Way Of The Wolf

by E. E. Knight

  “Hope so,” Harper said. “Let’s get there before the patrols wake up.”

  They moved through the night, leading their horses. Gonzalez walked out ahead, picking the path, followed by Valentine and Harper, each taking two horses.

  As they drew close to the fire, Valentine decided the burning buildings were just another abandoned farm in a region where two out of three homesteads were empty. New forests stood in fields that had once belonged to cows.

  The Wolves tied up the horses near a shallow seasonal streambed, and the horses drank from runoff puddles scattered among the rocks. They could see the flames flickering through the thin-skinned trunks of scrub beech and young oaks. They crept up to within fifty feet of the dying fire. What was left of four buildings, one obviously a barn, had already collapsed into burning debris. Without the daily rains of the past week, the conflagration would have turned into a forest fire.

  Harper spat cotton. “Okay, Lieutenant, here’s your fire. What now?”

  “No family, no neighbors,” Valentine observed. “Must have been empty. These fields sure don’t look used. I haven’t seen anything but a few old fence posts around with the wire stripped off. So why’s it burning?”

  “Maybe a patrol came through, livened up a quiet night with a little arson,” Harper mused. “That east-west road we crossed yesterday by the river’s got to be up there somewhere.”

  “Could be,” Valentine agreed. “If so, they used a lot of starter. You can smell it from here, kind of like gasoline.”

  Gonzalez and Harper sniffed. “Reminds me a little of napalm,” Harper said. “The Grogs used it at Cedar Creek. They had an old fire truck filled with it. Doused some of the buildings our guys were holed up in and then lit it.”

  “I’d like to take another look around in daylight,” Valentine said. “We can wait a few more hours before moving on. Let’s get the horses and find a safe spot to sleep.”

  Valentine could tell from Harper’s expression that he thought getting some rest was the first sensible plan out of his superior’s mouth all evening.

  Daylight inspection of the ruins told the end of the story but not the beginning. While Gonzalez squatted in cover along the road, ready to run like a jackrabbit back to the fire scene at the first sign of a patrol, only a livestock-laden tractor-trailer passed along the old highway, crawling east at a safe fifteen miles an hour along the potholed road.

  “This makes no sense,” Valentine said to a disinterested Harper. “We’ve got four burning buildings, or three buildings and a shed, I guess. But what are those other three burned spots?”

  Valentine indicated the blackened brush, circles of fire twelve to thirty feet in diameter, scattered around the buildings on what had once been lawn and garden.

  “Weird thing number two. Look how the house is wrecked. The frame’s been scattered all to hell, but only westward. Like a bunch of dynamite was set off on the east side of it.”

  Harper shrugged. “Maybe the Quislings were training with demolitions or something.”

  “Then where’s the crater? And the foundation is in good shape; those cinder blocks would be gone if someone put a charge there. And look at those two saplings. They’re both broken off three feet up, but the tops are lying toward the house. An explosion wouldn’t do that. Weird thing number three. That hole dug in the ground by the barn.”

  The men walked over to the ruins of the old barn, next to the blackened column of the still-standing silo. A triangular furrow, three feet long and almost two feet deep, was gouged into the ground; a dug-up divot of earth and grass lay nine feet away, in the direction of the barn. “What did this?” asked Valentine. “The patrols brought out a backhoe? This was dug out in one clean scoop.”

  “You got me, Sherlock,” Harper said with a shrug.

  “And finally, there’s no tracks. Unless that’s why they burned out those patches of the scrub—to cover their tracks, or the marks of the weapons that did this.”

  Valentine kneeled and sniffed at the charred wood. It still retained a faint petroleum or medicinal smell, like camphor.

  “Somebody’s coming,” Harper called, moving swiftly behind the silo, rifle already at his shoulder. Valentine threw himself to the ground, hearing footsteps from the forest. The person was not making any effort to keep quiet, whoever it was.

  A middle-aged man in faded blue pants and a striped mattress-ticking shirt emerged from the forest. He surveyed the wreckage, not looking particularly surprised. He removed his baseball cap and wiped his face and neck with a yellow handkerchief. What was left of his hair, balding front and back, was a uniform gray.

