The Wolf Road

by Beth Lewis

  “This is the liver, kidneys, heart,” I said, pulling ’em out in one handful. Penelope watched close and I saw myself, eight years old, looking at Trapper the first time he brought back a deer.

  “Then you take off the feet,” I said to Penelope, laid the rabbit down on a stump, broke its lower legs, cut ’em off.

  Trapper stroked the hide, dark-brown and glossy, knife in the other hand and said to me, Deer is a beautiful thing, girl, you got to treat it right. Laid out on the hut’s porch, he stuck the blade into the belly. Made a hollow sound like you was cutting into a plastic bottle.

  “Get your thumbs,” I said, “ ’tween skin and skirt, the belly edges you don’t want to eat, then you work it loose, quick and firm.”

  Trapper got a bucket and let the guts spill out. This one’s already been bled, he said, got to make sure you bleed ’em good. Got to make sure you shoot ’em calm, he said, fear spoils the meat. This one died meek, he said.

  Penelope made an “ahh” sound and nodded, looked at the rabbit close, and I could tell she was remembering my words.

  “Once you got the skin off the back and can see daylight ’tween fur and meat, take the head off.” I twisted the neck, sliced through the fur, and pulled it off. Penelope gasped and I smiled. Chucked the head in the bush. Ain’t nothing of worth in a rabbit’s head.

  Trapper tied the back hooves and hung the deer on a hook. Front legs brushed on the bloody porch. This breed a’ deer, he said, ain’t as easy to skin.

  “Then you hold on to the skin,” I said, “and the body of the rabbit, and pull ’em apart.” Heard that stretching sound like pulling tape off its roll, and the back legs popped out the fur. Then the front legs, like pulling off stubborn socks, came out all pink and shiny.

  Trapper told me to watch careful as he worked his fish-gutter knife into that deer. Small knife, small cuts, don’t want to damage the meat. This will feed us for months, he said, you got to respect it. Then he started tugging at the skin.

  I handed the naked rabbit to Penelope. “Got it?” I asked, and she nodded, turning it over in her hands. “Next time we catch one, you better do it a damn sight quicker.”

  Trapper had the deer skinned down the neck. Always the tricky part, this, he said, took his blade to its chin, sliced up the side of its jaw. Hold on to the head, he said, keep it still, and I did. I held on, my baby fingers dug deep and tangled round the glossy, dark fur.

  Back a’ my neck prickled.

  “Get a hazel switch,” I said, urgent in my voice. I needed her gone, now. “Strong, green. Thick as your finger.”

  She went without question. I was alone. Felt tangles ’round my fingers.

  Memories ain’t no one’s friend. They show you all the good things you had, all the good things you lost, and don’t let you forget all the bad shit in between. Trapper told me once that your head can protect you if something truly bad happens. It can make black spots and empty places what should be filled with horror. I figured that’s what my head had done. Locked some memories behind doors, covered ’em in chains and padlocks. Goddamn pussy it was, keeping all that from me. I didn’t ask it to, it didn’t have no right. What good did that do anyone? I’d remember it all soon. I was already starting to. Longer I was away from Kreagar. Longer I was with Penelope. Them doors would open one day and everything come at me, like a thunderhead rolling over the mountains. Soon it would hit and nothing would be the same.

  Penelope put wild garlic on the rabbit, roasted it up right nice over cherrywood. I tell you, I ain’t had a better meal this side a’ the Mussa. My doubts and whining had gone and I knew it weren’t really the rabbit I was afraid to kill.

  We stayed in that clearing the rest of the day. My ribs was feeling better for the food and rest and I set some more snares for tomorrow’s breakfast. I didn’t notice when Penelope started limping. She said it was a blister on her foot from the wet shoes, nothing to do with the cut on her leg. That was fine, that was healing. I believed her. She was the one with the medicine smarts after all.

  We didn’t talk much to each other rest a’ that day. I weren’t in no mood for it. Kreagar’s words in that basement kept repeating in me like bad chili: Think on why I ain’t killing you, he’d said. Them words came out a’ Kreagar’s mouth, not my Trapper’s. That’s why I didn’t recognize ’em for so long. Maybe he didn’t think I’d led Lyon to him on purpose, which was why he weren’t killing me. But there was something else in there, some darker reason he was still on my tail. I could feel him there, somewhere just out a’ sight, over that hill or behind that tree. I’d be ready for him when he came for me, you can be sure a’ that. When I wasn’t setting and checking snares, I practiced.

