The Way of the Wolf

by David Archer

  I opened the screen door for them, and they ran past me, barely casting me a glance as they went into the kitchen. I could hear all three of them talking, trying to figure out exactly what had happened, but I think they were more in shock than I was.

  It was a couple of minutes before anyone remembered me, and then the first officer came out to where I was still standing by the front door. He took me into the living room, and sat me down on the couch.

  “What's your name, son?” he asked.

  “Noah,” I said. “They're both dead, aren't they?”

  He glanced back over his shoulder, then looked at me and nodded. “Yeah, Noah, I'm afraid they are. Did you see what happened?”

  I nodded. “Yeah. My daddy wanted some money, and he wanted my mommy to give it to him, but she gave him all the money this morning. He said he didn't have it, but he did, because I saw this morning when he took it.”

  The officer looked at me. “And your daddy got mad?”

  I nodded again. “Yeah. And then he started screaming, and he pointed that gun at his head, and my mommy told him not to do that. I guess that made him madder, because that's when he shot her, and then he looked at me and said he was sorry, and then he shot himself under his chin.”

  Several more people came into the house, just then, and they all hurried into the kitchen. I could hear several voices in there, and some of them sounded pretty upset. The officer talking to me glanced in that direction, but then turned back.

  “Noah, do you have any other relatives around here? Any other family?”

  I shook my head. As far as I knew, I had no other family anywhere. The officer patted me on the shoulder, and then he began talking into the microphone again.

  “Dispatch, this is seven. I'm going to need someone from family services out here.”

  A tinny voice came out of that microphone. “Ten-four, seven,” it said. “I'm calling them now.” It sounded like a girl, but I wasn't sure.

  Another man came into the living room to talk to me, a man wearing blue jeans and a shirt. He walked in and motioned for the officer to leave the room, then he sat down on the couch close to where I was sitting.

  “Hey, Noah,” he said. “I'm Detective Jenkins, with the police department. You don't have to call me Detective Jenkins, though—you can call me Bob. That's my first name, and I like for my friends to use my first name. Is that okay with you? Can we be friends?”

  I looked at him, and wondered how we could be friends when I didn't even know him. I shrugged my shoulders.

  “Noah,” he said, “it's my job to try to figure out just what happened, here. Do you think you can tell me?”

  I shrugged again. “I told the other policeman. My daddy got mad. He wanted some money and my mommy didn't know where it was. She gave him all the money this morning. But I guess he lost it, because he said he didn't have it. When mommy told him to go sell her rings, he got real mad, but then he put the gun on his head and mommy started telling him not to do that, and then he shot mommy. After that, he looked at me and said he was sorry, and then he put the gun under his chin and shot himself, too.”

  Detective Jenkins sat there and stared at me for a moment, but didn't say anything. He looked off toward the kitchen, then turned back to me.

  “Noah, you can't stay here anymore. There are some people coming who will take you to a new place to stay for a little while, to give us all a chance to figure out where you should be staying. Do you have any family? Do you have a grandma or grandpa around here, or aunts or uncles?”

  My parents had told me that my grandparents were all dead, and no one had ever mentioned any aunts or uncles. I shook my head, and Detective Jenkins patted me on the shoulder.

  “That's okay, Noah,” he said. “Like I said, we've got some people coming in who will know what to do.”

  A female officer came into the room, and Jenkins told her to sit with me until child services arrived. He left the room, then, and she sat down on the couch. Her face looked like she'd been crying, and I realized that she had been in the kitchen and seen what was left of my parents.

  “It's okay,” I said. “You don't have to cry.”

  She gave me a smile, but it had a sniffle caught up in it. “What's your name?”

  “Noah.”

  She reached over and took my hand. “Hi, Noah,” she said. “My name is Becky. Do you need anything? A drink of water, anything?”

  I shook my head. “Not right now,” I said. “Besides, I don't want to go in the kitchen. It's all messy in there.”

  Becky sniffled again, and I saw tears on her cheeks. “Okay,” she said. “Let's just sit here for right now, okay?”

