The Wolf Gift (45 page)

As for the nights, Reuben felt certain that he now had the Wolf Gift entirely under his control.

For the first three nights after he last saw Stuart, he held off the change altogether, and gratifying as this was, it soon resulted in a kind of agony. It was like fasting, when one finds out how much more food and drink are than mere sustenance.

After that, when the change came, he confined himself to the woods near Nideck Point, hunting, roaming, discovering the creeks of his property, and climbing the tallest of the old-growth trees to heights not attempted in the past. There was a bear hibernating in his little forest, some sixty feet up an old fire-scarred tree; and a big cat, most likely the male cub of the mother he’d killed, was roaming Reuben’s part of the woods as well. There were deer he did not want to slay. But the sleek plump furry squirrel, wood rat, beaver, shrew, shrew mole—he fed on them all, and on cold, surprisingly tender reptiles—salamanders,
garter snakes, frogs. Fishing in the creek was heavenly, his giant paws soon capable of snaring any sleek darting prey he chose. High up in the canopy, he could snatch the hapless scrub jays and wrens right out of the air, and devour them feathers and all while their little hearts still pumped vainly against their tiny narrow breasts. He feasted on the woodpecker and on junco and an endless supply of thrushes.

The utter “rightness” of devouring what one killed fascinated him, as did the desire to kill in the first place. He longed to wake the hibernating bear. He wanted to know if he could best it.

Far to the north where the forest grew as thick as it did on his own land, he caught the scent of the bull elk and longed for it, but didn’t go after it. He dreamed of fields of sheep, of scattering them with a roar, and chasing down the biggest to rip into its woolly neck with his fangs, and gorge himself on the hot breathing mutton.

But he wanted to remain unseen, unnoticed in his own territory, and was never too far away from Laura, in her bower of white lace and flannel in the big master bed, whom he would awaken on his return with beast paws and beast kisses.

But was it enough, these blissful nights in the enchanted woodland that was his own? It was the pale shadow of the raucous urban wilderness that lay to the south, beckoning with its promises of thousands of mingled voices.
Garden of Pain, I need you
. What were the songs of beasts to the cries of sentient souls? How long could he keep this up?

In a way, the days were easier, even with the police coming and going.

He studied all the werewolf literature, the books, the “reports” of man wolf sightings the world over, from the Yeti of Tibet to the Bigfoot of California. He combed the records of the world for mentions of the distinguished gentlemen over the mantel and found nothing.

He learned the house in all its different ways, thinking all the while that it might well be turned over to Felix in the days to come, but for now it was his, and he would continue to love it and know it. He searched now and then for yet undiscovered rooms and doors and so did Laura.

A band of local Nideck people came to the door. Nina, the little high school girl he’d met on his very first night here with Marchent, was used to hiking the forest behind the house, and Galton had warned them away. In tears, she explained what it meant to the locals to roam the property.

Laura invited the hikers in for tea, and a compromise was worked out. Anyone could hike the paths by day, but no camping at night. Reuben agreed to it.

Later on, Laura confessed that she knew what it meant to those people to be able to hike these woods, she really did. And sometimes she wished there were more of them around. There were times when she felt so utterly alone here.

“I’ve never been afraid anywhere ever in my life,” she said, “least of all in the California forests. But I could have sworn yesterday there was somebody out there in the trees, somebody watching.”

“Probably one of those hikers,” said Reuben with a shrug.

She shook her head. “Not like that,” she said. “But you’re probably right. And I have to get used to it here. It’s as safe as Mill Valley.”

They agreed it might well have been one of the reporters.

He didn’t like her being worried by anything. He was confident he would hear and scent anyone of malevolent intent. But she couldn’t. And he resolved not to leave her alone unless it was absolutely necessary.

He moved heaven and earth to have a big mechanical gate installed on the private road that led to the property, just to stop the vehicles of the reporters who were now revisiting the site of the original Man Wolf attack in light of Stuart’s growing fame. Of course the reporters and cameramen came on up the road on foot, but at least they couldn’t drive to the front doors.

