The Wolf Road (11 page)

It was getting close to sundown and I wanted a shot of the homestead afore dark. I’d much rather be sleeping in the dirt of the forest than spending a second more’n I had to in that godless hole. No telling what demons might get woken by all that blood.

I went around back and saw a clutch of cattle cozying up for the night. Cattle trough is good for a bath as any tub. Big steel thing, longer and wider’n me and waist-deep standing, sat on the other side of the gate. I climbed over, flinching like a kid walking barefoot on gravel, leaving bloody smears all over the railings.

I lowered myself into that cold water and didn’t even try to quiet my screaming. A skittish cow bucked and hid herself on the other side a’ the herd but I didn’t pay it no mind. My back burned and goddamn I wish I’d killed Matthews myself.

All gentle-like I ran my shaking fingers up my arms, trying to fight the hurt. I washed off the blood and salt, cleaned up the cuts. The stinging eased slow and I ducked my head under to get the blood out my hair. I couldn’t right tell you the last time I had a bath. Didn’t much like ’em, seemed to take too long when I could a’ been setting traps or chopping wood. Quick rinse in the river once a fortnight was all I needed, though I confess I did take a few minutes more in that trough than was strictly necessary. When I got out, dripping and shivering, the water was red and I said my apologies to the cattle.

“Though it is most your rancher’s blood,” I said after thinking ’bout it for a second, “and he done killed a whole lot of you in his time. Drink him up and piss him out.”

Felt fresh blood trickling down my back, mixing up with the water, as I went back into the homestead. I found that crazy fucker’s bedroom and tore up one a’ his soft linen sheets. Made rough bandages and had a hell of a time getting them to fix. Ever tried to wrap up your back with trembling hands? It’s a crapshoot. Once I got them to stay, the pain eased up and I weren’t worried no more ’bout getting blood all in my coats. Left that room red as the basement and didn’t give two shits ’bout it.

I got my clothes and a few cans out the basement, quick saw boot prints in the red mud, making circles ’round the table and I didn’t fancy staying down there with them and dead Matthews any longer’n I had to. Found a backpack and filled it with them cans, few carrots and a bunch a’ them nice silver spoons. Found myself a tinder box gathering dust and let out a whoop a’ joy. It had one of them nice metal rods with a flat striker, few bits a’ wool and a fat strip a’ wax paper. All kinds a’ useful. I know stealing is one of them human rules you don’t break, but then so is murdering and Matthews was fixing to break that first.

I got out that homestead just as night was falling. I’d been in them walls half a day but my life had changed so much in them few hours. Lyon weren’t just after Kreagar; she had me in her sights and she was closing in. Them words,
Think on why I ain’t killing you
, swirled ’round in my head, mixing up with pictures a’ Lyon and Matthews and Kreagar, confusing me and putting cold fear in my chest the whole walk to the forest. Soon as I got in them trees the swirling stopped. Smell a’ mulch and bark and pine and dirt filled me up and calmed me down. I was in the wild and there weren’t no way Lyon or Kreagar or no one else was going to find me again.

For a month, I didn’t see hide nor hair of any other person. My life in them days leading to winter was walking, hunting, sleeping, walking. To tell the truth I was getting sick a’ walking. The snow was crawling down from the mountains in fat drifts and some mornings I woke up with a dusting a’ white around me. I kept the reverend’s cuts clean when I could, last thing I needed was my blood going rotten, but the sticky itching was burning up my back something awful and I weren’t nowhere close to a doctor. Not that I put much stock in their potions and tonics. Trapper said doctors were crooks ready to fleece you for a cup of whisky. He said they made you sicker so they could keep you coming back lining their pockets with coin. But when Trapper cut his hand and it went all yellow and wet and puffed up like a mushroom ’bout to spore, he was crying and whining like a weakling child. He was begging for the doctor to cure him and at the same time roaring at me for taking him to town in the first place.

