The Wolf Road (45 page)

Authors: Beth Lewis

Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #United States, #Mystery; Thriller & Suspense, #Thrillers & Suspense, #Crime, #Serial Killers, #Suspense, #Science Fiction & Fantasy, #Science Fiction, #Post-Apocalyptic

BOOK: The Wolf Road

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“That wasn’t a deer, Elka,” Penelope whispered, horror all through her voice.

“Was to me. Then. There ain’t no excusin’ it, I know that and I’ll take my punishment, but I swear up and down I didn’t know what I was doin’. Kreagar didn’t kill kids. He never did. Until the doctor’s son in Halveston. Was me who shot Lyon’s son. I did it and that bastard son bitch Kreagar’s been showing me what I done all up and down this country. He’s been throwing my sins in my face and them boys were the price. I got to live with that every damn day same as I got to live with not being able to save Josh. I was too late, Penelope, too goddamn slow running after, too…I don’t know, I couldn’t save him.”

She looked me right in the eye then. Felt her gaze in me, searching ’round for lies she weren’t going to find. She must a’ decided ’cause she got up, walked over to me, and hugged me tight to her. I froze a second then relaxed into her, wrapped my arms ’round her, and cried it all out. I ain’t never cried so much as I had done in that cabin, for my dead parents, for myself, for the boy, for Kreagar, now for what I was ’bout to lose.

“You have to go,” Penelope said, kissing me on top a’ the head.

“What?” I said, pulled apart from her.

“Lyon will kill you. You have to go.”

“I deserve it,” I said.

She shook her head. “No, you don’t. Kreagar did.” Then she knelt down in front a’ me and put her hand on my cheek. “Remember what I said? You’re a diamond, Elka. Underneath it all. Nothing can change that. I don’t want to see your picture in the newspaper.”

I frowned deep then and tried to figure all her words into some kind a’ order what made sense. “You…you don’t hate me?”

She smiled, sad then, and her eyes started glistening. “Of course I don’t.”

“But…” She knew all I done. Every bit of it. She’s got to hate me. “What about the Thompson boy?”

She tensed up then and I feared I’d undone all that mending. “Kreagar killed him and you warned me that he would, all those months ago when we first got to Tucket. You knew bad things would happen and I didn’t listen. I did as much as you in getting Josh into those woods but you’re the one who caught Kreagar. I can’t hate you for that. Neither can Mark or Josie or Jethro.”

I’d most forgotten ’bout them over the winter. Them names brought sunshine pictures back into my head and it made me hurt all the more.

I shook my head. “I deserve Lyon’s firin’ squad for what I done. Three boys is dead ’cause a’ me. I killed one and I couldn’t save the others.”

Maybe if I’d figured earlier what I done to Lyon’s boy I could a’ saved Josh, or the doctor’s son. Maybe God or the wild or something up there would a’ let me save him if I admitted to myself what I done, took my punishment when I first seen Lyon in Dalston. But I didn’t, I didn’t know what I seen back then and I made the same mistake twice. Them gods were saying, Elka girl, you ain’t taking no responsibility for what you done so we’re gonna make you and you gonna see the truth of it.

“I deserve to hang,” I said.

“No you don’t, no you don’t.” Then she leaned close, put her forehead on mine, and said words what I never thought I’d hear from no one. “Much as I want to slap you sometimes, I still bloody love you, all right? I love you, Elka.”

I didn’t bother to stop the tears. After all this time, this journey up the world, I finally heard them words spoken to me by someone what meant it. All this time searching for my momma and daddy to get that and it was Penelope all along. I played them words over and over and I stamped them on my brain, over every bloodstained, evil memory I had.
I love you, Elka. I love you, Elka.
I grabbed Penelope and I hugged her so tight I didn’t never want to let her go.

Then she said something else what made me tighten up that grip till she couldn’t get no breath in her.

“And I forgive you, for everything.”

