The Wolf Road

by Beth Lewis

  Never asked him right what he meant; Trapper didn’t take kind to back talk. He came and stood next to me at the woodpile.

  “Just you and me, Elka girl,” Trapper said to me, “it can only be you and me.”

  I never went searching for a momma again, ’cause I knew he was right. He’d never let me have no one else, and for another seven winters that’s how we stayed. He showed me how to shoot that rifle a’ his and how to break it down for cleaning. Every year we stocked up for winter and he kept that ax sharp for me. We built a bigger smokehouse as I was growing and we needed the space for more food and he got us a pressure cooker so we could can the meat in case a’ leaner times. That burn scar faded to silver then to nothing you’d notice if you didn’t know it was there. I forgot all ’bout the pain what put the scar on my arm, but the kindness that soothed it stuck with me. Missy didn’t have nothing but she gave me a piece a’ herself and she did it gladly. That’s something I kept inside me, secret from Trapper and anything else what might go looking.

  When I was tall as his shoulder he figured I was grown enough and took me on hunts. First it was just for skinning and hauling but as the years went on, he let me shoot all kinds a’ game like rabbits, bear, and even a moose. All ’cept deer. I’d turned seventeen few months past and less’n a week ago, Trapper let me take first shot at a buck—not more’n a few years old but enough to feed us for days with some left to trade for bullets and salt for curing. Deer was Trapper’s chocolate and he was precious ’bout it. That’s when I knew he trusted me all the way, that’s when we was closer’n we’d ever been. That’s when I weren’t afraid to call him Daddy out loud.

  In Dalston, a scrap-and-shit mining town, one deerskin and three rabbit pelts got me a box of shotgun shells and bed and board in the Stonecutter’s Inn. Trapper had no worries in sending me to town by myself, not now I was grown. Ten years in the woods grows you quick. I never stayed long, never traded for drink or company and he knew I could handle a blade should any of the miners take a more’n passing interest.

  Dalston was one of them places that God and man both forgot at the same time. Two rows of buildings, half wood, half stone, all half-finished. Everyone in Dalston got a look of coal-soot fury on ’em. I don’t like people at the best of times, give me trees and wild things any day, but in Dalston, they were a special breed. They were full of grim luck them boys, ’specially then, coming to the end of summer when the air outside is chill but the mines are no more’n stone ovens. Like chipping stone in hell. Every time I came back from that pit town I washed twice.

  One hand on my deer-horn knife, other clutching the ammo, I stopped dead when I saw Trapper’s face tacked up outside the Stonecutter’s. Someone had drawn him in charcoal and written some kind of letters and numbers around him. They got his tattoos just right.

  “You know this man?” a woman asked me. Clean, sharp voice, cold like water lapped right out a frozen lake.

  Funny thing was, I didn’t hear her come near me, didn’t hear her stepping on the boards, didn’t catch her scent on the air. I can hear a bear farting on the other side of the mountain. Can smell it too, and follow it back to its den afore the beast has time to scratch.

  This woman crept up on me, and that set my bones shaking. I looked at her. All in black with a black ribbon tied tight around her neck and a silver chain dangling. Six-shooter on her belt. No need to hide it, best not to in a town like Dalston. Taller’n me and I was no short stack, Trapper said I was tall as a big gray wolf was long, tail an’ all, and just as skinny. The woman had a straight back and blue eyes cold as her voice. Made me feel right uncivilized, that straight back. Never seen a woman like her before nor since.

  “Do you know him?” she said, slower, like she was trying to get answers out of stubborn cattle.

  “Never seen him afore,” I said.

  Don’t think she believed it, ’cause she kept talking at me. Trapper’s first rule he told me was don’t tell no one ’bout him. He wanted a quiet life in the forest and I couldn’t argue with that.

  “His name is Kreagar Hallet and he is wanted for the murders of eight women and one child.”

  At that word child, she shifted slight. Gave herself away.

  “We think he lives out in the forest. The women”—she raised them perfect eyebrows at me like she was looking for a lie—“were abducted from their homes and hunted, like animals.”

  “What’s it to you?” I asked. Didn’t want to be around her. There was something about her. Felt like she could look right into me, see my soul and my sins. Feeling like ants crawling all up inside my skin. Trapper’s face. Talk a’ killing. Them things didn’t add up in my head.