Sickness makes babes and bastards of us all. I had no intention of letting my back go bad but it was headed that way. You can cut off a sickly hand, or least cut out the bad meat, but you can’t be cutting off your arms and back. I figured I had to stop all the walking and make myself a proper situation.

I knew where the road was but weren’t going close to it for fear a’ Lyon and her hawk eyes spotting me. But I stuck close enough to it, thinking that if my back did get bad, I could risk being found by a kindly soul.

From the road I went a mile or two west and came out the thick woods next to a pretty lake, water still as a pigeon full a’ shot. Trees around were good hazel and alder and elder, even a big ol’ oak reaching his branches south to the sun. He told me where I was at, made sure I kept my heading true. ’Round the lake I spied a stand of lush firs and bit farther, a whole damn
field
of ferns. Trees was full of scrabbling and chattering critters and I spotted nigh on ten rabbit runs without even proper looking.

I went to the edge a’ the lake and what I saw near took my breath away. The water was clear as glass, like it weren’t really there. The shale and rocks ’neath it were white and caught every bit a’ light the sun could throw on ’em. Near the middle, the water got dark and I guessed that’s where it got deep. I didn’t see no fishes in the shallows nor nothing what would say there was fish in there anywhere. On the far side a crag of rocks stood twice-me high and dribbled fresh water into the lake so soft the ripples didn’t make it all the way over to me. It was a perfect circle, this lake.

The air ’round there was warm too, when I breathed there weren’t no smoke and my skin didn’t go goosey when I took my coat off. No wonder them woods was full of birdsong and scratchings, I must a’ hit one of them hot spots Trapper was always rambling about.

“Them’s where you want to be, girl,” he’d say. “Never winter in them crater lakes. You could live the life of Riley all year-round. Heat off them Ruski bombs stays warm for a hundred years.”

I never asked who Riley was, but he sounded like one of them freeloading types. Didn’t matter though, I found myself standing on the shores of a goddamn paradise and I said to myself, Elka, this is where you got to stay for a spell and fix yourself up. You got water, you got food, and you got heat ’neath your feet.

BeeCee had taken some big hits in the Damn Stupid a’ course, and this place was one a’ them what people talked about. The trees were huge but I could tell they weren’t old, like whatever bomb was sitting in that lake was making the water rich so’s everything grew up super quick. I didn’t care none for the bomb, it couldn’t do nothing to me now, but it made the brush thick and green and ripe for hunting.

I did a quick bit of scouting and I found me a spot close to the crag, ’tween a stand of hazel and alder. Golden rule of outdoor living is go where the goods are, don’t be traipsing around bringing it all to you. That wastes everyone’s time and ain’t many things I hate more’n wasting time. In that spot I had me running water, trees for shelter, and brush for comfort. I figured I had a few hours afore sundown so I dumped the reverend’s pack and pulled out my knife. I found two trees just longer’n me apart, each with branches growing out the trunk about waist height. Perfect setup, that were.

I found a hazel trunk fat as my arm and, with my knife and a rock, chopped it down to use as my crossbeam. Set that up ’tween the trees, nestled nice and tight in the crooks of them branches. I kept my head on making me a little hut so’s I didn’t think much on my back and that sticky burning. Every time I hefted a bundle of branches, the cuts on my arms opened up fresh and sent aching through me. Could a’ screamed every time if I weren’t so damn determined to get this shelter built. Once I put my thoughts to it, ain’t no amount of suffering or sorrow going to stop me from getting a roof above me afore nightfall.

I stacked up skinny branches along the beam like a deer’s rib bones after boiling. All white and smooth and a hand’s thickness apart. Nice and close to keep me warm. I covered the whole thing in ferns and bracken and leaf litter, didn’t pay no mind to ticks and spiders, they don’t bother me if I don’t bother them. Maybe I’m using their home as roofing but they get a warm sleep and I don’t get rained on. Win-win and when you’re eking out a life in the forests you make the most a’ them little victories.

Found some nice dry tinder and a flint rock and set me a spark. Set that close to the entrance of my hut and built it up right nice into a crackling little blaze.

