Kenny started the rig and ground the gears. The cops turned to look at them, but didn’t really see them, just a garbage crew. After all, they had jumpsuits, too, almost the same shade as the city’s. From a distance, they’d be right on.
As Klug hopped up on the moving truck’s sideboard platform, he unlimbered the UZI strapped around his neck and pulled the bolt back, letting it snap into place, cocked and with a round in the breech. Fuckin’-A UZI submachine guns, the city boy had given them. Two of ’em with plenty of clips full of 9mm military ammo. It was like a candy store! Klug hadn’t believed what else the guy had pulled from the trunk of his rental car. A half-dozen fucking grenades, the pineapple kind you saw in the movies. He and Kenny now each had three hanging off their gun slings.
Kenny drove the truck haltingly toward the Dumpsters, which would take them right behind the TrailBlazer and block its path in case it tried to back out. The nose was too close to the loading dock, so there would be no maneuvering.
Kenny was sweating profusely, his jumpsuit already soaked. He was way out of his league and they both knew it, but Klug figured he’d stick with the two of them because he was a born follower, with not a creative bone in his pathetic excuse for a body. Buck he didn’t have to worry about, because Buck was a sadist through and through. He’d have eaten this up.
Wilbur Klug wasn’t even nervous, and the fact pleased him mightily. “Stop!”
The truck’s brakes screeched and the sheriff looked their way. Somehow recognition flashed through his eyes and he started to wrestle the cranky Buck back into the Chevy while shouting something incoherent at his deputy.
Now.
Klug leaped off the sideboard, his UZI chattering and bucking in his hand as he tried to hold it muzzle-down, which was easier said than done.
Hot spent brass spewed out of the UZI and slugs splattered into the sheriff’s new Chevy; taking out half the windows.
One of the slugs must have caught Wes, because he spun and went down, his shotgun flying out of his grasp and exploding harmlessly into the side of the building. Klug kept shooting, letting the clip drain and digging the cordite cloud around him like an opium haze. He suddenly realized that he was shouting and laughing incoherently, and he didn’t care.
Meanwhile, Kenny squeezed off a few rounds from his UZI, then pulled the pin on a grenade and tossed it in the general direction of the sheriff’s car, behind which the sheriff was drawing his service pistol.
Klug screamed at Kenny, but it was too late, because the grenade exploded with a crump that blew out half the windows in the back of the courthouse. Some shrapnel must have found its mark, because the sheriff went down and out of sight behind the vehicle. Buck was squirming around inside the Chevy, probably wetting himself.
“Don’t be killin’ Buck, you shithead!” Klug shouted as he slid another clip into the UZI’s handgrip and cocked the gun again. His first burst tore through the Chevy’s hood and front tires, while his second trailed across the building’s back door, which had started to open. Bailiffs probably. Fuck’em. The gunfire caused them to step back and close the door, and that was when Klug took the opportunity to run toward the Chevy, screaming “Cover me!” to his idiot sidekick and hoping he’d live through this caper but digging every second of it. Hell, he should’ve stayed in the damned Army when he had the chance! The blood rushed through his veins like a mixture of rocket fuel and cocaine, igniting every limb with the tingling excitement of an all-body orgasm. He was so hopped up on the feeling, it was amazing he could think at all.
He reached the Chevy and found Sheriff Bunche sitting up behind it, holding a blood-spattered arm with his other hand. There was a bloody hole in the side of his uniform shirt, but he was otherwise all right, breathing fast and looking at Klug through slitted eyes. His pistol was nowhere to be seen. Wes was moaning softly on the other side of the Chevy, crying and sniffling like a girl. Klug spat.
Kenny came up behind Klug. “Keep an eye on the door and the alley,” Klug told him. Shithead!
“You all right, Buck?” Klug called out to the prisoner.
“Yeah, you all right?” Kenny echoed from a few yards away.
“No thanks to you motherfuckers,” Buck hissed. H had cuts on his face from the exploding car windows, but appeared otherwise unhurt. “Get these fuckin’ things offa me!” He held out his arms.
