The Wolf Road (37 page)

A rifle shot rang out in the dark and my eyes sprang open.

I was leaning up against a tree ’side the river. Dawn was crowning and I was shivering up something awful. Winter was close and I was a fool falling asleep outside, on the ground. I shook away the picture a’ that boy, whoever he was, and made my way back to the cabin. Got there an hour or so past dawn. Smoke curled out the pipe and the rising sun turned the beaten brown wood to rich red-gold.

I went straight in and set myself down by the fire. Penelope didn’t say nothing, just sat on the bed, flicking through a book. Soon as feeling came back into my hands and face, I said to Penelope, “I get it.”

“Get what?”

“I get you,” I said. “I get your thinking ’bout Bilker. If the law comes here then we’ll deal with it. Ain’t no sense in wringing our hands in worry. Law comes, it comes. If Bilker’s friend tripped up running and got eaten by a bear, well then, that’s that. I ain’t wasting time frettin’.”

She smiled, tension went out a’ her, and she said, “Did you catch breakfast?”

“Hell, woman! You ate yesterday. Damn, you expect food every day?”

She threw the book at me, gentle-like, and laughed.

“I found this when you were sulking,” she said, and reached under the bed.

A rifle. Old and worn, not been fired in more’n a year.

“Where’d you get that?”

“Under the floor,” she said. “I dropped a hairpin between the boards. I’ve only got two left so I prized it up.”

“Gold and guns ’neath this floor,” I said. “Wonder what else my folks been hiding.”

I spent the rest a’ that day outside in the light, working to free the rifle a’ rust. Penelope sat on the porch reading that book. Some story a’ love ’tween a girl and two fellas. The girl sounded like a empty-headed fool and Penelope said I weren’t wrong but the fellas weren’t no better.

We didn’t have no vegetables growing nowhere and it was too late in the season for planting. I needed to get the rifle clean and firing quick and bag us a moose. Enough to keep us in meat all winter. Though that meant at least two days out in the wild tracking and I weren’t at all pleased with the idea a’ leaving Penelope on her own. We figured we’d use some a’ that gold for a sack a’ tatoes and some onions. A bag a’ rice maybe. Penelope said she’d learn how to fish and pull a few salmon out that river afore they spawned and turned rotten. We planned how to make the cabin safe and warm for winter. My folks had got themselves a tidy stockpile a’ wood and I said I’d add to it best I could. We’d make up some bear-proof shutters and dig a cold store ’neath the cabin. Said we’d start pulling gold at first melt.

Felt damn good to plan it all. Felt better to start chopping logs and hauling dirt but a deep down part a’ me said I was an idiot. A kid what was dreaming, ’stead of a grown-up what knew better. Weren’t no chance Bilker’s friend got ate by a bear. Weren’t no chance he didn’t run back to Tucket and find Lyon and tell her right where we was. All that worry and fret was gnawing inside me like a beaver on a spruce. Soon them teeth would gnaw right through and I’d fall apart, but till then I wouldn’t let it show. Penelope was happy and I kept the worry buried deep for the both of our sakes. Even though that sky was clear, a black cloud hung low over our claim. I was just waiting for that cloud to turn into a storm and rip our lives clean in half.

It weren’t safe for me to go to Tucket. It weren’t like Halveston, big enough to get lost in. In Tucket you could spit one side to the other. My face was all over it and Bilker’s friend, whoever he was, had seen me, not Penelope. Tell you the truth, I was glad of it. I’d had enough of people and towns. Tin River suited me just fine. Over the next few weeks we got deep into fall and Penelope made her first trip to Tucket since we posted the note to Lyon. Came back that evening smiling, Delacroix’s men weren’t in town no more, what meant she weren’t being looked for no more. Her trips to Tucket—to Mark—got a whole lot more frequent.

I got the cabin ready best I could, dug the larder, piled up the wood, even made myself a straight up-and-down smokehouse—all that was missing was its hat. Only thing we was having trouble with was the food. My snares were coming up cold and we didn’t have no bullets for the rifle. Cold was crisping up the air and hunger was barking at our backs. Snow started crawling down the mountains and we woke up more’n once to frost on our window.

