The Wolf Road

by Beth Lewis

  I weren’t ready to share that.

  I gave Penelope the doxy and told her how many and when. She was snow pale and sweating rivers and weren’t in no shape to be charming a permit clerk. It’d be a week afore she could walk and more’n that for the cut to heal right. That meant a week a’ kicking my heels in the shelter cabin. A week a’ hunting and trapping and tending fires and playing nursemaid when all I wanted was to get back to Halveston and find my parents. They were there, or least they had been once. I could feel it deep in my bones. My momma and daddy walked through them gates, Halveston mud stuck on their boots, dodging snakes like Bilker who tried to sell ’em their oil. Maybe that doctor had tended them, sold ’em pills or bandages. Maybe I’d seen ’em in the crowds already.

  A jumbling little spark set itself in my stomach that week. Rolling about and turning my insides into twisting bugs. I was close. So damn close. But something in me said there was rocks ’tween me and my folks. Rocks shaped up like Lyon and Kreagar and all them things I done back when I didn’t know better.

  I kept thinking over what the doctor had done for me and Penelope. Sure didn’t do it so’s I could go to Lyon, tell her all them foul things I did and pay my penance, else he would a’ let me go straight to the jailhouse with her lieutenant. He meant for me to find redemption in another way, no doubt by cleaning up the mess I brought into Halveston, like dirt I’d tracked in on my boots. Kreagar’s charcoal face was staring out of Halveston same as mine and the doctor knew it. That meant Kreagar still weren’t caught. Lyon’s men and no doubt her too were in that town. That meant Lyon had a good reason to be there and for all my bad, I weren’t that good a reason. Kreagar was. He was following me, waiting for something, I still didn’t know what, and Lyon was following the both of us.

  I sat on a boulder and twirled the point a’ my knife on the stone. Smoke rose out a’ Halveston chimneys. Thought I heard fiddle music on the wind. Kreagar was down there or out in the woods stalking. It was time to stop running from both my chasers. I had me a plan. One cooked up on the boulder, staring out in the sky.

  Spent day after day on that rock while Wolf paced around in the dirt. Every morning, after I’d checked the snares at dawn, after I’d tended Penelope and changed her dressing, after I’d filled up the flask from a babbling spring up the hill, I’d climb up that rock with my knife and stay till the sun went sleeping. I ground the nub of my knife handle into the stone. I didn’t have no saw, no other blade; it was staghorn ’gainst rock and I’d make sure rock would win.

  I weren’t eating much in them few days. I didn’t have no time left. I needed to get my knife into throwing shape if I stood any chance a’ lifting myself out the shit I’d been swimming in for years.

  My hands started bleeding on the second day a’ grinding. Made me work all the harder. Pile a horn dust got bigger while the nub got smaller. I watched my knife, the only friend what had stuck with me through all this and knew me better’n anything, change into something new. Something what would give me freedom ’stead a’ more secrets. That knife, though clean and shining, was covered in all kinds a’ blood. Blood what I had spilled. I told my knife there was only one left. One more time hot red would cover its blade.

  Days started repeating themselves. Sky would go inky blue and black and I would climb down, find a spot on the floor a’ the cabin, and sleep. Fingers ached and burned and bled and then it would start all over again.

  Wolf huffed and whined at me or growled whenever Penelope said something to me. They’d both got themselves into an uneasy truce. He weren’t eating her and she weren’t screaming every time he showed his whites. Felt a mite odd, sitting ’tween them two, being the only one either a’ them would talk to. I never seen a wolf act like he was, not in a wild pack nor in all my months with this one. I weren’t sure whether it was Wolf what was cracked and turning nasty or if it was Penelope who was nasty all along.

  I was out on the boulder one a’ them days, Wolf curled up at the base, when I heard him growl. Deep and fierce and my blood froze up in me. My head went racing to Lyon or Kreagar or a grizzly but it weren’t none a’ that.

  Penelope was walking out the cabin, leaning heavy on a stick but walking. Cheeks rosy and looking more alive than dead for the first time in days. She had the flask in her free hand and I quick realized she was bringing it to me.

  “Calm it, Wolf,” I said, “you ain’t got no quarrel with her.”

