Full Wolf Moon

by K. L. Nappier

  "Oh yes, I did."

  "It must have been tough, stitching yourself up," Mrs. Tebbe said, still ignoring Max.

  "That's my handiwork," Max replied, still determined to be counted.

  Mrs. Tebbe barely looked his way. David went to the cedar chest near the door, replaced the first aid kit, and pulled out the cigar box filled with silver arrowheads. Max's throat pinched. When David brought the box over to the table, Max took his stool and moved to sit next to the door.

  Perhaps Mrs. Tebbe was equally uncomfortable watching David work the silver with pointed little instruments, the tiny hammer tapping the precious metal into deadly shape. She stood abruptly.

  "Look, I better go. It's getting tougher to convince Shackley I'm not up to something. I'd better stay at Tulenar for a few days. It wouldn't surprise me... it wouldn't surprise me if he had me tailed again."

  Lie. It was in her voice. That wasn't really what she meant. Did David feel it, too? He was looking up at Mrs. Tebbe, but Max couldn't read his face. After a moment, the healer bent over the arrowheads again.

  "When will it be?" David asked. "Saturday, then?"

  "Same time," Mrs. Tebbe replied.

  David nodded, still at his work. "I'll have some new targets mounted by the time you get here."

  She said pointedly to David, not to Max, "Good night."

  But Max followed her out the door.

  "Why don't you just do it?" he said.

  Mrs. Tebbe kept walking. "Do what?"

  "You know what. ou believe less in David day by day. Something's changing your mind."

  "You don't know what you're talking about."

  "I can hear it in your voice. Damn it. I can smell it in you."

  Mrs. Tebbe turned and slapped him.

  "I mean it," Max persisted, ignoring the sting, the pain-provoked tears. "I can sense these things. You're scared."

  "The hell I am. I'm looking forward to this."

  "You don't act like it."

  "How should I be acting, Captain? Do I lack the right etiquette for the situation?" She looked disgusted as she turned toward the car. "You're imagining things."

  "Mrs. Tebbe. Don't let David down. I swear to God, I'm not asking this for myself. I'm asking for him. Jesus, if I could change what happened. If I could give you Arthur Satsugai back...

  This time, as she whirled toward Max, she slapped him hard enough to leave his glasses dangling from one ear. She slapped him again before he could recover, but he blocked the next blow and told himself he was yanking her close to avoid another.

  But if that were so, why was he sobbing into her shoulder, why was he sinking to his knees, his glasses still dangling? His voice was coming from somewhere else, it seemed, begging her for forgiveness, clutching at her legs like a bereaved child.

  He heard Mrs. Tebbe whispering through all his pleading as she made a half-hearted effort to pull away. "Stop it. Stop it, Max. Please."

  He let his arms fall away and listened to her all but run to her car.

  Chapter 32

  Alma Curar's Shack

  Early morning. New Moon.

  Doris stopped to change into her trousers and shirt just after pulling onto the path that lead to Alma Curar's little hideout, then drove up to park in her regular place. She left the car as quietly as possible. After the way they had parted two nights ago, she wanted to avoid seeing Pierce. She was much earlier than usual and hoped, at this hour, that he wouldn't be awake.

  That, and she thought it prudent to leave Tulenar just before dawn, before Shackley might think to have her followed. Fortunately, the rapid succession of demonstrations and rallies Jesse Haku was organizing kept Shackley's attention diverted. But Doris saw no reason to take chances.

  She began walking toward the practice area, the blanket of pine needles whispering against her mannish, flat-soled shoes. But thoughts of Tulenar slowed her pace. Time. In spite of Mr. Haku's efforts, Doris knew Shackley was beginning to understand what was happening. And Doris was running out of tricks. Soon, she would run out of time. She would have to decide.

  The trek to the target was long and, after a while, she found it soothing, striding the hill. The birds were awake, sweet in song. Doris's breath plumed faintly before her. She heard tentative scuffling here and there, glimpsed a chipmunk scampering away from the edge of sight. It was target practice she was headed to, after all, regardless of its ultimate goal. The feel of the bow, the arrow nocked, poised between tension and release. At her command.

  But when she broke into the clearing Mr. Alma Curar had made for them, she stopped cold. Leaning against the simple hay bale targets, waiting to be mounted, were two big wooden boards, about six high by ten long. One was painted with a large wolfish shape on all fours, in profile. The other was wolf-like, too, large, too, as if on hind legs, forelegs reared. Leaping at her. Each had a red line painted where the end of the rib cage might be.

  Beastly shapes to help Doris understand what she would be aiming at with her silver arrows. She had an instant recall of the healer pulling Pierce's lips away from those fangs. The forest didn't seem soothing and peaceful now.

  In a sudden flurry she nocked an arrow, drew her bow and let it fly, knowing her target was below the red line, any lethal hit into the pelvic basin. The arrow missed horribly, striking the hind foot of the leaping beast. Okay. Okay. She did that frantically, from a burst of emotion.

