by Lisa M Airey
She struggled to her feet. They assessed each other. “Could you court a woman, Hayden? Do you have it in you? There is strength and power in gentleness.”
She started down the path on unsteady legs. They were making good time, she thought, all things considered. It was early afternoon and her return route downhill was considerably faster than the uphill climb had been. She tried to work out the mathematical puzzle as if in grade school. If an airplane left Paris at 3 p.m. traveling at 375 mph and an airplane left New York at 5 p.m. traveling at 425 mph at what point in the 3,000 mile expanse of the Atlantic would they cross? As in grade school, the answer eluded her.
“Hayden?”
She called out for him and was startled at how quickly he appeared by her side. “I’ve not thanked you for saving me from Lync. Obviously, for a while there, I wasn’t quite sure which of you would have been the greater evil.” He gave a soft whine and looked away. “I just wanted to say thanks for saving me and also thanks for returning me.”
“I’m not exactly sure what I’m going to tell the police about all this,” she said thoughtfully. “I certainly can’t give them your name.” He whipped his head around to look at her. “I could say that Lync was attacked by a wolf. I could tell them that I was rescued by some reclusive mountain man who then decided he liked my company too much to give me up then changed his mind after three days of my non-stop chatter. What do you think? Plausible?”
Hayden shook his head dubiously.
“I’ll tell them you called yourself Holden Caulfield. You know, he was that messed-up character in Catcher in the Rye?”
Hayden growled softly.
“He was a total loser,” she said. “But he gets it together in the end.”
The wolf stopped and watched her pass.
“Do you know the story?”
He nipped her derriere as she walked by. It was just a light nibble, but she screamed, long, loud and piercing, releasing days of pent-up fear. The silence afterwards was deafening. She had paled and was rooted to the spot, her heart pounding violently within her chest. Hayden eyed her cautiously.
Before she could breathe a word, they heard voices. Lots of them. At the most, the search party was a quarter mile away. She looked off into the foliage, then back down at the animal at her feet.
“Why don’t you go now?” she whispered.
He ran a tight circle and then stopped quickly, his blue eyes dancing. He bolted into the bracken in front of her. She tried to track his frantic rustling, but lost him somewhere midst the trees. He re-emerged on two legs behind her. His sudden presence and his nakedness turned her hands to ice. She screamed again as he closed the gap between them.
“Goodbye, Julie,” he said softly. “I just wanted to say goodbye.” Then he turned and dropped back into the forest in a whoosh of pine branches.
She stood there a moment dazed and confused, then sunk to the forest floor. She could hear the shouts of the search party as they approached, but she was shaking so violently that she didn’t have the strength to call out. Someone would find her.
Someone did.
37
Big Boy emerged from the dark underbrush of the forest like a silent shadow. He was soaked in blood, but it was not his own. Escaping after Finn had been shot had been a narrow thing requiring a long and difficult detour. His muscles screamed and his lungs burned. But, truth be told, he hadn’t quit racing since the phone call in New York.
He saw Julie sitting silently midst the pine needles and approached slowly, crouching beside her, nuzzling her hand, begging forgiveness for not being there when she had needed him.
“He didn’t touch me,” she whispered staring off into the woods, “Though he wanted to. I fought a war of words, Gray. It was my only weapon of strength, but I won.” She paused. “You never told me about his entitlement to any female in the pack.”
He pulled back, his eyes a jet and lifeless black. He was haunted.
She wiped away a few angry tears. “I know you couldn’t tell me certain things, but I could have been better prepared. Your son, Bear, is strong within me, but he is very hungry and totally exhausted.”
She kissed his furry head and sagged against him, sobbing brokenly. “He has such fight, our son. Even in the womb, he gave me his strength. You should be proud.”
Gray sat up on his haunches and pressed his chest against her, his head over her shoulder. They were neck to neck. Then he made a sound she didn’t think a human or wolf was capable of making. It was part wail, part howl, part song.
Hayden listened to the cry from a distance, his heart also in his throat. He lifted his head and howled in response, his ache and loneliness crashing though the forest like a wounded animal.
She rested in the silence that ensued, but the shouts of the searchers were getting closer. “Go or change,” she whispered. “I worry about the guns they carry.”
Big Boy barked softly and moved away from her. When he returned he was a blood-spattered Gray.
The rangers air-lifted her out of the state park and gave her top-rate emergency care. It must have been the blood. Her clothing was soaked in it. She could see the shock on the faces of the search party when they looked at her. She must have appeared even worse than she felt. When they all started to converge on her and Gray in the clearing, she just closed her eyes and held on to him silently. The horror on their pale faces was too much to bear.
It was Dan who made the call for the chopper. She could hear the tight anxiety in his voice when he spoke. She shuddered and moaned softly, squeezing Gray ever so tightly.
“I won’t leave you,” said Gray. “I’ll be with you the whole time. I won’t leave your side.”
He didn’t.
When she awoke in the hospital bed, Gray sat beside her.
“You know,” she said, when her eyes opened. “We’ve got to stop meeting like this.”