“You heard the man, Sheriff,” Klug said. “Where’s the keys?”
Bunche seemed about to defy them, but then he winced and gave in, just like that, deflating to about a third his size. He’d never dreamed anything like this could happen in his little corner of the North Woods, no sir, and now all he wanted to do was survive so he could get these bastards.
Klug knew what went through the sheriff’s mind without any doubt.
Bunche handed Klug a set of keys, which he tossed to Buck, who had clambered out of the Chevy. He went to work on his chains and cuffs.
“You know, you can still get out of this without major charges,” Bunche began, talking slowly and enunciating carefully. Probably the way they taught hostage negotiation, Klug figured.
Klug nodded.
Bunche nodded, too.
“Nah,” Klug said, suddenly, and squeezed the trigger of the UZ1. “Too late for that shit.”
The dozen rounds tore through Bunche’s body and jerked him to a half-standing position before slamming him against the sagging Chevy in a bloody heap.
Klug walked over to Wes, who was crying softly, and rolled him over with one foot.
“Wil–”
Klug smiled encouragingly and shot him once in the head. Hard to believe the idiot had that much brains in his skull.
“Let’s get outta here, man!” Kenny called, his voice shaking.
For once, Klug figured Kenny was right. He pulled the pin on one of his grenades and tossed it into the bloody, shot-up Chevy, then ran for the garbage truck.
“Where you goin’, man?” Kenny called out as he and Buck raced toward the car Martin had just driven up.
Klug didn’t answer. He hopped up into the truck’s cab and pushed the lever that operated the crusher.
Then he headed for Martin’s car, laughing as the muffled screaming started from the rear of the truck.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Sam Waters
Sam approached the well-tended cottage-and-a-half on the back part of Circle Moon Drive, hoping the doc would be home. Her Pathfinder was parked on the slab in the rear, and a space had been cleared for another car.
Sam wondered about that, but he wasn’t the nosy sort.
He rang the bell twice, trying to avoid being jumpy and annoying as neighbors could be, but he knew what he looked like. An old man with a long ponytail, wearing cowboy boots, a leather vest over a denim shirt, and carrying a shotgun would probably raise a flag in anybody’s mind. But he’d heard the radio calls and he knew what was up, so he was armed, for better or worse. He wished he’d dug his old Army footlocker out from under the bed and stuffed a handgun down his back, too. The shotgun was for the wolf, or whatever he was, but would serve just as well for escapees or terrorists, or whoever the hell had taken out half the police force and courthouse.
Doc Hawkins opened the door, looking flustered, almost ready to be pleasantly surprised and then unable to cover her disappointment.
Oh, well! Once you got old, they all looked at you like that…
“Doc,” he started, making sure he kept the shotgun aimed safely downward. “You remember me, don’t you? I’m your neighbor from the other side of Circle Moon, and I’m an old friend of your father’s. Sam Waters.”
“Of course I remember you, Mr. Waters! You always gave us the best candy at Halloween!” She rewarded him with a full smile, tempered slightly at the sight of his shotgun.
“Sorry about the weapon, Doc! I don’t know if you’re plugged in on local events, but I just heard on my scanner that there was some sort of terrorist attack at the courthouse—”
“W
hat!” She opened the door fully and waved him in.
He surveyed the driveway, then nodded and ducked in. “Much obliged.”
“What happened?”
“Bad news. It sounds like the sheriff was killed and maybe one more fella, a deputy, though I hear a couple county workers are missing too. They bombed the squad car and took out a guy they had in lockup, a Buck Benton. Sort of a local lowlife…”
“My God, I didn’t drive in to the clinic today and I’m not on call, so I don’t have my cell phone on. The sheriff’s dead? This is horrible. I’m going to grab my bag and go see what I can do,” she began.
Sam waved her off, asking her to listen to him. “Sure, but keep this in mind, it’s too late. Sounds as though they were dead at the scene. The county ambulance and EMTs have already been there, and I hear they’ve got word out to the feds already, what with the explosions and machine guns. The mayor moved pretty quick, for once.”