Was that enough? Was this one person’s forgiveness and love enough for all my sins? Then I decided that it weren’t the number a’ people whose forgiveness mattered. It was who that one person was. Penelope was enough. Just her was enough for me and always would be. She was my redemption and my salvation. I always figured a sweet apple ain’t never going to grow on a sour apple tree, but maybe I had more sugar in me than I thought. If this peach of a woman, with all her smarts, thought I was good down deep, then maybe I was.

“You have to go,” she said, and I said OK.

Penelope left not long after that. She hugged me and she cried and thanked me over and over for pulling her out that crate last spring. She told me I was the best friend she ever had and to take care a’ myself out there. We both knew I weren’t coming back. We both knew we weren’t going to see each other again. All that I had left in Tucket was grief and a bullet with my name on it. I waited till I couldn’t see Penelope no more, till she was through the trees and gone ’round a hill, then I packed a bag.

I figured I’d go west, see what was ’cross the BeeCee border, maybe get there for winter and walk ’cross that frozen ocean like them yellow-haired folk in Halveston. I had me a tinderbox and my knife. It was a good knife what had caught me a murderer. I used to think I didn’t need much more’n that in this life, but I was wrong. I needed company, a friend, and my heart ached for Penelope. That was my real punishment, my prison sentence, not getting to see my friend again. Weren’t no worse Lyon could do to me than that.

When I walked away from Tin River and the graves of a family I never knew ’cept for some old words in a letter, I left invisible footsteps in the moss. First step was light and carried with it Penelope’s forgiveness, them words a’ love she spoke so stern and fierce to me in the home we made for ourselves. The home we built weren’t just wood and nails and dirt, no sir, it was life. We was both running from black sins and secrets when we stumbled into each other but together, we built something damn great. One a’ my footsteps carried them days with her and that one kept on a true heading. The other footstep, well, that one were so light that one tried to pull me off the compass any chance it could. That one stained the moss with blood, heavy with Kreagar’s promise to me.
Just you wait, girlie, just you wait
. It carried the seed a’ possibility that he’d been right all along. I was a second from becoming him on that snowy day in Tucket. I saw the boy as bait, not as a creature a’ human worth, just like Kreagar seen all them people he killed. Long as I was in them woods, there weren’t no one I could hurt.

But that down-deep wild side a’ me had the potential to do what Kreagar done and think how he thought. There weren’t no way a’ knowing that I wouldn’t. Maybe one day I’d take the wrong path. I just had to keep the bright light burning to chase off the dark. I had ’em both with me every step I took away from Tin River, into the wild, into the nowhere and nothing.

Whatever god it was looking down on me must a’ taken pity, heard my revelation, or figured I’d suffered enough in my short life, ’cause on the sixth day out a’ Tin River, I found tracks only one wild beast could make and on the seventh day I heard him howling.

They say it takes a village to raise a child. Well, it takes a whole country to publish a novel. This book will pass through dozens of hands before it reaches the reader. It will be edited, marketed, publicized, formatted, proofread, designed, printed, bound, distributed, stacked on shelves, mailed out, and, finally, read. Thank you to everyone involved at every stage; you’re all rock stars.

Thank you to my agent, Euan Thorneycroft, and the whole team at AM Heath. You saw what I wanted to achieve with this story and helped me get there. Elka and I are much stronger for your guidance.

Huge thanks to my editor, Sarah Hodgson, and the whole team at HarperCollins and Borough Press; also to Julian Pavia at Crown, my editor across the pond: your advice, patience, and enthusiasm have been invaluable.

Thank you to my mum for inspiring me and attacking (constructively, of course) the writing efforts of ten-year-old me with a red pen. I may have cried and stamped my feet but hell, I wouldn’t be writing these acknowledgments without your belief that I could do better. Thank you.

Last, to my wife, Neen, my rock, my critic, my counselor, my whole damn world, thank you.