That night, I came out onto the porch and smiled to myself. I listened as the men were released with their horses, shooting and whooping. Victor would find them before Windsor hurt another girl. The wolf was fast enough to outrun the posse, wasn’t it? Smart enough to stay deep in the woods tonight.
I sat on the edge of my porch for a while, taking in the far away noises and sharp smells of my rural home. Hope was high tonight. If the boys went out like this for a few nights, well, surely Windsor would get the message. And I couldn’t deny the fact that I wanted to be there when he was caught like the scum he was. I want him to know it was me.
I sat for a few minutes more, and then headed back inside. The tea was already on, so I commenced dinner. Roast turkey and greens. Expensive, but I had reason to celebrate. But after sitting down, I found I had no appetite. Something was off about the night, and I figured it was the anticipation. It was like Christmas, you just didn’t know what was going to happen tomorrow; only that it would be big. Food, all of a sudden, didn’t intrest me as it had before. The chicken had lost it’s taste. I finished it without enthusiasm, just enough to keep my belly full. Then dishes. Then change. Then bed. Just see what tomorrow brings, was my mantra. It was my mother’s before mine, just see what tomorrow brings.
It seemed that almost immediately after that I was woken up by loud and desperate noises at the door. I was there in seconds and opened the door just as an enormous beast barreled in past me.
“What the hell-?” And then I heard gunshots. It came together all too quickly. I ran outside, pointing in some direction as the posse flew by, but they paid no attention to me. I looked up and down the street, making sure no one had seen, and nearly slipped going back inside. The boards were wet. I looked down. Blood, thick like ink, stained my nightgown. It dripped up the stairs, onto the porch, and into the house. My stomach dropped. Oh, how could I do this? How could I be so naïve? So arrogant? I let out an exasperated cry and quickly moved inside, grabbed the dirty dishwater by the fire, and took it outside again. I dumped the water over the porch, dispersing the blood. It only sloshed the stuff around, and I found myself scooting it into the cracks in the floorboards. I mopped the gore up with the hem of my nightgown, still casting desperate glances along the street. Still no one had gotten up. A miracle, and probably too good to be true, but beggars could not be choosers.
I stood up, deciding to finish it afterwards when I had sorted out the mystery of the intruder, and ran back inside. The wolf, so graceful on the mountain, had managed to make a mess of my house. The small table was overturned, along with all the chairs. My couch had been mused and rug scrunched up; blood splattering it all like the mud that splashed up on everyone’s porches in spring melts. “Hello?” I called, and heard whines from the bathroom. Moaning, whimpering, tiny wails of pain and pettiness greeted me as I rounded the hallway. The dog-creature cowered in the corner, folding itself against the tile and the bathtub. It chuffed as it saw me, and tried to move even farther away.
“Nonono, shhhh,” I said softly, looking around the bathroom for a towel. I saw the gunshot wounds easily enough, one in the thigh and another along the spine. He was lucky he wasn’t paralyzed. A moment of panic held me. I wasn’t really good with animals. Somehow sheep and cats and all manner of barnyard creatures found no interest in me. But this dog had to be different somehow, it wasn’t animal-like.
The shots could be fatal, but they could also not be. I’ve heard of deer that still manage to escape after being shot in the heart.
“What on earth were you doing pup?” I chided, and started ripping towels up into long strips. My nightgown was officially ruined with all the blood. A heady scent I recognized from my cousin’s crime scene started to fill the room, and my throat threatened to close up. “I thought you’d be up in the mountains, safe and away from all this…” The dog watched me warily, “It was that damned murderous Deputy I was after, not you. I’m so sorry pup.” The dog started, but I managed to coax it back down. “Calm, calm…” Talking to him didn’t feel weird, as some girls said so when they had to talk to the dairy cows. The dog merely flashed its amber eyes and wagged its tail, but still I knew it understood.
I had to search through my dad’s things for what seemed like forever, but finally found a medicine kit. All of this was done with my handicapped leg well enough, I just had to crouch instead of kneel.
I worried as the dog’s breathing began to get slow. I scratched its ears and told it to stay with me, but I could feel it starting to get weaker. I had killed it. The medicine I had so shoddily applied didn’t seem to be doing any good. Sadness was starting to make a nest in my chest, and I couldn’t do anything but sit with the dog against the bathroom floor. I straightened my back along the wall, feeling it pop with all the weight I had kept on it while working on the wolf. He yawned, and I did too. I had killed him. About an hour and a half had elapsed since the wolf barged in through my doors, and I still hadn’t done a thing for it. The bandages were messy and badly done; there was hair and blood on the tile. I bit my lip, and scratched the middle of the dog’s head. “I’m so sorry, doggy.” I whispered, when a frightening thought seized me. What if it died in my house? I had no way to dispose of it, because I couldn’t lift a dog that size. Especially not with my leg. It had to be some sort of mix breed, from a wolf to a mastiff or a Great Dane. And by the time my leg was healed… the corpse of a giant dead wolf would have been rotting for quite some time in my tiny bathroom. No way someone couldn’t notice the smell of a rotting body. It was a smell that can be sensed even in the most miniscule of samples. The smell of death is enemy to the human, and it’s grown to identify that smell specifically, just like blood or food.
