Bitten

by K. L. Nappier

  Jackie didn't react much beyond an assenting shrug, but Millie went a little pale again. "So, you're thinkin' that thing that was in him's not all the way gone? But you just said it was."

  "No, not that. I'm talking about his weakened state and possible illness. In Max's case, it was pneumonia. In Jackie's, I'm concerned about the sand and grit. We did our best, but we weren't able to clean every bit of it off before ... everything ... went back in."

  "Went back in what?" Jackie asked dully. He raised the coffee to his lips and slurped.

  Max and David looked to Millie for this one. She said, "It's a long-ass story, son. It'll keep 'til we all get some sleep."

  "One more thing," Max said. "The day of the next full moon, keep a close eye on Buttercup. Don't let her wander, and start watching her that morning to see if she behaves differently. Especially if she behaves strangely around silver. Any silver. Coins, jewelry, utensils. They're all good tests. If she does ... I know this will be difficult ... but if she does, you'll have to put her down that day. While she's still Buttercup. You won't be able to save her, but at least that's better than the alternative. We'll leave you with the silver to do it."

  "Lord Almighty .. now you think that thing's in her?"

  "No," David said. "No, we don't. But there's no point in taking chances. Buttercup's teeth were awfully deep in the Beast's neck. Frankly, though, we've been doing this a lot of years now. The Beast seems to be a human affliction."

  "Damn glad to hear that," Millie replied, "'cause if any critters 'round here were to maybe turn into werewolves, seems to me it'd be those skeeters that swarmed on the blood early on --"

  Her voice trailed off, and everyone eyed the front door, where countless little bloodsuckers whined and tested the rusty screen.

  "Yeah. Well. Anyway," Max said, forcing his attention from the door. "Jackie? Okay with you? We can help you through this, if you let us."

  "Lookin' for recruits?" Millie asked dryly.

  Max shrugged. "It's a hard life to stomach, Millie, but that'll be up to him. He shouldn't even be thinking about becoming a hunter while he's recovering."

  He looked at Jackie. He was barely listening. He was in no shape to think let alone carry on a conversation. The days ahead wouldn't be easy for either him or his mother.

  "So ... anyway ... we need to stay as close to you as we can. Which town has the nearest motel to here?" he asked.

  "Aw, go on with your motel talk. You're stayin' with us."

  Max and David gave a quick glance around the shack. David, always the courteous one, said, "We don't want to be a burden. There's barely room here for the two of you, let alone us."

  Millie looked at him as if he'd just spoken to her in Navajo. " Here ? Aw, damn. If I weren't so rattled 'n' tired I'd either laugh or shoot ya. You think we live here ?! We gotta house just outside Leesburg, boys, this is just our camp! Shit."

  Max's face heated with embarrassment. "Hell, Millie. We're sorry. We thought -"

  "I know what ya thought. You thought we're just a couple-a stupid white trash Crackers. What we are is a couple-a smart white trash Crackers. This business is messy, but you play your cards right, you do okay. Give the Law its due, don't go blabbin' and keep things on the Q.T. ..." she looked pointedly at Jackie "... plus we trade shifts out here, two weeks on, two weeks off. Keeps us workin' steady."

  Max and David looked at each other. That would have put Jackie in the house near Leesburg during each moon's First Night. All alone, undetected by his mother, and close to the Beast's prey.

  "But none of us is goin' anywhere tonight, boys. We'll just have to make do. So git comfortable best as you can." As if a weight had been lifted from her shoulders, Millie clapped her hands together and said, "Now! I'm gonna make a nice meal for the men who saved my boy."

  Chapter Three

  Ozark Foothills, Southern Missouri

  Early Spring, 1950

  First Night. Full Moon.

  There was a break in the clouds as the late season ice storm eased for a few minutes. The moonlight that streamed through sparked against the Beast's fur, made all the more brilliant where the freezing rain clung.

  Even in the wet and cold, the Beast found the trail easily, a route used regularly and carelessly by the prey to which it had been drawn. The prey was a stalker, too; a hunter in these deep woods, thinking itself the supreme predator, leaving traces of blood and fear on the soil and in the air as it beat a familiar path.

