The Wolf Road (26 page)

“We’ll hole up here,” I said, “for the night. Talk about it again in the mornin’.”

She didn’t argue, nor did Wolf, ’cept for a gentle huff when I shoved him out the middle a’ the floor. I laid down beside him and listened to him breathing. Soft in-outs, calm like he didn’t have no care in the world. I suppose he didn’t. He was warm, he was out the weather, and he was with his pack, even if he didn’t much like one a’ the members.

Had a sick feeling in me, like before a storm. You know it’s coming but you can’t quite figure when. When I laid down to sleep that night, that’s what I felt. Even though I was with Wolf again, thing what felt right and as it should be, and with Penelope, girl what I came to see as more’n just a waste a’ space, I couldn’t find no comfort. I felt an itching at my neck, kind you get when you’re walking ’round town and keep seeing the same face no matter how many turns you take. Maybe it was being this close to Halveston and a shit-ton a’ people I didn’t know. Maybe it was knowing that soon as I walked into that town, I’d see myself and Kreagar in charcoal nailed to every post.

Lyon’s face came into my head. All ice and glass she was, not like a real person. She mouthed something to me. Some words I couldn’t make out. Words I didn’t want to hear.

Woke up to cold sunlight and a snoring wolf. Lyon stayed right there behind my eyes. Wish I’d known what she was saying in my head; them words was silent but something in me said they was true.

Penelope woke up soon after me. I changed her poultice and gave her some more water. Wolf sat up, eyes like hard stone set firm on the girl. Wish I could a’ known his thoughts. What was it about her he didn’t trust? She had secrets, sure, but they couldn’t a’ been all that worse’n mine. It nagged at me something fierce and made me look at her different.

Broad-spectrum antibiotics.

That’s what she told me to get from Halveston. She had to repeat it a couple a’ times, them fancy words don’t take quick to my head. I told Wolf to keep an eye on her but he wouldn’t stay in the hut, ’stead he sat outside the door and I couldn’t argue with that. I stroked his head, knelt down in front of him and wrapped my arms around his neck.

“Don’t you go nowhere,” I said right into his fur, “I need you.”

Wolf rubbed his head ’gainst mine and I knew he’d be there when I got back. It was only when I started down the hill toward Halveston that I wondered if I would be coming back. Had me a sick feeling that Lyon was in that town, had me a sicker feeling that Kreagar was too. I told my gut that Lyon was hunting Kreagar in Martinsville, way down south. All’s I had to do was get to a doctor, find them ’biotics, and get Penelope walking. Sounded easy in my head but Halveston weren’t like nothing I’d ever seen afore and it was ready to chew me right up if I put little as one foot wrong. Turned out I was ’bout to put both feet, both hands, and the rest a’ my whole damn body wrong.

Halveston was one a’ them towns what grew up quick. A boom town they called it, only a handful a’ years old. Filled with a mix a’ them what picked through mud for months and came back with naught but bleeding fingers, then there was those what found their fortune and threw it away on whisky and women, and last was them folk what preyed on both types; the claim runners, the brothel madams, the metal merchants what weighted their scales backward. Hundreds a’ people all clawing for yellow metal and rocks.

Halveston was a town a’ wood and rats and rust. The town had started as just one line a’ timber buildings. Them buildings got joined by another line, then the gaps ’tween ’em got filled with huts and carts, then the town spread out in all directions. Hard-packed road turned to mud at the gate and people a’ all kinds came out the woodwork. Men, women, blacks, whites, Chinamen, them Latins from the far south, even some hard-faced yellow-hairs with voices thick like molasses. Heard they walked over the ice up in the far Northwest; Trapper said that’s what them Ruskis did in the Second Conflict, came down on BeeCee from the top. Trapper said that place other side a’ the Bering was full a’ Reds but I weren’t seeing no one a’ that color. Figured he was wrong about that so maybe I should just forget all them things he told me ’bout people, ’cept how to kill ’em if I felt the need. Figured he’d know right how to do that. People in Halveston was giving them yellow-hairs a wide berth, few were shouting words I didn’t understand. Figured folk up here blamed them for the Damn Stupid which was a fool thing to do. They ain’t responsible for them bombs same as I ain’t responsible for that Ridgeway kid whose shoes I got. Gave one a’ them yellow-hairs a smile, while them others gave them grief.

