Full Wolf Moon

by K. L. Nappier

  She heard a groan, some thumps, a sort of thrashing. Low murmurs of assurances. Doris approached and looked through the door. There was no light in the shack except what the moon offered, but Doris could see the two men in the far corner; one curled on the floor, the other squatting nearby. The latter was Alma Curar, who said over his shoulder, "Mrs. Tebbe, there's a lantern hanging to the right of the door. Light it, please."

  Doris found the lantern on a crude wall peg and a box of matches on a stool beneath it. She struck a match, held it to the lantern and the flame slowly bloomed, its dim glow at last reaching Alma Curar and Pierce. The captain was stripped to his shorts, contorted, rigid, balled against the warped floorboards.

  "Oh my God."

  "Would you bring the lamp here, please."

  Doris moved cautiously, more from shock than fear, but found the wooden crate serving as a bedside table and set the lantern down.

  "No, on the wall peg there. He may knock it off the crate."

  Doris allowed herself to leave the sight of Pierce's contortions only long enough to locate the nearby peg and hang the lantern. His eyes swiveled to look at her, but she couldn't tell if he really saw her. Something was wrong with his mouth; it was swollen or possibly stuffed with something.

  Then a great, wrenching sound came from him, awful, liquid, as if his soul were rupturing. His limbs flung out, his left hand catching Alma Curar across an ear, his right shoulder hitting the little cot's metal leg hard, collapsing it on its hinge. Alma Curar was knocked onto his haunches. Doris fell onto Pierce, trying to restrain him, but the healer said quickly, "No, don't hold him, just move the cot, move the cot."

  Alma Curar struggled back up to kneel beside Pierce's head. He pulled the pillow off the cot as Doris dragged the little bed away, scarring the floorboards, but clearing Pierce as his back arced and his legs kicked once, wildly. He became rigid again.

  By the time Doris was at Alma Curar's side, he had the pillow was positioned beneath Pierce's head. The only movement now was the captain's eyes, rolling side to side frantically, as if his spirit were searching for escape from the body.

  It seemed to find an avenue. Pierce went limp, his eyes rolled upward, the eyelids fluttered closed. The boxer shorts became wet and transparent at his groin, and the acrid smell of urine filled Doris's nose. She turned away.

  "Mrs. Tebbe..."

  Reluctantly, Doris faced Alma Curar, still kneeling beside the captain.

  "I could use your help getting him into a dry change."

  Pierce's body was as loose as a corpse, but together, Doris and the healer managed to get the fouled shorts off and fresh ones on. Panting a little from the effort, Doris looked down at the unconscious captain as Alma Curar examined him any serious injury. Satisfied there was none, he stood.

  "I'd hoped to get back before the seizures began again," he said.

  "Should we... get him on the cot, or something?"

  Alma Curar shook his head. "No. This will go on the rest of the night. I wish I could have risked leaving him last night and come to you. But the seizures are much worse on Second Night than Third. The periods of rest only last a few minutes." The healer fell silent a moment, both he and Doris gazing down at Pierce's deep, even breaths. "He should be all right for now."

  Alma Curar took the lantern from the wall peg and Doris followed him to the part of the shack that served as dining room and kitchen. She could see the embers glowing in the potbellied stove. A cast iron crock sat beside it with some stew congealing inside. A plank table with four stools stood in the middle of the rough, wooden floor.

  Alma Curar went to the corner that held a small icebox and a homemade storage chest, lifting an old percolator and a tin of coffee out of the chest. He stoked the stove with a fresh supply of wood then went outside a moment. Doris heard the churn of a water pump.

  Alma Curar had coffee heating minutes later. He set the lantern between them on the table, its yellow glow barely reaching to where Pierce still lay unconscious. Doris blinked, coming out of the sense of stun that had descended on her, and watched Alma Curar rub his sore ear.

  "So he is the one," she said at last. "He is the killer."

  Alma Curar stopped rubbing his ear and reached back, untying his bandana headband. "In a manner of speaking."

  "Why are you doing this?" She couldn't keep the pain and bitterness out of her voice. "Why are you helping him?"

  "To stop the slaughter, Mrs. Tebbe," Alma Curar tossed the headband onto the table, and looked at Doris. "And to help him, too. If I can."

  With the bandana off, Doris could see the gauze bandage, slightly soiled, at Alma Curar's hairline and a broad, silvery stripe, bolder, brighter than the rest of the steel gray hair that must have been a sleek black at one time. Something was speaking to her deep inside, something was trying to put puzzle pieces together that didn't seem to fit.

  "He needs a court of law," she replied finally, and added with venom, "He needs to die, goddamn it."

  Alma Curar shook his head. "He doesn't need to. But he will all the same, unless you and I can save him."

  Doris turned her head and raised a hand as if she'd just seen something revolting. "I'm not going to save him. I'm going to see him dead."

  "Then you'll be killing an innocent man."

  "You just said --"

  "No, you just said. Mrs. Tebbe, the Maxwell Pierce you know is not the one feeding. It's what he holds inside. The beast, Mrs. Tebbe. The beast is in control."

