by Mark Eller
The hat grew closer. Wheat parted on the edge of the field. A small figure emerged; another figure, smaller, was attached to it by the hand. Valerai stifled a sudden sob at the sight of Hanna reluctantly trailing behind the wanderer.
Alarm raced through her. Instincts flared. Her ax swung out threateningly as she strode forward.
“Let go of her!” she cried out. “You let go of her now!”
Hanna separated from the wanderer, stepped slowly forward. Her hands clasped one another, fingers intertwined with fingers. Her face was excited and fearful. Valerai had never seen anything so lovely in all her life.
“Momma,” Hanna said when Valerai reached her. Her voice was slurred. She was, Harvale sometimes said, not right. Slow and brave and always questioning, she lived for each day. For Hanna, remembering the previous month was an unwelcome chore. A year past was only misty memory, something almost impossible to recall.
“I looked for papa,” Hanna said slowly. “I was scared, and then the little man promised to take me home.”
Valerai let the head of her ax fall to the ground. Her left fist still gripped the worn wood handle, but her right hand was free for use. She used it well.
“Momma!”
Hanna’s thin arm writhed beneath her grip. Valerai hauled the girl closer, bent low so she could stare into Hanna’s eyes.
“You are in more trouble than you care to think about, young lady. I’m going to tan the hide right off you. I’ve told you time and again you’re not to leave the cabin. I’ve told you it’s not safe out there, and here you go ignoring me— again.”
“But daddy—”
“Are you arguing with me?” Vapor puffed from Valerai’s mouth with each spoken word. She felt like an angry dragon breathing smoke and fire.
“But—”
Hanna’s eyes were lost, confused. Valerai looked into those eyes and bit back her temper. Yelling at the girl would do no good. In a day or a week the words would be lost inside her daughter’s clouded mind. Hanna could learn, but her learning followed a slow trail with many wrong turns.
“Get in the cabin,” Valerai ordered. “I’ll see to you later.”
Crying, Hanna took off at a run. Her little feet sent up small puffs of snow. The sound of her soft sobs jarred on Valerai’s frayed nerves.
“Perhaps I should come back another time,” the wanderer said carefully. “I think ten, or maybe twenty years from now might be safer. Your children should be raised by then so your temper might show improvement.”
Shaking herself, Valerai raised the ax. She spun in a quick half circle to throw it angrily from her. Metal and wood turned in the air as the ax slowly spun until the handle struck her lone maple tree with a solid clunk. The ax fell into the snow bank beside the tree trunk, burying its head in the deep snow.
Closing her eyes, she clenched her fists as she drew herself together. She counted ten easy breaths before feeling satisfied her nerves were settled. Only then did she turn around to face the wanderer.
“I have to apologize,” she said with forced calm. “I was cleaning, and Hanna was playing with her brother. Then she wasn’t, and I had no idea how long she’d been gone. I thought to follow her tracks in the snow, but the wind had already covered them. I was frightened I’d lost another of my children.”
The wanderer nodded knowingly. “Losing children is bad. We should not misplace those who are so precious to us. Perhaps I could help you find the missing ones.” It stepped forward. Valerai was struck by the fact he wasn’t much taller than Hanna. Unlike her daughter’s, his face was weathered and wrinkled and his body thick with muscle. He would be fast, she knew. He would be fast and tough. No beast could ever get the better of his kind.
“I misspoke,” she corrected. “Three of my children have been killed.” Her voice grew tight. A sob threatened to break free. Valerai clenched her hands into fists again, pressed her lips together until they hurt. The wanderer waited patiently until she beat her grief back into the barricaded vault where she kept it hidden away during daylight hours.
“You must be careful,” she finally warned. “There’s a beast out there. It killed my children. My husband is out looking for it, but he’s hunted these last three months to no avail.” She felt stiff and cold and distant from the subject, almost as if she spoke of somebody else’s husband and children and not her own.