  But he didn’t stop. He stood up, bared all them teeth, flattened back his ears, and raged at her. Penelope turned statue. Saw the fear in her eyes and I felt a river a’ guilt run through me. I jumped off the rock, knife in one hand, and grabbed Wolf by the scruff.

  He yelped and quick stopped making a fool a’ himself.

  There was something in Penelope what made his wild blood boil. Maybe he saw something I didn’t in them golden curls and skinny legs. Couldn’t tell, in that tiny moment, if Wolf was warning me off Penelope, off going to Halveston, off learning letters and dulling down that wild part a’ me, or if he sensed all them secrets she had stuffed down inside her and knew I was in danger. I started remembering all them things she said about her daddy and how he ended up. How all her stories didn’t quite make two and two into four. She was fives and sevens to that wolf and I wondered if his numbers weren’t truer’n mine.

  I looked her in the eye. Weren’t sure what I was expecting to see, maybe all them secrets she’d been trying to hide. But then I figured if people could see secrets so easy, I’d a’ been swinging from the Genesis tree along with my savior.

  “You shouldn’t be up,” I said, keeping the grumbling wolf behind me.

  “I’ve been horizontal for nearly a week,” she said, hobbling closer. “I’ll go crazy if I have to stare at the holes in the roof another minute.”

  I sniffed hard. All them late, cold nights had stuffed up my head. She held out the flask just out a’ my reach so’s I’d have to get closer. Wolf had muddled up my mind and for the first time I looked at her like she had secrets bad as mine.

  “What’s the matter?” she asked, her face cracked into worry.

  Bit a’ me wanted to lay out all my wonderings and see how many she picked up as true, see how many she squirmed out of with big eyes and big words. But the horn dust coated my hands and all the important parts a’ me wanted to keep working, keep toiling till I had it perfect. No ma’am, I thought, we ain’t doing this dance today.

  I stepped forward and took the flask, took a drink a’ that cold water. “Nothin’.”

  She nodded slow. Felt awkward for the first time. That’s one thing I’ll always remember ’bout Penelope. I never felt awkward with her till that moment. Even after that hog man did what he did and I was standing in front a’ her, bloody and bare, it weren’t awkward. Even hauling her out the river, stripping down to skin, and talking ’bout her dead daddy, it weren’t awkward. Something changed and I didn’t like it one bit.

  “What have you been doing out here?” she said. “You’ve been a ghost this week, out at first light, back after dark.”

  I held up the knife and the half-ground nub.

  Her face lit up like a bank a’ fireflies. She took the knife off me and stuck it on her finger like she did all them weeks ago. It swayed a bit, trembled, then slid off her finger.

  “Close,” she said, then struggled down to pick it up. “Once you’re done, this will throw like a dart.”

  I took the knife back and felt a little burst a’ heat in my chest.

  “All’s I got to do then is practice,” I said. And I would, all day till there weren’t no chance a’ me missing.

  Penelope smiled at me and there weren’t no lies in it.

  Them next few days I came into the cabin afore sundown. Wolf wouldn’t sleep inside no more and spent more and more a’ his time out hunting or whatever it is wolves do in the woods. I’d find him asleep next morning outside the door or by the boulder. I figured he was mad at me for grabbing him and he’d forgive me soon e
nough. But damn, it broke my heart to see him getting further away every day. Felt like I was losing a part a’ myself. But I needed to be inside that cabin with an hour or two of light left in the sky if I was going to save the rest a’ me.

  “I won’t get mad this time. I swear it,” I said to Penelope. “Teach me.”

  Penelope sucked in air and tensed up. I could tell she weren’t none too happy at the thought but she agreed all the same. I figured maybe she was paying me back for getting the ’biotics and not cutting off her leg. I didn’t care none for the reason.

  She pried a rusting nail out the wall and scratched all them letters in the floorboards. As she was doing each one I realized I remembered most all a’ them. Fluttering rose up in my chest and burst out my face, turning me into a smiling idiot.

  “A, B, C, D, E, F, goddamn G,” I said, almost hooting happy. I got all the way to T afore I stumbled.