Night fell quick but the moon came out smiling and turned that lake into a mirror. It lit up my glade and I sat ’neath my roof, watching glow bugs dancing on the other side of the water. I ate some canned deer, care of the good reverend, and settled myself down. Something right serene about it, and to tell the truth, I ain’t slept better’n that night in a long while.

Soon as sunup woke me, I set a dozen snares and decided it would be a fine time to bathe my back. Trapper hated bathing. Said it made him smell too human and told the animals right where he was. I recall only one time he came back to our little home not stinking of sweat and dried blood. Said he did it to smell
more
human and fit in with them other animals. I didn’t pay no mind to what he was saying back then, he often times talked in riddles but now I think back on it, knowing he’s a murdering son bitch, them words weren’t no riddle, they was instructions.

I stopped counting the weeks I stayed by that lake. There was magic in that water and my back healed up quick, leaving naught more’n thin scars crossing my skin. I did some exploring in them woods and found the edge a’ the warm. A small clearing ’tween the lake and the road was crisscrossed in tracks what looked human. One time I heard voices what I didn’t recognize as Kreagar or Lyon, but whoever they was they never came close. I never saw no one and I sure didn’t go looking.

Most days my snares caught a rabbit and I ate fancy. One day I checked my squirrel poles and found me a pigeon hanging by the foot, flapping about and squawking. He’d near ripped off that foot by the time I found him and I tell you, he wouldn’t have lasted a day out in the wild, hopping about. I did him a kindness.

He was a bit small and the only good eating on a small bird like that is the breast. Trapper taught me a trick when I was eight for getting in and getting out quicker’n a fox after your chickens. First I broke the poor devil’s neck, nice and quick-like so the meat didn’t have no time to tense up with fear. Couple a’ twists and a few sharp tugs and I had his head and wings on the grass in a neat pile. No point being messy. Killing can be clean and neat if you don’t put no fury in it.

Pigeons are clever birds, see, no matter what the town folk say, and they keep seeds and nuts and whatever they been eating that day stored up in their necks for tougher times. This guy had a couple plump acorns and I figured I ain’t letting these go to waste. Acorns is good eating if you cook ’em up right. I put them in my pocket and dug both my thumbs deep in the bird’s neck. I’d always loved this part when I was a babe, feeling how the bird’s put together, all that fresh, bright blood telling me there’s goodness to be had. Hell, it was like touching God and seeing His thoughts when He decided on the design. Fact that it was so easy told me we was meant to be doing it. Even my young’un hands had enough strength to pull apart breast and back and turn that pigeon inside out. I opened it up like a juicy orange. Scraped out them guts and set ’em close and neat ’side the wings, then just peeled them breasts away in one clean chunk. Dark, purple, heart-shaped goodness it was, still warm and ready for roasting.

I took it back to camp and skewered it over the fire then cleaned myself up in the lake. Now, it’s just good manners and sense to clean up your kill site so’s it don’t bring bears and such right to your front door. Rules say you got to dig a hole and put them remains back where they came from. Bury ’em deep and say your thanks.

I waited too long afore going back.

Pigeon cooks perfect pink in just a few minutes and when I smelled that meat, all them sugars in there browning, turning sticky-sweet, that fine alderwood smoking it up to a crisp char, I didn’t want to leave it for a second. Two bites a’ breast and gone. Better’n rabbit any day. I weren’t going to let that crown burn or dry out, no sir. But I sure should a’ cleaned up them guts and wings quicker.

As I got close to the site, I heard crunching. Sharp teeth on weak bone. I froze. Felt cold for the first time since getting to that lake. I stuck close to a fat trunk and peered ’round the bark. White downy feathers puffed and scattered about the grass, like they was trying to get flying again though their owner was in pieces. It was all crunch, crunch, puff, puff.

It weren’t a bear, that’s for sure, didn’t make enough noise and wouldn’t be bothering itself with something so scrawny as pigeon guts.