The Wolf Tree

by John Claude Bemis

  Sally knelt to touch a hand to the dirt. Prints covered the area. Whatever had happened, it had been an awful fight. Claws had kicked away clumps of earth as big as her head. She scanned the mangled earth until she found the clear imprint of a paw. “I see a print here,” Sally said. “Come over and look and tell me if you recognize it.”

  “I ain’t coming no closer,” Hethy said.

  “Why? He’s dead—”

  The wolf convulsed, his eyes opening and his snout swinging toward Sally. “Toninyan!” he uttered weakly, his eyes glazed with pain. “Where—is—Toninyan?”

  The girls leaped back, but the wolf had dropped his head heavily to the ground again and closed his eyes.

  “What did he say?” Sally gasped, scrambling back with Hethy to watch the wolf from the tall grass.

  “So he did speak?” Hethy murmured. “I about thought I lost my wits. Come on, Yote. We got to go!”

  “But he’s still alive,” Sally said.

  “He’s dying, and there’s nought to do but get away before he decides he wants a last meal.”

  Sally stared at the wolf. His sides were heaving with breath and he drew his tongue back in his mouth. Sally took the Incunabula from her rucksack and began feverishly flipping pages.

  “What’re you doing?” Hethy asked.

  “We could help him,” Sally said. “We could save him before he dies.”

  “Why do you want to save a wolf? He looks crazy.”

  Sally looked up from the page. “Why in the world would you think he’s crazy?”

  With an earnest knit to her brow, Hethy replied, “Well, a wolf starts speaking, he must have gone crazy. He ain’t safe. Don’t make no sense trying to save him.”

  “Look at him, Hethy. That’s no ordinary wolf. He can speak. We’d help him if he were an injured man.”

  “What? You’re crazy now, too?”

  Sally leaned forward. “Wolf. Can you hear me?”

  His eyes opened and rolled around in their sockets before closing again.

  “We can help you. Are you dangerous?”

  Hethy hit Sally in the arm. “Like he’s going to tell us the truth.”

  Sally rounded on her. “Look, behold him or whatever it is you do. You can see the truth in him, can’t you?”

  Hethy considered this. “All right. I’ll try.” She closed her eyes and after a time, a startled expression came over her face and she opened her eyes.

  “What? What is it?” Sally asked.

  “He ain’t a wolf. You’re right about that. And he turned into this wolf, but I can’t tell if he’s really a man. Seems like he is and he ain’t at the same time. I don’t quite understand what I seen. But he’s good. He’s got a good heart.”

  “Maybe he’s under an enchantment,” Sally said. “Like in ‘Snow White and Rose Red.’”

  “Ain’t never heard of it,” Hethy said.

  “The point is he needs our help. We should heal him.”

  Hethy looked anxious, but said, “If that’s what you want to do.”

  “Thank you,” Sally said, throwing her arms around her friend. “Okay, the Incunabula says what herbs we need, but I don’t know if they grow out here. Would you recognize them?”

  “Maybe,” Hethy said. “Granny Sip sent me out to gather for charms. I know a few of these prairie flowers and such.”

  “Take a look then,” Sally said, turning the book around so Hethy could read it.

  After a moment, she said, “All right. Some of these is out here.”

  “Do you know how to use them?”

  “Ain’t your book teach you that?” Hethy asked.

  “It just says what herbs to use, not how to heal.”

  Hethy sniffed. “I seen Granny Sip set some poultices. I can do it good enough, I reckon. Come on.”

  Hethy led Sally away, collecting yarrow and wild indigo as they went. When they returned, Hethy said, “We got to heat water. You go fetch some wood back at those trees, and I’ll start getting these herbs ready.”

  Soon there was a roaring fire with a pot of water warming. As Hethy worked, she said, “We’ve got to clean him up first. You reckon you’re up for that?”

  “Okay,” Sally said reluctantly.

  Hethy gave an encouraging nod toward the wolf just a few feet away. Before Sally moved over, Hethy added, “If he bites your hand off, I don’t reckon I can heal that.”

  Sally crouched before the wolf, keeping a safe distance. “Can you hear me?”