  I nodded, and we sat there in silence for a few more minutes.

  There were a lot of people going in and out of my house, so I didn't actually realize it when the people from child services showed up. There was a man and a woman, and they came into the room where Becky and I were sitting. The woman called Becky out into the hall for a moment, while the man sat down in a chair across from where I was at.

  “Hello, Noah,” he said. “I'm Mr. Hogan, and I'm with the Department of Children and Family Services. It's my job to try to find a new place for you to live. I understand that you know what happened here, this evening, is that right?”

  I nodded. “Yeah. My daddy killed my mommy, then he killed himself.”

  Mr. Hogan gave me a sad smile, and then the lady who had come with him walked in and sat down on the couch beside me.

  “Noah, this is Ms. Gamble, and she works with me.”

  I turned and looked at the lady, and she gave me a bright smile. “Hello,” I said.

  “Hi, Noah,” she replied. “Mr. Hogan and I are going to help you gather up some clothes and things, and we're going to take you to somewhere else to stay for the next few days, while we try to see if we can find any of your family who might want to take you in. Can you tell me where your room is?”

  I nodded and pointed up the stairs that could be seen out in the hallway. “My room is up there,” I said.

  “Well, then,” Mister Hogan said, “Noah, why don't you and Ms. Gamble go up there and start getting some clothes packed? We brought some boxes and things, to make it easier. You need to get enough clothes for about a week, and if we have to wash clothes for you, we can. Oh, and if you have some toys you want to take along, that's okay, too, but not too many right now. Maybe just a few favorite things, okay? Somebody will come and get more of your things in a couple of days.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Should I take my homework?”

  Ms. Gamble smiled. “Yeah, we should probably take that, too. What school do you go to?”

  I turned to her. “I go to Douglas Elementary school,” I said. “I'm in second grade.”

  She winked at me. “Wow, second grade? That's pretty cool. Who's your teacher?”

  “Mrs. Basham,” I said. “It was Mrs. Ethan, but they said she got sick a couple months ago, and Mrs. Basham took over.”

  Ms. Gamble took my hand, and we got up off the couch. She peeked out into the hallway, then hurried me across to the stairs and we went up to my room. Mr. Hogan came up a moment later, carrying some boxes. The boxes were flat, so he put them together while Ms. Gamble and I started pulling clothes out of my dresser and closet.

  I didn't own a lot of clothes, so by the time we were done, it seemed like all of them were packed into only a couple of the boxes. As far as toys went, I actually had quite a few, but suddenly they just didn't seem interesting to me. At Ms. Gamble's urging, I selected a couple of action figures and toy cars that went into a box, and then a few of my favorite books. I was quite an active and accomplished reader, for my age, and any time I didn't have something specific I needed to be doing, such as homework or chores, it was a fairly safe bet that you could find me curled up with a book. My favorite book at the time was My Side of the Mountain, the story of a boy who ran away from his home in New York City to live in the wilderness. I made sure to include it in
the box, because I enjoyed it enough to read it over and over.

  Packing it all up didn't take long, and just a few minutes later, I was led out my front door and into the back seat of a car. Ms. Gamble make sure that my seat belt was buckled while Mr. Hogan put the two boxes of my things into the trunk, and then the two of them got into the front seat. A moment later, I looked out the back window as the home I had known since I was a baby disappeared into the past. I didn't know it as Mr. Hogan drove me away, but it would be the last time I ever was in that house.

  TWO

  “NOAH,” MS. GAMBLE said, “this is Mrs. Connors. She works with us sometimes, taking in children who need somewhere to stay. You might only be here a few days, I'm not sure, but I'll be around a lot if you need anything.”

  I stood there and looked at the woman in front of me, a heavyset lady with a cheerful smile on her face. After a moment, Ms. Gamble nudged my arm. “Say hello, Noah,” she said.

  “Hello,” I said. Mrs. Connors smiled at me, and then reached out to brush a stray hair back into place on my head.