“Worry not, milady.” The wanderer pulled a long bladed knife from somewhere on his person. His hand moved so fast she had not a clue where the knife had been hidden. Twirling the knife between his fingers, he flicked his hand, and the blade mysteriously disappeared. “There be no beastie out there what can have the hurting of Old Tomtom. More than one has tried, and I’m here to tell you they did not succeed.”
Valerai nodded. His answer was what she had expected, but the warning needed to be given. “I’m afraid dinner isn’t ready. I don’t expect my husband until nightfall. Would you be interested in eating with us later?”
“Why, I do believe I would be.” Tomtom flashed her a smile which held the sun and the moon and all the blessings of the Seven in it. “I believe I just might like to do the very thing. Is it that dinner will be at dusk then?”
“It won’t be until full dark,” she corrected him. “You’re welcome to eat with us, and to stay the night, too.”
“Then I will see you when the sun falls down and the night air is filled with the delicious aroma of your fine cooking.” Lifting a hand to his head, he tipped his ridiculous hat. “Until then, I will smell around for a trace of this troublesome beast. It’s a mighty sharp nose I have, and sharp eyes, too.”
Quickly turning, he loped off. His small body soon disappeared into the wheat.
Valerai half raised her hand. “Thank you,” she called belatedly. “Thank you for bringing my daughter back.”
Only the rustling of wind blowing through standing wheat answered her.
* * * *
“Leave me alone!”
Grabbing Hanna, Valerai pulled the girl back down to where she could get a good look at her daughter’s head.
“You’re going to stay still, young lady. I’ll not have you spreading your lice to your brother.”
Valerai parted the child’s hair and began searching. Just as she suspected, Hanna was infested. In only moments, Valerai found half a dozen lice and far too many nits.
“First thing after we eat it’s a kerosene shampoo for you.” Releasing the girl, she looked to the fireplace. “Roland! Get away from there!”
Giggling, Roland willfully ignored her order. He pulled a stick from the blaze, held it proudly overhead, and waved it through the air. “Look momma.”
Valerai grabbed a wooden stirring spoon and whacked it against the tabletop.
“Put. That. Back. Now.”
The door opened.
“I thought I was the one who was supposed to do the knocking.”
Valerai jerked her head around to see Gerd limping through the open door. A powdering of snow dusted his graying hair. His cheeks were red from the cold, and a touch of frost lined his mustache. He stepped inside, closed the door behind him, and slowly removed his heavy coat.
“I swear my blood flows slower every year,” he complained as he hung the coat up on a peg by the door. “Here I was congratulating myself on how well I felt today, and then the wind picked up. I swear the temperature dropped about six hundred and fifty two degrees in half a minute, and then the dad-blamed snow started falling again.” He limped toward the fire where Roland had, thankfully, deposited his burning stick. His steps were slow, painful, speaking of a badly damaged leg and ill-used muscles.
“Oh Gerd! Look what you’ve done to yourself.” Jumping to her feet, Valerai hurried over so she could ease him into a chair near the fire. “I don’t know why you insist on going out there. This weather is absolutely horrible on your leg.”
Gerd’s weight settled onto her arm as he eased himself down with a satisfied sigh. “Thank you Miss,” he said gratef
ully. He stared into the flames, sighed again, and caught her eyes with his own. “Them was my kids, too,” he said with quiet pain. “You folks are all the family I have. I tell you, Miss, it just tears me up seeing the gloom around this place. The love you all had was something to see. Yes mam. Something to see, and it‘s a crime bad things happened to break it apart.” He rubbed a callused hand across his eyes. “Besides, I’m more than needed out there. If it wasn’t for me we never would have found some fellow half buried in the snow.”
Valerai started. “What fellow?” Could Tomtom have come to trouble?
