Hairwolf
Chapter Forty

Meanwhile,

Stef has worked her way around the bear so that it can see her. She inches closer and notices an arrow protruding out of his shoulder. It’s a small arrow, probably from a crossbow. They produce a lot of force when entering the flesh. This arrow is very close to his heart. She approaches slowly knowing he could kill her with one strike.

She pauses, whispering, “Calm...Rest... Relax.” The bear tries to rise but stumbles back down. He’s looking at her. She’s looking back, intense, determined but cautious. What little edge

she has with the animals is always determined by the animal. This one’s temperament is already

compromised from the pain of the arrow. She needs to proceed slowly and unthreatening.

She kneels to all fours and starts smelling, focusing on the wound area. She staggers and sways like a concerned animal would, yielding to a superior beast. He flats his head to the ground assured she’s not a threat.

She prepares several gauze pads and lays the first-aid-kit down. She’s very relaxed and confident, considering she could be mauled to death at any second. But she has something special with the animals. She knows how to communicate with them. She kneels next to the bear, clenching the arrow. “I’m not going to lie to you – this is going to hurt. On the count of three. One -” and she rips the arrow out of his shoulder. He lunges up with a roar. She falls back, arrow in hand. He’s angry and in pain and very close but he backs off. Stef looks away from him, displaying

submission, while at the same time holding the arrow up so he can see it. He relents and lays back down.

Stef grabs a handful of gauze pads and presses them on the wound. Next, she takes a pair of scissors and cuts back his fur.

Job done, Stef steps away biting down on a threaded needle. Remnants of the field dress are splattered over her forehead, hands and cheeks. Her light printed dress is spared.

The bear rises and licks at his wound. He then looks at her and smells the blood all over her. He’s conflicted between his animal instincts and whatever she’s putting into his head at this moment.

She’s trying to get him to wander off, pointing into the woods. It works. He runs off, happy to go.

Stef drops down to a seated position and takes a moment. That was exhausting. She considers the arrow. “I got to get this to David and Brizzbee.” She gathers her first aid kit and peals open a handy-wipe. She wipes the blood from her hands and then repacks the kit, organizing all the items neatly. Then . . .

. . . “David and Brizzbee. Now who would that be?” asks a man pushing her down with his knee. Stef spins to find Jesup standing over her. Next to him is a much younger male. The two

are wearing daypacks and bowie knives on their hips. Dinks, the other male, carries a Winchester lever action rifle down at his side. Their jeans are seasoned in mud, blood and grass stains. Matted

oily hair hangs over soiled, sparsely shaven faces. They look like mountain hermits. Jesup holds a crossbow. The same type of crossbow needed to shoot the arrow Stef is holding. He’s an unforgiving man and festering rage at the sight of her and the arrow.

“Answer me. Who’s David and Brizzbee?”

Stef looks down at his bandaged ankle. Somehow he freed himself of the bear trap. She remembers him. His smell. It’s obvious she regrets not following up with this one when she had the chance.

“Don’t worry. You’ll get to meet them soon enough,” she says, standing up. He pushes her back to the ground. He’s not playing. He stands over her very threatening. He rips the arrow out of her hand.

“Where’d you get this?”

Alone with the two poachers, thirty minutes away from a full moon, Stef sits, covering her legs with what she could of her sundress. She doesn’t answer.

“I asked you a question,” he says, this time pointing the crossbow at her. She needs time to figure this out. It’s clear she’s in danger. She needs to stall them somehow. If only the full moon were up now but it’s not. Then again, her mom didn’t need to be fully engulfed in it. Maybe she can do the same. Maybe.

“You bleedin?” he asks. “Is that your blood?”

Her glare pierces through him, challenging him, angering him. “Answer me.”

She tries forcing the change. She coils her fingers in front of her, hoping to see some growth in her nails. Nails to claws, skin to fur, teeth to fangs but nothing’s happening.

“Leave her be, Jesup. She didn’t do nothin,” says Dinks.

“Shut up, you idiot. Now she knows my name,” Jesup says. But that just gives him an excuse.

“What happens from this point on, girly is his fault. But let’s start with my bear. Where is it?”

She rises, looking through strands of hair stuck in the dried blood on her forehead. She looks like the grim reaper, silent, angry and ready to kill.

“This my arrow,” he says. “And the last time I saw it, it was sticking out of a black bear. My black bear. Now where is he?”

Still, there’s nothing from Stef. This angers him even more. He jumps at her but the sudden

movement frightens his partner more than Stef. This means this man is explosive and most likely dangerous. She can’t take him lightly. The man slides the tip of his bow up her leg, ogling her thighs.

Stef closes her eyes, concentrating, focusing, willing, but nothing’s happening. Whatever her mother was able to do she is incapable of.

