by Unknown
The black eyes narrowed, but his smile remained. “Vera’s a white woman. My people have told legends of the Herok’a for generations, Grey Legs. I grew up with those stories. I’ve known others of your kind…and I think I still know you, even if it’s been…what?”
“Four years,” I said.
“Four years since you left Wawa.” He took my offered hand in a strong grip.
“Good to see you, Ed,” I said.
“You too, Gwyn.” Leaning over the counter, he patted Gelert’s huge head. “And good to see you as well, you great beast.” Gelert’s tail wagged furiously, threatening a display of pop cans. Ed looked back to me. “Did you fly in?”
I nodded. “I landed on Deer’s Pond, set up camp on the north shore, then we hiked in. Get my email?”
“Yeah. I made you up some supplies and a map to the truck driver’s cabin.” He nodded toward a small pile of brown paper packages in the corner, wrapped in twine.
“Thanks. What do I owe you?”
“I’ll run a tab. You’ll be here a while. Not the best homecoming for you, I guess.”
“Could be better. Any word of Robert?”
Ed nodded. “I showed your friend’s picture around. He was definitely here in Wawa for the funerals, but kept to himself pretty much. Found someone who talked to him, though. She said he left town about two days ago, but he’d be back. Something about unfinished business here.”
“Any idea where he went?”
“Just a guess, but I’d say the Muskokas.”
“Why?” I asked, puzzled. The Muskokas were a cottage and resort district a two-hour drive north of Toronto, and a good seven hundred kilometers from Wawa.
He held up a finger for an answer and started flipping through the newspaper. Gelert curled beside our supplies. I waited, sifting through the smells of grains and fruit, wood and burlap—and humans. Vera was muttering in the storeroom at the back. I could have made out her words if I had wanted to, but I didn’t.
Ed began reading. “‘Local logging baron Jonathan Conrad and his bodyguard were found dead early yesterday morning, outside his lodge in the Muskokas.’”
Footsteps outside announced a customer to me before the bell over the door brought Ed’s head up from the paper. She looked early twenties, tall and slim with gray green eyes and long dark hair that wasn’t sure where it wanted to rest. Flashing a quick smile at Ed, she moved to the shelves of canned goods.
“Morning, Leiddia,” Ed said, eyebrows shooting up.
“Morning, Ed,” she replied, then looked at me. A familiar aura tinged her outline. She kept looking as I turned back to Ed.
Ed continued reading, his voice lower. “It says Conrad’s wife had gone into town for the evening. She found the bodies about two yesterday morning.”
“How’d he die?” I asked.
The woman Ed called Leiddia turned toward Ed, but I could feel her eyes still on me. I didn’t look at her.
“They’re bringing the coroner up from Toronto. The cops figure some kind of animal attack, judging from the wounds. They say it was big whatever it was.” Ed looked up at me. “Maybe a bear.”
I swore silently at that last bit of news. “Guess the environmentalists won’t grieve much.”
“The parents of those three boys won’t,” Leiddia said, stepping closer to the counter. “He killed them, even if he didn’t drive the truck. Everybody knows he gave the order.”
“Got off though,” sighed Ed. “So’d the truck driver. Accident, they said. Bad brakes. Conrad got a five-hundred dollar fine for not maintaining his trucks.”
I had heard about the truck incident three days ago. Conrad had been chairman for a company that owned the paper mill outside Wawa and several logging operations north of Lake Superior. Recently, the company had faced escalating pressure from local residents, native bands, and environmental groups. Protests centered on the company’s clear cutting methods and general contempt for the old growth forest. The confrontation climaxed when a group of students and other protesters blockaded the road leading to the current clear cutting target.
The first truck to reach the blockade had backed off, driving fifteen miles back to camp in reverse. Two hours later, the next truck arrived. This one hadn’t stopped.
The kids hadn’t used logs or fallen trees to block the road. They hadn’t piled boulders, or sprinkled the road with tire punctures. They had just stood across it, arms linked, singing.
The truck slammed into them, killing three local students. A female protestor from out-of-town also died.
