“There,” shouted Aiden to our left. He had just hopped down from the loading dock, and he was pointing toward the woods beyond the asphalt. Duncan was already sprinting in the direction Aiden pointed. Gavin came flying off the loading dock and sprinted after Duncan.
When I looked back at the three I had followed, they were already sprinting across the lot. Instead of following Duncan and Gavin, they were circling to the right. I followed as closely as I could, but I was losing ground fast.
I had no idea who we were following or why. I assumed something had happened in the warehouse, but everything was moving too fast for me to think clearly.
We hadn’t gotten very far into the woods before I lost sight of them, so I stopped and listened. I could hear the sound of people running through foliage, but other than in front of me somewhere I couldn’t pinpoint where to go. I decided to continue in what I hoped was the same direction we had been headed, but before I took a step I heard a bang.
It was a gun. Someone had fired a gun. I wasn’t sure at first what it was because it didn’t sound like what I had heard on World at War, but there was no other explanation. I kept moving. I probably kept moving because that is what I had decided before I heard the gunshot and I was too scared to make another decision after I heard it.
The sound of running faded until I couldn’t hear it anymore. I kept moving forward, but at a very slow and cautious pace. After four or five minutes I came to a stop by a clearing. I didn’t know who had the gun, so I didn’t want to make myself an easy target. As I scanned the clearing from the bushes I noticed something dark blue to my right. Staying behind the leaves I circled the clearing to get a better look.
It was Graham. He was on his back and he wasn’t moving. I forgot my concern and pushed my way through some prickly pear branches, cutting my cheek and forearms.
“Graham,” I cried out.
“Jazz-barr,” he said weakly. He was holding his stomach with both his hands. I didn’t want to, but I looked. His white shirt was turning red from the blood. I didn’t know what to do for him. He was in a lot of pain.
I looked around hoping one of the others would come back and know what to do, but there was no sign of any of them. I couldn’t believe they had all left him there like that.
Kneeling next to him I asked, “What can I do?”
He tried to speak, but his voice was too weak for me to hear. I leaned closer and turned my head so that my left ear was near his mouth. I wasn’t sure I had heard right, so I turned to look at him. I was going to ask him if I heard right, but his eyes were shut by then. He was gone.
Twenty-Four
Another Encounter
They got him. They got the man who shot Graham. He was by himself. He had parked on the other side of the woods, not too far from the clearing where I found Graham, and entered the warehouse through the loading dock. They caught up to him just as he reached his car. The Boone police were a minute behind and took custody of him right away.
I was still holding Graham in my arms when the others came back. They stood towering over us. It was Duncan, Malcolm, Gavin, and Quinn, and they just stared at him. I wanted to scream at them. “He’s dead,” I wanted to yell. “Don’t you care?” But I was too shocked to speak. I had never seen anyone die before, much less hold them while it happened.
When Aiden finally showed up he stared at Graham for a second, then after glancing at me he nodded his head. When he did that, the other four picked Graham up without so much as a word to me. I stayed on the ground until they were out of sight, and then I looked back where Aiden stood over me.
He held out his hand and helped me up. “Thank you for that,” he said once I was standing.
I didn’t know how to respond, but he didn’t wait for a response anyway.
I circled the building to get back to my car in the front parking lot. It took thirty minutes, but I didn’t care. I just wanted to be alone.
* * *
Wally must have called Carol and told her what had happened. I for sure didn’t tell her, but she knew anyway. She stood in the door to my bedroom and asked, “Do you want to talk?”
I was lying face down on my bed. I had put the wolf’s-tooth necklace back on. As I lay there propped up on my elbows I held it. “You know what happened?” I asked her.
She nodded.
There were all sorts of things I was trying not to think about then, but only one popped out of my mouth, “They didn’t care. They didn’t care at all.”
She sat down on the end of my bed. “Who didn’t care?”
I could hear my own voice tremble as I said, “His friends. They all left him there to bleed, and when they came back they just lugged him off.”
She put her hand on my shoulder. “You were there for him, though.”
That’s when I started crying again.
* * *
Mom was gone and Wally was working late, so Carol took me out to Black Cat Burrito for dinner. I realized she had chosen one of my favorite places to eat. Carol got the Gang of Five because of all the vegetables, and I got the Bloke, a chicken-and-bacon burrito with lettuce, tomatoes, and apples. After dinner I noticed Carol wasn’t driving home. “Where are we going?” I asked.
She pointed over her shoulder. In the back seat of Mom’s Jeep was a huge bundle of flowers. “I thought you might like to put these where you were this afternoon,” she told me.
I recognized the flowers. They were from Aunt Maggie’s garden behind the kitchen. Carol must have gotten them together before she came to my bedroom. I don’t know why, but that made me feel good.
We drove around the property until we found a place to park. For all I knew, it might have been where the killer had parked that afternoon. It was just before dusk, so there was enough light to find the spot where Graham lay. The grass was still matted down. Carol handed me the flowers and asked, “Do you want to say something?”
I shook my head no. What could I have said? I wanted Mom to say something, but she was in San Diego.