People what grew from seed up here was stained, you could tell who was who quick as slapping a tick. Sallow cheeks and bent spines, most a’ them had one a’ them hacking coughs, some had twisted-up clubfeet, and I saw one what didn’t have no hands but was shelling nuts quicker’n I ever could. The locals all had a look about ’em what said they was sick but you couldn’t right place the ailment. There was just a tinge, a taint on ’em what put me on edge. You can tell a tree got rot by the color a’ the leaves and feel a’ the bark so you don’t go trusting it to hold up your cabin roof. These people was like them trees. You could stoke a fire with ’em all through winter but couldn’t right trust ’em to keep the rafters from crushing you while you was sleeping.

Halveston was a chili pot boiling up, for every gray local there was a hundred colors and sizes and I even saw someone with tattoos like Kreagar’s on half his face. I walked ’tween throngs a’ dark-skins chattering in a tongue I’d never heard. Sounded like they was rolling them words around their mouths a few times afore sending them out. Weren’t no single word I could make out but the rhythm in it was curious. Hundred tongues found my ears; harsh spitting ones, ones like honey dripping off a comb, even a couple a’ coal-black men clicking they tongues. My boots sucked and squelched in the mud, mixing in with the talk and shouting and four fellas picking fiddles, a babe screaming somewhere up ahead, and hawkers screeching they wares. It all made tunes and music and sent me almost forgetting my purpose.

Halveston was a drug town. A revelry town. A town a’ sins and sinners and gold and mud and cold metal-smelling air from the smelter shops. It was a town where junk was given a second chance. A yellow short bus been dug into the dirt was now growing beans and housing chickens, front end of an old Chevy been turned into a grill touting plates a’ ribs and biscuits. To say I felt right at home would be something close to the truth.

I ain’t never much liked people, but the people a’ Halveston were all passing through, either ’tween south and their claim, or ’tween life and death. There weren’t no one here now, in the middle a’ spring and fine days, what would still be here after winter. No one was looking at me or for me. This was a town you could disappear in easy, whether running from the law through the twisting streets or through a few well-placed coins in a judge’s pocket.

I asked a woman, sodden in moonshine and more mud than skin, where I could find the doctor. Slurring, she called me sailor, told me the right direction, then said come find her after, she’d show me a fine time for a good price. I laughed when I walked away. I ain’t never been mistaken for a fella afore but it gave me relief that maybe I wouldn’t be recognized.

Barrow a’ boots outside the doctor’s office told me the rest a’ what I needed to know about this town. Dying was as much a business as living. Them boots was selling for a few bucks a pair and a kid a’ seven or so was taking the coin. No one wants to walk in a dead man’s shoes, that’s why they so cheap. Story goes you can’t take more’n five steps afore the reaper comes tapping at your shoulder. But I been wearing a dead boy’s boots for years and no reaper come for me, not yet. Hell, he wouldn’t want no part a’ me and what I done. I’m heading straight down to the devil himself.

Seeing that barrow put all the music out my head ’cause above it, pasted up on the wall though half-covered by a poster touting toothbrushes, was my face in charcoal, right next to one a’ Kreagar.

Sent shivers through me it did. Them shivers turned to icicles when I realized the paste was still wet. My eyes went up and down the street and I saw them white papers on every corner, every lamppost. I spun ’round and ’round but there I was, staring back at me, taunting me. Then them icicles went to sharp steel in my bones and I saw at the end of the next street, top a’ low hill, the law office. Big, dark stone and teeming with red- and black-jacket officers scuttling about like beetles. Was like a black cloud hung over that place, made the horses tied up outside stamp and whinny. Bars on every window. A jailhouse as well as an office looming over Halveston, and nowhere I wanted to be.

