To Catch a Wolf (4 page)

young man? We wish to help you. My name is Harry, Harry French. You find yourself

among the troupers of French's Fantastic Family Circus. Never fear, you are quite safe

here—”

"He will die if you keep talking, Harry.”

Another face drew near: younger, more delicate, framed by a mass of red hair. "He

won't die. He came here for a reason, I know it. To help us, as we help him.”

"One of your 'feelings,' Firefly?" said the gentle drawl.

"Something made him come to us. We've needed a miracle. Maybe this is it.”

"If he survives and is willing to aid us.”

"I agree with Caitlin," the old man said. "He is the good luck we have waited for, and we

must save him. Tor!”

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Heavy footfalls approached. Broad hands seized Morgan, and he was lifted in arms

bulging with muscle and tight as a vise. A great void opened up around him as he lost

contact with the earth. From the depths of his throat came a single, pathetic snarl.

"Do not worry, Tor. You won't bite, will you, young man? No, indeed. Caitlin, come with

me. The rest of you had better watch for those dogs and whoever is with them.”

"They won't make it past us, Harry.”

That voice was the last for a very long time. When he woke again, he lay on a cot under

several blankets, surrounded by the scents of animals and humans. He tried to sort

through the smells, connecting each to its name: canvas, straw, rope, oil, metal, mildew,

old cooking. His limbs were weighted; his chest ached with every breath.

But he was alive.

Dim sunlight found its way through the canvas stretched overhead. The small space

was crowded with crates, some of which served as platforms for other unidentifiable

objects. The cot was the only furniture in the tent, save for a folding chair and small

table.

Outside the canvas walls, Morgan could hear the noise of a busy camp. Dogs barked,

horses whinnied, and men's voices made a continuous drone.

They had brought him here. They had saved his life. A string of curses came back to

him in all their crude inventiveness, but his throat was too dry to speak.

He tensed his muscles. One by one his fingers obeyed his commands. He was not a

prisoner. He could tear through those walls of canvas as if they were tissue, once he

regained his strength. He felt the healing of his wound, flesh knitting hour by hour.

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He concentrated on shifting his legs. A wall of gray pain dropped behind his eyes. He

fell back among the blankets, breathing harshly through his teeth.

A wave of human scent blew into the tent, riding on dust-laden air.

"Ah, you're awake! Very good, very good. It did seem touch and go for a—No, no, you

mustn't try to move just yet!”

The voice was the first he had heard, the one that belonged to the old man with the

whiskers. Harry French. Morgan blinked the haze from his eyes. The bulky silhouette

resolved into a stout, gray-haired gentleman in a patched black coat, bright red

waistcoat stretched over a prominent belly, and trousers in gray and black checks. A

white, upward-curving moustache was the crowning glory of an otherwise homely face,

wrinkled with age and burned by the sun.

The ability to laugh had deserted Morgan long before he had chosen the wolf's way. But

something in that comical face and broad grin woke a peculiar sensation within him, and

his belly moved in a painful heave. He coughed.

"Oh, dear, oh, dear," Harry French's hands sketched a pattern of distress. "You must be

dry as a bone. Water—yes, that's what you need, and perhaps a bit of whiskey for good

measure. I believe we still have a bottle or two left." He turned as if to leave and then

spun about in midstep. "Foolish, foolish. We have not been properly introduced, though

perhaps you remember my name?”

His innocent enthusiasm reminded Morgan of a wolf pup still wet behind the ears.

"Harry

French," he said hoarsely.

Harry clapped his hands. "You did understand! Wonderful. Delightful. Perhaps you also

recall where you are?”

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Circus. Words were coming thick and fast now, but it took Morgan a moment to

assemble the images. He had seen a circus, once, when he was fifteen and without a

penny in the world. The wagons and tents had been set up on an empty lot on the

outskirts of a prosperous Nevada mining town. He'd sneaked into the main tent and hid

behind the risers to watch the show, until a member of the crew had caught him and

booted him off the lot.

That boy had not remained a child much longer.

"How

" He cleared his throat, remembering how to move his lips and tongue. "How

long?”

"How long have you been with us?" Harry French nibbled the edge of his moustache.

"Six days, I believe. Yes, six. You've made quite a remarkable recovery. A bit more rest,

that's all you need." He beamed and rocked back on his heels. "We are your friends. No

need to tell us anything you don't wish. You can rest assured that we won't give your

secret away—no, no. We understand.”

Your secret. Morgan stiffened and slowly relaxed again. His anonymous rescuers could

not know anything of his past, but they had seen him Change and hadn't the sense to

be afraid.

"We're all a little odd here, you see," French said, as if he had guessed Morgan's

thoughts. "Oh, we're nothing at all like the big railroad outfits, with the poor creatures in

cages and great star performers. I like to think of us as a family, a family of very special

people. Those who have no other place to go—they find their way to me, sooner or

later, just as you have.”

He drew a pocketwatch from his vest, glanced at the face, and stuffed it back in. "Dear,

oh, dear. I had promised to speak to Strauss about the food stores. Strauss is our chief

cook. We are running low on victuals, and I fear my accounting skills have never been—

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" He broke off with an apologetic sigh. "You must think me quite addled. We have not

been as prosperous of late as we might wish. A series of misfortunes—bad luck, as it

were. That is why we are camped here in the wilderness and cannot offer you a decent

hotel bed. I do so worry about my children, and what will become of us—but I am

confident our luck has changed. Yes, indeed. You will meet the others soon." He

glanced at his watch again. "You will excuse me, dear boy? I'll send someone with food

and drink straightaway.”

