Wolfe Island

by Lucy Treloar

  ‘We have to go,’ Cat said, banging the door open. ‘Right now.’

  ‘Why?’ I said.

  ‘Sun’s up. A car slowed coming past here. We need to get going. Could be anyone around here.’

  ‘Right,’ I said, and put the cereal, the cups, the juice, in the box.

  Cat grabbed it from me and headed out the door. ‘Luis,’ she called, ‘Get the quilts. Come on now, Alejandra.’

  I forgot to pay attention to Girl. She was warning me, standing beside me with her ears up and sounding soft whines in her throat. A shadow passed the living room window making for the door. Alejandra stared at me, her mouth pulled back until I could see her clenched teeth and her clenched fists. Bad things had happened to her and her body was braced for more. I crept down the hallway to the front door, Alejandra behind me holding my jacket and tugging, weighing me down. (Oh, children, it’s what they do, they can’t help themselves; it’s wrong to expect otherwise.) I pressed my ear to the door and imagined someone doing the same on the other side, each of us wondering and fearful in our ignorance of what lay beyond.

  Girl, behind me, gave a terrible growl and I swung around. An old sort of man, with a white beard and a fat under-chin, stood at the end of the hall, gun in hand hanging at his side. The thumb of his other hand was tucked into his belt as if he imagined himself standing in the swinging doors of an old saloon. He tapped the muzzle of the gun lightly against his faded jeans and considered us both with interest and an eye to performance, glancing sideways into the kitchen and down the shadowy hallway at us. Alejandra pressed up against me, burying her head into my jacket front and I put my arm around her and shifted her around behind. Girl stood before me, close to the wall.

  ‘Can I help you?’ I said. ‘Who’re you?’

  He said, ‘Say that again?’

  I said it again.

  ‘I thought so from th’other day when you came by my house. Wrong address? Remember that? You one of them islanders?’

  ‘I don’t know which islanders you mean, mister. I’m from an island if that’s what you mean. Can I help you? Is this your house? I’m sorry if it is. It was empty when we came.’

  ‘Well—’

  The front door burst open behind me, cold air rushing in with Cat.

  ‘Who’s—’ Cat stopped and said softly, ‘Come here now, honey.’ Then she hissed, ‘Alejandra.’ The little girl’s grip on my coat and her warmth were suddenly gone. (I will note here that even though a child will likely not be able to protect you, there is something about them that seems to wrap around and protect a person’s spirit. Who would attack a child knowingly? I know that people do, but it is a shock each time to hear of it, and with Alejandra gone I felt less safe.)

  ‘We were just here for a night taking the kids back to my daughter,’ I said.

  ‘Two nights,’ he said. ‘Can’t both be hers unless she’s a whore.’ He chuckled at that.

  ‘No need for that talk. Cat here’s the other one’s cousin, and there’s one more. The two of them my son Tobe’s. They live with my daughter, all of them together. We didn’t think anyone would mind us staying for a couple of nights. We keep things clean. We don’t steal. We treat places right.’

  ‘Not my place, but I know whose it was, which I am guessing you do not.’ He put his gun into his belt and came bandy-legged towards me.

  ‘Right.’

  ‘It’s been empty since summer. We keep a lookout around here, a few of us. Make sure no one’s moving in on a place they’ve got no business with. Watch out for runners, dealers, burners, grifters, squatters. Only ones we approve are owners, renters and friends. Are you one of them? Don’t lie to me now.’ He came a little way closer – I touched Girl at the neck to steady her – and with his forefinger pushed the door open onto all the bedding pushed roughly back and the evidence of cooking from the night before. ‘Looks like a regular infestation. How many?’

  ‘Just me, like I told you, and my grandkids.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘And we’re leaving today.’

  ‘Which island you from?’

  ‘Sutters.’ I thought I’d keep my story straight. ‘I’ve been on the shore a while now. Years. You have some problem with islanders?’

  ‘I don’t suppose I do. Just seem to be sniffing around for work, what I’ve heard, what I’ve seen. Don’t belong round here.’