  “Murder is against the law.”

  I had to laugh. “Ain’t no law here, lady, never has been.”

  She put her hand on her gun and mine went to my knife. “There is now,” she said, and her voice went from cold to steaming.

  “Who in hell are you?”

  “Jennifer Lyon, Magistrate of Dalston, Ridgeway, Erminton. Hell, all south BeeCee is in my jurisdiction.”

  “Fancy name, fancy words. Don’t mean nothing to real folk out here,” I said.

  “And what about you?” she said. Didn’t seem put out by my laughing. “Do you have a name?”

  I smiled wide, showed off all my teeth at her and said, “I got a few. Now if you’ll ’scuse me, lady Jennifer Lyon, Magistrate, I’ll be on my way.”

  I waved my hand in circles and bowed low and grand. I started walking, suddenly didn’t want to stay the night in the same town as her. Cold went through my bones. That charcoal picture was Trapper, no doubt in my head, but she’d called him Kreagar. Said he killed women. Said he killed a kid. Something froze in me. Hunted women, she said, out in the forest, but there’s a lot a’ hunters in BeeCee. A lot a’ men out there in the woods, living away from people. Maybe they had my Trapper mixed up with one a’ them. Must be that. Figured I should warn him, least I could do.

  I weren’t thinking all that straight, that Lyon woman put some kind a’ fear in me and it made my feet clumsy. My boot caught on the edge a’ the step down to the street and I shot out my hand ’gainst a post to stop falling. Silver scar. Old burn. Missy. Seven years passed without so much as a thought ’bout her and now her face was right there in the front a’ my head. That long black hair. That look a’ terror in her eyes. Was she running from this Kreagar fella? Lyon said them poor women was taken from they houses. All them memories a’ Missy came back like a smack upside the head. What she say? Went to bed, saw a shadow at her window.

  That Lyon woman didn’t seem like the type to get things wrong. I stopped and looked back at her.

  “When these killings happen?”

  She took a few steps closer to me. “The most recent was four nights ago, a few hours before dawn, another was a few days before that, but we believe they go back as far as ten years, probably even longer. He could have killed dozens,” she said. Hand came off her gun and she started fiddling with whatever was on the end of that silver chain.

  Week ago, me an’ Trapper had gone deer stalking. First time he let me be on point. Bagged a buck on my first shot. Few days later Trapper had gone wolf hunting by himself. He didn’t come back with a pelt, but he came back with blood on his shirt. I reckon now, looking back, that’s why he started killing in his skin; less evidence, as Lyon would say.

  “And you say you’ve never met him?” she said.

  I shook my head. “Never met no one called Kreagar Hallet,” I said, plain truth it was. Them ants was burrowing deep in my skin and scratching on my bones. I wanted away from that woman and that town fast as I could.

  I got back to the forest and got back to my home. Seeing my hut, place what I ate and slept and lived so many years a’ my life, made me think that Lyon woman was wrong, had to be. It weren’t the same fella. Anyone can have tattoos on they face, not anyone can go murdering. No ma’am, I thought, ain’t my Trapper on them posters.

  Trappe
r weren’t home so I stoked up the fire and went out to check the trap line. That’s when it all went to crap. Trap line came up empty save for a few rotten wood pigeons. Trapper sometimes set the snares too loose and open, let them critters sneak right through. I baited them and reset them, hid ’em better in the brush.

  I got back to the hut and saw someone moving around inside. It weren’t Trapper and they weren’t alone. Three of ’em, and three horses tied up outside. They were banging up something fierce, throwing over the table, smashing the cups. Trapper’s chair crashed through the window, spooked the horses. Then that woman came out the door. Holding something. Trapper’s box, a wooden thing I weren’t allowed to touch no matter what. I seen him, after he came back from his wolf hunts, sometimes after a deer hunt, putting something in that box and hiding it ’neath the floorboards where he thought I wouldn’t go looking. I didn’t, out of respect you see, but that’s not to say I weren’t tempted.

  That Magistrate Lyon had followed me home and taken that box. I took out my knife, silentlike, and held it ready to throw. She opened the box and started shaking. Her face and eyes went blood-red. She took something out, I tried to see, I wanted to see, but I couldn’t risk moving.