  “Hello, Noah,” she said. “Ms. Gamble has told me what happened, and I'm so sorry. If you need to talk, I'll be happy to do so, but if you prefer not to, I understand. Now, there are some other children staying here at the moment, and they don't know your situation. I leave it up to you if you want to tell them or not, but remember that, sometimes, children can be pretty cruel. I'm not sure they'd really understand, or know how to deal with it.”

  It didn't occur to me that she might be right. Why would it matter to other kids? I was the one whose parents were dead, right? I shrugged, not sure what to say or do.

  She looked like she was waiting for me to say something, but when I didn't, she seemed to shift gears. “It's almost dinnertime,” she said. “Are you hungry?” She looked at me anxiously, and I guessed that she was wondering if I would even want to eat, after the things I had seen only an hour before.

  Surprisingly, I was quite hungry. Even as young as I was, I realized that there was something different about me, all of a sudden. In the past, the slightest thing that upset me would cost me my appetite for hours, but for some reason this horrific tragedy wasn't having that affect, not at all. I wondered why, but couldn't think of a reason. Instead, I simply nodded in response to her question.

  “Well, okay, then,” she said. “Let's show you where you'll be staying, and then we can introduce you to the other children. You can get to know them a bit until it's time for dinner, will that be okay?”

  “Yes, Ma'am,” I said. She led the way, and I followed her through her living room and down the hall.

  There were several doors along the hallway, and when we got to one of them that was marked “Lower Boys” in blue, she knocked politely, then opened it when someone inside called out, “Come in.”

  There were four sets of bunk beds in the room, with a small chest of drawers on each side of each set. A boy about my age sat on the bottom bunk of one set, near the wall on the left, and he looked up with interest as we entered.

  “Noah,” Mrs. Connors said, “this is Jerry. He's staying here right now, too, and he can probably tell you a lot about how things work here. Jerry is eight years old, and he's the only other boy in your age group that's here right now, so you can take your pick of the other beds here.” She turned to Jerry. “Jerry, this is Noah. He'll be with us for a few days, not sure how long. Maybe you can show him around a bit, and introduce him to everyone else. Would you do that for me?”

  Jerry smiled. “Sure, Mrs. Connors. I'd be glad to.” He looked at me, then got up and came over to where I stood. “I'm glad you're here,” he said. “This place is mostly girls, right now, and a couple of boys who are older than us. They think they run things around here.” He rolled his eyes, as if to say that he didn't think much of them.

  I shrugged. “Is that your bed?” I asked, pointing at the one he had been sitting on.

  He glanced back at it, and then looked at me and nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “You can take the one next to me, if you want.”

  I walked over to the bunk that was next to his, and Mr. Hogan carried my boxes in and set them on the bed. I looked at the chest of drawers, and realized it was pretty beat up. It would work, though, since they had told me I would only be here for a few days. I opened a box and began putting my clothes into the drawers.

  Jerry sat down on his bed again, and the adults left the room. He waited until they were gone, then grinned at me. “So, what did you do to get sent here? Me, I ratted out my mom because she was trading all her food stamps for dope. Me and my sister were just about starving.”

  I looked at him. “Sounds like you did the right thing,” I said. “I don't think I did anything. I just happened to be there when my dad killed my mom and then shot himself.”

  Jerry's eyes went big and round, and he stared at me as he whistled. “Holy geez,” he said, “are you serious? Like, for real?”

  I nodded. “Yeah,” I said. “I heard 'em fighting, so I came downstairs and snuck up to look in the kitchen, and saw the whole thing.”

  Jerry looked me up and down, and his eyes got even wider, if that was possible. “Holy geez, is that blood on your shoes?”

  I glanced down at my shoes, and saw the brownish stains on my sneakers. I look back up at Jerry, and shrugged again. “I guess so,” I said. “After it happened, I went in and just looked at them, and I kinda walked in my mom's blood.”

