by Alex Kidwell
Victor chose that moment to burst into the clearing, bending over to brace his hands on his knees once he came to a stop. “What,” he wheezed, “happened?”
Redford didn’t want to interrupt Anthony and Jed, so he leaned over and whispered to Victor, “Edwin got taken.” Just the thought of it made him want to tear into the woods after the hunters too. O’Malley had promised he would call off his operation, and they’d all thought they’d be safe. But now there were hunters on the Lewises’ property. This might have just gotten far more personal.
Anthony’s anger seemed to dissipate some. “Okay,” he said, taking a moment to breathe deeply, getting himself focused. “You’re right. You know more about this kind of thing than I do. But we’re going now. If you tell me to wait until morning, I’ll remind you of the time you tried to blow up that hunter camp because Redford got a tiny bullet graze on his arm.”
“Yeah, well.” Jed pulled his shotgun from the duffel bag, ratcheting off the safety. “You talked me out of it. I’m a cold-blooded killer. You’re a nice guy who likes to fish. There’s a world of difference between what I do and what you can live with.” There wasn’t time for this. For a big drawn-out heart-to-heart. And Jed seemed to feel that just as much as the rest of them. He met Anthony’s eyes, holding his gaze, brilliant human green against feral wolf yellow. “You told me once that you weren’t animals, that you didn’t kill without reason. Was that true? Or only when you didn’t have skin in the game?”
Anthony’s upper lip lifted in a reactionary snarl, but he didn’t voice it. Jed waited patiently as Anthony seemed to struggle through his thoughts, his gaze darting from Jed to the forest. “Everything in me wants to tell you there’s a damn good reason,” he said, his voice tight.
“Wouldn’t argue with you.” Jed darted a glance forward, tense. Redford knew he’d be trying to guess how much time had passed, how far ahead the hunters might be. “It’s always easy to be a good man when nothing you love is at stake. I know. That’s the only kind of good I ever am.”
Jed’s eyes flicked over to Redford, expression going grim. A thousand thoughts seemed to be held in that glance. Redford knew that if it had been him taken, Jed wouldn’t stop to debate morality. He hadn’t. But this seemed different. And Redford honestly wasn’t sure if Jed was thinking of the time the hunters had shot him, or the way Redford had lost himself to the instincts and ripped out a man’s throat. Neither memory seemed to fill him with any sort of confidence about this situation. Maybe there was more at stake now. Maybe there was something bigger than just himself to think about. Either way, Jed was standing between Anthony and men who didn’t deserve the consideration. Something had changed.
“I am two seconds away from just ignoring you and running in there,” Anthony replied. His shoulders were hunched up tight, but as Redford watched, they slowly drooped, leaving Anthony looking defeated. “You’re right. And I wish you weren’t.”
“Story of my life, kid.” Jed gripped Anthony’s shoulder. “But I promise, we’ll get him back.” Jed never promised like that. He said it was the surest way to make shit hit all kinds of fans. But his voice was grim, serious, gaze unwavering from Anthony’s. “So let’s get moving.” He turned back to the others. “Okay. Victor, Randall, you go back to the house,” Jed said.
Randall immediately barked at him, setting his front paws and growling. Obviously not agreeing.
“Go back to the house, guys,” Anthony echoed, looking down at Randall. “It’ll be safer.”
“We’re coming with you,” Victor insisted. “You’re hardly going on some sort of stealth mission. Two extra bodies won’t change anything. And Randall is an excellent wolf to have on your side at times like this.”
“Yeah, but you’re not,” Jed said, exasperated. “You sound like a goddamn elephant running through the woods. I don’t want to send you back alone. I need Redford, therefore Randall gets the short straw. Now stop fucking arguing.”
Victor grumbled in exasperation, but he gave in. “Right, then. I’ll hold down the fort.” He sounded like he’d tried to inject some cheer and determination into his voice; it hadn’t worked. “Randall?”