  “Whoever you are,” the man called, “you’re sure up early. Come out and show yourselves. I ain’t armed.”

  Valentine hand-signaled Harper to stay concealed. Gonzalez had vanished, perhaps into the overgrown drainage ditch next to the road. He stood up, half fearing a sniper’s bullet.

  “Good morning to you, too,” Valentine responded. “I’m just passing through.”

  “You mean ‘we’re passing through,” stranger,“ the unknown rustic chided. ”I saw your buddy behind the silo. Since you’re not from around here, I’ll ask your name, son.“

  “David, sir. I’m down from Minnesota. Visiting friends, you might say.”

  The man smiled. “If that’s the case, I’d keep that repeating rifle hid. I don’t know how it is in Minnesota, but around here the vampires’ll kill you for carrying a gun. Among other things.”

  “Thanks for the tip. We’re trying to pass through without attracting attention. Do you live around here, sir?”

  “All my life. My name’s Gustafsen. I’m a widower now, and my kids are gone. I farm a little place up the road. Saw the sky lit up and figured it was the old Bauer farm. Don’t have much business of my own to mind, so you might say I mind other people’s, just to have something to do.”

  That could be good or bad for us, Valentine thought. “Did anyone live here?”

  “No, not since they took over. The Bauers all died of the Raving Madness. No one’s wanted to live here since: it’s five miles from nowhere.”

  “I wonder what started the fire? There’s been a lot of rain, but no lightning.”

  Gustafsen chuckled. “I wonder myself. I hear from some of the teamsters, there’s been a few mysterious fires this summer. Started right around the time the new Big Boss showed up in Glarus. And things have gone from bad to worse for a lot of folks around here since then. There’s been disappearances in almost every town, and I’m sure you know what that means.”

  “I’m surprised you ask questions, Mr. Gustafsen. Most places that’s frowned upon.”

  “My curiosity is all I’ve got left, David.” Gustafsen thrust his hands in his pockets, speaking to Valentine while standing side by side with him as was the custom in that part of the country. They looked over the wrecked barn and house. “I’ve lived a full life, considering the circumstances. After my Annie got took, I quit looking for anything else from this life, and I’m settin‘ my heart on the next.”

  Valentine liked the man on instinct. He thought for a moment about asking the man to come south with them. They had a spare horse, after all, and the Free Territory could always use another farmer or rancher.

  Gustafsen said, “I didn’t get much formal education. They don’t like schools. But I’m smart enough to know that men in deerskins carrying guns and staying out of sight of the roads means trouble for them. So if you boys want to come to my place, I’ll share what I got with you. Maybe you need to spend a couple nights in a bed. I’ve got some spares. I’d appreciate the company.”

  “We appreciate the offer, Mr. Gustafsen. Really. But we’ve got to move on east,” Valentine lied, just in case. “If you could spare a bag of oats for the horses, we’d be in your debt, sir. I’d really like information about these fires, though. You seem to have your ear to the ground.”

  “It beats me as much as it does you, son. One old man saw some kind of airship over
a fire. I don’t know exactly where or when; it’s a fourth-hand story. Like the old blimps you see in pictures. He said it moved around with sails. And I got a theory about where it’s coming from: somewhere around Blue Mounds. They say it’s death to go within five miles of there now. Whatever’s happening, they got a lot of troops. The Commissary Patrols are culling stock all over this part of the state, taking good dairy stock and hogs, mostly. It’s going to be a hard winter.”

  “Sounds like. You say this new Big Boss is in Glarus?”

  “It’s New Glarus on a map,” Gustafsen corrected.

  “We’d better avoid it,” Valentine said, lying again. He had to account for the chance that Gustafsen might be going for a brass ring.

  “Smart of you, son.”

  Two hours later, Valentine rode up to the other two Wolves, two bags of oats for the horses across the Morgan’s broad back.

  “It went well there?” Gonzalez asked.

  “Sure. He gave me the feed, and I looked around his place. He seems a nice enough man. I didn’t want him to get a look at either of you, just in case.”

  “Are we going to move on now?” Harper asked.