  The wolf opened his eyes but did not reply. His eyes were a silver-blue, almost the same as his scar-covered coat. There was an intense intelligence within those humanlike eyes.

  “I’m going to try to clean this blood off of you. My friend, she’s putting together something that will heal. We’re going to try to help you.”

  “Go away,” the wolf said in a low voice.

  “Will you hurt me if I wash your wounds?”

  The wolf closed his eyes. Sally took this as acceptance, hoping she was not wrong. She tore a strip from her blanket and, pouring water onto the wolf’s haunch, began to gingerly wipe away the blood and gore. The wolf did not try to stop her, but after a time opened his eyes again and said in a weak voice, “No purpose.”

  “What?” Sally asked.

  He lifted his nose a fraction. “No purpose in helping me.”

  “Why is that?” But the wolf just closed his eyes and fell back asleep.

  When Sally had finished cleaning the wounds on one side, she woke the wolf with a gentle prod. “Can you turn over? So I can clean your other side.”

  “They will only kill me. What good is being cleaned before your death?”

  “Who will kill you? Who did this to you?”

  “My pack.”

  Hethy looked up anxiously from the simmering pot. “There’re others like you?”

  The wolf was silent, but then said, “They will not come back yet. They left me for dead.”

  “Then turn over,” Sally commanded in her small voice.

  The wolf let out a low growl, struggled to his feet, and fell over the other way.

  “Thank you,” Sally sighed. The wolf said nothing.

  Hethy brought over the herbs, crushed and soaking in the hot water. It was sunset before Sally finished, and the girls worked into the night, placing the compounds into his wounds and pulling his torn hide back into place. When they had finished, Hethy whispered, “I’m bone tired, Yote. Don’t like sleeping here next to this wolf, but I’m too tired to go nowhere else.”

  “He won’t hurt us,” Sally said, looking at the wolf, who twitched with fretful dreams. “Let’s sleep.”

  Hethy shared her blanket with Sally, since hers had been used to clean the wolf. As the girls lay down, Hethy said, “I hope them other wolves don’t come back.”

  “He said they wouldn’t,” Sally whispered. And although a part of her was scared that they would, another part—the one that was exhausted—trusted the wolf, and that allowed her to fall into a heavy sleep.

  The girls woke to find the wolf sniffing and licking his wounds.

  Sally and Hethy stood, stretching and rubbing their sore necks. When the wolf looked over at them, Hethy said, “A thank-you would be all right.”

  The wolf growled, but not menacingly. “You have only wasted your time.”

  “Why do you keep saying that?” Sally asked crossly. “Do you want them to kill you?”

  With eyes half-closed, he replied, “It makes no difference anymore.”

  “Why? Why were those wolves so terrible to you?”

  “They don’t understand!” He grew agitated. “They have forgotten.”

  “Forgotten what?”

  The wolf lowered his chin to his forepaws.

  Curiosity was burning in Sally, and she tried again. “What was that word you kept saying before?”

  The wolf was silent.

  “You were asking for something. Toniya—?”

  “Toninyan,” the wolf growled. “But
I was wrong.”

  “Wrong about what?”

  “I thought I sensed it. I thought the man who I gave the Toninyan to was with you. I thought he had come back. To help us find … No, I was confused. Mad with desperation and my injuries.”

  “What is the Toninyan?” Sally asked. “Who is this man?”

  The wolf closed his eyes but he was not sleeping. He was ignoring her.

  Hethy put her hand to Sally’s shoulder and whispered, “We done what you wanted, Yote. We healed that wolf as best we could. But we got nothing else to do for him. Can we go now?”

  “I suppose,” Sally said, casting a disappointed glance at the wolf.

  She took out the rabbit’s foot and watched as it turned and pointed toward the west, where the morning sun was throwing rich light across the sea of grass and wildflowers.

  “Yote!” Hethy squeaked.

  The wolf was getting stiffly to his feet, his blazing eyes on Sally. There was a madness again in those eyes, and Sally worried that Hethy had been right all along. She stepped back, considering whether she could outrun him in his weakened state.