Penelope, on her trips to town, would get Mark to carry sacks halfway into the woods and dump them ’neath a twisted oak. Once they’d said their cooing goodbyes and he was out a’ sight, I’d pick up the sacks and take ’em rest a’ the way home. Tatoes, carrots, even a bag a’ cabbages. People in Tucket and all ’round were preparing for winter and stocking up their larders so wouldn’t part with their food for nothing. That jar a’ gold went low quick, but we got rounds for the rifle, a great wad a’ zip bags, and a nice fishing rod and net off a lady what broke her arm and couldn’t use it no more.

Penelope said the posters a’ me were either blown off by the wind or torn down by folk what were tired a’ seeing my ugly mug, and no one put up no fresh ones. She said too that the note I left for Lyon was gone but nothing else been put up yet and there weren’t hide nor hair a’ any a’ them dandy men.

“You watch, I’ll fill up that larder in a day,” she said, smiling when she came back with that fishing pole.

“I’ll believe that when I ain’t died a’ hunger halfway through winter.”

Penelope was useless with that rod. She landed maybe one out a’ every ten bites she got and that one was a two-bite tiddler. All I heard all day was her shouting she had a fish on, then cursing she’d lost it.

“Mark and Josie said the salmon would be running up this river in a few days, maybe a week. She said they can run late in the year in these parts but we have to be quick, they come and go in a day or two,” Penelope said, throwing the pole on the bank. “We can pick them out with the net instead of wasting time with this thing. We just have to be careful of bears.”

Them few days went by and I had so much to be doing ’round the claim that I near forgot about Bilker and keeping an eye out for the salmon. Figured if the law was going to come down on us, it would a’ happened by now. Maybe his friend really did trip and hit his head and was now gurgling away in a bear’s belly. Maybe Bilker just didn’t pay him enough to care.

One morning I was shoring up the sides a’ the larder with poles and laying a board down on the floor to keep the bugs out when Penelope gave a whooping and shouted at me to bring the knife. I ran outside and damn near fell over when I saw it.

The river was full and raging with silver. The salmon thrashed about, squeezing over and under each other trying to move ’gainst the current. I ain’t never seen nothing like it. A ways up the river I saw a momma bear flinging fish to two cubs sat patient on the bank. So easy and quick like she was flicking ants off a mound. That bear didn’t even know we was there and ’sides, there was plenty for the both a’ us. Bears are good like that. In times a’ plenty there ain’t no sense in fighting for the sake of it. Humans could learn something from ’em. Only fight when you got no choice.

Penelope jumped up and down on the bank, grin like a new moon on her face. She was shouting at me to hurry and I didn’t need to be told twice. I waded into the water and, on account a’ me being stronger and salmon being all muscle, swapped knife for net. I dumped fish after fish out onto the bank and Penelope made quick work a’ cutting out their gills and stopping ’em wriggling.

“Hot damn,” I shouted over the splashing and rushing, “this is the way to fish!”

“Keep going!”

We got near fifty pounds a’ salmon and Penelope cut ’em all down to fillets. She wrapped ’em up in them plastic bags and we put ’em down in the larder ’neath the cabin. Winter was half a breath away and that larder was near freezing. The river still ran with them fish and we sat out and watched ’em. That night we made a fire outside and roasted up one a’ the salmon whole. It spilled all its bright-orange eggs and we scooped ’em up with spoons.

“I could get used to this,” Penelope said, mouth full and popping with roe.

Close to that fire, smell a’ woodsmoke and barbecue salmon, I felt just the same. Penelope and me talked and laughed ’bout things I don’t remember now. We talked until the fire turned cold and we didn’t have no more wood close to hand to feed it. Slept sound that night, above a proper food store what, once I got us a moose, would last us all winter.

Woke up next morning to Penelope prodding me. “Come with me to Tucket today.”

“Why?”

“Mark and Josie have been asking after you. There are only so many excuses I can give.”

“Tell ’em I’m dead.”

“They’ve met you, they wouldn’t believe it.”

I smiled and figured they was smarter than they looked.

“What is it about that Mark fella that gets you so wound up?”