Obviously torn, Randall hesitated. But Jed just shook his head. “Don’t, kid,” he muttered. “We need blankets, hot water, and whatever first aid you have. Victor doesn’t know where everything is. Edwin’s going to be hurt when we bring him back, and I don’t know how bad. So go, get ready. I need you both to do that so that we have someplace safe to take him to.” Jed hesitated, looking over at Victor. “There are some spare guns in a hidden panel in the back of the Jeep. Get those. Lock the doors. Be ready. Okay?”
Victor still didn’t look happy, but he nodded again and laid his hand on Randall’s back in a comforting gesture. They left, and Redford turned his attention to Jed’s bag. He pulled out his own gun and holster while Anthony shifted, and set about getting himself ready.
“Anthony, can you pick up their trail?” Redford asked, strapping the holster over his shoulder. He realized then that he was still in the clothes he’d worn last night, barefoot. Jed was sloppily dressed in what he’d tossed to the floor; Redford noticed that Jed’s shirt was inside out. Neither of them had taken the time to hunt for new clothes.
Anthony circled the tree again and took off at a trot. To give Jed freer range of movement, Redford took the bag and slung it over his own back as they followed.
As they ran and as Redford thought, he felt a resignation settle into him. At the start of all of this, their only mission had been to help the Lewises find the Gray Lady’s pack, but in doing so, they’d stumbled into a fight. And it still wasn’t over—it would maybe not be over for a very long time, considering the visions Victor had had. And all Redford wanted to do was take Jed to some remote little cabin in the mountains and fish from a stream.
This war they’d found themselves in might not end. This could just be the very start of it, and Redford didn’t want it. He didn’t want to get involved in something like this. But he couldn’t back out now, could he? He didn’t want to back out, not when the Lewises were in danger. Redford just wished this fight had never started at all.
When Anthony finally came to a halt, Jed and Redford stopped beside him. They crouched behind the low overhang of a hill to catch their breath. Redford tipped his chin up, testing the air with a deep inhale. “They’re close,” Redford told Jed. “Not even a mile away, and they’ve stopped.” There was a certain scent that came with movement. Redford couldn’t quite describe it, but it was something like a mix between the sweat of exertion and the pumping of blood. He couldn’t smell that on the hunters anymore. Creeping through the scent of pain and sour fear was the crisp smell he associated with Edwin. Anthony seemed to sense it too, because his ears were darted forward, body in a line of tense anticipation. “Edwin is with them, and he’s alive.”
Jed pulled out a box from his bag and attached his second favorite sniper scope onto his rifle, easing himself up to rest along a fallen log. After a moment, Jed murmured, “I can’t see any lights. No fires or torches that I can tell. We’ll need to get closer.”
Redford looked around for a twig. When he found one, he pushed the end into the dirt and started drawing a map. “From what I can smell, most of the hunters are gathered together,” he said, keeping his voice low. “Edwin was telling me all about this area yesterday. There’s a shallow stream that goes to the east of us, and an outcropping of rocks near where I think the hunters are. They’ve probably camped there for the night. Which means that we can’t come at them from that direction.” He drew a line approaching the west. “We’ll need to go this way.”
Jed nodded, looking over the map one last time before dashing it out with his foot. “Lead the way,” he said, gun in his hands, dropping back behind Redford and Anthony.
“Wait,” Redford hissed, throwing an arm out to stop Jed moving. Anthony had frozen as well, and together they looked behind them. “There’s….” Redford sniffed the air, his eyes
growing wide. “There’s a few dozen wolves approaching.”
“What the—” Jed cursed under his breath, fingers tightening on his gun. “Where?”
“Behind us,” Redford replied. He inhaled again, trying to sort out the different scents the wind was carrying. “It’s…. I think the Gray Lady is with them.”
Jed darted a look at Anthony, as if for confirmation. Anthony shifted back, remaining crouched low to the ground. “It’s her,” Anthony agreed. “I have no idea why, but it’s her. Mallory too.”
“Not good,” Jed growled, turning to face where they’d come from. “Not good, not good, not good.” His gun was out, leveled at the trees, and Jed was scanning the dark forest as if he’d suddenly be able to see more than a few feet in front of him.