  He opened his savage jaws, and dry words struggled out. “The Toninyan.”

  “Get back!” Sally said, waving her hand feebly at the wolf.

  “You? You are the one … you have the Toninyan….” But his eyes were not on her. They were on her hands.

  He was staring at the rabbit’s foot.

  18

  THE ROUGAROU

  “LET ME SEE THE TONINYAN,” THE WOLF DEMANDED.

  Sally wrapped her fingers around the rabbit’s foot. “No! What are you going to do?”

  “Let me see it, child!” The wolf jabbed his nose at her hands. “I’m not going to harm you.”

  With shaking hands, Sally opened her fingers to show the rabbit’s foot to the wolf.

  He inhaled great snorts with his silver nose. “No. What is this? I sense it. The Toninyan is here, but this … this is not it! What is this object?”

  “My—my father’s hand,” Sally stammered.

  “What do you mean?” the wolf asked.

  “My father. He lost his hand fighting a Hoarhound and it became this golden foot.”

  The wolf shook his ragged muzzle. “I don’t know what a Hoarhound is.”

  Sally cupped the rabbit’s foot and held it away from the wolf. “What does it matter? This isn’t your Toninyan. It’s his hand. Now get back!”

  The wolf retreated a step at the intensity of Sally’s shouts. His head lowered and his entire frame seemed to sag. “I don’t understand. I sense it. I’m certain I do.”

  “I’m sorry,” Sally said. “I’m sorry you can’t find your Toninyan. But my father is lost, trapped in a world called the Gloaming. He’s lost his powers, and I’m looking for him. I’m going to find him and give him back his hand. This is leading me to him.”

  The wolf lifted his head, his ears flattened against his head. “Who is this man? Who is your father?”

  Sally wondered at the question and answered slowly, “Bill Cobb.”

  “Yes. Yes,” the wolf said. “Your father was with John Henry. They came to the Great Tree long ago. We gave John Henry a branch, and your father the Toninyan. Did he ever show it to you?”

  “I never knew my father. He disappeared before I was born. What did it look like? What was the Toninyan?”

  “The Seeker’s Stone. A mere rock to your eye, but it is a powerful object—able to guide one to what has been lost.”

  “The lodestone?” Sally gasped.

  “Yes, a lodestone. Does he still have it? If we can find your father—”

  “It’s here! The lodestone is inside the rabbit’s foot.”

  Bafflement swirled in the wolf’s silver-blue eyes. Then he stared down at the rabbit’s foot. “But you are just a child. Why are you carrying the Toninyan? Child, I must find the Tree. I need the Seeker’s Stone!”

  “No!” Sally backed away, fearful of the manic urgency in the wolf’s eyes. “I can’t help you. The stone—the rabbit’s foot—it’s mine. I promised my brother I would keep it safe. I need it. I need to find my father.”

  “But the Great Tree …,” the wolf said. “If I don’t find it …” He dropped to the ground, the pain of his injuries seeming to catch up with his desperation.

  Sally looked into the wolf’s eyes, where a deep sadness was betrayed in those silver-blue orbs. He caught her stare and said, “If you could be made to understand all that is at stake, you might help me. Let me try to explain. Please. My name is Quorl. I’m one of the rougarou.”

  “The what?” Hethy asked.

  “The rougarou, the same as the others—the ones who attacked me. We were once the guardians of the Sumanitu Taka Can. The Great Tree. It is a sacred pathway. A link between this world and the world beyond. We are the stewards of the Great Tree—”

  “But I don’t understand what you are,” Sally interrupted. “Are the rougarou wolves?”

  Quorl narrowed his eyes impatiently. “We once appeared as men, although we are not truly human. We would take the form of wolves when we wished. But now—since the disappearance of the Great Tree—we remain as wolves, trapped this way. We cannot take our true forms. The other rougarou have forgotten what we once were.

  “There was a time when the rougarou helped those who sought us. Men like your father and John Henry. Others were seeking knowledge that could only be found by climbing the Great Tree and following its many branches. Each branch, each limb, each twig leads to a place, either in this world or in others. There is nowhere the Great Tree’s path cannot reach. We would guide these seekers on their quests. And a rare few ascended the Great Tree, passing on to the world beyond.”

