The Ultimate Werewolf (23 page)

"It must have been hard, traveling across the prairie alone."

She shrugged. "No harder than for a man."

He nodded. "That's hard enough."

She studied his face, then allowed, "It was hard."

"Working a homestead alone is hard," he said. "Lonely."

"I'll do all right," she said.

He looked down at her, watching her face. "Why'd you come into town?" he asked her. "Looks to me like you could have just turned south without stopping."

She frowned at him, her expression stubborn. "I needed some supplies."

"Some company, maybe." She didn't answer. His hand tightened on hers. "I have a nice cabin on my land. I have some stock. I could be a good husband to you."

"Ah," she said, studying his face, "but could I be a good wife?"

He looked down at her small dark face, her stubborn eyes. He knew she was wild, but he liked wild things. There were things he wanted to say, but he did not know how. "Come and marry me," he said. "I'll take care of you."

"Ah, Jem," she said. "But who will take care of you?"

"I'll take care of myself. I always have," he said. He put a hand on her shoulder and pulled her close. She leaned against him and put her arms around him. He felt the warmth of her body against his.

"As you please," she said. "I will come with you."

▼▼▼

She said she had no use for preachers. And so the next day, when her pony's foot was well enough for travel, they rode south along the Willamette River, following the trail worn by emigrants who took the southern route and cut north to reach Oregon City.

The Willamette Valley narrowed and the evergreen trees grew thick and tall around them, filtering the late summer sunlight. They rounded a bend in the trail and a shaft of sunlight, like a blessing from heaven, shone on the trail ahead.

The trail climbed out of the valley, up the rocky slopes of the range known as the Calapooeys. As they came around one bend in the trail, a grouse flew up from beneath the hooves of Nadya's pony, and she brought it down with a single shot, quicker on the draw than Jem. "Dinner," she said to Jem and scrambled down the rocky slope to fetch the bird.

After they left the settled areas behind, she began to sing as they rode, lilting cheerful tunes that reminded Jem of French folksongs. He could not understand the words. When he asked her, she said they were songs her father had taught her. She would not translate the words. "Maybe later," she said. "Maybe later."

They camped that night on the lee side of a rocky ridge, where a spring burst through the earth and made a pool of clear, cool water.

Jem cut branches from
the
cedar trees-and covered them with a blanket to make a fragrant mattress. He built a fire of fallen branches. Nadya plucked and gutted the bird, then roasted it on green sticks that she cut with her Bowie knife.

As they sat by the fire, the moon rose: nearly three-quarters full, a lopsided shape hanging above the ridge. In the distance, a wolf yapped and then howled. The single voice was joined by a chorus of wailing. Nadya listened.

Jem touched her shoulder, feeling her warmth through the flannel shirt. "Come to bed," he said awkwardly.

On the bed of cedar boughs, Jem put his arms around her. She came to him, surprising him with her willingness. She unbuttoned his shirt and he felt her small cool hands against his skin. In the distance, the wolves yapped and howled. She shivered then, pressing closer to him.

"Ah, now." He was suddenly tender, knowing that her talk was partly bravado: she was not as fearless as she had seemed. "You're safe with me. Don't worry."

He caught a glimpse of her face in the moonlight: a flash of grinning teeth, a glitter of dark eyes reflecting the moonlight. "I'm not worried," she said. "Not worried at all."

Her body was pressed against his and the tension within him was concentrated now. He could feel the fabric of his trousers rub against his penis when she shifted her body. Through her shirt, he could feel the warmth of her breasts.

His fingers fumbled with the buttons of her shirt. She made a soft mewling sound that merged with the distant howling of the wolves. There was rough wool against his skin, warm breasts beneath his hands, the scent of cedar and woodsmoke, the distant howling of wolves. The wolf howls merged with Nadya's breathy cries as he pushed himself into her body and exhausted himself inside her. He fell asleep, holding her in his arms.

In the morning, he woke to find she had slipped from the bed without disturbing him. She stood by the burned-out fire, her head cocked to one side as if she were listening. Jem could hear nothing. In the dawn light, she looked as insubstantial as the white mist that curled between the trees. She could blow away with the breeze, he thought, disappear with the morning sun. "Nadya," he said, seized with the sudden fear that she would vanish.

She shifted her gaze to him, her eyes intent.

"What are you listening to?" he asked.

"The forest."

"Come back to bed and warm yourself."      

She returned to him. When he kissed her, she took his ear between
^w
her teeth, growling softly.

"Crazy Wolf," he said. "Be careful with that ear." She nipped it sharply and let loose a laugh that echoed from the \ trees.

His cabin was a single-room building, constructed of yellow fir logs. He !
_v
had carefully filled the gaps between the logs with clay from the nearby ! „ stream, packing the clay tightly to keep out the winds of the coming j, winter. A clapboard roof kept off the rain. The floor was hard-packed dirt.

The windows were closed with wooden shutters, and he hurried to t open them and let in light and air. There was a stone hearth and a t chimney to let the smoke out. For furniture, he had a single stool, constructed of roughly hewn fir, and a narrow bed platform piled with I; buffalo robes.

Looking at the bleak interior, Jem said quickly, "I'll build you a table first. And another stool. And a bed—we'll need a proper bed."

He glanced at Nadya's face, but she was not looking at the dark j
^?
interior. She stood at the window, looking away into the trees. "Just as ^ you said," she said. "A lovely place."

Within a week, he had built a table and a bench and two chairs and a ^ bed of cedar wood. Nadya worked by his side. Together, they harvested ^ the Indian corn that he had planted last spring and put it to store for the winter.