Thought about cutting Penelope’s leg off then just so’s I could get out this town. Wolf would a’ done that if one a’ his pack was hurt. I stood outside the doctor’s house like a crabapple hanging off a low branch. Feet wouldn’t move to go in or turn away. I was easy pickings.

The barrow boy stopped his selling and I saw him duck inside the doctor’s office. Didn’t have time to think on why.

“Are you lost, miss?”

I spun ’round to a skinny man in a dark-blue suit what looked like it came out a museum. Pair a’ eyeglasses on a chain ’round his neck and a green, shiny waistcoat hugged a paunch what seemed a bit too big for the size a’ him. He had a skinny mustache, waxed to neat points, black gumboots kept the mud off his trousers, and he wore a tie printed with dancing birds.

“Miss? Are you lost?” he said. His voice sounded like he was holding his nose.

“I know where I am,” I said, and took a few steps to block his view a’ the poster.

He must a’ sensed my tensing up. He shook his head and said, “Excuse my manners, I am Stanley. Stanley Bilker.”

He held out his hand, clean and pink and too soft for a man in this part a’ the world. I shook it and left crumbs a’ dirt in his palm. He gave a little “heh” sound then pulled out a gleaming white handkerchief to clean himself up.

“Now, miss,” he said, “you look like the kind of girl who is not afraid of hard work. Am I correct?”

“I suppose,” I said, and found myself wanting to get away. Something about this fella sent my blood chilling.

“Well, now, I have just the thing.” He dug into his jacket pocket and pulled out a stack a’ papers, all folded up neat. “A girl like you, clearly strong, obviously determined, and a dynamite to boot, well, all you need now is a claim.”

Felt my gut sink.

“I have one here.” He rifled through the papers and pulled out one. “Fifty dollars and you get land worth at least a million,
guaranteed
.”

“I ain’t interested and I ain’t got fifty bucks,” I said, backed up a step toward the doctor’s but Stanley weren’t giving up.

He pulled out another paper. “Thirty dollars gets you this prime piece on the inner bend of the Kannat River.” Then another paper: “Twenty-five gets you the outer bend.”

“I told you, I ain’t interested.” I stepped up onto the porch a’ the doctor’s and towered over the little man in hope he’d get the message. Didn’t want to have to pull my knife to get him to listen.

He held up his hands, both full a’ claim papers and said, “I see, maybe it is the upfront payment that’s putting you off. We have many payment plans available; you can take the inner Kannat right now, right off me, right now, no charge, not even a cent.” He held it out to me like he was giving candy to a kid. “Then come month’s end, I’ll visit and take twenty percent of your cleanup as payment. What could be easier? You look trustworthy, look like you could really make it up here, which is why I’d do this for you, I wouldn’t do it for everybody, there are a lot of people here who won’t find a nugget all season, even on land rich as mine, but you…”

Stanley was pattering like he was practicing in front of a mirror. It didn’t matter who he was talking to. I shouldn’t a’ been worried about him recognizing me off the poster. He didn’t see faces, just marks.

Heard a door open and a bell ding behind me. Stanley stopped. A tall man in a long white coat stood half out the doorway. Old ’round the face but sharp in the eyes, he had hair on his head same color as the coat and a shadow a’ stubble across his jaw. Jaw like a steel girder that was, square and solid to match his nose, both a’ which had taken a fist or two in his time.

“Afternoon, Doc,” Stanley said. “Me and the lady are just conducting a little business, sorry for the disturbance.”

“We ain’t conductin’ no business,” I said sharp. “I ain’t interested in your papers.”

The doctor raised both black and white eyebrows and said, “You heard her, Bilker, run along.”

The waxed mustache twitched and he clenched his fists around them neat papers. “You got some nerve interrupting a sale, Doc.”

I caught sight of a revolver in a holster on Stanley’s hip. Blood went freezing, last place I wanted to be was in the middle of a gunfight. The doctor stepped fully out the door and both me and Stanley saw the twelve-gauge he was using as a walking stick.

“My porch isn’t a market, Bilker,” he said, and the salesman paled. “Take your business, and your stink, elsewhere.”