“Five hundred dollars,” said Ed, shaking his head.
“I went to college with one of them,” Leiddia said quietly.
I looked at her, confirming my first impression of the familiar aura. “Were you there?”
She shook her head. “My stepfather works in the mill. He wouldn’t let me go.” She stared at me hard.
Ed cleared his throat. “Uh, Grey Legs, this is Leiddia Barker. Leiddia, this is an old friend, Gwyn Blaidd. Gwyn’s the friend of Mr. Arcas I mentioned.”
“You know Robert?” she asked.
The door to the store opened before I could reply. A man stood with one foot in the store, hand still on the door. “Leiddia!” he barked, “Hurry up!”
She didn’t look at him. “I’m coming,” she snapped, thumping some cans on the counter.
As Ed rang up the order, I looked the man over. Late forties, maybe six feet, a paunch and thinning black hair slicked back. Gelert growled at him, and I didn’t stop him. I didn’t like his smell.
Leiddia paid Ed, took the bag of groceries, and turned to the door. Not waiting for her, the man let the door slam, walked to a beat-up Cutlass parked in front and got in. He had never even looked my way. As Leiddia shifted the bag to her other arm, I stepped past her and opened the door.
“Thanks,” she said, stepping through. Hesitating, she looked at the car, then back at me. “Blaidd. That’s a strange name.”
“It’s Welsh.”
“Why does Ed call you Grey Legs?”
The car’s horn blared. Jumping out of the car, he moved quickly toward us, fists clenched. “Damn it! What’re you doing?” he snarled at her, then spun to face me. “Who the hell are you, mister? I…” His voice trailed off.
“Hello, Tom,” I said. “Long time.”
He swallowed hard. “Gwyn! I didn’t know you were back.”
I smiled. “I didn’t figure our past relationship called for a postcard.”
“Uh, yeah. Uh, Leiddia, don’t be too long. I gotta get to work.” He turned and got back in the Olds, with a glance over his shoulder.
She raised an eyebrow, staring after him. “Never seen anything affect old Tommy like that.” She looked me up and down. “Will I see you again?”
“I’m camping by Deer’s Pond. North shore,” I said.
Smiling a cat-with-the-canary smile, she strolled casually to the car and got in. They drove off, and I went back inside.
“So what do you think of our Leiddia?” Ed asked.
“I think I just passed some kind of test. She’s the one who talked to Robert?”
“Yeah. I said an old friend of his was coming into town and wanted to surprise him. That’s when she told me about him leaving.” He looked puzzled. “Weird her showing up just as you arrive. She’s not in town much. You gonna go see her?”
“I’m guessing she’ll find me. How does Tom Barker come to be her stepfather?”
Ed grimaced. “She and her mom moved here about two years ago. The mother had some money and a good property, which got Tom interested. Don’t know what she saw in him.”
“He’s still the same?”
“Grade-A asshole? Yeah, plus there’s been some incidents with him and her mother. Cops at the house, but she’s never laid any charges.”
“Physical abuse?”
He nodded. “Vera knows the night nurse at Mercy. The mother’s been in a few times, always with a story about some accident around
the home. The nurse said it looked more like beatings.” Ed looked grim, then thoughtful. “Far as I know, he leaves the girl alone.”
“From what I saw,” I said, picking up my supplies and moving to the door, “pushing Leiddia too far would be very inadvisable. He might wake something.”
Ed’s eyes narrowed. “What’d you see in her?”
“She has the Mark,” I said quietly. Opening the door, I stepped out into the street after Gelert, not waiting for Ed’s reply.
The first frost had come to Wawa early. Gelert and I hiked back through fall colors, crisp air, and no mosquitoes, reaching our campsite overlooking Deer’s Pond just before sunset.
That night, spirits of the firelight danced around me through the trees as the rising moon silvered the smooth surface of the water. With Gelert snoring softly beside me, other spirits danced through my thoughts.
I didn’t want them to dance. I didn’t want them to even exist. But spirits have their own views on these matters, and are very persistent when they feel it’s time for a performance. These ghosts went back fifteen years. The prompting for tonight’s tango was much more recent.
