The Wolf Road (10 page)

“Elka,” I said. Figured I owed him a speck a’ truth after what he did.

“Strange name.”

“My daddy said I came out my momma with antlers big as a ruttin’ stag. Damn near killed her. Cut them off when I was a yearling,” I said, smiling wide. “They left for the North soon after.”

Nod. Nod. All that bobbing was churning my belly.

He wouldn’t look at me no more, kept wringing his hands like he was itching for something. He put my teeth on edge, and I figured my welcome was just about used up.

“Thank you kindly for lettin’ me share your table,” I said, standing. “But I best be on my way now.”

The deer horn on my knife dug into my side and I felt my toughness come back.

Matthews’s half smile fell right off his face. “Lyon won’t have got far. You’d best wait a bit longer,” he said, then all quiet and wistful-like added, “It won’t be long now.”

All at once my head fuzzed up, turned me dizzy, and I slumped back down on the chair. Figured I’d stood up too quick, but the bright spots weren’t going away.

“Good idea,” I said.

The world was swimming ’round me.

“Not long now…” he murmured, all sweet like he was cooing a baby to sleep.

Everything went dark and I woke up facedown on a cold table.

I couldn’t move no more’n to breathe. My arms and legs were spread wide, held tight with iron chains. My knife weren’t digging into my side no more. My flask weren’t knocking ’gainst my leg no more.

I quick realized with shaking in my bones and ice growing to a blizzard in my gut, that I weren’t wearing a stitch of clothing. Blurring filled my eyes but I saw Matthews knelt on the floor beside the table, praying with something, maybe a knife, ’tween his palms.

“Dear Lord, bless this child, your lamb,” he said to the blade, but his words sounded like they was spoken through cotton wool, “bless this home and all who contribute and may this sacrifice ensure a mild and safe winter for us all.”

Crazier than a three-peckered mountain goat.

“Goddamn son of a bitch!” I shouted with all the voice I had, but he just prayed harder.

I raged against those chains, but they weren’t giving an inch. I couldn’t figure how I’d get out a’ this. I couldn’t see nothing but Matthews. Couldn’t hear nothing but Matthews. Couldn’t feel nothing but cold steel on my skin.

I figured I was in the basement, but whatever that dog Matthews put in my water made my eyes swim and my head fuzz up and down; my ears throbbed and rushed and I couldn’t hear or see right. The bit of wall I could make out was stone ’stead a’ wood and the ground was dirt. Shelf in my eye line, all skewed and blurred in my eyes, stood behind kneeling Matthews and was full to brimming a’ canned meat and fish, boxes a’ greens and potatoes ’side it. Devil been good to this fella, filled his stores but stole his hair, and all it took was a bit of killing. Least he had a reason, selfish and skunk-shit crazy as it was. Kreagar didn’t have no reason. Kreagar didn’t have nothing.

I kept hollering and cursing at the good reverend but my words were slurred up and I can’t be sure I was even speaking ’em right. He didn’t move nor even blink till he finished his praying. Talking to God or the devil ’bout spilling blood and making friendly winter. Praying so the snow didn’t freeze his damn toes off.

“Ain’t no reason I got to die,” I shouted, but my words muddled up in my mouth and I didn’t reckon what was coming out was what was meant to. “What in hell I done to you?”

“Hush now. The lamb must be bled and its sins must flow from the vessel as commanded by our Lord.” Every word was buzzing like he was made a’ flies.

“I ain’t…lamb,” I think I said, felt sick rising up in me.

“You, Elka, are full of sin. I see it in you like a taint. The lamb we had picked for the service on Sunday, well, she was guilty of lusting after several men, but if Lyon is to be believed, and her honesty is unfaltering, then you are guilty of murder. The worst sin.”

“I…killed no one. She didn’t, said I…I…” I tried, but my brain weren’t playing fair. I strained at them chains, trying to ignore the pain throbbing in my head.

“Whether you took the life or stood by as someone else did, you are guilty and your hot, devil blood will thaw our winter.”

Them words, or what I thought I heard a’ them, stuck in me. Was I guilty if someone else did the killing?