  The scent trail crossed through a town. The sky closed and the freezing rain began again just as the Beast neared, slowing to consider its next move. The noises of humanity sometimes played to its advantage during a hunt, but tonight it was the ice storm that worked in the Beast's favor. In this remote area, especially in weather like this, the streets went quiet soon after dark. The only motion ahead was a few tin-hooded lights suspended over the town's main street, wagging gently as the ice fell, forming ragged claws around the hoods' edges.

  The Beast skirted past the meager downtown, crossing the road quickly, its fur a flash of rippling silver at the edge of the streetlight. It moved back into the night and the wooded bluffs beyond. Over a rise, the Beast stopped and lowered its nose to the ground. The scent trail was still true, but muted.

  Deeper into the cover of the oaks and the sugar maples, grown so dense and crowded the Beast's great bulk bumped and grazed against them. But soon enough it found a place where an old hardwood had fallen, smashing the surrounding saplings and creating a clearing. The Beast settled in to wait, certain of the prey's habits, certain that the one it sought would hunt tonight, too, no matter the weather ... and, yes! ... the Beast could smell it now, hear it coming.

  This one was reckless, even though it thought itself clever, trudging boldly through the crackling underbrush until there it was, only yards away. Too late, the kill sensed the presence of one greater than itself and turned to stare into the eyes of its death. The Beast struck.

  Together, they slammed against the frozen ground. Fierce, this one! A fighter! Stronger than expected. The first flash of shock in the prey's eyes quickly became rage, which was just what the Beast wanted, which was just what made it ravenous for more of its kind. The Beast had the throat, clamping hard enough to prolong the prey's pain and bleeding, but not so hard as to kill, no, not yet. It kept its gaze fixed upon the wild, outraged stare of its victim and yanked it clawing and gurgling off the trail, dragged it writhing and resisting to the shallow ravine nearby.

  And here at last, at the edge of the fall, came the change in the prey's eyes, the awful awareness of death, rage tumbling backward into terror. The Beast braced its forefeet and thrust full into the bite ... hot elation and blood! ... Fangs knifing through muscle and bone, nearly clacking together. The kill went rigid. Then came the death spasms. The Beast hung on, eyes half-closed, shuddering in ecstasy, until the last of the terror trickled into its mouth.

  Heart pounding with fury, the Beast jerked upward and swallowed whole the mouthful of sodden flesh and bits of bone. The kill flopped onto the ground. The Beast glared down at its handiwork a moment and then -with cold, spiteful delight- lunged back at the remains, tearing away the jaw as well.

  As the Beast yanked upward the corpse slid backward, the thick layer of icy groundcover carrying it down the slope. It gained momentum, crashed into the frozen brook and there it lay, half buried in the fractured ice, steaming as the freezing rain beat down.

  Chapter Four

  David Alma Curar's Compound

  Thirty Miles South of Tohatchi, New Mexico

  Early Spring, 1950

  Morning. New Moon.

  Max was still a little logy. They had gotten in late the night before, but as ever, Mina's cooking woke him just after dawn. He took his time with his after-breakfast cup, glad to feel the morning's dry desert chill against warm flannel.

  Good to be home. Or, at least, as close to a home as he'd likely have again. If ever that saying about not being able to go back was tru
e, it was true for him and David. But, hell ... Max didn't have anything to complain about. As exiles goes this one was top of the line, in his opinion; even if few people, nowadays, would agree with him. In these post-war boom times, the oil and the atom were the new monarchs of the west. What lay below the ground was more valued than what was on top, and any attention this part of New Mexico was getting was centered on Albuquerque and its role in the new nuclear age.

  Northern New Mexico, west of the Rockies, was still Indian country, mostly poor and ignored with not much to its name but raw, throat-catching beauty. Sunrises flamed the distant layers of reds, golds, and pewter in the Dakota Outcrop and, as far as the eye could see: a crazy-quilt of sage, chaparral, yucca and juniper carpeted the low, rolling San Juan Basin. This time of year the desert was in bloom. Claret cactus, wild iris, sunflower, primrose ... the whole Basin was peppered with them.

