “And when did you get to be such an authority on courtship?”

  “Oh, Daddy,” Emmie turned with a smirk and a wink at Erin. “I can’t tell you things that might take your breath away — not at your age.”

  Jason and Erin exchanged looks and grins with raised eyebrows. Then Erin said, “I think our little girl is growing up.”

  Jason’s sudden burst of laughter brought the otter’s show to a quick halt as they all dived for deep water.

  “Oh, nice going, Dad.”

  “Hush up and row, Daughter.”

  “Yessir!” She snapped to attention and saluted.

  To laughing moans of disappointment from the others aboard, Emmie turned to them, and, with her thumb pointed over her shoulder at Jason, she said, “Hey, don’t blame me. I’m just the engine. Talk to the captain.”

  With such a show to keep all eyes and attention focused north, no one noticed the shadowy figures unmoving back among the thick growth along the south bank.

  ◆◆◆

  A branch moved in the wall of greenery bordering the south bank almost as if moved by an errant breeze, and Olen glared out through the foliage. When Jackie moved up beside him he flinched inward, certain that his son’s slight movement would be noticed by someone on the boat.

  But then he remembered the army of armed fighters around him, and he almost wished Jackie had been spotted. He imagined the boat turning in to the bank, ignoring the cavorting otters across the way, scattering riverbed stones with a rattle as the boat slid up to dryer footing. Three or four of the villagers, men he had lived among for the last six years, and especially Jason, would jump over the sides and run into the trees to grab him and his wayward son only to find themselves outnumbered twenty to one, and then they would fall beneath the onslaught of blows from his new friends that would move in to protect him. He would laugh at their cries. He would step forward and spit on their bleeding and broken bodies. And he would walk away, with the arms of his new friends draped about his shoulders and the hands of his new comrades patting him on the back to reassure him of his safety. Yes. Let them come. He longed to show them that they shouldn’t have turned on him.

  ◆◆◆

  The boat moved now about as fast as a man could run. Their higher speed increased the chance of snags and submerged boulders ripping out their bottom, but everyone near the bow joined Emmie and the lookouts in spotting swirling areas that might indicate a hazard lurking beneath the surface.

  They had all been up-river before, many of them numerous times, but the river was in constant change, from the level of the water and swirling eddies around submerged trees to growing snags and accumulations of logs, limbs and whole trees swept downstream in winter floods. Some of these snags broke loose on occasion, sending their pieces out into the current to form new ones wherever they could find purchase against other trees, rocks, and bars that, themselves, grew or shrank with the current and its load of sediment.

  After five minutes they had caught up to within easy speaking distance, Sayeko Matsunaga, the mover of boat five, smiled and waved back at them. She said, “We were tempted to stop and watch, too, but we didn’t want to let boat four get out of sight in case Rod and Lauren had a problem. They were already a bit behind Vonnie in three. I couldn’t see Lila’s boat two at all. Are they still going at it?”

  “Naw,” Emmie called back. “Someone laughed and spooked ‘em. ‘Course, they probably started again as soon as we were gone. And as much fun as it looked, they could still be at it two weeks from now. Maybe we can all stop and watch ‘em on the way home.”

  ◆◆◆

  After the boat rounded the next bend and was no longer in view, the bodies of men rose up out of the brush around Olen and turned downriver. No one said anything to him or Jackie until he sensed someone standing behind him and heard the Prophet Morgan’s deep voice.

  “If ere I doubted…but, nay, they live, yet. Boats oared by the devil’s own hands, and they sought not even to hide it. How much farther?”

  Again, Olen deferred such questions to Jackie since he didn’t have a clue.

  Jackie stepped forward. “Now that th
e last boat is past, we can wade across to the beach—it should be shallow enough all the way across this time of year — then it’s just another fifteen minutes or so. We’ll be able to walk up the road over there, so it’ll be faster.”

  “And that horde of witches will be gone for two weeks? You’re certain?”

  “That’s what they’ve always done.” Olen answered. “But there’s always some that stay behind.”