  I carved a pale circle into a tree what could handle it, about the height a’ Kreagar’s head. Held my knife by the blade and threw it at the target. Knife bounced off, stuck itself into the dirt. Same thing happened second time, third time, all the damn times.

  “It’s the weight,” Penelope shouted from the fire.

  I scrunched my face up to a frown. “What you know about it?”

  She came over, slowly. “The handle is too heavy for the blade.”

  Back tensed like she’d said something bad a’ my firstborn. “Handle’s perfect. You don’t know shit about knives.”

  She took it off me. “And you don’t know shit about physics.”

  Opened my mouth to argue but I didn’t even know what the hell that was.

  “You didn’t make this knife to be thrown, did you?”

  Shook my head.

  She stuck out her finger and laid the blade on it, right up at the hilt. Then she let the knife go with her other hand. It fell right on the ground.

  “What’s that meant to prove?” I said.

  She picked it up. “That your handle is too heavy and the knife isn’t balanced.”

  I had to be able to throw it, hard and right on target. “How do I make it right?”

  “This bit,” she said, pointing to one of the two antler nubs at the base. “Get rid of it.”

  “Be easier to cut the steel,” I said, took the knife back, looked at it sadlike.

  “It’s up to you,” she said, “but you’ll never get it in that target the way it is. You have to change it.”

  “Change” was one a’ them words I weren’t too friendly with. Nana told me I had to change when she caught me skinning a rabbit. Man in Ridgeway once told me I’d never get a husband the way I was. Only person never to tell me to change was Kreagar, and that’s because, way he saw it, I was already just the same as him.

  “Not yet,” I murmured, turned the knife over in my hands, my knife, my life. “Don’t need to do it yet.”

  Spent the night ’neath a low-hanging tree. Branches touched the ground and made a natural cave. Couldn’t sleep all that well on account a’ Penelope. She spent the night tossing and grumbling in her sleep, so we both woke up tired. I ain’t no fun when I’m tired and Penelope ain’t no picnic neither.

  We was like wolverines fighting over a squirrel that day. We walked maybe twenty miles, sunup to near sundown and I swear Penelope moaned the whole time. My feet hurt. I’m hungry. I’m tired. I’m cold. Whine, whine, whine. She limped more’n she had the other day. I reckoned she was making it out worse than it truly was. Ain’t no blister as bad as that. She didn’t have no head for pain, that was for sure.

  She made me carry the bag. Weight of it made my ribs smart but it weren’t worth her moaning if I tried to give it back.

  “Keep up,” I said, growling them words as we went up a craggy slope, “or I’ll leave you behind.”

  We was coming up the foothills of them mountains. It would only get steeper, rockier, and Penelope would only moan more.

  “I have to rest,” she said, “I have to drink something, my God.”

  I didn’t stop, just unclipped the flask from the pack and threw it on the ground for her to pick up. Half empty already, all down her gullet since morning.

  We had
maybe three days left to Halveston and I prayed it wouldn’t be like this the whole way. I thought horrible things that day. Thought about leaving her in the middle a’ the night. Thought about finding a ravine and giving her an accident. Thought about putting hemlock in her water. Anything to shut her the hell up.

  Next day I got my wish. Penelope barely said a word. She just trudged on behind me, pale and sweating with the effort, and didn’t give no word a’ complaint. In fact, only thing she said, after a whole morning a’ walking, was to ask if we could stop for a spell in the shade. Soon as we sat down I knew something was wrong. She breathed like someone was beating on her chest, all stuttered and shallow. She rested ’gainst a trunk, hands dropped into the dirt. Ant crawled over her fingers but she didn’t do nothing to shoo it away. That ant went up her wrist, circled round her arm. Red ant, biter. Nasty little itch that would be. It got to her neck before I pinched it away.

  “Penelope,” I said, clicking my fingers in front a’ her eyes. Big black pools they were when they should a’ been pinpricks.

  “Hmm,” she said, “are we going?”

  “You ain’t goin’ nowhere,” I said.