  “Sort of. It seems like the Reapers have something big going on around Blue Mounds. It’s about ten miles southeast of here. Good hilly country, plenty of cover. I want to ride over there and see if we can’t get a look at what they’re up to.”

  Harper nodded. “Not too much of a detour, then. Gotta ask you straight, though, Lieutenant, begging your pardon. Do you have something against getting back to the Ozarks? Got a woman in the family way, and you want to stay out of the Territory for a while or something? We could be halfway to the Mississippi by now. We’re couriers, not Cats.”

  “If I knew a Cat in the area, I’d ask her to do it for us. But something that flies and drops firebombs is something Command will want to know about. Especially since whatever this is doesn’t make noise. You’ve seen the little prop jobs the Kurians use on us now and then. They’re loud. We’d have heard it. And they can fly at night. Never heard of a plane or a helicopter doing that nowadays.”

  “Maybe they’re trying to train Harpies to fly in teams or carry bombs together,” Gonzalez thought out loud.

  “Could be. Could be just about anything, Gonzo. The Kurians like dreaming up nasty surprises. But Southern Command is going to want facts. We’re all this way anyway. When we get back, we might as well know what we’re talking about.”

  “So what’s next on the Lieutenant Valentine tour of southwestern Wisconsin?” Harper chuckled.

  Valentine consulted his map and compass. “A short ride thataway. How’s your nose this morning, Gonzalez?”

  “Wishing it was smelling the masala in one of Patel’s pepperpots right about now, sir. But it’s working well enough.”

  “I hope so. We’re going to need it.”

  You have to hand it to the Kurians, Valentine thought at midday, when they struck the line of fence posts. They know how to send a message with easy-to-understand symbols.

  The Wolves sat their horses before the line of rust-colored pig iron posts. Atop each post, at ten-yard distances, a bleached human skull grinned at them. The warning line extended into the woods to either side of them, each skull facing outward in wordless warning to trespassers.

  “jesuchristo,” Gonzalez whispered.

  Grimly, Valentine performed some mental arithmetic. Gustafsen had said it was death to come within five miles of Blue Mounds. Thirty-odd miles of perimeter. That worked out to something like five thousand skulls. The one immediately in front of them was a child’s.

  Valentine dismounted, drawing his rifle from its leather sheath. “I’m going to have a look around. Sergeant Harper, I want you to stay with the animals. If you hear any shooting, try to break a record going west. Gonzalez, this is a one-man job, but I’d like to have your ears and nose along, so I’ll leave it up to you.“

  Gonzalez removed his broad-brimmed hat and scratched the back of his neck. “Lieutenant, after I was invoked, I learned the Way from an old Wolf named Washington. Washington used to tell me, ”Victor, only idiots and heroes volunteer, and you’re no hero.“ But if I stay behind, it’ll mean these skulls worked. I don’t like to see anything the Reapers do work.” He slid off his horse and began filling his pockets with .30-06 rifle shells from a box in his saddlebag.

  “Lieutenant,” Harper said, “watch your step now. I can see lot of tracks just behind this picket line of theirs. I’m going to take the horses down to that ravine we crossed and wait for you. Be careful; I’m going to make cold coffee for three, and I don’t want any wasted.”

  “Thanks, Harper. No heroics, now. You hear anything, you just leave. I haven’t looked at what’s in those mail bags, but it’s probably more important than we are.”

  Valentine and Gonzalez moved slowly through the heaviest woods they could find, zigzagging toward three hilltops they could occasionally glimpse through the trees. They moved in a twenty-yard game of leapfrog: first one would advance through the woods to cover; he would squat, and the other would move up past the first. They used their noses, and when Gonzalez picked up the scent of cattle, Valentine had them alter course to catch up.

  It was a warm, partly cloudy day. Occasional peeks at the sun through the cumulus lightened their mood; it would inhibit any Reapers around. The cotton-fluff clouds were beginning to cluster and darken at their flat bases; more rain might be on the way. They found the cows, a herd of black-and-white Holsteins escaping the heat under a stand of trees bordering an open meadow.

  “That’s what we want,” Valentine said. “I don’t see a herdsman. Maybe they round them up at night.”