There was no way out of this.
I got up. My backside was starting to get numb anyway. I went and got the comforter from the bed and brought it into the bathroom, laying it out on the floor. Blooming blood flowers swelled up through the fabric, and I ushered the dog to get on. “It’s much more comfortable than the floor.” The dog sniffed it, and made to crawl on top of it. But the dog was too weak. I helped roll him on, the least I could do was make it more comfortable for the dying animal. It wiggled half-heartedly as I tried to re-arrange him to be more comfortable. I hated myself. I hated myself for sending out those damn men, for snapping traps instead of sitting at home, for sewing instead of learning medicine. I hated myself for the real reason I brought in the blanket for the dog.
I sat against the doorframe, staring at the wolf while fat tears rolled down my cheeks. How could I do this? To something that by some sick twist of fate had saved me? The tears were too hot, and I tried to wipe them away quickly. The dog looked at me too, flicking its ears back and forth.
I took a trembling breath, and said with little humor. “I would offer you food, except I don’t have any meat left.”
I buried my head in my hands, crying. How stupid was I? I sat there dejected for a few moments until I heard the dog snuffle. He whined, with new vigor, then barked in surprise. I looked up, wondering what on earth had gotten ahold of the dog, who not long ago had been dying. It wasn’t looking at me though, but past me, towards a far off place. It moaned, then wailed and I covered my ears. I had never heard a dog wail before. It was a terrible, eerie sound. It was almost too human. Oh God, I started to get to my feet, could someone hear him?
He started shaking violently, seizing. But the dog’s eyes were firmly locked past me, and its legs didn’t move, although its tail twitched painfully. His teeth chattered with the power of the seizure. I took its head in my hands quickly, running my fingers’ through its fur, trying to comfort him. It just wiggled out of my fingers. No use, not when the stakes were this high. The panic and pain was clear in its eyes, and it bawled again in front of my nose.
Screw convention, and any trust the village still had in me. I had to get someone, a doctor, or something! I wasn’t going to let anything die like that. Telling the dog I’d be right back, I bolted out of the room, and ran out into the kitchen. The place was still a mess, but something at changed. I looked out the window. Rays of sunlight blasted in, the dawn finally making its peak. It was a gorgeous sunrise. How early was it? Seven? Must have been more than an hour and a half then… Wait, that meant people would be up, and my porch-! I thought a moment about dashing outside in the bloody nightgown, but that would be too outstanding even more so than a bloody porch.
Screaming in frustration, I put on an apron I hoped would cover most of the blood spattered material and peered outside. Nothing moved. I lunged to the end of the porch and grabbed a handful of snow, and started scrubbing at the faint pink stain of last night’s episode. I scrubbed and scrubbed, growing frantic as the clock ticked away in my head, too fast. It wouldn’t come out, and I started to cry again. Why wouldn’t it come out!? After furiously scratching at the wood a few lost seconds, I rolled back onto my legs, ignoring the pain in my foot. My shoulders slumped back, exhausted, dismal, and sad. What had my mother said about laundry? What took out blood? I allowed myself a small smile, and heaved myself back into my work, spitting on the mess of pink on the floor.
My mouth nearly ran dry, and I chewed on nothing for several precious moments to finish up the job. When I judged it good enough, and decided not to risk any more than what I had too. I ran inside; I couldn’t risk the sighting of me cleaning up my porch with spit, nor the bloody nightgown.
Something stopped me as I was taking off my apron. It sent a pall over my heart, a pit of nausea and apprehension in my stomach.
It was the quiet. The house was utterly quiet. I flew to the bathroom, ripping my apron off along the way.
I swung on the door frame, stopping in my tracks. For a moment I was confused, where did the wolf go? Something else occupied its space, but what was it? I cocked my head to the side, trying to catch a better look. Then gasped, peeling back into the corridor. It was a person. A bloody person.
I peeked back into the bathroom, and sank to my knees, ignoring the pain of my foot. I don’t even think I felt it. Who could possibly be the wolf in my bathroom? But I was pretty sure I already knew. I lifted its head up by unstylishly short auburn hair, revealing a perfectly slack face, which might as well have been dead. His eyelids were a little raised, revealing his light brown eyes. How? But… It’s impossible…
I dropped the head onto the tile, and scuttled away. But it’s the only way. The Deputy was indeed the Wolf, but I had no idea it would be so literally. My heart quaked in my chest, like a drummer’s snare or a rabbit hunted down.
I just sat there, and waited for him to wake up. Actually, I believe I went and got some of my father’s old clothes, since he seemed to be in need of some, but other than that… I could have been cleaning, like I should have been. I could have changed, for the aging blood was actually starting to make my nightgown stiff. I could have washed the rest of the blood from the porch even. But I did none of those things. I sat for what seemed like short consecutive eternities, all tied up in the same time paradox. It was only half an hour later when he woke up.