Redford began to hear the quiet noise of paws moving over dirt, dozens of them running in unison. Then a bare minute later, he began to see shapes approaching through the trees. A sleek gray wolf emerged at the head of the pack, a wolf one moment and then human the next.
The Gray Lady, naked and as wild as the forest around them, regarded them calmly. “I see we caught up just in time.”
Jed stood in front of them, between the pack and Redford and Anthony, gun in his hands. Unafraid. He faced down dozens of wolves without blinking. Which was probably idiotic. “We’ve got this under control,” Jed told her lowly. “Though I’m sure if you need a place to stay for the night, you can take a detour through the Lewises’. But you don’t need to be out this way at all.”
“They’ve taken one of your own, am I right?” Her voice was nothing less than absolutely cool, but Redford still heard the growl of anger thrumming underneath. “They have been trying to take ours, still. We found notations on one of the hunters about where they intended to strike next. And we are ready to strike back.”
“This is not a war.” Redford saw Jed’s hands tighten around his gun, his body shifting into a more defensive stance. “If you go over there, if you rip them apart, what next? They send more men. Better trained men. It’s an arms race. You escalate, so they come back with bigger guns, with tanks. And then what do you do? You send more wolves in? So they start with planes. I’ve seen it before. It never ends well. Let me go in there. I can pull the kid out, send the hunters a message, without you throwing down the gauntlet.”
“We are beyond messages, human,” the Gray Lady said sternly. “There are consequences to what they have done, and they will know those consequences tonight. We are not weak. We will not lie down and let them continue.”
“Anthony.” Jed’s voice was a quiet plea now. “This will start a war. Tell them.”
“Jed’s right, ma’am,” Anthony said. He remained crouched, putting himself on a lower level than the Gray Lady, but his words were firm. “They can keep recruiting, but you can’t. There’s only so many wolves in the area.”
It looked like the Gray Lady’s patience was running out. Her wolves gathered around her, facing them down, with only Jed standing in the middle to stop them, and all of Jed’s words and weapons couldn’t stop the wolves from attacking if that was what they decided.
It felt like an eternity stretched past as the Gray Lady considered her answer, and Redford grew more tense with every second. Finally, she inclined her head, and for a moment it looked like she might agree.
She murmured, “Go. Kill them all.”
The wolves flowed past them on silent paws, shoulders bumping against Jed and Redford’s knees. Jed lifted his gun then, aiming it at the Gray Lady, finger on the trigger. But even he realized it would do no good. He closed his eyes, a defeated slump to his shoulders, and let the barrel of the gun fall, pointing harmlessly down at the forest floor.
Dismissing them, the Gray Lady shifted and ran off, leading the rest of the wolves toward the camp. Redford and Jed didn’t move as the wolves streamed around them. Redford only glanced at Jed to see the resignation on Jed’s expression that matched his own, and Anthony was staring after the pack, his jaw clenched tight. Moments later they heard the wolves attack in a flurry of noise: cut-off screams, barks and growls, and the dying moans of the hunters.
Everything fell to silence. Then a lone howl rose in the distance. “Edwin,” Anthony gasped, sprinting toward the camp.
Redford reached out to take Jed’s hand. “We should go catch up,” he said quietly.
Jed looked like he’d aged about ten years. But he took Redford’s hand without a word, and they made their way toward the wolves. The stench of death and blood was hard to miss. Even Jed grimaced as they got closer. And there was not much left of the hunters. There were eviscerated corpses strewn like fallen apples, the dark puddles of them against the ground. A few wolves looked to be limping, a few more were injured, but none had fallen. It looked like they’d caught the hunters mostly in the tents, a few of the bodies clearly cut down in an attempt to run away.
Jed made a quiet, choked sound. He abruptly turned and walked away, outside the tattered circle of the tents, back to the scene.
The Gray Lady was human again, standing in the middle of it like a queen surveying her land. A fine spray of blood marred her face, but she didn’t seem to notice. Redford found his way to Edwin first, who looked banged up and bloody but alive. Anthony was already there, holding Edwin tightly.
“Never run off again, Edwin,” Anthony was saying frantically.