Gray placed his chin on the mattress and touched his nose to hers.
“The baby is fine, right?” she asked.
He nodded.
“Good. I’ve named him.”
“Yes.”
“I hope you don’t take any issues with that. I was staked to the ground in a cave for three days. He’s my bear. He’s granite tough, I promise you.”
“Bear Walker. Done.”
“It’s a good name.”
“Yes.” He watched her carefully.
“What?” she asked.
“Do you still want me?”
The shock on her face was real. “And why wouldn’t I?”
“Because I’ve dragged you into a nightmare of epic proportions for one thing.”
She shrugged. “My choice, remember? And if I remember correctly, we’re already quite committed to each other. And for a lifetime, right?”
“Yes.”
“So your point is?”
“You’ve suffered a lot. I will want to hold you, Julie.”
“Gray,” she said, reaching toward him. “I hope you would like to do more than that. The moon is full. Get me out of here. Take me home. I’m your wife.”
Hospital discharge required a police interview. Lync was dead. Julie herself had been kidnapped and held hostage. Gray was found naked when the search party arrived in the clearing. There were a lot of questions. Dan entered her hospital room somber and concerned. He carried a box of doughnuts and institutional coffee in Styrofoam cups. She smiled at the sight of him. It was an automatic response. Then, she closed her heart and closed her eyes. It hurt to look at him.
“Hey,” he said softly to her. Dan nodded curtly in Gray’s direction, noticing how tenderly the big Sioux held her hand. Gray’s body was as close to the mattress as possible without physically being on it himself.
“I gotta ask you a few questions,” Dan said quietly.
“Can Gray stay?” she asked.
“I’m afraid not.”
There was a moment of awkward silence before Gray got to his feet and kissed her on the forehead.
Dan slipped into Gray’s chair, set the coffee and doughnuts on Julie’s meal tray and swung it between the two of them. “Dig in,” he said softly. “The sugar will do you a world of good. I understand he didn’t feed you much up on that mountain.”
Julie just stared at the doughnuts in front of her.
“Petey gave me a parking ticket,” she said, giving Dan a hostile stare.
“I apologize for that.”
Julie nodded.
“You wouldn’t see me or take my calls.”
“It was bad of me, I know. But I hurt too much to talk to you, Julie.”
“I was never anything but honest with you on all fronts, Dan.”
“That’s true. My fault for not listening. I’m very sorry,” he said. “Sorrier still that you didn’t think the force would protect you.”
Julie grunted. “And you know this because?”
“Because I’ve spoken with Cole.”
He nudged a doughnut in her direction. “Please.”
She tucked into the Krispy Kreme, thinking hard. “I’m not sure I’m comfortable with Cole’s breach of confidence.”
“You were kidnapped. He was trying to help.”
She took a sip of java. “Crappy coffee.”
“Cole taught me how to make it.” That earned him a smile.
“How are you doing?” he asked, his voice sobering.
“Fair to middling,” she responded, staring at her doughnut.
“Can we talk?”
“A little bit.”
“I need an official statement.”
“I know. I will give you an official statement.” It wasn’t going to be a lie if she phrased it like that. Official statements are edited truths after all. She took a deep breath.
“Any time you are ready.”
“I don’t know where to start,” she said with a weary sigh.
“What happened Friday afternoon at the veterinary office? You were closing, yes?”
“I was,” she said. “I was closing. I got delayed by a walk-in emergency.”
She paused and her face clouded.
“I’m sorry, Dan,” she said. “What was the question again?”
“What happened at the veterinary office?”
“Ah.” She shook her head as if to clear it. “Well, I had a late walk-in patient. When I had finished, I heard a noise in the back room.”
“Lync?”
“Uh huh.” She frowned, contemplating. “You know, Dan, I did something really, really stupid. I went to investigate.” She closed her eyes, then opened them and stared off into space. “Have you ever watched those horror flicks where the buxom blonde comes home, notices a forced entry, flicks the light switch and the house stays dark. What does she do? She goes in anyway. Mind, you are watching this whole scene thinking, ‘Run, run!’ Does she run? No. Does she die? Of course she does.”
“You didn’t die.”
“No, but I had a very blonde moment.”
Dan smiled despite himself.
“He grabbed me from behind.” She paused, thinking. “I fought him as best I could, but he was inordinately strong. I know strength. My stepfather used his against me all the time, but this was unreal. He was savagely brutal.” A single tear ran down her cheek. She wiped it away brusquely and looked at him full in the face. “The more I struggled, the more violent he became. I thought he was going to rip me apart or break me in two.” She swallowed. “I stopped fighting.” She swallowed again. “I just stopped. He had my wrists tied in a flash. He half-carried, half-dragged me to his car and he did this so fast my head spun.”
“Where did he take you?”
“Directly to Gray’s home site.”
“Were you conscious? Did he talk to you?”
“Yes and yes,” she said. “He told me that he intended to kill me like the other women.”
“He admitted to the killings?”
“Yes.”
“They were both mauled by a wolf, Julie.”
“Yes, his pet wolf.”
Dan sat back in his chair.