  “That’s what we want?” Gonzalez whispered back. “What, you want cream for your coffee?”

  “No. Let’s get to the herd. Keep down in the brush.”

  They reached the cows, who gazed at the Wolves indifferently. The tail-swishing mass stood and lay in the shade, jaws working sideways in a steady cud-chewing rhythm. About a thousand flies per cow buzzed aimlessly back and forth.

  “We need a little camouflage. The smelly kind,” Valentine said, stepping into a fresh, fly-covered pile of manure. His moccasin almost disappeared into the brown mass. Gonzalez followed suit.

  “Is this because of the tracks back at the fence?” Gonzalez asked.

  “Yes. I saw dog prints by the hoofprints. Just in case we get tracked. The scent of the cows might confuse the dogs. Step in a few different piles, will you? Ah-ha,” Valentine said, moving toward one of the standing milk factories.

  The cow had raised its tail, sending forth a jet of semi-liquid feces. Valentine quickly wiped his foot in tlje body-temperature pool, then put each knee into it. “Keep an ear open, Gonzalez. It’d be great if one of them would take a leak for us.”

  Valentine’s sharp ears picked up his scout muttering, “I don’t even want to know, man, I don’t even want to know.”

  Leaving the cows behind, but taking the smell with them, the Wolves began to move uphill, again keeping to the heaviest woods.

  “So much for my nose, Val. I’ve heard of wolves in sheep’s clothing, but this is above and beyond.”

  “Concentrate on your ears then,” Valentine suggested.

  They cut a trail at the base of the hills. Tire tracks informed him that vehicles passed through this area, circling the hills. Farther up the slope, they could see a metal platform projecting out of the trees, still well below the crown of the hill. It looked like a guard tower, but was missing walls and a roof.

  “Maybe it’s still under construction,” Gonzalez theorized.

  They moved up the gentle, tree-dotted meadow sideways, approaching the tower from a higher elevation. After completing the half-circle, listening all the way for telltale movement, they gained the tower base.

  Concrete anchored the four metal struts supporting the thirty-foot platform. It was built out of heavy steel I-beams and was well riveted and braced. There was no ladder goi
ng up. It was new enough that scars in the earth from its construction were overgrown but not yet eroded away.

  “What the hell kind of a lookout post is this?” Valentine wondered. “That’s a lot of steel to hold up nothing.”

  Gonzalez knelt in the dirt beneath the structure. “Look here, sir. These tracks: small, narrow boots with heavy heels. Almost small enough for a woman.”

  “A Reaper?”

  “That’s my guess,” Gonzalez said.

  Valentine’s spine bled electric tingles. A Reaper stands on that platform? he thought. Watching what? Standing guard? What the hell is so valuable that the Kurians are using Reapers as sentries?

  He looked at the cross-braces. He might be able to climb it, if his fingers held out. Of course, a Hood would have no problem going up, but it presented quite a challenge to a human.

  “I’m going to climb it. See if I can’t get a look at the top. Maybe there’s some sign of what it’s used for up there.”

  “Sir,” Gonzalez said. “I wouldn’t advise that. Listen.”

  Valentine hardened his ears and heard thunderous hoof-beats echoing from somewhere over the hill. A lot of hoof-beats. Valentine suspected that these riders would not be scared off by the symbols carved into the butt of his rifle.

  He looked at Gonzalez, meeting his scout’s alarmed eyes, and nodded.

  They ran.

  Trained Wolves running though heavy wood, even downhill, have to be seen to be believed. They kept up a punishing pace through the thickest forest, a pace no horse and rider could match through this ground. They cleared fallen logs with the grace of springing deer. Their footfalls, like their breathing, sounded inhumanly light. The Wolves hunched their bodies atavistically forward, clearing low branches by fractions of an inch. The sound of the distant riders faded behind them, absorbed by hill and wood.

  They reached the cow meadow, over a mile from the metal platform, in less than four minutes. Valentine altered the downhill course, and regained the wood. Still at a flat-out run, they were halfway to the line of skulls when Gonzalez was shot.

  The bullet struck him in the left elbow as he brought his arm up while running. He spun, staggered, and continued running, gripping his shattered joint close to his body.