In wolf form, Edwin looked strangely small, leaning heavily against Anthony’s chest. He nosed into Anthony’s throat as if reassuring himself of the scent, giving a pained yelp when he tried to take a step. Blood was matting his shoulder; clearly that was where the bullet had hit him. The hunters hadn’t bothered to do anything to the wound.
Redford gently touched Edwin’s uninjured shoulder. “I’m glad you’re okay,” he whispered.
“We’re going back to the lake outside your cabin,” the Gray Lady announced, seemingly having no time for reunions. “I assume you have your brother there, ready to give medical aid?”
Redford could only nod an affirmative before she was a wolf again, and the pack started leaving. Anthony scowled at their retreating forms and carefully stood, Edwin supported in his arms. “Where’s Jed?” Anthony asked.
“Right here.” Jed had found a shovel somewhere and was marching through the camp to the middle of the clearing. “Sick of burying these goddamn bodies.” And he started to dig there, alone in the center of the camp and the corpses.
“You go back, Anthony,” Redford directed. “We’ll take care of this.”
“No.” Jed just kept his head down, digging. “You go too.” A caustic smile touched Jed’s lips, a weary slump to his shoulders. “It’s a human thing.”
Redford knew Jed didn’t blame him for what had happened here. Jed wasn’t an illogical person by nature, but Redford still winced at the tone in Jed’s voice. He was a wolf too, or at least half of one, and right then the anger in Jed’s body language toward wolves was clear.
Redford didn’t blame him. He wasn’t too happy with them himself.
Anthony left with Edwin, and Redford took a moment to stand by Jed’s side, feeling useless. The smell of death was near-suffocating to his nose, and if he looked more than two feet in either direction, he’d see a severed limb or a puddle of blood. It had been a slaughter, a horrifically messy one.
Redford wanted to ask Jed not to take too long, but he also wanted to insist that he could take all the time he needed. The conflicting thoughts made him hesitate, and in the end he just wrapped his arms around Jed from behind, hugging him tight. “I’ll see you soon,” he murmured.
Jed’s fingers tightened on top of Redford’s and Jed nodded, eyes fixed on the ground. “I don’t want to be in another war,” he muttered, almost to himself. “This didn’t have to happen. I’m not saying nobody had to die tonight. Just… not like this.”
“I know.” Redford laid his cheek against Jed’s shoulder blade. “We’ll talk to them, I promise.”
It was different now. This wasn’t
just a pack of rowdy hunters that could be beaten off with a show of teeth and a trained force. This wasn’t an office that Jed could stomp into and blackmail the ringleader into stopping. This attack had felt so much more volatile than the others.
Maybe it had been because of Victor’s visions, and maybe they were just riled up from those. Or maybe there was just a feeling in the air, an intangible sense that this would lead to something so much worse, like the smell of burnt ozone after a flint had been struck.
Nobody wanted a war. But it looked like they might just get one.
Redford gave Jed a final squeeze and left for the Lewises’ house. He looked over his shoulder as he did. Jed cut a very lonely figure, surrounded by blood and dismembered bodies. But Redford forced himself to keep walking, because Randall and Anthony would be more focused on Edwin right now, so somebody had to beg the Gray Lady to not escalate this into full-blown war.
The wolves were gathered around the edge of the lake when Redford arrived. Some of them were washing blood off themselves. Anthony was bundling Edwin into the cabin, though he kept darting glances back at the blood drifting into the water, a pained look flickering over his expression. Randall met them at the door, and they vanished inside. The Gray Lady was crouched by the shoreline, dipping her hands into the water to rub the flecks of blood off her face. Even now, with her white hair matted at the tips with red, she was the most graceful creature Redford had ever seen.
She was conversing lowly with Mallory, so Redford sat down on the front porch and decided to stay there. Waiting for Jed to return so they could speak to her together would probably be their best bet, because however much Redford could list off the exact same reasons that a war was bad, he knew they didn’t sound quite as believable coming from him.
Jed had actually been involved in a war. People took his word on it much more seriously, and that was an advantage they were going to need.