The town was humming with the news of Windsor’s escape. Everyone was shocked and frightened by the idea that someone could assault our police in such a way, and not get caught. But the police had the description of a short young man with dark hair. Only a few such individuals fit that bill. All could be accounted for to be at home or at the roast at two in the morning. The boots could not be traced; the prints were few and far in between, and a search of all the surrounding and suspicious houses held nothing of evidence. The search of my own house, the house of his rumored lover, turned up empty, and thankfully my bloodstained nightgown was deep in my cedar chest at the time. I couldn’t help but be a little distracted all day though, when the thought of Windsor freezing to death in some far off cave came to mind every other moment. I wondered what Windsor was up to. Would I ever see him again? I doubted it. The thought made my heart rot a little, painfully wringing it out over the day. It petered every time I thought about him, with worry and affection. The combination hadn’t been felt in a long, long time, and several times I found myself crying. My father. My mother. It had been so long since I had had a family, and I had gotten so close.
And that couldn’t happen now. Not with the killer still on the run in the town.
When the sun started to set, I couldn’t just stand inside my cottage and wait for tomorrow, whatever that may have held. I put on my boots and walked out to the edge of the forest to listen to the silence of the woods. I breathed in carefully, savoring the scent of the forest. It was a home I can’t return to, one of the past but still existed. In that way I envied Anthony; he could run about and in a way not be questioned for it.
The sun was starting to set. If Windsor had made it through the day now he would be turning into a wolf. Orange light seeped past the rooftops and chimneys that grew towards the sky. I nodded to nothing in particular.
“Why, if it isn’t little Miss Dandelion.” Jeremy’s voice sent shivers up my spine. I turned stiffly towards him. Arcs of fear were sent to my feet, begging me to run. All day I hadn’t thought about the man that had caused all the trouble, and here he was.
Jeremy cocked his head to the side. His long hair was loose, and fell in waves around his shoulders. His jacket was open, his stance relaxed. How could he be relaxed after what happened last night? Then I remembered… He was Anthony’s suspect. I looked towards my cottage and the town, towards safety. My heart started to hammer back and forth, bumping up against my back then my chest like a drum. It was almost painful. I took a deep breath, and mustered out, “Hello Jeremy. Fancy seeing you so far from home.” I started towards my cabin, but Jeremy suddenly stood in my way.
“Let me pass, Jeremy,” I let a little impatience, a little anger leak into my voice. But no fear. Fear was not allowed in a situation like this.
“I’m afraid I can’t do that, Dandy.”
“Don’t call me that,” I spat, but knew better than to approach him. Where did he keep his knife?
“As a matter of fact, I’ll call you whatever I want.” His hand whipped through the air and struck my cheek. I cried out, finding myself on the wet ground. Instantly my dress was soaked, and I knew I was going to die. No one could hear me, and he would only kill me quicker if I shouted. A murderous light had come into Jeremy’s eyes, vicious and lethal. From the inside of his jacket came a knife, a butchers’ knife, made for cutting the hard tendons that attached meat to bone. Fear in my system spiked and I screamed against my earlier thoughts of silence. “Why did you leave?” he growled, “So early in the party? After that affair with Anthony I was afraid you left.” He took a step forward. I took a step back. He lunged at me. I rolled away and tried to get up, but slipped on the wet grass. My skirt tore. Jeremy had a hold of it. Things started to go blurry in my vision, jittery and hard to make sense of. He hit me from behind, jumping on my back. I landed on my elbow and screamed as my shoulder stretched, blinding white hot-cold pain I was becoming so familiar with in every part of my body, even my mouth. His knees were on my shoulders, his hand pressing my face into the mud. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see. Only my ears and nerves in my body weren’t blocked. I had to depend on them. My brain whirred quickly, still trying to find a way out of this impossible situation. Perhaps someone had heard me scream? Unlikely, could I bribe him off of me? Even more unlikely.
A shiver ran through me as I felt the knife at the back of my neck; the flat of the blade set against the part of my skull where it met my spine. “It’s hard making these look like teeth marks,” he hissed into my ear. He needed only his weight on me to persuade me not to move. But what did I have to lose? “I was lucky Anthony confided in me my mistakes. Making it look like a wolf’s doing was harder than I thought.” I shrieked into the snow as I felt the little knife scratches collecting themselves on the back of my neck. He was making the claw marks. I flailed my legs, hoping to connect with the back of his head, but no such luck. He growled, and pressed the knife against my back where a lung sat. “I said don’t move!” he made tiny rakes down my back as well, slicing open my corset and my skin as if it was merely a piece of cloth too. His other hand still sat on my head; I couldn’t make a sound. I gurgled in the mud. Panic was slicing my brain in two where he was slicing my body. How long would this last? Already I felt warm streaks of life sluice past me and into the dirt, turning the brown muck an even darker shade.