  Washes and ravines criss-crossed the land, red gashes like dueling scars on the Basin's face, waiting for the flash floods of summer. This was a country so remote that, in spite of its beauty, even God had forgotten where He'd put it. And that was just what Max and David had needed.

  Too bad the Devil stumbled across it from time to time, which was the reason a quarter mile of property was guarded by barriers of dagger-thorned brambles and cactus, a hundred yards deep. The barriers discouraged intruders which were, thankfully, rare, but damned persistent when they showed up. They were usually self-styled Navajo sorcerers -called skinwalkers or witches- drawn by David's faulty reputation for being one of them.

  Skinwalkers were the opposite of Native healers, whose training and traditions were meant to keep Nature in balance. That's what David was, a healer; one that, Max supposed, could be said to have a specialized field. But skinwalkers had a different agenda and sought David out: hoping to share his rumored powers or rob him of them, which sometimes included trying to kill him. It was an irony that David was probably the only one among them who had actually shape shifted.

  But there were others, too, who might try to find them. Max and David didn't always make friends when they hunted. Since they inevitably showed up while the Beast was in the midst of slaughter, it wasn't unusual for suspicion to fall on them. They'd long ago learned the value of aliases, and David had cut off his ponytail and stopped wearing anything that made him more conspicuous than he already was in a white crowd.

  Considering all this, the wide, repeating layers of thorny brambles and barbed cactus didn't seem extreme. Neither did the two consecutive electrified gates that guarded the only entrance, or the electrified wire grid hidden just below the roots of the outer brambles to discourage diggers. These were powered by large battery cells, the lead wires buried deep and extending past the hedges to those cells. Living so far out, Max and David had to generate their own electricity. A Ham radio was their soul telephone service.

  It was just as well. They didn't get many visitors. Because of the occasional trouble that came through Tohatchi on its way to the compound, Max, David and Mina weren't very popular with the locals. Likewise, the only people who were welcome at the compound were the other hunters. And Doris Tebbe.

  Besides looking out for human risks, there was one other precaution they had taken. The Beast had never come to their door, but it was a threat too well known to take for granted. So the electrified gates were lined with silver, long ago tarnished black. Buried with the electrified wires, more silver. Where there had once been spaces between the rows of brambles and cactus, silver again.

  Here on the house side of the barriers, though, lay a little manicured paradise within the larger one of the Basin. In contrast to their stocky, utilitarian cousins guarding the perimeter, Saguaro cacti towered over the red earth. Junipers were coddled and cultivated by Mina. Desert blossoms and native remedies crowded the flower and herb bed that followed the wrap-around porch along the house. In a way, the inner grounds reminded Max of the Japanese-style rock gardens that had sometimes been kept by the Tulenar camp internees.

  Bought seven years ago with David's money, the ranch compound had been owned by a man who'd made it big and then busted just as big over the course of the war. The house itself was as open and expansive as the land, the Wild West fantasy of an eastern transplant. Roomy, rustic excess. The house was all on one floor, since there had been a half-mile of acreage to build on. High pitched roof, exposed pine beams in vaulted ceilings. Real John Wayne stuff.

  The interior had the same Navajo sensibility as the exterior -simple and uncluttered- which suited Max just fine. But what little they did have was quality. As long as they had to live in near exile, David had said, they might as well make it tolerable. The leathers were dark and buttery; the woods were coastal red, oak and ponderosa pine. Accents were bold striped woolens. Not much art, but what was there really meant something to the men and to David's young cousin Mina (well, younger than either of them, anyway. The older he got the more anyone under forty looked like a kid to him).

  It was David Alma Curar's money that supported all this, as well as fed and clothed them. Max would've liked to have seen Millie's face, had she known what David was worth. When she'd quipped that vacations were for rich people, it was clear she never thought an Indian could be one.