  She tried to scratch at her leg but couldn’t reach and didn’t have the energy to move none.

  When I saw the bandage and her skin either side a’ it, I set my jaw firm. Bandage was yellow. Skin was red and webbed with angry veins.

  “Shit,” I said to myself.

  I unraveled the bandage, fabric sticking to her, using pus and blood for glue.

  “Goddamn, Penelope,” I said, “why in hell didn’t you tell me about this?”

  Tears came out her eyes. “I didn’t want to hold you up.”

  I used water to soften up the bandage and peel it off. Cringed when I saw the state a’ her leg. Cut no longer’n my thumb was wide open, white skin ’round the edges and red all over. It weren’t bleeding but seeping foul-smelling yellow pus what turned my stomach. I could see her veins carrying the nasty up her leg, into her gut and chest and head.

  “It’s septic,” she said.

  “No shit,” I said. “Wait here.”

  I took the flask and found a quick-running stream. It came straight out the mountain, straight off the snow. Cold and clean meltwater. Got back to the tree to find her poking at the wound. Doctor’s child should a’ known better.

  I smacked her hand away and poured the icy water over her leg. She grabbed my arm tight, fingers like eagle claws, and screamed like a goddamn banshee.

  That’s when I heard rustling in the trees some ways away and remembered we was in the same woods as a wolf pack. Penelope just gave them an announcement. I didn’t see nothing out there, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t see me.

  I quick found a flat stone and some broadleaf and yarrow. Little bit a’ water and I mashed it with a rock to paste. I got Penelope’s wound as clean as I could get it and stuck the poultice right into the flesh. She screamed again but I was ready and held my hand tight over her mouth. I kept her eyes with mine.

  “We ain’t alone out here,” I said quiet.

  Her tears fell over my hand, down my wrist. I could see she understood and I took my hand away.

  Rustling in the trees got louder. Closer.

  I ripped a strip a’ fabric off the blue shirt, made it wet, and tied it over the poultice.

  “You itch this,” I said, “and I’ll cut your fingers off.”

  She nodded. Didn’t argue.

  She drank up the last a’ the meltwater; she said it would bring down her core temperature though I weren’t right sure what that meant.

  We walked together. My good arm ’round her waist, taking all the weight off that leg. It was slow. Too slow.

  Wondered if them wolves was behind us. Wondered what they would do if one a’ their pack was injured. Didn’t need to wonder long. I knew it like I knew the sun would rise. They would leave the wolf behind. Pack’s only as strong as the weakest and right now, Penelope was dead weight. Rules a’ the wild are there for a reason. You got to make tough choices to survive. We had wolves circling us, waiting for the moment we was weak enough. If Penelope didn’t get better, we wouldn’t make Halveston and the wolves would take me too if I was near her when it happened.

  We made camp but I didn’t sleep. I sat up, staring into the fire, watching Penelope shake and sweat as the rest a’ her blood turned bad. Thought about what I was going to do. The back part a’ my brain, the primitive bit, told me to leave her. You cut off a tree limb when it’s about to fall, you don’t wait till you’re sleeping ’neath it. Front part a’ my brain told me I should carry her all the way to Halveston if I had to. But I had broken ribs and she weren’t light. I thought I could cut off her leg afore the rot got too high but all that blood would attract all sorts. The two parts a’ my brain argued long into the dark. Stars came out, studded the sky, but I weren’t seeing no beauty in it no more. Three or four times in the night I thought I’d made a decision only for a few minutes later my head to say, You sure about that? And the whole argument would start again.

  When I saw a pair a’ yellow eyes staring at me from the other side a’ the fire, that decision weren’t mine no more.

  I can’t right imagine what Penelope must a’ thought when she woke at sunup. A big damn wolf lying on top of me. Me not moving ’neath it. Soon as I’d seen that black smudge in the firelight last night I knew I’d been right. It was my Wolf howling out his warning ’bout Colby while I was on the boat. He must a’ come round the edge a’ the lake, over them mountains what would a’ killed a man for trying to climb ’em.