Gerd hunched himself closer to the heat. “Tall man dressed like he has no idea what snow and cold are about. The poor fellow looks to be half starved. He’s some beat up, and that’s the truth.” He stretched out his left leg, groaned with the movement of it. Valerai winced with sympathy. She knew just how badly Gerd’s leg was injured. There had been many a time when she worked on its knots by rubbing liniment into its reddened flesh. Every time she heard Gerd suck in a breath she was struck by guilt because his leg had been perfectly fine when he hired on with them five years earlier. He had been a prime man with cattle and horses, but then she asked him to break a wild stallion Gerd had caught in a blind canyon several months earlier. Gerd agreed, but the stallion did the breaking. It tossed Gerd like he was a broken toy, reared up, and stamped on Gerd until Harvale leaped in to kill it with a hand held arrow. Over a year passed before Gerd regained much use of his leg.
“Har’s bringing him in now,” Gerd said. “Draped the man across his own saddle, and he’s walking real careful so as to not shake him around too much. He told me to go on ahead and get myself warm. I think it might be best to have something hot ready when they get here. Broth maybe. Don’t look to me like the fellow will be able to handle anything else.”
“I’ll do just that thing,” Valerai said. “Why don’t you sit there and get warm while I fix something up?”
Gerd nodded. “Thanks Val.”
Valerai went to work. She pulled out the last of the good beef with mixed feelings. The steer it had come from was one of theirs, but it hadn’t died by Har’s hand. Like her children, the steer had been savaged and then ignored by the beast. She grew sick every time she ate a piece of the beef, but her digestion didn’t matter. She cooked it anyway because food was food no matter the manner of its killing.
Valerai never heard the horse arrive. Her first clue Harvale was home came when he stumbled through the door with a limp figure draped across one shoulder.
“Val, turn down the bed and pile up the blankets? We have a hurt man here.”
“Got it hon.” Why hadn’t she thought of those things before? Gerd mentioned broth, so that was all she thought of preparing. A fool, her. It was obvious any man who had to be carried across a saddle wasn’t capable of sitting up in a chair to eat. She wished she were as wise as Har, and she wondered what it was he saw in her. Next to him she was dull brass to his shinning gold.
Rushing to the back addition, she had the bed turned down before Harvale had time to reach the bedroom door. She stepped back when he approached the bed, and then stepped forward to help him ease the man onto her mattress. The man rolled limply when he was released. Pale faced, he appeared more dead than alive. Look though she might, she never saw his chest move before Har pulled up the sheet and blankets.
“Are you sure he’s still alive?” she asked doubtfully. “He doesn’t seem to be breathing.” The stranger was certainly deathly cold. She hoped he was alive. The last thing Har needed was to dig another grave in the frozen ground.
“He’s alive,” Harvale said, running a hand across his forehead and front bangs to wipe away a few traces of moisture. “He’s alive, but damned if I know why. A fellow dressed like him, passed out on the trail, he should have been dead long ago.”
Frowning, Valerai placed her hand over the man’s mouth and held still with concentration. Yes. Maybe he was breathing. A touch of warm air seemed to brush her palm.
“Where are the kids?” Harvale sounded sharp with worry. Valerai winced at her callousness. She should have immediately let him know where they were. He went out almost every morning, ignoring the demands of land and cattle, because three of his children died in an animal’s jaws. The least she could do was remove his worries.
“They’re in the loft,” she said, low voiced. “I haven’t heard them screech at each other for a while, so I think they’re asleep.” Her frown grew deeper at his obvious relief. “Hanna ran off today, looking for you. A wanderer brought her home. He said he’d sniff around for the beast’s scent, and said he’d be back for supper.”
Harvale’s body tensed. “She got lost? Damn it woman, why aren’t you keeping an eye on our children? I won’t have it Val. You only have one job to do, and I expect you to do it. You’re to keep my children safe.”
Cringing, Valerai bowed her shoulders beneath the onslaught. He was right, and he was wrong. It was her job to see to the children, but she had food to gather and cook. She had laundry and dishes and chickens and cleaning and a thousand other chores he didn’t see because he was seldom home. She struggled between a desire to snap back at him and the need to understand he was cold and tired and frustrated and sick at heart. She struggled to voice her thoughts but could not. So instead she cringed and bowed her head, resenting his criticism while her own unspoken words caught in her throat.