“His pet wolf was waiting at the building site when we got there.”
Dan leaned forward in his chair watching her carefully. There had been wolf tracks across the plywood sub-floor at Gray’s home site, but no footprints. Truth be told, there were two sets of wolf tracks across the plywood. Lync’s naked body was found in the middle of them. His clothes were found discarded haphazardly on the walkway into the house.
“Did Lync admit to the rapes as well?”
“Yes,” she said, her voice catching. “He told me that he had needed to kill them so that he wouldn’t be hungry for them anymore.”
“Those were his words?”
“I’m paraphrasing. He said… I can’t remember what he said, but he felt that he had to kill them afterwards, so he could be free of them. Their pull.”
Dan scribbled a little more on his note pad and blew out a lungful of air. He looked up at her with steely eyes. “I remember you telling me of your encounter with Lync on the mountain. You said that you thought he was going to eat you alive.”
“Yes.”
“What happened at the building site?” She was silent for so long that he didn’t think she had heard him ask the question.
“Julie?”
She turned to him absently.
“What happened at the building site?”
She shook her head again as if dispelling something ugly and disquieting. In actuality, she was rehearsing her story, making sure she got it straight in her own mind before verbalizing it. Dan was sharp. She had to be very careful now.
“He kicked his wolf. He kicked it viciously,” she said. “I wasn’t sure why the animal got the brunt of his ire instead of me, but I was glad it wasn’t me.”
“The animal accepted the beating?”
“At first,” she said, “Then, it started to growl. At Lync. When it attacked, I ran. I ran into the forest. I ran hard, Dan. I ran so hard. But in the woods, I collided with a stranger, a man I’ve never seen. Come to find out, he had been in the brush when Lync and I had arrived and had watched the whole scene. He told me so.”
“Why didn’t he help you?”
She lifted her eyes to his meaningfully. “My thoughts exactly. I knew immediately that I wasn’t being rescued.”
“Who was he, Julie?”
“I have no idea. He called himself Holden Caulfield, as in Catcher in the Rye. Do you remember the story?”
“Vaguely. Was he African-American, Caucasian, Native American? How old? How tall? Any discerning features?
“He was… I don’t know what he was. He was not Caucasian,” she lied. “A young man. Brown eyes, black hair. Wiry build.”
“Could you give us a composite sketch?”
“I think so. I could try. He was an itinerant wanderer, I guess. I don’t know. Maybe he lived permanently in the Black Hills? I don’t know. But he didn’t untie me and he didn’t release me. He took me deeper into the forest. He had gear tucked away in each of the caves we slept in.”
“What were his intentions?”
“I asked him that very question. And he was very non-committal. He said that he wasn’t sure. It was obvious that he was grappling with issues. His conscience? Who’s to say?”
“I know that you were not assaulted.”
She nodded.
“Did he threaten you?”
“Every minute,” she said, and shivered. Her hand began to tremble so noticeably that she set her doughnut down. “I had no choice but to cooperate. But I worked on him with my words. I think I made him see reason.” She shrugged. “I’m sure I did, because he did release me.”
“You were in pretty bad shape when we found you.”
“At night, he staked me to the ground. Sometimes, he tended to my wounds, sometimes his rough treatment opened them.”
Dan pursed his lips with a frown on his face. “Can we go back to Lync for a moment?”
Julie nodded.
“He was naked when we found him.” Dan paused. “It is highly unusual for a man to undress before assaulting a woman.”
“Personally, I found that very frightening.” She swallowed and remembered Hayden stepping into the clearing right before she was found. The sheer raw manliness of him was deeply unsettling. “Do you remember me telling you about that day on the mountain when I ran into Lync?”
He nodded.
“I didn’t think he had assaulted anyone. He was neat as a pin. Obviously, he had undressed before her attack too. Stashed his clothes.”
Dan clicked his pen a few times.
“Gray was naked when we found you on the mountain.”
“I don’t remember that part.”
Dan was silent a moment.
He was silent a good, long moment. “Did you know that Cole is my god-father?”
“No.” She was genuinely surprised.
He gently placed a dog-eared, battered, and broken-spined book onto the hospital table between them. She knew the cover. A tiger stretched out comfortably within the confines of a lifeboat. She lifted her eyes to meet his.
He knew.
They stared at each other silently. Then, she closed her eyes.
“Cole tells me you met the tiger in the jungle the week you were so upset.”
“That was months ago, Dan Keating,” she said, her voice flat and dead calm. “It’s too late.”
“It’s never too late. Julie. You have choices.”
“Not anymore. I’m locked in, and I am locked in of my own choosing. It’s the best for all concerned.”
Dan digested that.
“Will Holden Caulfield resurface anytime soon?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you think that he might?”
She shrugged. “Hopefully not. I do believe that I convinced him to walk the straight and narrow.”
“If he does resurface, do you think that your tiger will be able to handle him?”
“My tiger?” she asked, feigning innocence.
“Gray.”
They locked eyes again.
“Gray is not my tiger, Dan,” she said, flipping the book over. “Gray is my wolf.”