▼▼▼

On the third day, she started out in the morning with her rifle and returned with three summer-fattened grouse. If she had asked, he would have told her not to go hunting, but she did not ask. And when he mildly suggested that perhaps it would be better if he went hunting, she gave him a long considering look.

"I don't think so," she said in a cool tone. Her eyes looked greener 11 than they had before, or perhaps they were simply reflecting the ever-
_r
green boughs overhead. He studied her face, considered the grouse,
₍
and decided not to raise the subject again.

They had been in the cabin for just under a week when he woke j alone in their new bed. The cabin's wooden door was unlatched and the
c
night breeze had blown it partway open. Moonlight shone through the t

opening, painting the dirt floor with silver. Beside him, the blankets were cold, no trace of warmth where Nadya had been.

He waited for a moment. Perhaps she had stepped out to relieve herself in the woods, not wanting to wake him. He tossed back the blankets and went to the doorway. The full moon was setting and the first light of dawn touched the eastern sky with pink. The trees were wreathed in ghostly mist that drifted in the breeze. "Nadya," he called. "Nadya." In the corral, the horses pricked their ears and watched him.

The night air chilled him and he pulled a blanket from the bed and wrapped it around him, his mind still muddled with sleep. For a moment, he wondered if she had been a dream from the start. Then he saw her shirt and trousers hanging neatly on the peg beside the door. Real enough.

The moon set, and the first light of the sun sparkled on the grass of the meadow. He called again, his voice echoing across the valley. For the space of a heartbeat, he listened to the forest, waiting.

She ran from the shelter of the trees, naked and barefoot. She was laughing and breathless. He reached out and embraced her, wrapping her in the blanket.

"Where were you?" he demanded. "Where did you go?"

"Call of nature." Her eyes were bright with amusement. "Oh, it's a wonderful morning." She pressed herself against him and he embraced her automatically. Her skin was cool beneath his hands.

"You must have heard me calling. Why didn't you come back? You're so cold."

She shook her head, her eyes on his face. "I didn't hear." She wet her lips, looking up at him. "I know a way to get warm again."

She led him back to bed where she warmed him and he warmed her. He could not stay angry with her for long.

When he woke again, later in the morning, she was tending the fire and heating water for coffee. Her hair was neatly braided once again, not hanging loose as it had been the night before.

That day, he chopped wood for their winter fire. He felt the axe in his hand, the smooth wooden shaft rubbing against his palm. This, he thought, is real. The sharp sound of metal striking wood. The echo returning from across the valley. This is real. The fog and the darkness of the night—that is not real. That is to be forgotten.

He watched Nadya that day and the next day and the day after. Each evening, just before the light faded, she would pause in the midst of her chores. She would set down the water bucket, stop stirring the kettle, let the fire burn unattended. For a long moment she would stand on the edge of the yard where the meadowland gave way to tall trees, and she* j would stare into the gathering darkness. Then, without a word, she u would continue her work.

Sometimes, he listened too, struggling to hear what had caught her
n
attention. But he could never hear anything unusual. Once, he asked her what she heard. She had smiled and shrugged and dismissed the v question. "Nothing. Just listening to the birds." I

At night, Nadya sat by the fire. Sometimes, she wrote in a small, ||f leatherbound book. She said that her mother had given it to her. Jem | n watched her write, scribbles of dark ink on white paper. He had never learned to read; that skill had not been particularly useful around the i fort. But watching her now, he wished he could read. He watched her * pen move across the page and he knew that she was writing secrets. When he asked her what she wrote, she shook her head. "Nothing
¹
important."

As the weeks passed, Jem noticed that Nadya was growing restless. ' When the wolf pack that roamed through the area howled, she would go to the window and listen. She tossed in her sleep and muttering in a language that he did not understand. When he asked her what was
¹
troubling her, she shook her head and said nothing.

Late summer had turned to fall when he woke again to an empty bed.
^:
He threw off the blankets and went to the door to stand in the cold crisp air. The first snow had fallen in the night; a thin white powder , clung to the ground. By the light of the full moon, he saw Nadya's footprints in the snow: bare feet crossing the yard and entering the forest. He called once, but got no answer.

He dressed quickly, took his rifle and a lantern, and followed the trail of her footprints. Just before the trail entered the shelter of the trees, the footprints changed. The delicate prints of his wife's bare feet disappeared. The trail continued unbroken but the prints were those of a wolf.

Jem squatted in the snow, examining the prints. Woman. Then wolf. He shook his head, chilled and frightened. He held the lantern high, its yellow light casting a circle on the snow.

He followed the trail of the wolf into the shelter of the trees, where the snow lay in patches. The fir trees blocked the moonlight. He held his lantern high, and it cast a circle of yellow light on the forest floor. He cast about, checking for footprints in each patch of snow. He found a few scratches where the wolf had pawed aside the pine needles to sniff at a rodent burrow beneath a fallen log. After that, just a hundred yards

into the forest, he lost the trail. He could not follow th(i-track by the uncertain light of the lantern and the moon.

"Nadya!" he called. "Nadya!" The trees swallowed his voice, giving nothing back.

He returned to the cabin to wait. He built up the fire, and sat on the wooden bench where he and Nadya sometimes sat together by the fire. He watched the fire burn and listened to the wind whispering through the chinks between the logs of the cabin. He did not know what the wind was trying to say.

The first light of dawn was shining in the cracks around the door when he heard Nadya's footsteps outside. She hesitated in the doorway, watching him warily. Snow had frosted her black hair with white.

"You must be cold," he said after a moment. "Come to the fire and warm yourself." He gave her the blanket from his lap, and she pulled it around her shoulders, still watching him steadily as she stood by the fire.