Dance, spirits.
Three days before, I had been many miles north. That day, I had stood by the heavy wooden railing of the broad stone promenade running the length of Cil y Blaidd, watching a small seaplane shatter the glass of the lake below. Part carved, part hung from a rocky slope of forest, Cil y Blaidd is a sprawling wood and stone structure overlooking a lake in far northern Ontario. The name is Welsh, for Wolf’s Lair.
Built to my design years ago as an occasional retreat from civilization, recently it had become my permanent home. Or perhaps it was my act of retreat that had become permanent.
Accessible only by seaplane, Cil y Blaidd is invisible from the air. Those who had built it had been flown in at night, stayed until completion, and then were flown out again at night. I had piloted the plane.
Only three other people knew its location. As I watched the plane taxi to shore, I wondered which of the three it carried.
The plane pulled up to a long dock hidden from above by arching willow branches. A huge male figure emerged and strode along the dock to stone steps carved from the cliff face.
Well, it’s not Estelle, I thought, ignoring the resentment this brought even after fifteen years. Too far to see if it was Robert or Michel. My visitor looked up, searching the slope as he climbed. Our eyes met and he raised a meaty hand to remove and wave a cloth cap, revealing a mass of red curls.
“Lo, Mitch,” I called down as I waved back, wondering briefly at my feeling of relief. Turning from the railing, I headed through the house to greet Michel Ducharmes, the Red Bull, and current head of the Circle of the Herok’a.
Opening huge oaken front doors, I stepped out onto a graveled path as he emerged from the woods trailed by two great stags, their antlers barely missing trees on either side. As Mitch shoved out a hand to me, the stags turned to the forest, lowering their heads toward trailing gray shadows.
“A fitting honor guard,” I commented.
“They felt I needed protection from your troops,” he replied, jerking a thumb at six timber wolves hovering at the tree edge.
“Garm, Fenrir, take off. He’s a friend,” I said, addressing the two largest wolves. They glanced briefly at Mitch, then all six padded into the forest.
Inside, he settled his bulk into an oversized chair, taking the proffered Scotch. “You know this lake doesn’t show on any map?” he said, downing the drink, “Not even those the Ministry of the Environment makes from satellite photos.”
“Maybe the MOE needs better computers,” I offered.
He glanced to where my array of computers resided. “Or better security on the systems they do have.”
I shrugged, not rising to the bait.
Silence. He cleared his throat, staring out at the lake. “Speaking of security…”
“I hope you didn’t fly up here to pitch that at me again,” I interrupted. “I’m out. No more. You’ve plenty of predator class to recruit for your dirty little jobs.”
He reddened.
“Besides,” I continued, “Robbie runs security in the Circle. I doubt he’d be thrilled about this.”
He said nothing, fixing me with the hot angry stare of the challenged bull. When he finally spoke, his voice was level. “Two years ago, Robert became active with an environmental protest group.”
“So what? Lots of us are activists. It goes with the territory. I got Stelle into it. We used to try to recruit Robbie.”
“Seen Robert lately?” he asked, too casually.
I snorted. “Mitch, I haven’t talked to him or Stelle in eight years. What’re you driving at? Is this about Robbie?”
He sighed and nodded, suddenly looking very old. I had never thought of him as old before.
“Gwyn,” he said quietly, “Our Robert has threatened to kill two men. One is an important man, the type who attracts attention.” He’d been looking at the empty glass in his hand. Now he looked up at me. “I need your help, Gwyn. To find Robbie first.”
I shut up then and listened as Mitch told of the logging protests, the blockade, the protestors’ deaths, and of Robbie’s threat to kill Conrad and the truck driver. He talked and pleaded, pleaded and talked.
Finally, he paused. “There’s something else,” he said, staring out at the lake. “CSIS knows of this. According to our mole, somebody in CSIS is leaking intelligence on the Herok’a to an outside party.” He looked back to me. “Gwyn, we think someone’s resurrected the Tainchel.”