Before Morgan could frame a belated response, French was out of the tent. His words

resounded in Morgan's sensitive ears for several minutes after he left.

But what he had said aroused more feelings Morgan had abandoned as a wolf: worry,

consternation, and fear. Not the sensible respect for nature's fickleness or the hunter's

gun, but a dread far more nebulous.

"He won't die. He came here for a reason, I know it. To help us, as we help him

We've

needed a miracle. ... He is the good luck we have waited for

”

Premonitions of a fate worse than mere death seized Morgan with renewed urgency. He

braced himself on his arms and pushed up again, relieved to find that his body

functioned in spite of the pain. He could escape. It was not too late.

There was only one way to learn if he was healed enough. He closed his eyes and

willed the Change.

Deep inside his body, the core of his being began to shift. He felt it, not as pain, but a

natural transition. It was as if each atom became fluid and reshaped itself like clay in the

hands of a master potter.

But the Change did not complete. It met the barrier of his injury and paused, forcing his

body to make a decision based upon a single law: survival.

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Survival meant preserving strength instead of draining it for the Change. Morgan

opened his eyes and found himself unrecognizable, neither wolf nor human. A monster.

Instinct made the decision for him. He returned to human shape. Dizziness and nausea

held him immobile for a few seconds, but he pressed beyond his body's exhaustion and

clambered to his feet. Sheer determination propelled him toward the sliver of dimming

light that marked the tent's entrance.

Sunset lent the camp a certain softness that almost disguised the atmosphere of

shabbiness and adversity. Tents and colorfully painted wagons, marked with hard use

and frequent repair, lay scattered at the edge of a wide valley filled with sagebrush and

saltbush. A herd of sway-backed horses clumped together in a makeshift corral.

Everywhere there was a certain frantic activity, as if the members of Harry French's

Family Circus did not dare to stop moving. People hurried to and fro, wrapped in much-

mended coats and blankets. A man juggled several bright red balls without seeming to

touch them. An impossibly slender woman balanced on a wire almost too fine to be

visible to normal eyes. Dogs ran about yapping and jumping through hoops.

The one quiet place was centered at a fire beside an open tent furnished with rows of

rickety wooden tables and benches. There a fat man cooked a dismally small section of

meat on a spit, attended by a mob of barefoot children who watched with the grim

concentration of hunger.

Morgan knew poverty when he saw it. He had suffered hunger many times in his life,

and had traveled with no more possessions than the clothing on his back. His great

advantage had been the wolf, which had allowed him to hunt and to survive under

conditions that would have killed an ordinary man.

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These folk were not so fortunate. It did not take much imagination to see that they had

suffered the "bad luck" Harry French had mentioned, though Morgan knew little of

circuses and what made them prosper or fail.

He did understand that no man helped another without expecting something in return.

Harry French's "children" hoped for something from him, something he could not give

them. He might outrun guilt, as he'd outrun so much else. If he left, now, without facing

those who had saved him

"You're not going so soon?”

He looked down at the familiar voice and met a pair of blue eyes in a pixie's face,

topped by a blaze of wildly curling red hair. Here was the second of his rescuers—his

captors—the one who had claimed some undisclosed purpose for him. She seemed

hardly more than a child, flat-chested and narrow-hipped. The tights, knee-length skirt,

and snug bodice she wore only emphasized her boyish shape.

She was the first woman he had seen in a decade, and he felt nothing. Neither his heart

nor his body stirred. He realized with a shock that this girl reminded him of his sister

Cassidy, so dimly remembered. Only Cassidy's hair had been black, like his.

The girl whistled through her teeth. "You heal quickly, don't you?" She clasped her

hands behind her back and circled him, clucking under her breath. "Do you always walk

around stark naked? I liked you better as a wolf.”

"Then get out of my way, and you won't see me again.”

She placed her hands on her hips. "Well, at least you can speak.”

Morgan bared his teeth. Too late, his mind wailed. Too late. "Who are you?”

"I'm Caitlin—Caitlin Hughes. Do you have a name?”

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"Morgan. Holt.”

"Well, Holt, do you know where you are?”

"The old man told me.”

"That old man is Harry, who agreed to take you in, and don't you say anything bad

about him, or you'll answer to the rest of us." She glared at him. "I doubt that it occurred

to him that you would just up and leave without a word, after we saved your life.”

The hairs rose on the back of Morgan's neck. "I did not ask you to help me.”

"You came to us, didn't you?" She gestured about her eloquently. "We haven't much to

spare, nothing at all for outsiders, but we accepted you. Who else would have done

that? You owe us more than running away like a whipped cur.”

Obligation. Morgan stared across the grounds and at the freedom beyond, so rapidly

slipping from his grasp. "You think

there is a reason that I came," he said, pitching his

voice in mockery.

"I know there is.”

"There is no reason for anything that happens.”

"You really believe that, don't you?" She shook her head. "Whatever you are, wherever