  ‘Not me. I’m not looking for work.’

  ‘I’m not saying I’m not sorry for you all the way things are going,’ he said, ‘but you’re not my business.’

  ‘That’s right, we’re not. We’re not doing harm and we didn’t ask for your company.’

  He paid no attention to that. ‘I turn on the TV, see a donkey stepping through a minefield, ain’t a damn thing I can do about it. Do I want it to die? No. Can I do anything? No. Should I? Why would I? Not my business.’

  ‘Seems like you’ve got all the answers.’

  ‘I’m saying that’s all you are to me.’

  ‘Donkeys in a minefield?’

  ‘More or less.’ He hunched his shoulder and allowed it to drop again. ‘Well,’ he conceded, ‘not you maybe, but her?’ He nodded towards Alejandra, some way behind me, Cat’s arm about her shoulder, holding her tight. ‘She don’t belong. She can get out of here.’ Luis came in the back door. The man swung around and stopped to get a good look. ‘Him too.’

  ‘They’ve been visiting and now I’m taking them home.’

  ‘Bullshit. You’re a poor liar, ma’am, I’ll tell you that now for your own good so you don’t try it again. They’re from down south. That so?’ He appealed to Alejandra and Luis, as if his pleasant tone would make them trust him.

  Alejandra was frozen, her face half-buried against Cat’s side. He was just a shabby man trying to feel big and it made me mad to see what he had done to a little girl. I should have held myself in at that moment, not let the anger in me find a pathway out.

  ‘I’ll be the one to tell you. This here is Cat, and these two, like I said, are my son Tobe’s children, but they’re not runners or anything like. Born here, same as you, same as me, and their father too, my son.’

  ‘They going to change that rule, don’t worry about that. That one-parent rule’s a piece of shit anyway, so they got nothing.’

  ‘They haven’t changed it.’

  ‘Yet. Some of us are expediting the situation, ma’am, around here and other places and have been for some time.’

  ‘We’ve got the law.’

  ‘Hell, darlin’, the law don’t even care about the law these days. Where you been?’

  I did not move or shift my gaze from him. ‘We’ll be moving on now, if you don’t mind. Could you start getting things in the car, Cat, Luis? You go on then. You too, Alejandra. Outside now, quickly. Understand? Get in the car. Wait there.’

  Cat nodded and threw open the door and they ran into the dank and clouded morning, vanishing into its drift.

  The man shifted uneasily. ‘I didn’t say they could go.’

  ‘I wasn’t asking for permission.’

  He looked behind – I don’t know why; considering how to retreat maybe – and then he faced us again and took a step towards me and jabbed his finger at me. ‘Don’t let me see you round here again. I’ll be talking to a few people about this, don’t you worry. I’ve got your plates and one of us’ll be seeing you again somewhere along the road.’

  Girl leaned into a crouch and her teeth showed white and a humming sound started deep in her chest and her throat.

  ‘I hate a wolfdog,’ the man said. ‘Can’t be trusted. Never turn your back on one. Asking for trouble.’ And he raised his gun, Girl leaped, and he shot, the bullet hitting the side of her chest. She hit the ground hard.

  ‘Told you,’ he said.

  Girl set up a screaming howl, her paws scrabbling.

&
nbsp; Then I pulled my gun.

  ‘What the hell, lady? Put that away.’

  ‘Drop it,’ I said, and when he didn’t I shot the gun in his hand, which flew up so sharply he might have been burned. He shook his hand from the sting of it.

  ‘Shit, what are you, crazy?’

  ‘Now get out. Run now. You better,’ I told him. I glanced at Girl, who was hardly moving now. There would be no saving her.