My shoulder strained, threatening to pop. Jeremy was too heavy to overturn. He didn’t even need to apply much pressure to have me pinned.
“Anthony will be blamed for this as well.” Jeremy mused as he slid the knife down my back, “Whom better to lure out into the night than his short-period lover?” I started to cry about right then, entire body starting to beg for more air than I was allowed. My blood could be heard rushing to the cuts and my ears.
Suddenly I was aware that Jeremy had stopped cutting. Then his weight suddenly left my back, and immediately I pushed myself to my feet, making the blood loss even more apparent. The world shifted itself in my vision, and I was on the ground again, face planted into the dirt. I looked around, what the hell had happened? I gasped; Jeremy was wrestling with someone.
“Anthony!” I cried out. He had loose boots, probably stolen, on his feet and pants that looked very old. I recognized my father’s coat however. It fluttered and snapped in the wind created by Anthony as he tried to out maneuver his best friend. Jeremy was fighting with a vengeance, like a cornered animal. He swung the knife out in sloppy jabs, easily dodged by Windsor. The look on his face was one of complete outrage, an apoplectic spirit driving his human body to the limits. I’m surprised his mortal body didn’t explode; his face certainly seemed to be threatening it.
“Miss!” I heard a gruff shout, and pried my eyes away just in time to meet Victor’s as he scooped me up. “Don’t worry Kingsley, I got you…” No! No, he would arrest Windsor and kill him while Jeremy would-!
“No!” I shouted, and wriggled to the best of my ability, with my blood doubtlessly staining his shirt for good, “Anthony-.”
“I saw it, Kinsgley, I saw Jeremy.” Victor said a bit breathlessly, he was too old for such enforcement, “I was about to shoot him myself when Windsor came flying out of the woods. Don’t worry about Anthony-, right now we need to get Mr. Scall out of the area and into custody.” He brought a revolver out of his pocket and threw a quick glance over to the fighting two, making sure neither was going anywhere soon, and then pushed me towards the town. “Go and get Roy and Sam, quick Dandy!” Victor’s mustache bobbed furiously up and down as he said this. He took aim towards the two, but he couldn’t possibly guarantee the shot wouldn’t hurt Anthony as well.
“No!” I shouted at him, and pushed his arm down, “You might hit the wrong man!”
“Both of ‘em are guilty right now Kingsley, we don’t have time for justice!”
“No! Anthony was after Jeremy, that’s why Scall started making it look like wolves’. He knew Anthony’s secret Victor!” I tried to push so many explanations into a mere sentence it hardly made sense.
I turned back to the fight, and felt horror sink into my belly. Anthony was starting to twitch violently. He didn’t have time to turn into a wolf! The twitching was affecting his fighting skills- Jeremy was getting in more jabs, tearing Anthony’s coat open and managing a nick on the cheek.
“Anthony!” I shouted, and started towards him, but Victor seized my arm hard like an iron clamp. There was no losing him. Anthony stumbled, auburn hair planting itself in the dirt. He rolled out of it in a backwards somersault.
Jeremy saw his chance, and leaped forward with an upward swing of the knife, planting it firmly in Anthony’s ribs.
I was too horrified to scream.
Anthony’s body reacted immediately. He shivered, gasping in shock and pain. He clutched his enemy around the shoulders, teeth barred but his brow furrowed. I don’t know how I broke Victor’s grip, but suddenly I was just a few feet from them, running faster than I ever did in my entire life. My head spun from the panic and the blood loss and the shock and the fear, all combining like too many painkillers taken at once. A shot rang out, then two, but no more. I assumed Victor had taken his aim again and was pointing it at Jeremy, at least that’s what I hoped. Jeremy looked as shocked as Anthony did, and stepped away from his dying friend. He pulled back with the knife, which was the color of Merlot. The blade shook slightly, and then fell into the mud, burying itself. Jeremy took another step back and his legs gave out from under him, and sort of turned in mid-air. He landed on his side, hopefully dead with Victor’s shots.