  Doris was breathing too fast. She deliberately controlled her breath, carefully prepared her bow, loaded the arrow. She drew it up, closed her eyes and managed to calm herself. Then, eyes open, she released. The arrow struck the board between the hind legs.

  "Damnit, godamnit!" Doris gripped the bow so tightly her knuckles whitened and she paced the clearing, restless as a thing caged. "I can't do this. I can't do this."

  Around and around she went, then stopped, tilted her head and shouted to the pines, "I can't let those boys go to prison!"

  She whirled to face the targets, and in several motions so fluid they felt as one, she sent an arrow flying into the chest of the leaping beast.

  / / / /

  "We've lost her."

  From his bedroll, Max watched David walk away from the door's threshold, still in his undershirt and shorts. The healer had leapt up before Max could, and had run to the door at the sound of tires spinning frantically away from the shack. For the first time since Max had known the man, David's expression was haggard as he came back to his cot, sinking onto it heavily.

  Max put on his glasses, climbed out of his bedroll and stepped to the door, careful to peer around the jamb as he watched the dust settle back to the ground. "Did you see any others?"

  "I didn't even see Mrs. Tebbe. Just the back of her car."

  "What was she doing here so early? Why didn't she come in?"

  "Who knows? We may never."

  "She seems to have been the only one."

  Max looked back at David, the healer's head sagging, tendrils of loose, gray hair veiling the sides of his face, the white streak brilliant in the dimness of the shack.

  "It always was a long shot, David. But it was worth a try."

  David looked up, the pain of failure still in his face, but he said, "What do you want to do now, Max? It's up to you."

  Max moved to the stove and began stoking it with fresh wood from the small, indoor pile. "Give me some options."

  David was quiet a moment. He reached to the well-worn Farmer's Almanac sitting on the cot's wooden crate and thumbed it idly. "We could leave here. The full moon's barely two weeks away. Establish a temporary camp somewhere, carry on as best we can, try to take this to its end before getting caught."

  "Okay, what else?"

  "I could try to contact Mrs. Tebbe, talk her into coming back."

  Max shook his head. "No. No. If she's headed back to camp, we couldn't catch her before she's gotten her troops together. Too risky."

  "Everything we've done or plan to do is too risky."

  "I know. Let her
be. What else?"

  David stood, tossed the Almanac on the plank table as he walked to the supply chest and pulled out the coffee. He took the empty pot from its place on the stove and began ladling water into it. "We could stay."

  "Wait for the authorities and surrender," Max clarified.

  "Yes. You could hope for execution, but there's no way that will happen before the next moon. We could put up a fight and force them to shoot."

  "We?"

  David looked up from his task, set the prepared pot onto the heating stove. "Did you think I'd sneak out the back door?"

  Max was surprised to feel himself smile. "There is no back door."

  David wasn't ready to be amused. "What do you want to do?"

  Max looked away, walked toward the door, still flung open, and gazed out, collecting his thoughts. Finally he said, "I don't want to run away. I don't want you to die with me. There's no particular reason to think Mrs. Tebbe's gone to get the cavalry. She may have just decided she couldn't do this anymore."

  He saw himself as he was two evenings ago, in the failing light, crumpled at her feet. Max. She'd called him Max. "I want to stay. If she changes her mind, she can find us here. If she doesn't, if she's gone to get the authorities, we'll know soon enough." He turned back to face David. "I'd like you prepared to run, just in case. If I'm more valuable alive than dead, David, then so are you. Stay alive. Just leave me the gun."

  David was sitting on one of the table's stools, hands on knees, his gray hair with its brilliant silver stripe still loose around his shoulders. He lips were pressed tight as he considered what Max said.

  "All right," he replied. "Agreed. I think we should set up camp a mile or so from here. We can keep an eye on things through the binoculars. If the law comes, I'll hike across the foot hills to Disjunction Lake and catch the first train home."

  "And you'll leave me the gun."

  "I'll leave you the gun."

  Chapter 33

  Tulenar Internment Camp

  Mid-afternoon. Waxing Crescent Moon.

  Days were barely better than nights. The activities, chores and recreation of Tulenar were mechanical things. A farce, a false hope to keep anxiety and anger at bay for evacuee and WRA official alike. But at least Tulenar had these things, these actions to play out in the daylight. Without them, the nights might smother them all.

  At the Shibai theatre, Doris watched Jesse Haku squat beside a bucket of turpentine, rubbing his paint-splattered hands with a soaked cloth. Above him, on stage, several other evacuees were still working on a canvas backdrop for an upcoming performance. Doris sat on a front row bench, near enough to talk without having to raise her voice.

  "So the latest petition, Mr. Haku...?"

  "It was delivered this morning, for a rally. It's a Block Two request this time. Betty Masuda is leading."

  "Good, very good," Doris replied. But when Mr. Haku looked up at her, she knew she wasn't masking her doubts well.