She shrugged, all coy-like. “He’s nice. He’s kind and so many men in this world aren’t. He’s also got work and money, and just as many men in this world don’t. He’s a good prospect.”

I weren’t at all sure if those was reasons for being sweet on someone, but I figured Penelope knew more ’bout that than me.

“Come on, please,” she said. “You’ve been out here for weeks and haven’t seen anyone else. It’s not healthy.”

“You and I got two meanin’s for healthy.”

“You keep saying we need proper wood for the shutters and roof of the smokehouse,” she said, sounding like she was leading me down a path. She was. Josie had a damn lumberyard.

Shit.

“Fine,” I said, “but we ain’t staying the night.”

Penelope’s voice went all high-pitched and she shook my shoulder near out the socket.

“And none a’ that!”

We got to Tucket afore noon. It was quieter’n last time. A lot a’ folks had packed up and gone south for winter and I couldn’t blame ’em. Winter in Ridgeway was bad enough and these northern folk said us southerners had hot beds and soft heads all year ’round.

We went straight to the Thompsons’. Mark came running out the door a’ the mill when he saw us coming over the bridge.

“Penny!” he shouted, waving, and his boy came running behind him.

“Penny?” I said quiet to her afore he reached us.

She told me to hush and greeted Mark with a hug and a kiss on the cheek. Did the same with the boy.

Mark then turned on me and wrapped me up in a hug what I weren’t too pleased about. He weren’t all skin and bone no more, Jethro’s cooking fattened him up nice. Over Mark’s shoulder I caught Penelope’s eye and shook my head. She tried not to laugh.

“So good to see you, Elka,” Mark said. The boy stayed behind his legs like he’d forgotten he’d fallen asleep on me last time I seen him.

“And you,” I said, trying to sound like I meant it.

“Josie around?” Penelope asked. “Elka needs some wood.”

“Aye, she’s just inside,” Mark said, and called her. “She won’t take your money, but if you cut the wood yourself you can have it.”

I raised up my eyebrows. “You got one a’ them circle saws?”

He nodded.

I ain’t never used one but I seen ’em and figured they’d be fun. “I’d be happy to.”

“We’re about to break for lunch,” he said. “Join us?”

Josie came out and hollered Penelope’s name. Saw someone else moving about in the barn and figured it was one a’ the mill hands. Didn’t think nothing of it.

“Elka,” Josie said in that voice a’ hers, like hot honey dripping into your ear.

She came right up to me and kissed me on both cheeks. I done told you afore I ain’t the kissing type, and along with that hug from Mark I wanted to kick Penelope for making me come here.

Penelope winced at me like she was waiting for me to throw a tantrum and run away but I didn’t. Human rules say you ain’t allowed to do that.

“Nice to see you ’gain,” I said, and Penelope relaxed. “Fella here says you can give us some wood if I cut it myself.”

Josie smiled out one side a’ her mouth and looked at Mark. “Did he?”

Mark studied his shoes. “I did, yeah.”

Josie took in a long breath and said, all breezy-like, “Well then, I suppose we can spare a few planks.”

Then she gave her brother a look what said that wood was coming out his pay packet, and said to us, “Hungry?”

Just like last time, Jethro was cooking up a feast. He hugged me when he saw me too. The only one a’ this family what didn’t was the little boy clinging to his daddy’s legs. That made him my favorite, and I gave an inside smile when he was sat next to me at the table. Mark made puppy eyes at Penelope, and she made ’em right back at him, but I weren’t sure no more if hers were real or just ’cause he was a good
prospect
. Didn’t think I’d ever understand Penelope all the way through.

“All set for winter?” Josie asked me, then spooned green beans on my plate.

I took a chunk a’ corn bread from the heap in the middle of the table and said, “Most done, ’cept the shutters and smokehouse roof, what we need your wood for.”

“Elka’s dug us a larder and made a woodpile big enough for three winters,” Penelope said, grinning, and I felt my cheeks go hot.

I’d been thinking long about my hunting trip, and I didn’t have much time left afore the snow shut me out. “I need to get us a moose or caribou, but I ain’t happy ’bout leaving Penelope all alone in that cabin, middle a’ nowhere with all them bears and wolves.”