“May you guide my hand and my blade to bring glory to your name, O Lord,” Matthews said, then stood up and came close to my head. He held the knife, the bastard,
my
knife, in one hand and I swore blind I would rip his heart out and feed it to the devil myself.

Steady hand. Not a tremble. He’d done this plenty no doubt.

“Best if you’re relaxed, young lady,” he said, soft like he was offering another bowl of chili. “Now, you’ll feel a little sting.”

He stroked my hair and I wanted to bite his damn hand off.

With my own knife he cut me. Starting from my left elbow he dragged the blade up my arm, cross my back, and down to my other elbow. I didn’t scream or nothing. It didn’t hurt that much though I reckoned it went pretty deep. I’d had a worse whipping from Trapper in my time but it was the principle that stung more’n the blade. Felt warm blood run down my spine.

“First you will be marked with the cross so the Lord knows you are for Him,” Matthews said, and cut me from neck to nethers.

Heard a floorboard creaking up in the homestead. Least I think I did. Maybe them drugs was telling my head what it wanted to hear. Or maybe Lyon had come back.

“Get this crazy bastard off me!” I might a’ shouted. “He’s got a knife! Hurry it up!”

“No one can hear your foul language here,” Matthews said, then he went off somewhere I couldn’t see and I heard a sack dragging on the dirt.

Nobody came rushing to my rescue, no one yelled back, and I didn’t hear no more creaking. Fear started settling deep in my bones, putting a coldness in me that I thought would never leave.

“Second,” Matthews said, “the evil must be cleansed.”

Heard something strange then, like he was shoving his hand into snow, that crunching, gravelly noise that didn’t make no sense in this place.

Then I screamed. Then my sight went from blur to stark to black in half a second.

Matthews slapped handfuls of salt on my back, in those cuts, ground ’em deep into the blood. I screamed loud and fierce and with everything I had in me. My head went to mush and my eyes couldn’t see or hear or speak no more. I just kept on screaming, it was all I could do. Kept hearing him dig for more salt and the clanging of iron chains on the iron table.

Didn’t hear the footsteps.

Didn’t hear Matthews shouting.

My head was swimming in mud, struggling through pain and a thundering heart, struggling ’gainst death itself. This crazy son bitch was seconds from killing me. Cutting me open and draining me dry.

Thought I saw my knife, covered in my own blood, fall on the floor. Could a’ been just wishful thinking. Then a wave of hot water crashed over my back, soaked up all that salt, cut off the sting, but didn’t do nothing to clear my head. I didn’t even know where I was no more. I figured it was a dream or I’d wake up in the forest, next to the Mussa River, wet from swimming. This was a desiccation dream. I was dying.

Matthews gurgled and sputtered something, then fell heavy on the ground right ’neath my head, blood spurting out a gash cross his neck. Weren’t no dreaming that. It weren’t water what rushed over me. Different pair of legs walked around the table. Smell a’ woodland on ’em. Quiet as a wolf on the hunt. I was in the forest. I must a’ been.

“Morning,” I said, my voice all slur, felt the wet, gravelly earth in my fingers. Don’t know if I even said the word or just thought it. Whatever god there was watching was punishing me something awful. I was gonna die. I was gonna die on that table or by that river, wherever the hell I was. I kept saying it to myself, it’s killing me, it’s killing me, and I can’t do a goddamn thing about it. I opened up my eyes but I didn’t know they’d been closed and I saw Matthews on the floor. Terror cut the tongue out my mouth.

My head weren’t swimming no more, it was drowning and sputtering and gasping for air. It spun the whole room till I couldn’t hold my eyes open no more. Couldn’t see nothing for certain, couldn’t make no sense of what I was seeing neither.

Someone was in the room with me. Part a’ me hoped it was Trapper come to take me home. No. Weren’t no chance of that in truth. Must be some Samaritan or someone what hated the reverend. Only figured after a minute that the man was speaking. Words floated ’round above me but didn’t have no meaning to my ears, words like “killing” and “fire and flames.” Sounded right biblical, just like the reverend. The voice was muffled by them drugs and the salt and I couldn’t see nothing but blurred-up legs. Hell, you ever tried picking out a man by just his legs? Ain’t easy, even when you ain’t half-addled by bad water.