Warmth flowed over her hand. Another puff of breath touched her. Looking down, she saw flat black orbs staring sightlessly up into the rafters. The blankets stirred with the rising of the stranger’s chest, and then they lifted as his body arched. A small cough broke free from between his lips.
“Is this the mill?” the man whispered. “Clothes.”
Gently touching his cheek, Valerai said, “No sweetie, not the mill.”
He shuddered slightly, and his eyes closed.
Val removed her fingers from his cheek. “I need to slip some warm bricks in there with him. I can probably get some clear broth down him, too, once he wakes up.”
“Then you had best get to it,” Harvale said. “I want to see my children.” Abruptly turning, he stalked toward the bedroom door, pausing briefly to glance at the locking bar, specifically built to give them privacy from the children. “I suppose we won’t need this anytime soon.” He left without sparing her another glance.
Get to it indeed. Resentment bubbled up in her, but Valerai ruthlessly beat it down. Harvale wasn’t always so abrupt. He was tired and worried. She owed him consideration for the things he did for their family. Harvale was a good man, and she owned a short temper.
Dinner was eaten in strained silence. The wanderer did not show.
* * * *
Jolson sat up two days later. The effort called for all the energy he possessed. He cursed this weaknesses to which humans were prone. For most of his memory, sickness and exhaustion were foreign ideas. They were concepts he knew only from talking with the recently dead. Listening, he hadn’t heard or understood because frailties not brought about from injury or torture belonged to others, to humans. Illness never happened to demon-changed mortals born to be the damned servants of Athos or Zorce.
Until now.
Again, Jolson mentally cursed his weak body. He wished he could use the hook’s power to heal himself, but it was impossible. His Hell-wrought hook allowed him to affect the bodies of others. It allowed him to manipulate and change those around him, but he could not directly use it on the flesh he wore for this use would mean his death.
If he died his soul would descend to the netherworld. Once again, it would become the unfleshed property of Athos because his spirit had been permanently nano-bound by Hell. This he would not allow. He would heal. He would accept the care of those who had taken him in. He would learn. He would escape Hell’s clutches.
Somehow.
The door opened. Shortly after, Gerd shuffled into the bedroom.
“Going out on the hunt again,” Gerd explained. “Ju
st stopped in to see if you need anything before we head out.”
“I am hungry,” Jolson said.
“I’ll take care of that,” the woman, Valerai, told him as she entered the room. “We’ll give you a little solid food today. Not too much, mind you. Too much all at once will only make you sicker. Still and all, I’m willing to bet you’ll be on your feet in just a few more days.”
“Then I need nothing from you,” Jolson told Gerd. He turned his eyes to the woman. “I do not want your small ones in this room. Their noise disturbs me.”
She bristled. “I’ll see what I can do. Just remember that they’re bored and frustrated children. You can also remember this is their home, and you’re our guest.”
Her children needed to face the discipline of Hell. These people were soft. “Get me some food,” he ordered. “I will not grow stronger unless you feed me.”
Gerd grimaced. “I suppose I’d best get going. Harvale and I are heading in different directions today. He wants to travel a little further out, only my leg isn’t up to the trip.” He shrugged. “I suppose we both stand about equal chances of finding the thing.”
Jolson did not respond so Gerd eventually left. The woman met Jolson’s stare, answering his rudeness with a smile. “I haven’t seen a bedridden man yet who wasn’t cross as a sore toothed bear. You wait right there. I’ll see what I can rustle up.”
She left for a short while, returned with food, and left again. He could hear her working in the outer cabin while her brood squabbled and fought. At first, his hands shook when he brought the soup-laden spoon to his lips, but he soon steadied. Before long, he called for more.
“You’re going to get sick,” she admonished, but she did as he desired.
The day was half over when Roland pounced into the room.
“Hi,” he said.
After swallowing another piece of meat Jolson eyed the small child doubtfully. It looked tender. “I don’t want you in here.”
Roland’s face screwed up tight. He started crying. The cries pierced Jolson’s throbbing head until he wanted to leap from the bed and throttle the brat.