  Lyon held up a scrap of skin.

  I know all types of skin, see. I know moose, deer, hare, pig, boar, even grouse and goose ’neath the feathers. But that weren’t any skin I’d cut before. That was human, that was a scalp of bloody hair. Lyon dropped the box and them hard little lumps went skittering about. One a’ them still had long, silky black hair attached.

  Silky black hair I’d combed, felt ’tween my fingers, all them years ago. Felt sick down deep. Felt that silver scar on my hand burn and itch.

  “It’s not his,” Lyon said, and two men, one tall and bony, other stocky like he was made out a’ packed meat, came out the hut. “But this one matches the other recent victim.”

  I never figured out who she was talking about. Chittering somewhere in the tree above me said squirrels were coming out. I couldn’t see them, but I had squirrel poles up in all sorts a’ places so I’d catch some no doubt. Trouble was, thought a’ eating anything set my stomach churning.

  Faster’n I could blink, Lyon drew her gun and fired. The sound near deafened me, and a squirrel, or what was left of it, fell right at my feet. Right then I figured I wouldn’t get the best of that woman, least not in a fair fight.

  I held my breath, felt my heart raging up in my chest. Didn’t move. That woman’s eyes, like hawk eyes, scanned the trees, trying to pick out her prey.

  “No doubt,” she said, “this is the place.” She threw the scalp on the deck. It slapped and stuck. “Hallet won’t come back now we’ve been here,” she said, then mounted her horse in one quick move. “Burn it down.”

  One of the men flung kerosene about like it was holy water and my home for ten years was kindling. I watched it burn for a while after they left. All in one go I’d lost my hut and, when I saw that scrap a’ Missy’s hair fizzle and twist in the flames, like my heart was doing, burning and ripping apart inside me, I knew I’d lost a man I thought of as Daddy. Trapper weren’t Trapper. I didn’t know what he was in truth. Lyon said he was Kreagar Hallet. Murdering, kid killer. I couldn’t figure it. I couldn’t unravel all them strands, all them lies and feelings what got knotted up over the years. Any lie can turn to truth if you believe it long enough and I knew, right in the dark part a’ me, that Trapper didn’t take Missy home that night. I’d been telling myself lies all along to make his lies all the more convincing.

  Tears came pouring down my cheeks. My daddy killed the woman I wanted as my momma, only woman what was ever kind to me, and he acted all friendly about it. ’Course he did. Trapper always said it’s kinder to kill a calm animal, kinder to kill one what ain’t fearful. Trapper took the fear right out a’ Missy afore he did what he did.

  That ain’t what a daddy’s supposed to do. But he weren’t blood, he weren’t kin, he was what I chose and I chose wrong.

  Words like spiders came crawling over my eyes. Tell my little girl, I love you. Blood parents say that, even in a letter, even when they miles and miles up in the far north. Trapper—Kreagar—never said that, not once. I wiped my eyes, told myself them tears was from the heat a’ the fire, the burning down of an old life. I left my nana and didn’t look back, didn’t have no choice after that thunderhead. Figured I could do the same with Trapper. Least till I got my head and my heart right, then maybe I could come back and hear him out, figure his side, let him tell me his truth. Then we’d see. Part a’ me said my head was thicker’n a redwood, that he done all them things Lyon said, all them scraps a’ skin told his truth. But another part a’ me, getting smaller the more my cabin was eaten up by them flames, wanted to think best a’ him.

  I needed to be away, get myself some distance, figure it all through.

  I had my knife and I had a few strips of jerky from that young buck I’d shot the week afore. Didn’t need much more’n that.

  Can’t go living in the back-then, I always say. Back then was Trapper. And I weren’t at all ready for Kreagar to be my here-now.

  Whoever he was, he’d killed people. For fun, for sport. That weren’t right by any measure. He killed women and at least one kid. He’d killed Missy. I didn’t remember all that much from my years with that man, my head had put memories behind doors and locked them tight. But I remembered her and now, seeing that box a’ scalps and hair, I know what he done.

  “Dammit,” I said loud, watching the fire. “Kreagar Hallet. Kid-killin’, lyin’, murderin’, Kreagar Hallet.”