  Took me a good hour to explain to Penelope why I weren’t dead and she weren’t dead and she weren’t hallucinating and I weren’t crazy. All while Wolf sat beside me, looking at Penelope like she was something he hacked up after dinner and weren’t at all sure what it was he ate. He was bigger’n when I left him outside Genesis, and finally I felt like my world was whole again. I ruffled up his fur, scratched him behind the ears, rubbed my thumb cross that black smudge, and wrestled about with him in the dirt. All while Penelope stared, like a bug-eyed fish, and winced and gasped every time he showed his teeth or growled.

  “Don’t show no anger or fear toward him,” I said, “and he won’t rip your arms off.”

  “How…” she said, “how can you do that with him? He’s a wolf.”

  Wolf looked up at her then, burning in his eyes, and she pushed her back into a tree trunk.

  “Way I reckon it, men killed more wolves than wolves ever killed men,” I said. “I know who I’m more afraid of.”

  Penelope was still pale, like moonlight struck her face and didn’t let go. The poultice may’ve helped the pain, but it wouldn’t cure the rot growing in her blood. That would need more smarts and potions than either of us had.

  “It’s stopped pussin’ at least,” I said while I freshened up the poultice.

  Wolf looked over my shoulder. Look a’ sneering on him. He weren’t taking to Penelope, kept his distance like she was the cuckoo a’ the pack.

  “All this walking, not much food,” she said. “My body can’t fight it by itself. I need antibiotics.”

  “Where’d they come from?”

  Wolf gave one a’ them low yelps and I scratched his neck to calm him.

  “Halveston,” she said, wincing when I put a fresh dressing on her leg, “a pharmacist.”

  “Come on then,” I said, and stood up, “we got to get you there.”

  One arm over my shoulder, we made our way over the final ridge ’tween us and Halveston. Wolf trotted behind. Felt like he was shaking his head at me as if to say, What the hell are you doing carrying this meat sack around? Get rid a’ her, get to Halveston quicker. Couldn’t expect a wolf to think much else.

  Took us hours to get to the top a’ the ridge ’tween the mountains. Hours were worth the view though. South I saw the lake stretching farther than I could see. Town a’ Ellery at the tip, barely anything from this far away. The road north was
just a scratch on the land, like a scar running through the world.

  North? Hell. If I thought the road was ugly, it weren’t nothing compared to the land. Black clouds sat brooding in the far-far away, hanging over a landscape turned alien in the Damn Stupid. Craters and holes the size a’ the Mussa Valley, showing stripes a’ colored rock and fat plumes a’ smoke coming from everywhere.

  World up here, scarred and angry, don’t give up its goods no more, least not without a tooth-and-nail fight. Made me sick all them trees, all them critters, what must a’ died when the bombs fell. Them bombs weren’t even meant to fall on our land. It was a mistake, a “guiding error” or some such nonsense the old’uns said, what meant all their bombs fell at once in the wrong places. They was meant for the down-south cities and places humans already wrecked, they was meant to kill people not the wild. They filled the sky with smoke and poison and turned the thunderheads feral and vicious. Old’uns said they stopped the water running and all the lights went out. They left behind a world of burnt rock and scraps a’ green and no one never said sorry. I figure the wild don’t think us humans deserve what it’s got no more and tell you truth, I think it’s right. Staring out at that land, all ripped up ragged like it weren’t precious, like it weren’t alive and breathing, like it was just some nothing anthill to stomp out. Hell, staring out at that near broke my heart.

  Trees weren’t tall and bright and needle sharp up here. They didn’t pierce the big blue like them in the Mussa. Even though it was spring, there weren’t no fresh life. These were trees grown up in sorrow and hard soil, green was dark, trunks was twisted and stunted, and I could hear ’em weeping. Right across the mountains, right across the low plains and torn-up land, them old wailing voices carried strong on the wind. The North was raging, low and slow like only land knows how.

  That’s why all them folks going up for the yellow metal was fools; they lost soon as they set their compass and took a step. Sad piece a’ cold grew in my chest thinking on my parents. They left with that letter writ in their heads, Millions in gold, claims are going cheap and there’s a fever of excitement in the air. We’ll be back rich as Midas. Tell my little girl, I love you. Were my parents fools like the rest a’ them? Maybe ’cause they was my blood the earth would give ’em half a chance. Figured the wild owed me that, but right now, looking at that land, us humans owed the wild so much more.