“Jesus!” she said matter-of-factly.
“My very thought.” He nodded. “I came by to talk at you about somethin’ else altogether, though I think the things might connect somehow.”
She waved him toward a worn leather sofa and he sank into it gratefully, leaning the shotgun with care against an overstuffed bookcase, one of a half dozen that jockeyed for space in the paneled living room.
“Something to drink? Soda? Beer?”
He nodded his thanks but refused. “Carbonation! I have to pick my times.”
“If you change your mind,” she said. “What did you want to talk about?”
“You’re going to think me strange,” he began, “but have you noticed the wolf population lately?”
Her surprise was obvious. He’d come in talking about terrorists and a gun battle, and now he’d switched to—wolves? He gestured to beg her understanding. “This is difficult for me, but I have some knowledge about a wolf, a specific wolf, who’s ravaged our area for quite a while now.”
“Ravaged?”
The way her voice rose, he realized that her thinking followed along the same lines as his. Or perhaps she was suspicious, if not a believer.
“Your father will vouch for my education and abilities, Doctor. It seems outrageous and far-fetched, but I know that the wolf we have had in this area is not one of the survivors of the repopulation project. You are aware of our Native American legends, are you not?”
“I’m part Ojibwa,” Jessie said softly, almost whispering. “My mother’s side.”
Had she ever acknowledged it? Sam let that go.
“As I thought,” he said. “Then you know that the wolf is a powerful totem within our tradition. Indeed, it’s one of the most important, along with the fox, owl, and beaver. You also know that the shaman practices a certain witchcraft, mostly good. Functional, you might say.”
“Yes, my mother spoke of it, too.” Remembrance dotted her features as she recalled things she’d learned as a child.
Maybe things forgotten on purpose. Good. He didn’t have much time to make his case.
“When I was much younger, however, we had a shaman—he was named Joseph Badger—who hated whites for what they had done to our people. Of course, many of our people share this hate. But Badger allowed his hatred to cloud his judgment…”
Sam Waters quickly recounted the story of Badger’s dabbling with the whites’ black magic, Aleister Crowley’s magick and the European black arts, mixing his evil with theirs to make a new, never-before-seen evil.
“You see, Badger blended the European werewolf mythology the disease called lycanthropy, with the many wolf-oriented stories of magic native to our tribe and others. Europeans feared their so-called werewolves and demonized even normal wolves, killing both animals and people they thought could transform themselves. There were hundreds of witchcraft and werewolf trials in the Middle Ages, and over eight hundred executions. Here, on the other hand, the wolf represented heroic figures and was revered as a powerful totem. Joseph Badger concocted or learned enough rituals from both traditions and spent years perfecting them and creating his own. His rituals worked, apparently. He must have tapped into some of the native magic we all know has lingered in these woods for centuries. It’s the magic heard in the whispering of the trees and the birdcalls, but it also seems to run through the water and ground itself. You feel it, too, don’t you?”
She hesitated, then nodded.
Sam continued. “It’s hard to believe, but Badger became able to transform himself into a werewolf. Enough of our people saw him do it that it cannot be doubted. He chose to pass on his evil to others, an evil of which my own son was a victim.” He decided to gloss over all the pain, for what was the point of sharing that? Then he went on. “I vowed to avenge my son and eradicate this evil, and I managed to complete the first part of that quest, but eventually I gave up…I became old and frightened, and I chose to sit by while the wolf returned among us, bearing his disease.”
“And now, now you want to kill him?” Her tone was anxious.
He paused. “I did,” he confessed. “But I’ve done a lot of thinking in the last few days, and I believe the creature we have here might be more akin to our traditional wolf—heroic, a defender of the tribe and our lands. I can’t put my finger on it, but it’s as if it has spoken to me. I no longer hunger for its destruction, though I’m ready.” He pointed to the shotgun. “He is vulnerable to silver.”
“That would be a…European trait?” Jessie asked.