Whoever it was unchained one a’ my hands and one a’ my feet but I didn’t dare move.

Then he bent over me. I felt his shadow heavy on my back. He kissed me on the top a’ my bloody head and shivers went all down me. Some stranger doing that felt wrong, but there was a softness to it what mushed up my head even more. Time was I’d a’ stripped birch bark with my teeth to get that kindness off my Trapper. Don’t know if it was the pain, the blood, the salt, the smell, or Matthews’s dead eyes staring up at me, but that kiss set my stomach kicking and my whole body shaking.

Then whoever he was spoke, close to my ear, words what came clear and cold as lake ice. They was of a tone I ain’t never heard, full a’ venom and grit-tooth rage.

“Think on why I ain’t killin’ you.”

Then he was up the stairs, footsteps through the homestead, and gone. Tears and crying and blubbering came out a’ me like I was a babe what stubbed its toe. Stayed lying out like that, shaking and fearful, for what felt like forever. There weren’t no creaking up in the homestead, no doors opening or closing, no horse hooves clapping on the dirt. Everything turned quiet as a feather-fall on snow.

I bent my free arm, tried to push myself up. The cuts ripped, salt burned through the blood and set my teeth hissing. Funny feeling being buck naked in a stranger’s basement, sticky head to toe in his blood. But all that barely touched my head. All’s I could think was who in the hell just let me go? Some crazy fella what just happened to be passing? Someone what knew what Matthews was and what he did and didn’t like it none? Hurt my head just thinking on it. All them words the stranger spoke were fog and smoke in my head ’cept those last few.
Think on why I ain’t killin’ you.

Hell if I knew. Told myself it weren’t worth caring ’bout or dwelling on. You don’t stop to ask a bear why he ain’t chasing you. You don’t go questioning your fortunes or you ain’t going to get none.

Told myself all that. But that dark place inside me, what held all them things I ain’t supposed to remember, didn’t believe it for one second.

I twisted myself up my knees, felt like a hawk what broke its wing, not being able to move my hand none. I shook all over though I couldn’t figure if it was from pain and fear or being naked this close to winter.

The chain around my hand was held with naught but a steel clip, and I quick set myself rest of the way free. The dirt floor was turning to bloody mud what squeezed warm ’tween my toes like I was stepping on summer moss. Then I saw something what made me turn around and kick dead Matthews in the gut.

The wall at the foot a’ the table was a mirror. That crazy bastard wanted to watch himself killing in the name of his god. Like just doing it weren’t enough, he had to see his hand raise that knife and slice me up. Could see my own slicing in that mirror and my back, red with all kinds a’ blood and lumps a’ salt, was a cut-up mess. I kicked him again for good measure.

Every time I moved the salt stung deeper, sucking out my water like it was trying to cure pork. I thought about putting my clothes back on and getting shot of that place quick as flies off dung but I didn’t much fancy scrubbing Matthews’s blood out a’ my shirts for a week. There weren’t no well in the basement, so I picked up my knife. I knew somewhere deep that the stranger weren’t there no more, weren’t hiding in the closet. Weren’t no sense in killing me upstairs ’stead a’ downstairs.

I realized then, holding my knife, how bad my hands were shaking. I felt the tremble through all my bones and heard the flutter in my breathing. I didn’t hear nothing in the homestead. Nothing outside, save a cow lowing in the pen.

Came out the basement into a corridor the other side a’ the eating table. Naked, bleeding and stinging up something fierce, I went quick to the cooking place, looking for that water for rinsing. Pot of cold chili sat on the stove. Time was I would a’ eaten it to spite him, but my appetite was sucked out a’ me by the salt.

I wandered about in my skin, an angry stinging in my back in need a’ soothing. Didn’t see no tub for bathing and figured Matthews must have a well or stream ’round back to get water that cold.

One of the best things ’bout living close to the wild is you get to walk out your door in whatever you want and ain’t nobody around to say nothing. I was sure thankful for that when I walked out Matthews’s front door naked and painted red. Didn’t see no fella hightailing it across the plains, didn’t see no tracks neither but I didn’t care to look too hard.