Galton said over and over the story would die down like it had before, not to worry. He had a small crew coming and going to renovate the bedrooms on the front of the house, with new wiring, fresh paint, and all the appropriate electrical and cable connections.

This is what it means to live in such a house, Reuben thought, or what it would mean for a while. The quiet would come again. And so might Felix.

Laura took the conservatory in hand and made of it a splendid paradise, with giant weeping ficus encircling the smaller orange and lemon trees, while she brought flowering vines of all sorts—honeysuckle, jasmine, morning glory—to climb the iron-ribbed walls with the aid of delicate trellises. There were potted rose trees now with picture-perfect blooms. And the orchid trees were fully recovered from their long journey and heavy with spectacular blossoms. Laura slipped small virtual-sunlight lamps into nooks and crannies to supplement the pale northern
sun. And a handsome Victorian white enameled woodstove was found to take the chill out of the room and provide a warmth the plants would welcome, as well as Reuben and Laura dining every night before the fountain on the white marble table.

Halfway into the week, Reuben astonished himself.

He did not know quite why he did what he did. But he found a small secondhand computer shop in Petaluma that did not have video camera surveillance and, dressing in his hoodie and sunglasses, he purchased there two laptop Apple computers for cash.

He was angry with Felix for vanishing without a word. He was sick with worry about Stuart. He was ravenous for the succulent evil of the southern cities.

And so he created an e-mail account under the name Vera Lupus exclusively for one of these computers, and wrote on it a long letter from the Man Wolf to the
San Francisco Observer
.

This letter was a great sprawling uncontrolled document and it was really an angry appeal to Felix Nideck to please come back and help him!

All he had to do to send it anonymously was drive into any city, park somewhere near a hotel or motel, beyond camera reach, and hook up to its Wi-Fi network, and hit
SEND
.

No way could the e-mail be traced back to him or to anyone.

But he didn’t send the letter. It was too full of pleading and rage and admissions of not knowing what he was doing. It was too full of self-pity that “there was no wise guardian of secrets” to guide him. It was his own fault, wasn’t it, that Stuart’s life was at risk? How could he blame Felix for this? One moment he wanted absolution and understanding. The next he was wanting to hit Felix.

He held on to the Man Wolf’s letter. He hid the computer in the old steamer trunk in the cellar. And he waited.

There were long dark times when he thought, If that boy dies, I will kill myself. But Laura cautioned him that he could not leave her, or leave himself, or leave the mystery—that if he meant to do something so brutal and terrible to himself, then he might as well give himself over to his mother and to the authorities. And when he thought of what that might mean to Felix, well, he backed off from all such ideas entirely.

“Wait for Felix,” she said. “Keep that in your mind. When you become like this, think: I will not do anything until Felix comes. Promise me.”

Jim called more than once, but Reuben could not bear the thought of telling him about Stuart. He got off the phone as quickly as possible.

As for Laura, she was battling her own demons. Every morning, she went down the long steep perilous trail to the beach and walked for hours near the cold banging surf. (Reuben found the path just about impossible. And the ocean wind turned him into a block of mean-spirited uncooperative ice.)

And for hours as well she walked in the woods, with or without Reuben, determined to conquer her new fear. Once, from the beach, she saw someone high on the cliffs, but that was to be expected.

Reuben was on edge whenever she went out, listening with the inner ear of the wolf to the world that surrounded her.

It crossed his mind more than once that there could be some other Morphenkind out there, some vagrant being of which Felix knew nothing, but he had no real evidence of such a thing. And he trusted that had it been possible, Felix would have warned him. Maybe he was romanticizing Felix. Maybe he had to romanticize him.

Laura brought back tender little sword ferns for the conservatory and nursed them in specially prepared pots, and collected beautiful rocks and pebbles for the basin of the fountain. She found interesting fossils in the gravel driveway beneath the kitchen windows. Then she pitched herself into work on the house, restoring the historic William Morris wallpaper in the old bedrooms, or directing the workmen who were repainting the crown molding and other woodwork. She ordered curtains and draperies, and began an inventory of the china and silver.