  “Hmm. Yes. Good. And during those two weeks, I shall wrest confessions and atonements tenfold from each of them before I give them to the Lord for his own vengeance. They will have to answer for the sins of their fellows — at least until the others return to find nothing but blood and ashes await them. And then they, too, shall know my wrath.”

  ◆◆◆

  “Dan, my friend, I apologize for the deception.” Raymond paused before easing down onto the bench beside his traveling companion. “Really, I meant no harm.”

  Dan’s answer was a simple grunt with a nod as he leaned back against the table overlooking the river where he and Raymond had withstood Raven’s interrogation. To avoid looking into the eyes of the creature he had walked beside for countless miles, believing him — it — to be merely another man, he let his gaze focus on the twinkling sunlight playing across the ripples of the river. Of course, now, Raymond readily admitted he was not actually a man at all but something else entirely. Dan wondered what his traveling companion’s real body looked like, something that was only suggested in vague terms when the admission was made. He wasn’t sure he really wanted to know.

  After a few silent moments, Dan turned to glare straight into Raymond’s eyes. “Would you ever have told me if Raven hadn’t blown your cover? Even after all those weeks we shared the trail and everything on it, you still didn’t trust me?”

  Raymond studied the younger man’s face but said nothing. When Dan decided he wasn’t going to get an answer and started to stand up, Raymond spoke. “I am sorry you feel betrayed. I would have preferred to reveal myself to you, but we are forbidden — for the present, anyway. If we surviving glluriks can get together for another conference, I hope we can amend our bylaws on this issue. Until that happens, though, I’m afraid none of us can act independently. Even though I believe in my heart that it should be so, if any of us began acting in opposition to the wisdom of the group, I fear our mission would go down in defeat.”

  “And what if you’re the last one in the area — or even on this continent? What if your surviving friends are spread so far apart, now, that you’re not going to be able to hold a conference for a hundred years — or a thousand? Then would you be allowed to warn us poor humans that we’re going to be invaded again, and that if we want to, we can stop the invaders with our magic wands? Or are we going to have to just go through all this again and again. Oh, but that’s what we’ve been doing all along, isn’t it?”

  Dan felt his suppressed anger building, stoked by a steady stream of hurt feelings dribbling over it like melting fat dripping into flames.

  Raymond shook his head. He smiled, but his eyes drooped at the outer corners. “I used many of your words, myself, at our last conference. But after the centuries the older ones spent solidifying their code of silence, I and my fellows could not overcome their inertia. And, yes, there are enough of us on the western part of this continent for a conference. Remember, we can communicate from afar. Although, it will not occur for at least a year, we are already en route. That is why I came south with you. I am going to Bakersfield, or where Bakersfield used to be. Many of the others are coming from much farther. And, with the uncertainties of things these days, there is always a strong chance that the meeting place will change, perhaps several times, before we can all get together.”

  “So, meanwhile, we humans will just have to get by the best we can, huh? I’m fine to walk across the country with, provided I protect you from whoever or whatever might hinder you, but not to confide in. Is that why you latched onto me outside of Portland, for a bodyguard to take you to your friends?”

  “No, Dan. You have been more to me than a protector. You have been a friend, and I would like to remain your friend. I was first drawn to you, though, because I sensed your ability — or, rather, your potential.”

  Dan glared. “My potential? You mean, you didn’t know how good a protector I’d be, but I was tall and looked strong and able and carried a sword, so I had good potential…something like checking the animal’s lines before buying a horse?”

  “I feel your hurt, Dan, and I regret it, but I do understand it. I hope it will pass. But, you misunderstood me. I meant I sensed your potential for human magic. I realize it has not manifested itself, yet, and it may not. But it may. We won’t know the extent or nature of it until it does. What I sense may be considerable.”

  “Oh, so besides a bodyguard, I’m also something of a freak to be studied.”