  He turned and ran, and I followed and the minute he was outside I aimed at his chest and thought better of it, though it was an effort, and pointed the gun lower and shot his leg instead, feeling nothing but the rightness of his pain and a moment’s satisfaction, and he fell like he’d been tripped by fishing line, straight down, smashing the ground. The back of his thigh bloomed the brightest red, like the old Abraham Lincoln rose that grew over our broken shed, and a sobbing caterwauling poured out of his mouth. He looked back and seeing my gun still raised lumbered to his feet and limped-ran to his truck, one hand clutching his ruined leg, which dragged behind him, holding just enough weight to throw his good leg forward. He was fast. Adrenaline will do that. I’ve seen it often in creatures in fear of their lives. Look what it had made me do. He flung the truck door open and heaved himself in, sobbing and screaming all the while – ‘Shit, fuck,’ and so on. The truck was moving away before the door closed. It wove up the drive away from his trail of blood, which stood stark as a lit fuse running along the dirt to the point of his departure. I wasn’t going to let him win – I’d save those pups even if there was no saving Girl.

  I ran back into the dark house, grabbing the sharp knife on my way through the kitchen, to my poor Girl. Hardly a minute had passed, but Girl’s eyes had stilled. Her blood was everywhere, seeping along the hallway, crimson and thick against the dark wood. I had not been at her side telling her I was with her to the end. There was no changing that and I knew I would regret it always – one more regret, and one of the worst. I crouched at her side and heaved the soft warm weight of her, spoiling her fur in her blood, onto her back so she was braced against my knees and drew the blade down her belly, a strong cut before I lost my nerve. And there, rummaging gentle and desperate in the meat of her belly, I felt some slight movement, and pulled aside glistening flesh to expose the lumpy pouch where the pups lay. A cut and there they were, little wet things, five of them, still but for one of the bigger ones, which twitched a paw and flexed its neck – just enough to give me hope. I pulled it free, wiping the goo from its nose, sucking with my mouth and spitting to one side, rubbing its little body. ‘Come on now, sweetie,’ I said, and sucked and spat again, and rubbed its body. ‘Come on.’ And when it began to move its four feet more strongly and to bob its head in a searching way, I took the knife again and cut the cord, and pulled the bottom of my sweater up around her to keep it warm. What on earth had I done? It was alive now, but how was I to keep it that way? ‘Don’t you die on me now. I have you safe. We’re going to be all right.’

  ‘Kitty.’ Luis was at the door again with Alejandra and Cat. ‘What happened?’

  ‘He shot Girl,’ I said. ‘She’s gone.’

  ‘Girl. Oh, Girl.’ Alejandra’s face was wet and pale; she was panting with her sobs.

  I rolled Girl back on her side and smoothed her flank. There was nothing I could do about her insides. ‘Stay on that side, Alejandra. That’s the way. You pat her if you want. She won’t mind. She’d like it. There.’ She knelt and stroked Girl’s fur, and between her ears and her forehead, so soft there. I touched her ears and brow and gentled her eyes shut so the death of her was hidden. I wiped my face. Alejandra howled. She threw herself into Luis’s arms.

  ‘It’s okay,’ he said.

  ‘It’s not,’ she wailed. ‘Girl. It’s Girl, Luis.’

  ‘I know.’ He held her tight.

  I stroked Girl again and got up, holding the little pup close, and stepped over the bundle of fur that Girl had become. ‘Look, Alejandra, look what I saved.’ She flinched at the sight of me, all blood-spattered and blood-soaked and sticky. I knelt before her and drew a fold of sweater back to show her the fragment of living fur, nosing blindly, hunting for food. I was in trouble now all right.

  ‘Oh, little puppy,’ Alejandra said, still sobbing. ‘What’s its name? What’s it called?’

  ‘It hasn’t got a name. I don’t even know what we have here.’ I took a peek and her tiny paws paddled the air. ‘A little girl. We’ll have to think of a good name. And something to keep her alive.’ I don’t know if it was my place, it probably was not, but I wanted Alejandra to know this: that something – someone – she loved had died, but there was something else that could give hope. There was no time to pause.

  Somewhere far away a horn sounded and did not stop. ‘What now?’ I said.

  Luis went down the hall and through the door and was gone. The horn went on. A minute or so later Luis came back. ‘That guy,’ he said. ‘He’s gone off the road. Into the ditch. Just . . . drove off the edge.’