  Since early manhood, David had been a silver artisan. He had gradually built up a stable of jewelry shops (which shows just how ballsy the Beast could be, going after a silversmith). By the time he and Max had crossed paths, David was already in the money. But David didn't find his calling as a healer until after he was bitten, after his family and community accused him of being a skinwalker, and after Stanislov had ripped his belly open and took him back from the Beast. Shunned, he took on another name and had to travel long and hard to find a healer who'd accept him as an apprentice.

  That everything had to be on Alma Curar's dime long ceased to be an issue with Max, who couldn't do anything about it anyway. Army Captain Maxwell Pierce was legally dead. He had disappeared during the most grisly event in the history of the U.S. Japanese internment camps. Four internees were slaughtered at the camp called Tulenar. There were five official deaths, if you counted Max, who -like one of the victims- was never found. He and that poor nurse, Nancy Tamura. The mother of twins. It had always mortified Max to be considered in her company. He was the one who had torn her to bits.

  What he had been doing all these years was dedicated to her memory and the memory of the rest of his Tulenar victims ... and those that had come before that. What else was left for him? He was doomed to the hunt for the rest of his life. Which he was certain would end like his victims' had at Tulenar.

  Max gave himself a mental shake and turned from that last thought. He took in another deep breath of cool New Mexico morning, and then went inside. He heard David at the Ham radio, dialing through the frequencies, looking for news. Static and whistles led Max through the wide, open living area into the dining room-turned-office.

  David sat hunched before the big contraption, which filled the table against the windowed wall opposite the doorway. Mina was at the dining table where the microfilm viewer sat, scrolling through the newspaper spools that she had sent away for while the men were in Florida. Newspapers, tabloids, maps and well-scribbled notebooks were sprawled across the ten-seater table that the former owner had left behind. It hadn't been used to eat on since. There, too, sat Doris's latest letter, already opened. Max looked forward to reading it.

  He skirted around Mina, giving her long, black braid a tug as he headed toward David, who had switched over to a little used frequency; the one the hunters preferred for hailing each other. After broadcasting the ranch's call sign, David began a more abbreviated code, a kind of radio-alphabet nickname he'd assigned to each team of hunters:

  "Bravo, Bravo, Bravo this is Alpha, over ... Bravo, Bravo, Bravo this is Alpha, over ..." David's call was left unanswered. He tried the other. "Charley, Charley, Charley, this Alpha, over ..."

  A woman's voice came back, strong and clear. "Alpha, Alph
a this is Charley, over."

  "Amy," David greeted. "What a great signal this morning. You sound like you're downtown."

  "I am. Downtown Victoria."

  "At your home radio then."

  "When did you two get back?"

  "Yesterday."

  "We're glad you phoned us from Florida" she said. "It put our minds at ease. How's the new guy? Any chance he's with you?"

  "No. But I think he's going to be all right. It's too early to tell if he'll decide to hunt."

  "Congratulations on the save ..." Her voice trailed off. The last hunt she and Paul had gone on hadn't ended well. It had been either a wild goose chase or a dead end. It wasn't likely any of them would ever know. That kind of uncertainty was hard to live with, not knowing if you had let the Beast get away. In some ways, it was worse to live with than a kill: where the host can't be saved and dies with Beast.

  Max reached over David's shoulder, pressed the microphone button, and changed the subject. "Hi, Amy ... How's springtime in British Columbia?"

  Amy laughed, back to her old self, and replied, "The sea foam's blowing over the break water and freezing in mid-air. But we're nice and toasty in front of the fire. It's good to hear both your voices. Paul's waving at you on this end. We're both very happy for you and the save."

  "I was just trying to raise Samuel," David said.

  "I heard you hailing him. I doubt he's on a hunt. You know he would've left word if he was. Maybe he's just away from the radio."

  Samuel had been Max and David's first save and first to join the hunt. Other than them, he was the most experienced and had made two kills. But he had also made two saves. The ones he'd saved - like two of Max and David's survivors- had disappeared, never contacting the hunters again.