His eyes lit up. “Yes! A blending of the traditions. Both Badger the shaman and my son succumbed to silver, so I know it’s not just a legend. Though they say Hollywood created it, it must have been based in truth. I’m ready for him if I’m wrong, but I think he is special and may need to be protected. Don’t ask me how I know. Perhaps these are thoughts my Sarah has passed on from the grave. God knows, I’ve been thinking about her a lot lately. So here we have this wolf, maybe a werewolf, who has never taken a human life around here. But now another wolf, a natural wolf, challenged him last night, and our original wolf was victorious. I heard them fighting in the woods. It was very frightening.”
He smiled sadly. “Though not more frightening than having armed murderers roving our forests.”
“No, I suppose not.” Thoughtful and clearly unwilling to show whether she believed or not, Jessie asked him pointed questions, which he answered truthfully. Yes, the so-called disease had spread south to Milwaukee, where it had been passed on to a boy, who had in turn passed it on. No, he had not learned of this new carrier until much later, when the wolf arrived. Yes, there had been one or two murders in the city that were possibly his doing, but not as many as one would have imagined for a creature that would need much protein.
“Protein?” she asked, startled. “Red meat?”
“Mounds of it, if he’s not eating large animals. I believe he subsists on small game—rabbits, field mice and the like. He’s probably staying away from deer, now that wasting disease is killing them all anyway. And no pets. I don’t sense that this wolf has ever taken a pet anywhere in our area, but I don’t know how I could ever prove it.”
She nodded, deep in thought. It was all Sam Waters had wanted to achieve.
“About the armed men… The local news radio labeled them terrorists, but I’m not convinced. Anyways, who knows where they are? And the wolf thing—it’s keeping me from my usual deep sleep. I don’t want to kill it, but neither do I want to be attacked. Hence, the shotgun. Do you have one? I can give you some shells filled with silver pellets, just in case.”
“I don’t have one,” she said, lying. Sam could see an old-fashioned gun rack in the other room, and among a handful of long guns it contained a shotgun nearly identical to his. “I don’t go out at night, lately. And… Well, I’m not really a believer.”
Somehow he could tell that she was lying again, or at least not voicing her doubts. She knows or suspects something, but won’t say what it is.
“Very well, Doc, I just wanted to fill you in on my
thoughts,” he said. “I should be going now.”
She offered him something to drink again, almost reluctantly, but he refused, saying he wanted to be home before dark.
“The full moon’s waning,” he said. “But I don’t know enough not to worry about it.”
He let himself be maneuvered back into the small foyer and out the door, his shotgun at the ready. “I hope you’ll think about what I said,” he reiterated, still not sure he knew himself exactly what he was telling her and why. Then it hit him. “Perhaps we are pawns in a game of destiny, and we must come to the aid of our protector.” He looked down at his weapon. “That’s a far cry from what I thought even an hour ago, but there you are. Maybe Sarah put that thought in my mind. Maybe the great Manito speaks through the wolf and I’ve just figured it out. Maybe both.”
She nodded. Too quickly. “Yes, Sam, I think you may be right.”
She hurried him out, and he knew he’d gone too far.
Damn it! He would have to find the wolf himself and test his theory. Then he would either kill it – or give it his blessing on behalf of his people. Whether or not the blessing was his to give.
He wished he could be watching his favorite DVD, drinking a smooth Corona with a twist of lime in the bottle and the hell with the gas. “Plastics!” he said to the swishing tree limbs above him, quoting the movie. If only it were so simple.
He went into the woods, where shadows were beginning to lengthen.
Jessie
She closed and bolted the door, shaken at the news. Sheriff Bunche, dead? Could it be? She felt tears begin, a natural reaction. She would make some calls, see if the county needed her help, or the clinic’s.
What about all the magic stuff?
She pondered a bit. It was far-fetched, of course. But it fit the thoughts and feelings she’d been having. And Nick’s frozen meat selection was so much larger than even the most avid red meat lover’s. But wasn’t that ridiculous? Wasn’t she just seeing it that way because she wanted to?
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