Not only were we silent as I scattered the flowers in an attempt to cover where the grass was matted, but the forest was silent, too. I didn’t cry, but I could feel the heat of my tears as they accumulated behind my eyes. When I thought I could stand it no more, Carol put her arm around me. “Are you ready to go?”
I let her lead me back to the Jeep. As soon as I was seated and she shut my door, I began to cry. It wasn’t a sob or a sniffle. It was a booming cry. I cried the way you’d cry if you knew you were alone.
I don’t think I cried long, but it was hard and loud. I never heard Carol get in the car, but when I was done crying she started the Jeep. She had waited until I was done. I wiped my eyes as best I could and looked at her. I wanted to say thanks, but nothing came out.
“I know,” she said.
I believed her.
I watched as she reached under the dash and turned the headlights on. Her whole body flinched, and her eyes got big as she looked through the windshield.
I pivoted to see what she was looking at. It was a wolf. A huge wolf standing directly in front of the Jeep not more than ten yards away. We had no idea how long it had been watching us. It was all white.
Twenty-Five
Jasper confides in Riley
“You think I’m crazy, don’t you?” I asked. Riley was sitting across from me at the Hob Knob Farm Café.
Riley rolled her eyes. “I don’t think you’re crazy, but I don’t think you have magic powers over wolves either.”
I slumped down when she said that. I hadn’t actually said I thought I had magic powers over wolves. That would be crazy. It sounded crazy when I heard her say it, but it wasn’t until I heard her say it that I realized I was thinking it.
“‘Magic powers over wolves,’” I repeated.
“There’s got to be an explanation,” she declared, tapping her finger on the table.
I thought she was going to give me an explanation, but she noticed my desperation and waved me off.
“I don’t have one. I just know there’s got to be one.”
“It’s a pretty freaky co-winky-dink,” I said, not realizing I wasn’t saying coincidence correctly. Riley didn’t give it a thought.
“It is,” she agreed. “But you’ve only run into a big white wolf twice now. That’s not that big a coincidence.”
“Two times may not be a big deal, but every time I’ve been in the woods and it’s been a big deal, the white wolf has shown up.”
She started to say something, but I kept talking. “Every time.”
“I know,” she said. “I was just going to remind you of that woman in Banner Elk.”
“That’s three,” I blurted. “Three times that white wolf has been there in life-and-death situations.” I knew that my second encounter with the white wolf wasn’t exactly a life-and-death situation—at least for me—but it was a big deal. And it was a big deal that Riley didn’t correct me every time I said something a little off.
“If I could track her down, would you want to go over to Banner Elk to talk to her?” she asked.
“Ab-so-flat-lutely,” I answered.
She smiled her incredible smile. Sometimes, when she didn’t know I was looking, I would just watch her smile. I breathed in the strawberry lip gloss she always wore.
“Do you want to talk about what happened?” she asked.
“Carol and I talked about it a lot last night,” I told her, “but there’s some things I didn’t tell her.” I searched her eyes for some indication that it was okay to go on. “It’s pretty weird.”
“Weirder than what we’ve already talked about?”
“It’s a couple of things really. The first is those security guys.”
“What about them?”
“You’ve seen them, haven’t you?”
She smiled. “You mean the guys with the male model bodies and the Blues Brothers outfits?”
“Yeah. And those Russian accents.”
She shrugged with her hands. “That’s not weird if they’re from Russia.”
“But if they’re from Russia then it’s weird their names are Aiden, Quinn, and Gavin.”
“Maybe they took Irish names to fit in.”
“That’s just it. They aren’t trying to fit in at all. You should see them eat. They wait until they’re all there, and then they eat like they’re starving. They don’t seem to notice everyone else in the cafeteria watching them like they’re a show. If they were trying to fit in, then you’d think they’d pay a little more attention to how other people were reacting to them.”
“So what are you thinking? Are they the wolves?”
I don’t think she was being serious, but that was the moment I seriously considered it myself.
She lunged against the edge of the table. “Oh my goodness, Jasper, that’s what you think.”
“That’s not what I think,” I said with as much conviction as I could under the circumstances. It’s not what I had been thinking, but it was what I was thinking now.
“This isn’t a Twilight movie, Jasper.”
“I know.”
“There are no such things as werewolves.”
“I know.”
“You don’t sound like you know,” she said.
I knew that, too.
“What are you thinking now?” she asked.
I was thinking about rewatching the Twilight movies for information, but I didn’t want to say that out loud. “I’m thinking that until I find a reasonable explanation for all of this, I’ll be vulnerable for every fantasy explanation that comes along.”
She tapped the side of her head. “You’ve got to keep a grip on reality.”
There are days when that’s easier to do, I thought. “Do you know the name of the guy who got shot?”
She shook her head no.
“Graham. Graham Crocker.”
“‘Graham Crocker,’” she repeated. “I’ll bet he got teased with that name when he was a kid.”
“Exactly,” I said a little more enthusiastically than I intended. “How could he not know his name provoked a reference to graham crackers?”
“I take it he didn’t,” said Riley.