He raised his shoulders up first, rolling his neck, before he opened his bleary eyes. His smart gaze glided over the unfamiliar surfaces and then caught the corner of my bloody nightgown. He did not look any higher. He must have sensed whose’ house he was in.
“What happened?” He asked. Ah, so he really didn’t remember.
“Can’t you guess?” I told him pathetically. “I had suggested a hunting party to Silvia, she told Victor, and out they went. I thought they would run into you knifing a girl, but instead… It appears as though…” I couldn’t finish, and skipped that part, “You were shot and ran to my house for security I guess. I suppose the wolf…” I winced, but it didn’t register on his face. His face was calm and resolute. “I suppose you knew where to go. I thought you were dead.” I admitted freely, shrugging. I took a shaky breath, and then looked back at his wounds. He looked up, catching me looking.
“The gunshot wounds won’t be there.”
And indeed they weren’t. But the previous shock was too big for the healing bit to really hit me, and I shrugged again, finally meeting his eyes. They were trying not to be afraid, I could see that much. His poker face wasn’t very good.
I got up, nudging my father’s clothes to him with my bloodstained slipper. He glanced at them and looked up at me with an astonished expression.
“Put these on.” I ordered him, and finally left him to go to the kitchen and tidy things up. I straightened the rug, cleaned the couch, and righted the table. Then I got a sponge, a cleaning solution, and set the bucket by the door to be filled with water. I wanted to make sure nothing else happened to the deputy before I left.
As I straightened, I heard him ask, “So what now?”
I snapped upright, surprised, and then smiled grimly, “Nothing.”
“Nothing can’t happen.”
“That’s an oxymoron, and yes it can. You can stay home instead of running around on the mountain all night, and those men can try and track down the real killer of those girls.” I moved to the kitchen, “Tea?”
Windsor eyed me suspiciously, “I can’t stay at home during the night. This happens every night. And how can you ask me for tea?” The words, at a time like this? Were implied, but not said.
“I can ask you for tea just like any other civilized human being… Unless you aren’t?” I popped a hip while I spat the question, staring him down. “And why can’t you stay at your own home? It’s your home isn’t it?”
Anthony gave me an angry look. I remembered the threatening visit he paid earlier; but they seemed like two different men. He nodded at the cup I was about to pour, “I sometimes have callers during the night.”
“Whores?” I asked unabashed.
He chuckled, “I could get those in the daytime, and no one would say a thing,” most likely true, I thought, “I have business associates that sometimes find it more fitting to make calls in the night, informants and such who want privacy in a town so small.”
I nodded, and handed him his tea. He took it, but didn’t drink it. I studied the dog-man in front of me, so emancipated in my father’s coat. I now also knew why he didn’t go to church or make an appearance before nine- he looked positively awful. “Perhaps you could come here.”
If he had been drinking the tea, he would have choked on it. “Excuse me?” His eyes laughed, then turned thoughtful.
“Beggars can’t be choosers, and I think it unwise for you to be frolicking about in the woods while those hunters are
about. You clearly weren’t smart enough to get past them last time,” I pointed out.
“Yes, breaking their line is a nasty bitch.” He drank the tea like a shot. He winced, and asked if I had any painkillers.
“Yes, but they're for women’s pain. I doubt they’d be any good in your case.”
“Better than nothing,” He grumbled, “Everything hurts.” Anthony grimaced, so I got out the pills from a drawer, and handed them to him. He nodded in appreciation.
We sat in silence that was thick and sticky with unanswered questions I didn’t dare ask. Sighing because I realized how utterly exhausted I was, I got myself down a glass and some of my parent’s whiskey.
“You have alcohol?” His eyebrows bespoke of his accusations and teasing. Women were considered vulgar if they drank. A glass inside a house is considered tasteless.
I shot him a look, and he broke into a haggard smile, “May I have a proper glass as well?”
I smiled tentivly back and poured both of us liberal amounts of the drink. Today was going to be one of those days. Our glasses clinked, “Cheers.”
“Alright,” He gulped, “After each day I’ll wander over here, since you are the only person who knows besides my father and mother.” He took another swig and scrunched his face before stretching it out. I put the cool glass to my head, taking deep breaths.
“Oh God,” I groaned. “How on earth will the town not know? They might not say anything against whores, enough public officials have those, but the town oddball with the town swoon might not be a good idea.”
“You think I’m a swoon?” he gave me an odd look, and I panicked.
“Pshh, the entire town thinks you’re a swoon.” I tried to make light of it.
“Humph. But really, Dandelion, I don’t care. I gave up the thought of an honest to God wife a long time ago, and an interesting ‘lover’ won’t hurt my chances of becoming constable. Not this close to elections.”
I nodded, and understood what he was saying. I set down the glass of whiskey on the counter, my heart petering. “If
that’s the way you’d like it, then that’s what will happen.”
Again there was another silence.
“Should I do anything?” I asked, thinking over the situation, “Should I kill a calf and have it on a platter by the time you get home, dearest?”
In spite of the callousness of the comment, he simply smiled, his eyes relaxing and his lips pulling back like curtains to a show.