  Penelope was shocked as I was and she helped me rest a’ the way to Z.

  “There’s hope for you yet,” she said, smiling and I knew, deep down, she was right.

  Penelope’s leg cleared up enough for her to walk without a stick and ’bout the same time I got my knife to balance perfect on her finger. I’d last seen Wolf the night afore and I felt sick about it when there weren’t no sign a’ him in the morning. Soon as we was ready to get moving again, I didn’t want to. I wanted to wait till Wolf forgave me and came back, but I knew that weren’t close to happening till Penelope were naught but a memory.

  I never figured I’d have to choose ’tween them, and I sure as shit never thought I’d choose her.

  I learned the letters for my name and for “Wolf,” “tree,” “buck,” and “Lyon.” She said over the next few days we’d move up to five, six, and seven letters, then tenses and sentences. I felt a snowflake a’ fear in my gut at all that learning I had in front of me but I didn’t have no time to think on it long.

  Penelope was fit enough to make the trip to Halveston, although she was fretting over her hair and dress and shoes, I told her Halveston people weren’t going to look twice at a bit a’ mud on you. Fact was they’d probably look three times at you and follow you down the street if you didn’t have no mud at all. Once we got to Halveston it’d be a quick visit to the permit office then I’d be knocking on my parents’ door. I didn’t know they faces but I knew they’d be smiling when they saw me. They’d go big and rosy and they’d hug me and hug me and kiss me and hold me and they wouldn’t never let go.

  I tell you, that snowflake in my gut turned into a blizzard the first step Penelope and me took down the hill to Halveston. Penelope was slower’n usual but she didn’t complain and I kept close in case she fell. The clouds turned gray and fat and started spitting out their rain when we got to the gates.

  “They might not be in town,” Penelope said, keeping her voice low and her back straight around all them people. “Your parents, I mean.”

  There couldn’t be many more people in BeeCee what weren’t here or in Dalston or Ridgeway and there weren’t nothing north but wild. They were here. They had to be.

  I didn’t say nothing ’bout it to Penelope. Just nodded when she looked at me like I didn’t hear her.

  Halveston was a different place with a pretty face next to me. All them men what didn’t even see me first time ’round were whistling and barking at Penelope. All the sour-faced women looked at her like she was a temptress come to steal their husbands. A woman like Penelope in a town like that, damn, that’s like ice water in a drought. Everyone wants a sip and no one wants to share. Her white dress was a shade a’ brown now but it didn’t matter none. Them men saw bare shoulders and offered their jackets. They saw a bandage ’round her leg and offered to carry her to the damn moon and back. Then there was me, bulked out in coats, heaving around a pack, shorter’n the skinny goddess beside me. Hell, I may as well have been a mule for all the smiles and eye winks I got.

  “This place…” Penelope said, all breathy, looking all ’round like the town was magical. “It’s just so…alive.”

  “You won’t be long you walk around lookin’ like a damn simpleton chasin’ a balloon,” I said. “This town ain’t friendly, don’t you ever think it is.”

  Rain was getting harder the deeper into Halveston we got. The mud was thickening up to bad gravy and folks was putting on hats or scuttling into the saloon bars and card dens. Penelope’s slippers what had survived the flood river got sucked off her feet with every step. When it happened the third time she swore up a storm, pulled off the other shoe, and threw ’em both in the mud.

  “It’s good for the skin,” she muttered when her feet turned black.

  I just laughed. For all her learning, for all her pretty face and china-white skin, she was walking through a frontier town barefoot. Weren’t nothing high and proud about that.

  “Good day, miss,” came a voice I recognized, all weedy and up the nose.

  I was ready to tell him to go hang but I quick figured out he weren’t talking to me.

  “Good afternoon, sir,” said Penelope, smiling like a cat at that snake, Bilker.

  Slimy shit didn’t even know I was there.

  “A woman as fine as yourself shouldn’t be out in this downpour,” he said, hat on his head keeping off the rain, “especially without proper attire. Please, I would be happy to show you the finest boutique in Halveston. Your man here can wait outside under the awning. I will be happy to help negotiate the cost; I have many friends in town who would be more than willing to give a discount to a beautiful lady. If you need a room for the night for yourself, I know a place with clean sheets. Maybe you and I can have a drink while your man finds other occupations.”