Anthony wavered without Jeremy’s support there to keep him upright, and he too sank to the ground. He wore no shirt under the coat, and blood was pouring in obnoxious amounts down to his pants. My legs didn’t want to work properly. In my haste I tripped and nearly fell, landing on my knees near him. I scrambled the rest of the way, probably looking like a child playing horse or a game. “Anthony,” I tried to say. His eyes glided in my direction, but did not connect. Could he hear me? His light brown eyes twitched, pupils very dilated. It wasn’t until I took him by the shoulders did he really see me, and even then they didn’t properly meet my eyes. “Anthony.” This time I managed the entire name. I shook his shoulders a bit, “Anthony? Are you there?” He was heaving great breaths, as if he as ran a long way, and his mouth just hung open horribly, twitching and trembling occasionally. Looked down at the gaping hole in his side, and pressed my gloved hand to it. The leather didn’t do anything to staunch the flow, so I took off my jacket and pressed it there, waiting painfully for the bleeding to stop.
“Dandy.” He muttered the first sign of life from him. He let out a rattling breath, “I want to lie down.” His eyes begged mine, even though I needed to tell him no. I couldn’t say it, and nodded. His face became blurry, and I lost him a moment in a swirl of colors. I blinked away the tears, my hands were full, and helped him fall gently sideways into the snow. I kept the jacket pressed up against his side the entire time, not daring to give up hope. He arced his back, gasping in pain. For a terrifying moment he squeezed his eyes shut and opened his mouth in a silent scream. I lost his brown eyes.
“Anthony!” I cried out, desperate for him to open his eyes again. For a scary moment he relaxed, and I shook him. His eyes blinked lazily open, as if I had just woke him up from a nap. He licked his lips.
“I’m so tired, Dandy.”
“That’s okay,” I started to prattle, “That’s okay to be tired. Just don’t go to sleep okay? I need you to be strong for me, I need you to stay awake for me Anthony.” I rattled him again, “Come on, talk. Start talking to me. Keep going.”
He eyeballed me, “Dandy, I’m stabbed and you want me to talk to you?” his eyebrow raised in a smirk. “Stupid woman. Driving me to an early death, you are.” I let out a dry sob.
“Please don’t leave me.” I said through snot and tears and sobs. “And since we’re going to joke about this,” I snarled, “It’s your turn to joke, you great whorish mutt.”
Windsor smiled dreamily, twitching again, growling with a sudden pain, “That’s right Dandy. You finally get it.”
“Get what!?” now was not the time for life lessons.
His face contorted, and I realized with a sickly feeling that the sun had disappeared, “Get what Anthony?!” I screamed and shook him harder. His eyes were cinched shut, his arms rigid and held in a cringe. He gasped, and rolled out of my hands. I clamored to him, shaking him again. I lost my hold on my jacket, and his head lolled into the mud. “Tell them how you feel Dandy. Don’t keep your bitch mouth shut. Ever. Don’t ever close that wonderful little mouth Dandy.”
I screamed with frustration, “Shut up idiot dog! Don’t say goodbye! It’s too soon! You’re not dead yet!” I yelled reasons to him, but Anthony was too far gone to care. He howled in pain and convulsed like the possessed do; wailing. His chest caved in and his mouth started to foam. No. I was not going to let go of him now. With sudden inspiration and panic, I grabbed ahold of his shoulders. I’m not letting go, I wanted to say, but he was shaking too hard for me to concentrate on anything other than holding on. His shoulders bent and a ghastly shriek rocked the night. I shut my eyes. The force of which I pushed them shut made splotches of color erupt behind them. I heard the sickening cracks of bones rearranging and the sloshing sound of growing and depleting muscle. The coat my family had loved so dearly ruptured beneath me, splitting clean in two. Coarse fur scratched my cheek, and the earthquake transformation started to calm. Great shivers still echoed in his body, but nothing cracked. Nothing gasped or yelped. I could feel no more movements of organs as they danced inside a new body. Mild tremors reduced to mere twitches and shivers. But even when the episode was over I still held my eyes shut and my arms firmly locked around his neck. The mud leaked through my dress, and I started to shiver myself. I was wet. I was bleeding. God only knows how much blood I lost in the time between Jeremy’s assault and now.