  I knew that bastard had a name. All this time he had a name.

  “You was my Trapper!” I shouted. “You taught me fire lighting and snares and how to clean a rifle barrel. Goddamn you for tending my cuts and bruises when all this time…all this damn time…” I dropped down right on my knees in the dirt and I cried all the fiercer.

  The heat off that fire made my tears hiss and steam, like the world was telling me he weren’t worth the water. And he weren’t. He was what Lyon said. He was what was in that box and I was done with it.

  Any happy feeling I had with him these last ten years burned up with my house and tears. I knew the truth, really down deep maybe I always had, and knowing Trapper, he’d kill me quick as I could say Promise I won’t tell no one.

  Wolf hunting, my eye. Worst damn wolf hunter in BeeCee and this country’s full of ’em. I was a fool not to see it. I ran to the woodpile and threw logs onto the flames. I picked up that ax and threw that on too. Feed it. Burn it all to ash and shit. All them lies go up in smoke.

  There are some lines you just don’t go crossing. Rules of life. Killing for fun is one of them. It does no one any good. You kill for meat, you kill for survival, you don’t go killing for sport. Forest’ll eat you whole if you do and spit out the grit.

  I walked in circles. Out into the trees, back toward the hut, again and again. I didn’t have nowhere nearby to go to. Didn’t have nothing to trade. Didn’t know a soul to lean on for help. Thought ’bout running to Ridgeway, begging in the street to any stranger who’d take me in. Thought ’bout going to Dalston, finding Lyon, and saying, I do know him, he killed all them women so you go kill him.

  I don’t know if it was pure fear a’ that woman or damn idiot loyalty to Trapper, but the thought a’ him at the end of her six-shooter made me sick. That feeling mixed up with smoke and fire got in my lungs and sent me coughing on my knees. I had to get gone afore he came back and took my scalp for his little box. Had to get as far away from that place and that Kreagar as my legs would take me. But after my screaming and shouting and cursing I was empty. All I had left inside my head was words from some years-ago letter. Tell my little girl, I love you.

  Trapper asked me once about my momma and daddy and I told him they went to find their fortune. He laughed and said they must a’ been simple folk, probably dead by now. But I bet they did find it, bet they living the life of luxury, covered in
gold up there in the far, far north, just waiting for they little girl to come join ’em. I’d have a real momma and a real daddy and they’d be so rich they’d have one a’ them indoor outhouses my nana always wanted. They’d have a room just for me what I could call my own and a bed so’s I wouldn’t have to sleep on the floor. They’d have people what would tidy up after them and work their mines for them so’s they could spend their days with me. I’d have arms ’round me what was loving arms and they’d say them I-love-you words right to my face and mean it.

  Soon as I figured it out the thunder came, hammering through the sky. My toes went cold, the wind whipped up the fire so’s it ate the wood quicker. Even with my house burning down right in front of me, heating me up to boiling, my bones shook. Shook worse when I realized I had to go right into that storm. I had to walk into the thunderhead if I was going to get clear of Kreagar and find my parents. I took out my knife, deep barbs cut in the blade, and held it up at the storm.

  Sky went dark and fierce. Lightning flashed and thunder cracked stone. Fire lit up my face and I yelled, for all to hear, “You ain’t getting me today, thunderhead! I’m comin’ for you first!”

  I ran at it, screaming like a wild thing, screaming out all my angry and tears at what my Trapper was ’neath the skin. That storm saw me, saw into my eyes and down deep into the heart of me. It saw what I was intending for it when I caught it, punishment for leaving me with Kreagar, and that cowardly storm blew itself out. Skies went calm quicker’n you could draw a pistol. It left the clouds white and split down the middle, showing off a thin blue line of sky. That blue line pointed due north. That blue line pointed to my momma and daddy, to their fortune and my new home.

  The thunderhead was giving me safe passage, for now. I didn’t say thank you or nothing, didn’t sacrifice a goat like some folks would a’. It was the least the damn thing could do after dropping me in the lap of that murdering, kid-killing Kreagar Hallet. I had so much anger in me, it killed any speck a’ sensible thinking. I didn’t bother to cover my tracks or take a zigzagging path. It never crossed my idiot head that he’d come looking for me.