  “What is that world?” Sally asked.

  He shook his scarred snout slowly. “I do not know, child. I have never climbed all the way to the Tree’s end. And those who have never return. It is a mystery.”

  He closed his eyes a moment to collect his thoughts before continuing. “Not long after your father and John Henry left us, the Great Tree drifted. This did not surprise us at first. The Tree is not like anything else of this world. To move its position was not so uncommon. What was surprising was that we began having difficulty finding it when it disappeared. And we had difficulty taking our true form. And as wolves, slowly—so slowly we hardly noticed—we began to forget who we were. To be away from the Great Tree weakens us.

  “Each time we would eventually find the Great Tree and could again take our true forms. Our memories would return as well. The rougarou wondered at what was happening to us and to the Great Tree, but the world itself was changing so much. New people came into our land. Men built roads of iron and ran wires along tall sticks and drove strange machines. We knew that this world was in transition, but we did not realize how much it would affect us.

  “Men no longer sought us. Your father and John Henry were the last to come for our help. It seemed we were forgotten. The Great Tree drifted more and more. Eventually we could not find it at all. One by one, the rougarou forgot who they were. They are becoming mere wolves, descending into common beasts. Now I am the last one who remembers. I have tried to help my pack, but they attack me and drive me away.

  “I left for a time, searching for the Great Tree, because I knew that if I could find it again, the pack would return as rougarou. I traveled to the south, where the Great Tree once stood before it began to drift. I found a terrible Darkness has fallen, as if nature itself has been overturned.”

  “I seen that Darkness,” Hethy said. “The town I’m from, Omphalosa, that’s the center of all that Dark.”

  “Do you know why it’s happened?” Quorl asked.

  “My granny told me. She was killed by them people there ’cause they thought she witched up that Darkness. But Granny Sip, she said there was a terrible clockwork that brought on the Dark.”

  “A clockwork?” Quorl wondered.

  “The Gog’s Machine,” Sally explained. “Have you ever h
eard of the Gog?”

  “Yes, this creature serves the Magog. They must have taken shape once more in this age. Surely their evil is behind what has come about. And if I don’t find the Great Tree, the repercussions will be terrible. Not just for me or for the pack, but for all living-kind. The roots of the Great Tree run deep. They touch and affect each living being. The Tree is a source of divine energy—of nourishment and vitality, of creation and destruction and rebirth. Mankind will be affected most by the Gog’s plans, although even I can’t see or even imagine all the ways.”

  Quorl looked urgently at Sally. “You carry the Toninyan, child. The Seeker’s Stone can find the lost Great Tree, as it finds all things lost that one wishes found. But it is a gift for humankind, and only you can wield it. Have you uncovered how to use the Toninyan?”

  Sally was dazzled by all Quorl had told her. “I don’t know,” Sally said. “The rabbit’s foot turns to point the way to go. It’s been leading me to the west, and I’m hoping that it’s leading me to my father. But I don’t know how to make it find your Tree. It’s only ever pulled me toward my father….”

  But then Sally remembered: that was not true. The rabbit’s foot had led her to Hethy because she had been lost—lost on the prairie with her pot of beans.

  But did she want to help him? Shouldn’t she continue searching for her father?

  “We’ve hardly eaten in days,” Sally said. “And we have no food left. We’ve had little sleep either. There’s so much to consider, and I can barely think properly, Quorl.”

  “Yes,” he said, getting stiffly to his feet. “You need to eat. I do too. I will try to find us something. I will return soon.”

  The rougarou limped out onto the prairie. As soon as he disappeared, Hethy asked, “You think you could use that thing? You reckon you could find his Tree?”

  “I’ve been thinking about it. I don’t think Ray really knew how the lodestone worked. He told me how it led him to this pirate named Peter Hobnob and then to the Pirate Queen’s silver dagger. But he never knew why. Now I see. They were both lost, Hethy. Ray must have wanted to find them, just like I wanted to find you.”