Being a disciple of Jesus, that’s more than a man can hope to accomplish in one, small, meager lifetime, but the reward, brothers and sisters, is eternal life on the other side. Eternal glory and a seat at the heavenly banquet. What more can man ask for?
Amen.
PART 6 – I SAW RED
“Bar” was still open. That was good.
That was about all for the “good” column.
Dave’s shirt was gone. That was the first thing a bystander might notice. He was the lone shirtless guy sitting in the back, part of a group of a dozen or so people occupying the rear of the bar. They had pushed a bunch of tables together and, one bare-chested dude aside, they wouldn’t be too conspicuous on first glance.
But if you spent a few seconds you might notice the blood. The shirtless guy was bleeding, more than a little. He was holding a bag of ice to a nasty gash on his chest and the red blood had seeped around the bag even though the man was holding it tightly. Closer inspection would reveal another man with his hand wrapped with bloodstains sprouting up in random intervals along the white fabric. Then, if you kept looking, you would notice how rough everyone else looked. There was an old man, white hair and beard, who had flecks of leaves and dirt visible and looked like he had just been hit by a truck. There was a young man, next to him, with visible tear marks down his cheeks. A group of three clustered in one corner, not talking or drinking. And there was a woman at the end of the table who, in direct contrast to everyone else, could not keep still.
Finally, if you’d taken all that in, you might have noticed the Barter County Sheriff, sitting away from the group, staring at a wall.
But no one else was there. Even Chuck had stayed in the back, coming only when called.
Josie took turns between being uncomfortable sitting and being uncomfortable standing. She had never been this frightened in her life. She finally walked over to Dave.
“You have to talk to him,” she said. “He saw.”
“I know he saw.”
“Then you have to talk to him.”
“I know.”
“Would you go over there and talk to him then?”
Dave looked up at her and gave her a bleary look. He was just about done.
“If you don’t go over there now,” Josie said. “Think about what happens next.”
He would call other cops, of course. Or would he? Dave thought. What would he tell them? He would definitely lock Dave up, or maybe not. Come to think of it, Dave had no idea what would happen next.
“Nothing good happens next,” Josie said, reading the look on his face. “He could arrest us, he could detain us, he could decide to shoot us. I hate to say this, but you gotta win him over. We can’t leave here enemies.”
Dave pulled himself up with a groan, careful to keep the ice pack hard against his chest and staggered over to the bar, yelling for Chuck. He whispered something, disappearing into the back, and soon Chuck came out with a shirt, a pitcher of beer, and two glasses. Dave patted Chuck on the shoulder, then put on the shirt, wincing through the process. The cut Conall had given him was deep and would require medical care at some point but as his wife had said, there was something else he had to attend to.
Slowly, Dave took the long walk from the bar to Stu’s table. Stu had been dutiful and had stayed in the truck back at the campground, only to be rewarded by getting a close-up look at the fight between the Lead Wolf and the Irish Wolf. The blast radius of their fight had taken them deep into the woods, then toward the road and finally, after The Irish Wolf tried to change the direction of the fight, back to the truck. The Lead Wolf had been beaten, knocked unconscious after the Irish Wolf ran him, full force, into the truck’s grill. The howl of the Irish Wolf’s victory had drowned out the screams from the sheriff and the headlights had given him a good, long, detailed look at exactly what he was dealing with.
Stu had not said a word since that scream.
On his way to the table, Conall grabbed Dave’s arm.
“Have you thought through this course of action, there?” he asked. “This could go very wrong very fast.”
“I know you’re trying to help us but with all due respect, I think I’m done taking advice from you for tonight,” Dave said.
Conall went back to staring at his beer as Dave sat down with Stu, letting the two glasses clank loudly on the old, wooden table. He set the pitcher of beer down more gingerly. All of his angry energy was basically gone, but his internal rebellion was still calling the shots. He was going to handle it his way. If anyone had a problem with it, they could take a shot at being Alpha.
“Sheriff,” Dave said. “Tough night.”
Stu didn’t say anything.
“I don’t want to sound pushy, all right, but this is what’s going to happen. There’s this pitcher of beer and there are two glasses. I’m going to start drinking here in a second and I’m going to pour you a drink and you’re going to drink with me. I insist.”
Stu didn’t say anything.
“As long as there is beer in this pitcher, there is no question I’m not going to answer. Ask me anything about what you’ve seen tonight. I will not lie to you and I will not hide the truth. If I don’t know something, I’ll tell you that. As long as there’s beer in that pitcher, ask me anything.”
Stu didn’t say anything.
“When the beer is gone, I’m done answering questions and hopefully I’ll have talked you into letting me and my family live in peace. If you decide you’re not thirsty or talkative, I’m going to drink this pitcher by myself and you’ll never have this chance again. Ever.”
Stu didn’t say anything.
“I’m going to need some sort of sign that you understand what I’m saying to you.”
Flashes of teeth, fur, and blood filled Stu’s brain, and he batted them away. The memories of his past trauma, his “curse,” had given him training in this regard. There were so many times in public where he had zoned out, completely lost in the fog of his trauma. He had imaginary conversations with the boy who had shot himself, run the scenario a million times and, he had learned, there were times when you shoved those memories to the side and got some damn work done. This was different, obviously. But the process was the same.