  Penelope raised up both her eyebrows, then laughed. Not her real laugh, I knew that one, this was a laugh that said, You just said exactly the wrong thing, sir.

  “Oh dear,” she said, seeing right through him, “I fear you have misunderstood. My friend here is no man and as I see it, neither are you.” Stanley bristled, mustache twitching, but Penelope kept going. “I know you, sir, your type is found in every corner of this wretched country.” Stanley tried to interrupt, but Penelope weren’t having none of it. “You slither, from person to person. I’d bet handsomely that you also sell claim papers. I’d bet more those claims are worth less than the wood pulp they’re made of. Do you prize coin from dead men’s hands? Or do you steal it from the living by trading on their dreams?”

  Stanley puffed out his cheeks and started blabbing something that no one was paying no attention to. People around had stopped to listen and I could see, even in the rain, Stanley’s cheeks turn red.

  Penelope stepped closer to him and spoke louder so all them around could hear. “Do you know why you do this? Well, do you? You’re the type of man who cannot work honestly because your”—she nodded her head toward his manhood—“anatomy is severely underdeveloped.”

  Laughs bubbled up from ’neath the overhang of a general store.

  “Miss…” Stanley hissed, soft like his voice had been cut right out a’ him.

  I stood there, grinning wide. Then Stanley looked at me finally, recognized me, and I saw his eyes go big like fishbowls.

  “You…” he said, turning all his anger on me.

  Folks all ’round was laughing and jostling each other, crowd got bigger as news spread.

  “Sir,” Penelope said, stern, and snapped his attention back to her, “I do not require your services.”

  Stanley looked at all the faces a’ Halveston. All a’ them faces smug smiling, waiting to see what he would do next. Shame is a dangerous gift to give a man like Bilker. Men like Bilker ain’t got no compass guiding they actions and when you give that kind a’ man a gun, you’d best be careful what you say next.

  Penelope looked him right in the eye and said, “You can go now.”

  Waxed mustache trembled on his face and his hand was itching to pull out that revolver. My hand found my knife and he caught on to that. I was close enough t
o him to drive that blade into his gut afore he could even touch his gun.

  He figured it. He was a swindler but he weren’t stupid. Stanley held up both his hands and gave a bow to Penelope.

  “Well done, woman,” he spat. “I shan’t bother you or your dog again.” Then he backed away a few steps and said, “But Halveston is a small town. I’m sure we will cross paths again very soon.”

  He pushed his way out the crowd, nearly knocking over a fella as he tried to get away.

  I let all my laughter out and put my arm round Penelope’s shoulders. “Hell, girl! You may as well have cut off his pecker and given it him on a damn silver platter.”

  She smiled. “I don’t think they make platters that small.”

  “He won’t be forgettin’ that anytime soon,” I said, then realized what that meant. “We made ourselves an enemy. Halveston’s just got a lot smaller.”

  The gathering a’ people started to break up but one woman, done up ’gainst the rain in a heavy purple coat with gold buttons and not so much as a speck a’ mud on her, came close to Penelope and shook her hand.

  “I’ve been wanting to say that to him for years,” the woman said. She had a strange accent what Penelope told me later was pure-blood French, though I weren’t sure what part a’ BeeCee that was close to and I didn’t care none to ask.

  The woman held on to Penelope’s hand and said, “Stanley has friends in low places. Keep your eyes open.”

  Penelope nodded but it weren’t in fear of that little snipe, it was out a’ knowing something the French woman didn’t. “My friend and I have taken care of men far worse, but I appreciate your concern, Miss…?”

  The woman took her hand back. “Madame. Delacroix. Amandine Delacroix.”

  Penelope’s body tensed up like she just been dipped in ice water.

  “Enchantée,” Penelope said ’tween clenched teeth.

  They stared at each other for a minute or two. Penelope all wide-eyed and stiff, Delacroix all knowing and amused. Penelope knew her, or ’least her name, but she ain’t never mentioned it to me. Just another a’ them secrets she got stored away in that pretty head a’ hers.