  Jerry sat there on his bed, staring at me while I finished putting my things away. When I was done, he told me to follow him. We left the bedroom, and went back down the hall towards the front of the house, but we turned into another room before we got all the way there.

  “This is the day room,” Jerry said. “This is where we eat, and watch TV and stuff.”

  I looked around. There was a TV and several tables and chairs in that room, and I saw six other kids. There were two boys (apparently the ones Jerry had mentioned, because they were obviously quite a bit older than us) and four girls. All of the girls seemed to be closer to our ages, and one of them looked familiar to me. I stared at her for a moment, and it came back to me. She was Molly Hanson, and she had been in my class at school until a few weeks before. When she disappeared, everyone said that she had moved away.

  She noticed me, too, and I walked over to where she was sitting, at one of the tables with the other girls.

  “You're Molly,” I said.

  “I remember you,” she said. “You're Noah. I remember you.”

  One of the other girls started to laugh. “You're named after that guy in the Bible,” she said. “The one with the boat.”

  “Ark,” I said. “Noah built an ark, not a boat.”

  She looked at me as if I were odd. “What's the difference?”

  “An ark is a great big ship,” Molly said, giving the other girl a look that told her to back down. “It had to be big enough to hold lots of animals. God told Noah to build it so He could save all the animals when He made it rain so much that the whole world flooded.”

  I nodded. “Yeah, he had two of every animal on there.”

  The other girl, who I learned was named Susan, said, “I wonder what they did with all the poop. You think maybe they just threw it out into the water?”

  I shook my head. “They probably saved it,” I said. “After the water went down, they would have needed to plant gardens, and they probably could use it for fertilizer.” Jerry and all of the girls nodded wisely, agreeing with me as if I had said something pretty profound.

  “Who's the new kid?” I heard, and I turned my head to see one of the bigger boys looking my way. Jerry leaned over and whispered in my ear, “That's Dawson,” he said. “Don't piss him off, whatever you do.”

  I looked at the boy who had spoken, and he seemed to be irritated at my gaze. He stood up.

  “You got a problem or somethin'? Why you just lookin' at me?”

  I shrugged my shoulders. “I don't know. I'm Noah Foster.”
<
br />   Dawson walked toward me, everything in his stance affecting to tell me that he was the tough guy, that he was in charge. I recognized it, because I'd seen my father swagger the same way many, many times. In the past, whenever I saw someone act that way, I had always gone looking for somewhere to hide, somewhere I could just get out of the way, but suddenly I didn't feel the same. I stood there, watching him strut his way toward me, wondering why I wasn't scared.

  He kept coming until he was only inches from me, so that I had to tilt my head back to look up at his face. He looked down at me and sneered. “Well, Noah Foster,” he said, “you got any money?”

  I furrowed my brow as I looked up at him, not sure what he was actually asking. “No, why?” It occurred to me that he was asking exactly the same thing my father had asked, just before he had killed my mother.

  Suddenly, he reached out and grabbed the front of my shirt, bunching it up in his fist and lifting me so that I had to stand on my toes. “Because if you got any money, you gotta give it to me. You sure you ain't got none?”

  The irony of the situation, that he was basically making the same demands my father had made earlier, demands which had led to the deaths of my parents, suddenly struck me as ridiculous. I didn't feel angry, but I suddenly knew that I wasn't going to take this attitude from Dawson, or from anyone else.

  I kept my eyes on his, but brought my right knee up as hard as I could into his groin. Dawson let out a howl, let go of my shirt and stumbled backwards, grabbing at his crotch. He fell onto one of the tables, and then rolled off onto the floor.

  The other boy, who was just about the same size as Dawson, jumped up from where he'd been sitting. “Hey,” he yelled at me, “what the hell did you do to him?”

  I looked at him, but I didn't say anything for a few seconds. As I stared at him, he looked back into my eyes, and I could see confusion in his face. “I made him let go,” I said.

  Mrs. Connors came into the room, apparently having heard Dawson's outcry. “Now, what's going on here? We'll not have any fighting, now.”