  "It seems you don't really think it is so good," he said. "Is there something I should know?"

  Doris gazed at him a moment before shaking her head. "I just think we're at the end of our rope. If I know the likes of Shackley, he'll be putting a stop to this soon. I would, if I were him."

  Mr. Haku dropped the oily rag into the turpentine and moved to the water pail set nearby. He dipped his hands into the cloudy water to pull out a bar of soap.

  "Perhaps he's not as keen as you," he said.

  As Mr. Haku scrubbed his nails, Doris watched the others stretch the painted canvas on the stage floor to dry. Their movements were sober. They worked in near silence, as if they were preparing for another funeral instead of an afternoon of performance art. The tang of turpentine and paint found their way into her mouth.

  "It was too much to hope for," she said absently. "We aren't going to make it."

  "They didn't work?"

  "I'm sorry...?" She looked at Mr. Haku, standing now and drying his hands on his shirttail.

  "Those strings you were going to pull. The calls to Eisenhower and your senator friends. Leaking things to the press corps. None of that worked?"

  That wasn't what she had been thinking about. But Mr. Haku's question pricked a nerve.

  "Yes, well...I found out how much clout a senator's widow really has."

  Not everybody's memory was as long as Al or Mim Spinner's when it came to favors owed. The strings to which Mr. Haku referred led to a federal judge and Abel's senatorial heir. Neither man could have voiced more sympathy for the Inu Hunters' plight. Nor could they have been been less helpful. Owed gratitude could not withstand the fear of political oblivion. As for the press corps, the only attention her leaks attracted was far outside the mainstream press.

  As for the calls to Milton Eisenhower, well...Doris conceded that her attempts to take this all the way to the President was a long shot, anyway. Eisenhower was, conveniently enough, never in when Doris telephoned.

  "But I thought," she said aloud now, gazing at the stage work again, "I thought I could buy enough time."

  "Enough time for what, Mrs. Tebbe?"

  Mr. Haku's brusqueness snapped her attention back to him.

  "These past weeks," he said, obviously annoyed, "everything we could think of protesting was protested, from low wages to curfew. We're the ones who have been buying you time. You were supposed to be finding a way to stop the arrests. Are you saying that all you've been doing is trying to stall them?"

  On the defensive, Doris squared herself for a retort. But what could she say? I've been struggling to choose between something I understand and something I may never comprehend?

  "I'll see what else I can do," she finally said, and walked away.

  / / / /

  Leonard Shackley must have been waiting for her. He was striding from Administration at a brisk clip. Trailing behind him was one of his seconds.

  As they intersected on Doris's way from the camp proper to her little house, he called, "Mrs. Tebbe. I need to talk to you."

  Doris stopped. "Talk away."

  "One moment for Mr. Phillips."

  Shackley needs a witness. Christ, here it comes.

  As Mr. Phillips drew up to Shackley's side, the latter fished a folded piece of WRA stationary out of his inside coat pocket. He handed it to Doris and said as she unfolded it, "That is your copy of the official notice, Mrs. Tebbe. I am hereby banning you from the camp proper. The perimeters off limits to you are clearly defined in the notice. You're restricted to the area designated Administration and the M.P. headquarters. You may not enter camp proper for any reason, without express authority from me. If you violate this order, you'll be confined to your quarters for the duration of this investigation."

  Doris glared at Shackley as she crumpled the notice in her fist. Shackley seemed unimpressed.

  "I hope that's not a threat to ignore me," he said, pointing to her balled hand. "If you persist in this behavior --"

  "What behavior, for the love of Heaven?"

  "Mrs. Tebbe, do you think I'm a fool?"

  "No, Mr. Shackley, I certainly do not."

  "But, surely, you do, since you thought I wouldn't catch on."

  Doris knew he had her. But to let him call her bluff would not only betray Jesse Haku and his network of evacuees, it would be contrary to her nature.

  "I can't imagine what you're talking about," she said.

  "Don't think I can't see your hand in this. There will be no more committee meetings, no more civil rights debates. No more permits to rally. While you persist in the delusion that Captain Pierce -in all probability the late Captain Pierce- is gleefully slaughtering Tulenar residents --"

  "I never said he was gleeful about it..."

  "You are provoking the real suspects to kill again! I don't understand you. Are you blind?"

  Doris stared at Shackley a moment before saying, "I wish I were."

  Shackley closed his eyes and shook his head. When he opened them, he looked to Mr. Phillips as if to say, I
don't know what else to do with this woman.

  "Mrs. Tebbe. I have offered you every opportunity to give me a reason, a good reason, one good reason, not to round up those boys."

  "And I gave it to you."

  "Bullshit!" Shackley blurted, then heaved a sigh as if to regain his temper. "I apologize." He stared long at Doris, and seemed a little beaten. "I don't want to arrest those boys."

  "And you don't have to, Mr. Shackley. I just need some time, just a little more time, and the proof--"