“No, he didn’t. I asked him once if he ever got teased about it, and he looked at me like he had no idea what I was talking about.”
“Maybe they don’t have graham crackers in Russia,” she said. Her face contorted like she had just bit into a sour grape. “I know,” she continued, “they’ve got graham crackers in Russia. But come on, that just means he’s out of touch. It doesn’t have to mean more than that.”
“I know, but something’s off about those guys, and it’s not one thing. It’s a bunch of things. They stink of Axe aftershave.”
Her eyes lit up. “Is that why you smell like Axe now?”
“You see?” I said. “I smell like it from just being in the same office as them. That’s how bad it is.”
She sat back. “I’ve been debating telling you for over a week to back off on the cologne.”
I don’t know if I was supposed to feel better or worse to know she thought I stank, but she was smiling when she said it, so it felt good until I thought about it later. Note to self: Shower when you get home from work.
“Can we just agree that there are lots of unanswered questions about all of this? And can’t we do that without being in a humongous rush to get it all figured out?” She looked at me with her giant brown eyes and waited for me to agree. We both knew I would.
“Of course,” I said.
She smiled again. “Number two.”
“Number two” was stated in a matter-of-fact way. If a guy said “number two” to me he’d be trying to start something. Then again, if a guy said that to me, he’d probably be about six years old.
“You said there were two weird things, what’s the second?”
I laughed.
“What’s so funny?” she asked. She looked a little hurt.
“I’m not laughing at you, Riley.”
She narrowed her eyes and studied me.
“Riley, really,” I said. “When you said ‘number two’ I thought you were saying . . . you know, going number two in the bathroom.”
She smiled again, but it was a courtesy smile. A courtesy smile isn’t a real smile. Real smiles are when you’re happy or amused. A courtesy smile is when you’re tolerating someone else’s amusement. I remember my mother explaining that to Linus once. Mom had told him that girls didn’t like bathroom humor. He told her he’d seen girls smile at bathroom humor at school. That’s when Mom explained about women and courtesy smiles.
“What’s the second thing?” Riley asked.
“It’s the last thing Graham said to me.”
“Oh my goodness, Jasper, what did he say?” As she asked, she reached across the table and gently squeezed my hands. Her hands felt smooth and soft.
I don’t know what I must have looked like when I said what I said, but I sure enjoyed the effect it had on her. I just stared at her hands holding mine until I realized that’s what I was doing. “I’m not sure I heard right. He died before I could get him to repeat it.”
“What did he say?” she asked again.
“I think he said, ‘You’re the one.’”
Twenty-Six
Banner Elk and the Woolly Worm Festival
“I should have known it was the Woolly Worm Festival,” I said as we came to a standstill on Tynecastle Highway.
Riley had arranged for us to meet the Banner Elk woman who had the encounter with the wolves just outside of the city. The High Country Press hadn’t listed her name, but Riley drove over to the Chamber of Commerce office and talked to a man named Fred who knew exactly who she was talking about. He was the one who suggested meeting the woman at either Dunn’s Deli or Sister Lee’s Café. He hadn’t warned her about what parking would be like that day, but I suppose he assumed we would have known.
“It’s okay,” she said. “We’ve got plenty of time. What’s the Woolly Worm Fest
ival?” As she asked her question we passed a sign announcing that this was the thirty-seventh annual Woolly Worm Festival. “It’s been around a while,” she noted.
“Do you know the legend of the woolly worm?” I asked.
“Legend?”
“According to legend, the darker the woolly worm, the harsher the winter,” I told her. “And it’s true.”
“I’m from Southern California,” she said, faking a shiver. “The winters here are always harsh.”
“I haven’t been to a Woolly Worm Festival since I was a kid, but I used to love catching my own and taking it over to race. Every kid in Avery County knows about racing woolly worms. We’d stand in line until our turn came, then we’d give the announcer our racing worm’s name. I always named mine Fido. We’d each stand there in front of the line, and when he said ‘Go,’ we’d put our worm on the bottom of the string.” I chuckled as I remembered. “We’d each stand there screaming our worm’s name. The announcer had all the names. I never won, but I remember just hoping Fido would be in the race enough to get his name called.”
She raised her eyebrows.
I shook my head no.
“We could try again today if you want,” she said.
I almost said yes. I guess I thought it wouldn’t be cool. I know better now.
Because of the festival traffic I wanted to park over by the Lees-McRae College athletic fields and walk into town, and I would have if I’d been there by myself. But I didn’t want Riley to have to walk that far, so I drove all the way into town. It was incredible, but I found a parking place right on Azalea Circle. It only cost me twenty dollars, but it was right next the entrance to the festival and right around the corner from Sister Lee’s Café where we’d be meeting the wolf lady.
We were half an hour early, so we decided to walk around a bit. There wasn’t time to get inside the festival grounds, but it was fun to watch the parade of kids go by with their miniature mesh lunchbox woolly worm carrying cases. I remembered heading into the arena with that serious I-mean-business look. I’d bet every one of those kids had spent all morning imagining the announcer yelling out their worm’s name.
Jasper Lilla and The Wolves of Banner Elk Page 8