  The hurt bleeding from Raymond’s eyes was what Dan had sought, and he should have felt victorious, but he didn’t. His mind seethed in its effort to come up with something else he could hurl at Raymond, who, with the other glluriks, with their centuries-long lives and telepathy must feel so smug, so superior to primitive, bumbling humans. But they’d get together, when they got around to it, and have themselves a confab. Maybe, just maybe, they’d decide to tell suffering humanity how their suffering wasn’t necessary…or maybe not. Maybe they’d just keep studying the intelligent apes and watching them try to fight off the kryls with sticks and stones.

  Raymond raised a hand in preparation of a response, but Dan didn’t want to hear anything the pretend-man had to say. He turned and stalked away.

  ◆◆◆

  Raymond watched until Dan had gone from sight around the corner of a building. He turned and, as he gazed out at the varying patterns of the current in the river, he engaged in the common human activity of regretting past actions while knowing they were necessary and wishing things were different.

  The water’s surface roiled with inconsequential little patterns swirling about, each one created by larger, stronger swirls nearby or beneath the surface, each of those effected by other eddies all about them, perhaps some created far upstream by a boulder, a low-hanging branch, or even a wading animal, and coming to fruition only as they encountered other, converging eddies, and every one, every motion as inevitable, barring further interruption, as the formation of the layers of granite bedrock beneath the riverbed. Humanity was so much like the river. And he could watch the flow, study to understand the movements whose potential causes may be close enough to infinite to make no difference, but was it wise to try to influence or control the patterns he encountered? The arguments of both sides had merit.

  He looked over his shoulder toward the growing sound of harsh voices and the trod of many feet approaching on the road from upstream.

  CHAPTER 22

  The old man gazed out over the river that moved in slow swirls and eddies on its way to the ocean just a few miles downstream. Turning to the middle-aged woman on his arm, he said, “Used to be pretty good steelhead fishing over there. Remember that, Darla? Your brother and I would wade out from the other side over there with our gear while you girls chased each other in circles and looked for pretty stones along the shallows. Your mom would have so much food in the picnic basket we could have invited every other fisherman in sight and still had plenty for lunch the next day. Remember?”

  Frown lines etched her face when she peered over the edge of the roadway at her feet and down the rocky cliff to the water’s edge thirty feet below. “Sure do, Dad. Those were good days, weren’t they? But, you know what? You’re making me nervous. Why don’t we move back away from the edge a bit? The ground could give way and we’d both go airborne.”

  “Oh, honey, you’re such a worrier. But, okay, if it’ll ease your heart.” After a half step backwards, he pointed with his cane to a place on the farther bank. “I’ll bet I wouldn’t have to do a lot of digging over there before I’d find a few chicken thigh
bones. That was a great spot — for both eating chicken and for catching steelhead.”

  She leaned her head over to rest on his shoulder for a minute. “Well, you’ve had a good walk today. How’s your leg? About ready to head back?”

  “I ‘spect so. It’s startin’ to throb a bit.”

  They were only a hundred yards upstream from Wolfehaven’s boat pier, but it was the farthest her father had been able to walk for at least a month. The past winter had been a rough one for the older members of the community. But, at least all the houses had fireplaces or wood burning stoves, now. The first couple of winters were gotten through by those without heating moving in with those that did. Except for a couple of spats due to the forced crowding, they had all came through well enough.

  As she backed around to give her dad space to make his turn, her glance over her shoulder swept past the road going east. From where it disappeared around the curve at Big Tree, a group of men numbering at least fifty, maybe even sixty or more, came marching. Unlike when travelers ease off their pace as they approach a place they anticipate will be a stopping spot for resting, these men seemed to speed up. Those leading the others even began to pull ahead until those trailing closed the gap with their own bursts of speed. In fewer than twenty paces, the men in front broke from walking pace to jogging, then, as the others caught up, running. They spread out across the road to give themselves room to open to full sprints. They raised whatever they carried and waved them overhead. As they drew closer, Darla could see a variety of spears, clubs, knives, axes, and what may have been intended to be spiked maces. When she heard bellowing voices raised, not in greeting but belligerent challenge, her initial confusion became fear, and then terror.