  Doris's good sense was gone. Too weary, too much in pain, whatever caution may have stopped her had evaporated hours ago and she hissed into the healer's face, "You're as psychotic as he is!"

  Alma Curar's expression screwed into anger and he rose so quickly, Doris thought he was lunging at her. She fell backward over the stool, but scrambled to her feet in time to realize Alma Curar wasn't coming for her. He was carrying the lantern over to Pierce.

  Glaring at her as he walked toward Pierce, Alma Curar commanded, "Come over here."

  She hesitated, wondering if she could make it to the shack's only door in time, but Alma Curar was now kneeling beside Pierce and snapped at her again, "Come over here!"

  Why was she doing it, why was she walking toward these two insane men? She asked herself this over and over, but lost that thought, lost the question as she peered down to see Alma Curar's fingers pull Pierce's lips away from the fangs.

  The gums were twice as red, the fangs twice as large as human teeth, both uppers and lowers, and dark yellow. The smaller teeth between each set were as narrow and pointed as any dog's. Or any wolf's.

  Doris tried to turn away, but Alma Curar clutched her with his free hand. "Look again. Look long, Mrs. Tebbe. See them. Make certain for yourself. Then tell me I'm a mad man. Look!"

  She jerked free of his grip, but looked again, forcing herself to see those fangs. Tears spilled from her eyes, the bile threatening to surge into her throat. But she looked. She reached out and touched them.

  She pulled her fingers away suddenly, one sparkling sob welling inside her, and she clutched her forehead as she stumbled toward the door.

  "Mrs. Tebbe!"

  She had one foot on the creaking little step outside the door before Alma Curar caught her. She pulled free and ran the rest of the way out, but the healer's words stopped her.

  "Don't go!"

  She made it to the sedan, leaning against it a moment for support. Alma Curar's voice was directly over her shoulder.

  "Please. I'm begging you. Don't go."

  Chapter 28

  David Alma Curar's

  Five Miles South of Tulenar Internment Camp

  Midnight. Third Night of the Full Moon.

  She was calmer now, sitting at David Alma Curar's table, a tin cup of steaming coffee in her hands. But she couldn't look at Pierce, still stretched like the dead upon the floor. He had lain so now for over thirty minutes. Alma Curar was bathing Pierce with cool water because the captain had begun to sweat profusely.
/>   Staring ahead at the potbellied stove, Doris finally said (though she couldn't imagine why she'd care), "Shouldn't you take him to the hospital? To a doctor, at least?"

  "I didn't know modern science had a cure for lycanthropy now," the healer replied.

  "Maybe he has some disease, Mr. Alma Curar. A rare form of something that a doctor would know how to treat."

  She glanced over her shoulder briefly, in time to see Alma Curar wring out the cloth and drape it over the water bucket. She turned away quickly as he walked toward her. Alma Curar poured another cup of coffee and said, almost smiling, "So the captain has a disease that makes him grow fangs and compels him to eat people."

  "You think this is funny?"

  "No, Mrs. Tebbe, I don't. But your steadfast refusal amuses me a little."

  "Go to hell."

  Alma Curar looked at her a moment, then replied, "I've already been, thanks."

  Doris sighed and sank toward her cup of coffee. When she lifted her eyes again, Alma Curar was sitting across the table. She said, "Look. I'm sorry."

  "It's all right. It's natural for you to hate him. I know you care about the people of Tulenar. The last one...the minister. He was someone special, though, wasn't he?"

  Here was her opportunity to say it. She looked into the healer's eyes and swallowed. "I knew him better than Mr. Ataki or Mrs. Tamura. He was Police Liaison, so we worked closely. Almost daily."

  Alma Curar was quiet, as if waiting for her to continue. But Doris didn't continue. Embarrassed by her failure, she looked again into the black, smoky coffee.

  "You never told me why you're doing this," she said.

  "Yes, I did."

  "No, you didn't. You're from that reservation town, aren't you? Long Walk or something, right? You followed him here."

  Alma Curar shook his head. "I'm from Tohatchi, New Mexico. By the time of the third feeding at the rez, an old healer there understood what was happening and asked me to come. The beast took a fifth before I suspected the host was from Fort Morriston, the Army station a few miles from there. I failed to find it by the sixth victim. But I knew it would be on the move soon and followed the clues here."

  "So you really hadn't been in California for three months before the murders."

  "Closer to three weeks."

  "Why the ruse?"

  Alma Curar almost smiled again. "I can't believe you'd ask after all this."

  "Yeah. Well. How'd you know it was Pierce?"

  "I didn't, not for certain. Not until I met him."

  "What clues, then? You said you followed the clues."

  "There are certain actions, habits that are obvious if you're intimate with them. And dreams. It never quite leaves you. The connection remains, and if you're sensitive to your dreams, it's very helpful."

  "Intimate." Doris raised her cup and just before drinking, commented sarcastically, "I suppose some of your best buddies are werewolves."

  "Besides the captain, I'm the only one I know."