In a moment, Stu snapped his working brain back into place and grabbed his cup.
“Pour the beer,” he said.
“Thank you,” Dave said and used the side of the pitcher instead of the spout, something he had done many times throughout the years, to pull a wide stream of beer into the glass, filling it in less than two seconds. The head rose and formed a bubble shape around the top of the glass. Just when it looked like spillage was imminent, the head held and started to slowly, slowly roll back.
“I guess my first question is why shouldn’t I shoot you right now.”
“In front of my family? I don’t think I have you pegged that wrong.”
“Fine then. Let me shoot your Irish friend over there and I’ll take him to the nearest city with a university and they can figure this out.”
Conall heard his name and turned around, raising his glass.
“Try it, mate!” he yelled.
“Don’t look at him,” Dave said. “Look at me. Conall, let the Sheriff and I talk, please.”
Conall gave a slight shrug and turned back around. Both Dave and Stu were aware that everyone could hear them. Hell, Chuck could probably hear them in the back. It was just as well. This was a private conversation about a public truth.
“You shouldn’t shoot me because we haven’t done anything wrong.”
“Excuse me,” Stu said.
“If you exclude the little party trick you saw there, what did we do?”
“OK,” Stu said, speaking rapidly and ticking his points off on his fingers. “Assault, destruction of property, attempted murder …”
“No one was trying to kill you, Stu.”
“Disorderly conduct, disturbing the peace … no license for your animal, I don’t fucking know.
The point is that little ‘party trick’ … I don’t even know. What the hell …”
Stu was starting to lose it again and Dave saw his opening.
“What you saw, Sheriff, was something that’s been happening around here for, literally, hundreds of years. There are groups all over the world that do this, if you believe Conall over there. What I know and what I can tell you for certain is I’ve been doing this for over twenty years and I have never … I’ve never been a danger to anyone.”
Dave was going to say he had never hurt anyone, but everyone in the bar knew that was a lie. By now, Stu had certainly put together that the two unsolved murders in his county were a result of the local pack and it was still the rawest of nerves among the group.
“Two bodies,” Dave said. “That one blonde girl and that dude … Matzen. You and your people killed them.”
Both men took a long drink of their beer.
“Truth is, Sheriff, you’re half right. I told you I wouldn’t lie to you and I’m not going to, so I’m about to tell you something really personal that’s hard to talk about. I have no reason to lie …”
“Out with it,” Stu said. “Don’t tell me you’re telling the truth. Liars tend to do that.”
“Fair enough. Byron was part of our pack. He was a friend of mine and he’s an ex-boyfriend of my wife, Josie, over there.”
She looked up and gave a nod. It didn’t register with Stu that the entire bar was listening to them.
“We all loved Byron,” Dave continued. “But he got himself in some trouble. This thing, that we do, it’s a high. It makes you feel incredible but we have rules in place because it’s gotta be regulated. If it was one guy who could do this, they’d hurt somebody, they’d lose control. That’s why we’re a group. So we can help each other keep control.”
The mood in the back of the bar immediately changed and softened. The group never talked about this part of the process. It was understood and refined by years of “scratches” and everything that went with it—the breaking bread, the absolute honesty. After you’ve seen someone turn into a wolf, how much more intimate can you get? But words about the process, spoken aloud, hit Ron and Carl and Willie and Josie.
“Are you a hunter, Sheriff?”
“No. I grew up in the city. Never got the chance.”
“There’s this teacher I work with, Mr. Shank, and Mr. Shank and his wife had a kid and one of the first things he said when that kid was born was ‘I can’t wait to take him hunting.’ I asked him why and he said he remembered the first time his dad put a rifle in his hands. How careful he had to be and how closely he had to listen and then his dad took him out and showed him how to attract a deer and how to flush it out and they were outside and bonding. It was an experience he associated most closely with family.”
“This thing we do, it’s like that only a million times more potent,” Dave continued. “My dad did it. His dad did it. I just … I just showed my son how this works,” Dave said and stopped. He had started to choke up but quickly pulled himself together. “This is why we’re here. This is as much who we are as anything on this planet. This is sacred to us. Those woods, that’s our sanctuary. We have rituals we go through and we do it to keep the folks in this town safe.”
“And Mr. Matzen?” Stu asked. “He wasn’t safe.”
“He did that to himself,” Dave said. “The scratch wasn’t enough for him, so he started messing around with drugs. Got himself addicted and then he did what an addict does.”
“He was going to sell you out, wasn’t he,” Stu said.
“He was.”
“What was he going to do?”
Dave took another large swallow of beer.
“Byron always was an attention whore,” Dave said, letting it fly a little more. “If he wasn’t getting attention when he wanted it, he would do anything to make sure he got it. He’d sing karaoke every week and if that didn’t do it he’d go down to the school and play the pianos and sing to the kids. They all thought he was the best. If he was feeling low he’d get on the Internet and talk shit and message ex-girlfriends and anything he could to get that attention. He was an asshole.”