  ‘Dear God,’ I said.

  We went outside, the tiny pup bundled up close under my sweater, moving a little, and half ran up the driveway, over the ditch bridge and turned onto the empty road. The woods had fallen silent – any living creature had made itself small and quiet and scarce and every bit of me screamed out to get into hiding with them, to conceal myself from anything drawn to that mechanical blare.

  A short distance ahead was the truck – stark white against the dun-coloured grass – nose and side into the wide water-filled ditch like it was taking a sideways sip at the water. The man’s head lolled against the steering wheel. Luis ran ahead, making for the far side of the car where it was listing on the road, but the door was locked and as I reached the car, my breath puffing out like a locomotive, he stepped without hesitation, though he did grimace, thigh deep into the cold water on the driver’s side and began beating at the window and worrying and heaving at that door too, which was also locked, the water swilling around him and washing back against the car as it rocked with and against the water. The water stirred up muddy and the miserable rank smell of rotten flowers in a forgotten vase lifted. Luis gave one last desperate heave, grunting, and the man’s head slid off the horn and there was silence again, which seemed now as loud in its own way as the horn had been. Nothing would mask the noise that we made now. Anyhow, there was no way in.

  Luis scrambled out of the ditch clutching handfuls of reeds, which tore free in his hands, and gouging fingers into the mud. On the road again, water streamed from his pants and pooled beneath him. Neither of us spoke. We looked in at the man, at the queer angle of his head and the limp splay of his arms at his sides. We didn’t need to touch him, to feel for his pulse or pound at his heart to know that he was as gone as Girl.

  ‘A rock,’ Luis said. ‘We can break the window.’

  ‘No point.’

  We stood together, breathing, air in and out, life.

  ‘What now then?’ Luis said without turning his head.

  ‘We wipe the car down. Every bit, any place you touched. We don’t want to have been here. And fast. We need to get going.’

  ‘I think you’d better,’ he said. He held his hands out, palm up. They were all over blood. He wiped them on his wet pants, and showed me again – all cut up in stripes from the grasses, the blood beading up, seeping across his wet hands like watercolour.

  ‘Here,’ I said. ‘Hold this.’ I pulled off my sweater and handed him the pup wrapped up in it, then got a handkerchief from my pocket and wiped the car all over, any place Luis might have touched. ‘Watch me now,’ I said. ‘Tell me any place I’ve missed.’

  He shut his eyes for a second or two. ‘Upper back left bonnet, rear catch, door handles, windows, roof above front doors, all around the trim.’ I stepped into the ditch, feeling the mud slide underfoot, the cold of it, trying not to hold on to any grasses, (that smell again – I thought I m
ight be sick) and lunged about, pulling my feet from the sucking mud. I looked around for any of his blood on the grass and with the bottom of my sleeve about my hand for protection tore the stalks of bloody grass free and pushed them under the water and swirled them until they were clean.

  ‘That’s good,’ Luis said.

  I held a hand up and he heaved me out. The water eddied behind. I thrust the handkerchief away. ‘Better see to your hands.’ I took the pup from him and we made our way back towards the house.

  Cat was waiting by the door. I shook my head at her questioning look. The cub-pup was mewing. I freed its head, which moved like a searching caterpillar, desperate. I looked at Cat.

  ‘Don’t look at me like that,’ she said.

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘In that way you do, like Girl. Stop.’

  ‘Cat,’ I said.

  ‘What the hell,’ she said. ‘This is not some old-timey fable we’re living. This is not The Grapes of Wrath. I am not fucking feeding it.’

  ‘Not directly. I’m not saying that. Cat, this is the last wolfdog of the island. It’s Girl’s.’

  ‘Let it be the last then,’ she said. ‘This family.’ But she turned some way towards me. ‘I have an actual baby here, in case you haven’t noticed.’ She held her out to me, practically brandished her. ‘Get me a cup or a jar or something then. I’ll see what I can do. For Girl. She would have fought.’