My lip quivered pathetically, and I felt tears freezing in a chain down my cheeks. The sun was completely and totally down. Anthony didn’t move. I didn’t let my crying be heard though. That would have been too easy. I wanted to hold the sorrow in; make it replace the terrible emptiness that resided where Anthony had started to make his home. Far off in the distance, I heard the beat of hooves and shouts of voices. I knew they would pry me away from Anthony soon, and I tightened my grip. I didn’t want to let go. Not just yet. My teeth started to chatter. My hip hurt from lying at this awkward angle. My leg was numb.
Then I felt a great ripple through Windsor’s body, and at first I thought someone had touched him. I leaned up and snarled, but the person continued to budge him. It was then I realized that I could feel muscles beneath the fur bunching up and contracting. I could feel the airways pumping air.
“Anthony,” my heart beat hard with hope.
The dog creature sat up. A bit dazed, I imagined. I didn’t want to open my eyes, not in case it actually was someone propping him up. Then he growled. I smiled and laughed and remembered the first time he had run into my house. He had had two gunshot wounds that were gone by morning, how could I have forgotten? I suppose I should’ve been both angry and thrilled that I had forgotten such an important detail, but all I felt was lucky. I felt extremely lucky he had held on till sundown, that Jeremy had not slit his throat instead. I cried some more, laughing hysterically. Windsor snuffed at my eyes with his big nose, wining. I tried to open them, and found that the act was extremely painful. I couldn’t.
“I can’t, Anthony,” he nuzzled, growling again. “Because you were an ass and nearly died on me. My tears froze my eyelids shut.”
I could feel him shaking with dog laughter, and smiled as well. He licked my eyelids until they unfroze,his heat melting the ice. I quickly wiped all the moisture from them with a sleeve. Amber eyes flashed, and he stood up and walked around. I pried my eyes away from the beautiful wolf to look at the bloodstained coat. He had cleaved in neatly in the corner; the heart on its back was ripped in half. I picked it up gingerly; I was going to have to fix it. Anthony walked over and sniffed, his way of apologizing I suppose.
“It is your fault,” I told him.
Windsor chuffed, then looked past me. I turned too. Roy had now joined us on his small black Quarter horse. Victor had his arms folded across his chest, but didn’t look totally unkind. Plus a few of my neighbors had run to see what the fuss was all about. In short, a small crowd had developed on the fringe of the forest. I reached behind me, and found his foreleg, and I held onto it. What was going to happen now was completely up to the people. There were many different paths this journey could take; one that lead to the hanging of Windsor and I, and the other to peace. There was the third option of running into the forest, but I doubted that would get us very far.
As it happened, and surprised us all, Victor spread the word of what he had seen. We were declared innocent. Jeremy was convicted a killer, but of course did not need sentencing. The Scall Livery would never accept Windsor’s or my business ever again, and we were forced to buy meats from neighbors or hunt our own. This wasn’t difficult, of course. The family still claims to this day we framed their pride and joy. I still claim to have scars racing down my back and across my neck, and I think as long as we both claim these views, we won’t be becoming friends anytime soon.
*******************
Of course, the townspeople never fully trusted Windsor after that incident, and he would remain Deputy for the rest of his career. However, he would eventually become the most notorious deputy Ajerbae would ever have, putting away anyone who dared cross the law. His law. He was used many times for his particular skills and talents, on missing person hunts and murder trails. Ajerbae would grow of course, but Windsor would always be at the top. An unofficial enforcer and judge. As long as he was on a horse or on the trail, the lawbreakers had fear in their hearts of the Plague Wolf from their bedtime stories they had heard of so often.
I myself stayed in my cottage on the outskirts of town. I still went to sewing circle every Sunday, and became more vocal in its debates and gossip. I was still regarded as the insane girl who lived as a recluse, but not so much the girl and the recluse anymore, so much a woman, strong enough to love the dangerous Deputy. I was unafraid, as Windsor had wanted, to live my life, and tried to be true to myself only as I could. No one else would do what I tend to do, and I figured it as my responsibility to act as I pleased. After that incident, the rumors of Windsor sneaking over every night as my lover weren’t so very blatant rumors anymore either. It wasn’t long before I was given a small little ring that was his grandmothers, to wear as I pleased, and he started wearing his own clothes in the mornings after he had changed. I washed for two. I cleaned for two. I cooked for two. But, as I found out a few weeks ago, I was going to have to start cook for three soon. I was a little afraid to tell Windsor, but he was startlingly okay with it. We both hadn’t planned on it, and are very much scared shitless, but it was something we could do together. The Fable of the Wolf seemed like such a story as to not have a continuance, but as I find, it does, and it’s a good one.
The End…