Across the bar, Josie winced a bit.
“What was he going to do?” Stu repeated.
“He was with that girl, Sandra Riedel? They were together because of course they were. Fucker could charm the pants off anyone he wanted. So one night, Sandra comes to Ron over there and asks him if he can set up a secure webcam and make sure that no one else around could hack their signal. He asks why and it comes out that he’s become a wolf in front of Sandra and now he’s going to do it on webcam because he’s a giant attention whore.”
“I thought you said he was on drugs?” Stu asked.
“That was part of it, turns out,” Dave said. “Ron, he goes along with it and finds out from Sandra that they’ve both been doing meth for a few months. She says that she can’t keep up with him and that he does it almost every other day. So Ron digs a little more and it turns out he’s not just cam whoring, he’s trying to win something. Ever heard of the JREF prize?”
“No,” Stu said.
“The James Randi Educational Foundation has promised one million dollars for whoever can prove existence of the supernatural. Byron was going to take him up on it. Apparently he was going to webcam with someone from their group and then go in and do it in person. Then he was out of here.”
“What happened?”
“Ron got all this out of Sandra and then we all went and confronted him about it. He denied the whole thing and the next morning, Sandra was dead.”
“What happened, Dave?”
“Sandra double-crossed him. She was going to take the money for herself and hang Byron out to dry. That’s what he told us and I believe him. And we have rules and rituals for one reason and one reason only.”
“To maintain control,” Stu said.
“Exactly,” Dave said, running his fingers through his hair and draining his beer glass. “If he can kill a member of this community and get away with it ain’t nobody safe here. And we will never make our neighbors feel unsafe. Never.”
That sat for a while. Dave poured two more glasses and Willie, who was in the corner, held his tongue. The phrase “there’s more to it than that” was raging in his brain, but given how he felt and the current state of things, he fought the urge and kept it to himself.
“Did you kill him?” Stu asked.
“It was a group thing,” Dave replied. “In full honesty, we all came at him at once.”
“As wolves?”
“Yeah,” Dave said. “As wolves.”
By now the two men were drinking at fairly regular intervals and it was no longer a standoff, but a conversation. In that way, Dave had succeeded. His family and friends had gone from monsters back to people in the sheriff’s mind, but the next step was going to be a lot harder.
“Shit,” Stu said. “How do you do that?”
“What?”
“You know damn well what.”
“I don’t know if I can give you a good answer,” Dave said. “I can tell you what it’s like. I can tell you we’ve been doing it in this part of the country since pioneer days. I can tell you it hurts but you get used to it. I can tell you me and my family are in complete control over this thing and Byron’s death, while tragic, was a rare thing.”
“You’ll understand if I’m having a bit of trouble believing you.”
Dave sat back in his chair. The pitcher was more than half empty. Time to go for broke, he thought.
“Here’s a question for you, Sheriff. How many people have you met on this job?”
“I don’t know. A hundred or so.”
“You’ve met Chuck there behind the bar. You’ve met the Meyers, the Chandlers, you’ve met Pastor Matt down at the church and Amy who manages the gas station?”
“Yeah,” Stu said. “I’ve met all of them.”
“So do you think that Chuck and the Meyers and the Chandlers and
Pastor Matt and Amy and everyone else in this town would hesitate, even for a second, to tell the world there were werewolves living next door if they thought they were in any danger?”
Stu took a drink and leaned forward to meet Dave’s gaze.
“You think this is the first time I’ve had this conversation, Sheriff?” Dave said. “You think most people around here don’t know?”
Suddenly, a lot of things clicked into place for Stu, like every single time someone from the area asked him if they had met Dave yet or the multiple times he’d heard phrases like “you’ll find some odd folks around here,” or “this isn’t your normal sort of town.” Even Chuck, trying desperately to look like he wasn’t listening, had made several out and out references to wolves that flew right over Stu’s head. Of course, if he had known he was dealing with werewolves …
“The point,” Dave continued, “is here’s what we tell people.”
Dave stood up for effect. The rest of the group behind him stood up as well and Conall, taking his cue about five seconds late, followed suit.
“I tell people that we are decent, hard-working folks who go to our jobs, pay our taxes, sing in the church choir and go out into the woods once or twice a month and do our thing. We’re careful and we care. This here, this is our home. This is our refuge. If you’re scared, we understand that, believe me. This is a scary thing. But give us a chance to prove ourselves. Get to know us. Don’t be afraid because, if all goes well, you’ll never have to encounter this thing that we do and if, by some chance, you do, we will do everything in our power to make it right.”
“Plus, think of the absolute thunderstorm of bullshit that happens if you blow the whistle on us, man,” Kenny Kirk chimed in from behind. “I mean, seriously, dark thunderclouds of thick, viscous shit coming down on this town in sheets.”
“Vividly put,” Ron snorted.
Dave sat back down and the rest of the group took the opportunity to start talking amongst themselves, and there was plenty to discuss. Josie started grilling Conall on the other packs in the United States and Europe, Kenny and JoAnn were talking quietly in a corner, and Carl tried to ignore Dilly’s continued questions. No one spoke to Willie and he was fine with that.
Pack Page 15