  Doris froze. The healer stood. Her eyes never left his as he tugged his shirtwaist out of his beltline, undid the top button of his trousers. Only then did her gaze drop to the long, ropy scar that angled across his exposed abdomen.

  She swallowed, unsure of the right move as Alma Curar calmly replaced his clothing. Vying for time, hoping to keep him talking, she asked in an unsteady voice. "Did ... did a werewolf do that to you?"

  "No. The man who saved me did. He sliced into the beast with a silver dagger. Relax, Mrs. Tebbe. You won't be dying tonight. If you and I do this right, you won't be dying at all."

  Doris was far from relaxed. But she was thankful for the moment of quiet while the healer left the table to bathe Pierce once again. When he returned, Doris didn't have to ask him to explain.

  "The man's name was Stanislov. He was already very old, by the time I met him. He had traced the lineage that possessed me all the way to Mexico, which was where I lived as a young man, silversmithing. Like you...just like the captain...I didn't believe in monsters. I refused to believe in the one inside me. At that time in my life, I took great pride in being a modern and militant Navajo."

  "How? How did it happen?"

  "I was bitten," he replied simply.

  "How did you escape?"

  "The beast didn't want to kill me, Mrs. Tebbe. Like the captain, I was chosen. It has only so much time to feed through each host. I remember very clearly the woman who was host before me. She had stopped at my booth in the market and just stared. Stared at the silver. Stared at me." Something of a sour laugh escaped Alma Curar. "I was a young man. I thought she was a wealthy Spanish wife looking for a little...adventure. You understand? I was disgusted by her look of longing. I had no idea what was really looking at me through her eyes. It was later that night, walking home...that was when I was attacked."

  Alma Curar rolled up his right sleeve and rested his forearm on the table. In the dim lantern light Doris could see the multiple puncture wounds, old and faded, though the depressions where the flesh had not entirely grown back were still evident.

  "The local doctor thought it was a coyote, wounded probably, rabid maybe," Alma Curar continued. "He could tell from the bite that it was large, but said it was only my fear that made the animal grow even larger in my mind. It wasn't until much later that the not-so-modern people began to understand.

  "In our tradition, Mrs. Tebbe, there are witches...they're often called 'wolves.' Shape shifters. It's difficult to explain to whites. The whole obsession of a Navajo Wolf is to disrupt, hopefully destroy, the balance of the world. The Way, the Beauty. That's what I became to my family and my neighbors. That's why I won't shame the memory of my parents -or that of my wife's- by keeping my family name. That's why, after Stanislov, I left Mexico and became a healer."

  "And the woman? Did she go on killing?"

  "She hanged herself in a Mexican jail. She was being held, waiting for trial, after confessing to three notoriously grisly murders in northern Mexico. She thought she was mad."

  "Then you...then how come you're not...?"

  "How come I'm not seizing? Why no fangs? Stanislov is why. He plunged his dagger here..." He placed his hand on his abdomen. "...slaying the beast. Saving the man."

  Alma Curar leaned in closer. "It's not my story that's important, Mrs. Tebbe. What's important is that we must do what Stanislov did, if we can. If we thrust the silver below the belly ...anywhere vital within the pelvic basin, the beast dies. The man lives."

  She was dizzy, her hands and feet numb with the realization of what Alma Curar was telling her he wanted. Suddenly the idea of killing Pierce herself, the fantasy that brought her such bitter pleasure, instead brought bile to her throat.

  "You mean here? Now?"

  "No, no! It could be done, but at the expense of the host, of Captain Pierce. He would die with the beast. I don't want to do that...unless I have to."

  Alma Curar looked past Doris a moment, gazing at Pierce, whose toes and fingers were twitching as if in dream. The healer smiled.

  "I would dread doing that." He looked at Doris again. "He believes now. He knows. Do you have any idea how much strength that takes, how much strength of spirit? This man is fighting."

  But as quickly as his expression had softened for Pierce's sake, Alma Curar's face went stony again. "Understand, though. If I miss my chance and the only way left is to take Maxwell along with the beast... make no mistake, Mrs. Tebbe. I'll do it. And so must you."

  "I can't believe what you're asking me."

  "I thought you wanted him dead."

  "I...do...I mean, I want to see justice..."

  "You want the courts to take care of the messy business of revenge for you. I'm offering him justice. More than you would, more than the courts. The law has no way of giving him that." Alma Curar took a drink of his own coffee. "You still don't believe?"

  "I don't know what I believe..."

  "Are you going to go back? Are you going to give us away?"

  Doris, r
esting her elbows on the table, sagged her weight onto them. "Would you be here when we got back?"

  "Yes."

  "Sure, you would."

  "Yes, Mrs. Tebbe. We would. There will be no more feeding. One way or the other. Are you going to go back?"

  Doris watched Alma Curar carefully, looking for any signs of deception, a flicker, a flaw.

  "I want this chance for the captain," he said. "More so than he does. But if you go..."

  "Stop it. I'm not going anywhere."

  Now it was Alma Curar's turn to do the watching, as if looking for the deception in her. At last he said, "Thank you."