She also found a magnificent Fazioli grand piano for the music room.

She began to document the Nideck forest with her camera. By her calculation there were some seventy-five old-growth redwoods on Reuben’s land. She estimated their height at over two hundred fifty feet; there were Douglas firs that were almost as high, and countless young redwoods, western hemlock, and Sitka spruce.

She taught Reuben the names of all the trees, how to recognize the California bay tree, and the maple, and how to tell the fir from the redwood, and how to recognize a host of other plants and ferns.

In the evenings, she read Teilhard de Chardin, just as Reuben did. And other works of theology and philosophy, and sometimes poetry. She confessed that she did not believe in God. But she believed in the
world, and she understood Teilhard’s love of the world and faith in the world. She wished she could believe in a personal God, a loving God who understood all this, but she didn’t.

One night she burst into tears as they talked of these things. She asked Reuben to bring about the change, and to take her out and up into the forest canopy again. He did. For hours, they roamed the upper branches. She was fearless of the heights, and gloved and dressed in tight-fitting black campers’ clothes that kept her insulated against the wind, and likely invisible in the dark to any prying eyes, as Reuben was. She cried against his chest, inconsolably. She said she would risk dying to have the Wolf Gift, there was no doubt of it. When Felix comes, if Felix has the answers, if Felix can somehow direct, if Felix knows how … they speculated for hours. Finally when she was drowsy and calm, he carried her down to the forest floor, and brought her to the creek where he so often fed alone. She bathed her face in the icy water. They sat among the moss-covered rocks as he told her all the things he could hear, about the bear that slept not far off, about the deer moving in the dark enfolding shadows.

Finally, he brought her home and once again they made love in the dining room before a raging fire in the old grim medieval black fireplace.

In the main, she was not unhappy. Far from it.

The western-facing bedroom chosen for her office had been refurnished with a glass-top desk, several attractive wooden filing cabinets, and a large easy chair with an ottoman for reading, the beautiful old antique furniture relegated to the cellar.

Marchent’s old room no one touched. Someone, likely the law firm, had packed up all Marchent’s personal things before Reuben had ever come back to the house, and now it was a lovely spacious bedroom done in pink chintz and white ruffled curtains, with a white marble fireplace.

The study and adjoining bedroom that had belonged to Felix, which completed the western row of rooms at the northwestern end of the hall, remained a sanctum.

Laura and Reuben cooked all meals together, and did the errands together. Galton handled almost all the real time-consuming problems of the property.

Laura had done a lot of thinking, true, she admitted, about how she could easily accept the brutality of the Man Wolf’s attacks. She did not
know the answer. She was deeply in love with Reuben, she said. She’d never leave him. That wasn’t even conceivable to her.

But yes, she thought about it, thought about it night and day, the drive we have for revenge against those who are cruel to us, and the cruelty of revenge and what it does to those who give themselves over to it.

True, she wished he could hunt the forest forever, that he would never again go to the mysterious voices that called him. But she could not explain away the fact that the voices did call, and every day the press elaborated in more detail the spectacular “fallout” of the Man Wolf’s “intervention.”

The beneficiaries of his savagery captured the imagination of the press as much as the criminal victims. The old woman of Buena Vista Hill, having suffered excruciating torture before the Man Wolf burst into her window, was now mentally recovered from her ordeal and granting interviews. She said boldly on camera that the Man Wolf should be caught alive, not shot down like a beast, and that she would devote her fortune to supporting him and protecting him if he were captured. Susan Larson, the Man Wolf’s first “contact” in North Beach, also lobbied hard for his “safe” capture. To Larson, he was “The Gentling Wolf,” because of the way that he had touched her and comforted her. Meanwhile Man Wolf fan clubs formed online and on YouTube, and at least one famous rock star had written “A Ballad of the Man Wolf,” and other songs would shortly follow. There was a Man Wolf Facebook page, and a Man Wolf poetry contest on YouTube. And a whole variety of Man Wolf T-shirts had appeared.