Involuntarily, I bared my teeth. Damn it. I questioned him on his source, what evidence he had, how recent was the tip, but he knew he had me. Finally, I’d agreed, because of the Tainchel angle, and because Robbie had been a friend and Mitch still was. That’s what I’d told myself at the time. Now, watching the spirits dance in the firelight, I knew I’d done it for someone else.
Dance, spirits, dance.
Estelle and I had been an item for quite a while, back when I ran security in the northeast. For centuries, the Herok’a were nothing more than creatures of legend. Security had mostly amounted to making sure things stayed that way. Then came the Tainchel, a covert operation of the federal intelligence agency CSIS, formed as we later learned, with the single goal of tracking down and capturing the Herok’a. For scientific purposes.
Tainchel. Old Scottish term: Armed men advancing in a line through a forest to flush out and kill wolves.
We lost quite a few before we caught on. They’d developed specialized scanners from tests on early victims. Subtle differences in alpha wave patterns, infrared readings, and metabolic rates gave us away, even in crowded cities.
Then they got careless, and we became aware. I leaked word about a meeting that the Circle of the Herok’a planned for an isolated spot. At the next full moon, of course. I figured they’d expect that.
Twenty of the Tainchel walked into the ambush, armed mostly with tranquilizer rifles. They didn’t walk out. They’d encountered the Herok’a before, but never predators. Wolves, bears, the big cats, birds of prey. We didn’t take prisoners.
After, we contacted Justice and CSIS. I sent a list of the remaining Tainchel agents, present locations, recent activities, and a note saying, “We know who you are. We know where you are. We will kill to protect ourselves. Back off.”
They backed off. CSIS disbanded the Tainchel, and an uneasy truce began.
The truce lasted. Estelle and I didn’t. She argued against the ambush, the killings. I argued that we fought for our existence. In the end, we just argued.
Robert and I had been friends for years, and through me, he had come to know Estelle. After I exited the scene, the two of them became more than friends. About then, I resigned from the Circle. Robbie replaced me there too.
Dance, spirits. Dance with the beasts of the night.
Growling, Gelert turned toward a dim rustle in the forest. I gave the dog a mental command to lie
down again. Stealth was not my intruder’s aim. I stood as Leiddia stepped out of the trees, stopping at the edge of the firelight.
She smiled. “Hello again.”
“Hi yourself.”
“You don’t seem surprised,” she said as she approached.
“I had the feeling you wanted to tell me something.”
“Yep,” she said, “You’re a wolf.”
I tried to remain expressionless. “Excuse me?”
She walked to the opposite side of the fire and sat on the ground, grinning. “Blaidd. I looked it up. It’s Welsh for wolf.”
“Oh, right. I forgot I’d told you.”
I sat again, as Gelert came over to nuzzle her. She took his huge head in both hands, rubbing him behind the ears. “And what’s your name?”
I told her, and she made a face. “Gelert was the legendary hound of Prince Llewellyn of Wales,” I explained.
“Hmm. So, why does Ed call you Grey Legs?”
I chuckled. “The Ojibwa and the Cree believe using its name will attract a wolf. So they call it Grey Legs, Grey Coat, Golden Tooth, Silent One. Ever since I told him what my name meant, he’s called me that, as a joke.”
She smiled again. “So he thinks you’re a wolf, too.”
I grinned back. In the store, I’d been so intent on her aura of the Mark, I’d overlooked how attractive she was. Gelert liked her too, always a good sign.
She stared at me. “You are a wolf.”
I remained silent.
“What’s it like,” she asked, “to change, to be that way?”
“You do know, don’t you? How?”
“Your friend, Robert. We met during the funerals at the church. Something about me fascinated him. He kept staring at me.”
“Can’t say I blame him.”
“It wasn’t that kind of interest, but thanks,” she said smiling. “Anyway, I knew he was different too, but I didn’t know what it was.”
She shifted her gaze to the flames. “He was so upset, so sad. He said he had something to tell me, about me. That something must be added for what was lost. I didn’t understand, but I wasn’t afraid of him. Somehow, I knew I could trust him.”