“What are you doing out here in such a pretty dress? Such nice legs. Beautiful legs.”

He spies the first aid kit and picks it up.

“You patched up my bear, didn’t ya? I’ll be God-dammed. Maybe we could make this right. Dink’s, chamber a round in that rifle. I won’t be but a minute.”

“But Jesup. I don’t . . .”

“. . .Keep an eye out.”

“I don’t have any bull . . .”

“. . .I said lever that goddamn rifle, boy,” he says with a loaded back-hand and a flush-red face, veins pushing through his neck. “God dammit. You don’t talk. You listen.”

Dinks cowers back, avoiding eye contact. He’s used to this behavior. He levers the action and steadies the rifle out in front of him.

“Eye’s open, mouth shut,” Jesup says, fighting his own anger. “Got me?”

Dinks doesn’t like it but he obeys. Jesup turns back to Stef, grabbing her by the arm and starts to lead her into the brush. But she isn’t going down that easily.

She stomps down on his wounded ankle. He drops to one knee. She grabs the arrow from his

hand and drives it into his buttocks. She then wrestles the crossbow out of his hand and strikes him in the head with it. He goes down hard. She’s ready for a follow-up swing but he isn’t getting up. Dinks stands awe struck. Stef marches up to him and snatches the rifle out of his hands. “Give me that.”

He steps back, petrified of her. She points the rifle at the ground and pulls the trigger. It’s empty.

Just as she suspected. “Where’s your camp?”

He doesn’t answer. He’s still impressed by what she did.

“Dinks ...”

“How’d you know my name,” he asks?

She didn’t expect that but she’ll go with it.

“I know a lot of things. I know you have a camp, but I don’t know where it is. Take me there. Is it close?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“Don’t call me ma’am. I’ll shove this rifle up your ass. Get movin.”

Now he’s really perplexed. If he can’t call her ma’am, what can he call her?

“Yes, ma, miss.”

“You lead, I’ll follow,” Stef says, hurrying to find the camp. Dinks reluctantly takes the lead, looking back at Jesup. He’s still not moving.

“Are you poaching animals?”

“Yes, ma-um, miss. We sell them and trade things for them.”

“How many do you have?”

“Lots,” Dinks replies, proudly. You’ll see. We’re almost there. Right at the frog pond.”

“Your camp is by a frog pond?”

“No! Why?”

“You said right at the frog pond,” she says, slightly confused.

“No!” he says. “You take a right at the frog pound and a left when you leave. Down the trail it’s right, up the trail it’s the other way.”

“Other way? So that’d be left up the trail. Don’t you know your left from your right?”

Dinks stops suddenly in exasperation. “Of course I know my left from my right. This is my left hand,” he says accurately. “And this is my right. I just gits confused when I have to explain it to

someone. I’m not stupid, you know. You’ll see. I built the whole compound. I wouldn’t have been able to do it if I’d been stupid.”

“I never said you were stupid. You’re a hell of a lot smarter than that man back there. You knew the rifle was empty but he wouldn’t listen.”

“He never listens. Want to see something?”

Dinks runs ahead a couple of yards to the frog pond. He’s listening for something. “Hear anything?” he asks.

“No.”

“Watch this.”

Dinks whistles repeatedly, mimicking the frogs. Suddenly, the whole frog pond is whistling. Dinks is in his Heaven over this. “Ain’t that somethin? I can talk to the animals.”

“You may be able to talk to them but do you ever listen?”

“Listen to what?”

“To them.”

He never thought about it. It suggests a whole new level of thinking for him. “No. I guess I never have. Being friendly with the animals isn’t big around here. They always make fun of me for it.”

“Will there be others at the camp?”

“Shouldn’t be. They’re off hunting.”

She pushes him to move on.

“Are you mad at me?” he asks.

“Yes, I’m mad at you. You get all excited about being able to talk to frogs but here you are killing and skinning bears. Are you eating them?”

“Not all of them. We don’t need the meat.”

“And you don’t find that wasteful?”

“I don’t get a say in the matter. I’m always out voted. Then they call me bad names.”

“This is poaching. And it’s against the law,” Stef says. “Not to mention cruel, cruel behavior to the animals.”

Dinks stops suddenly, causing Stef to walk right into him. She’s about to fall but he catches her.

“I told him but he kept saying not to worry about it. Are we going to jail?”

Stef realizes he’s seriously concerned over it. She also realizes just how strong he is. He lets her go, waiting for an answer. He easily could have over-powered her but he didn’t.

“Maybe not you but those others, absolutely. How much further?”

“It’s just ahead.”

Stef can see he’s very troubled by the threat of going to jail but that’s not her call, nor her problem. She’s running out of time and needs to hurry this up.

They enter a patch of cleared land several acres wide, dotted with quickly built sheds made from scrap lumber, logs and branches. Camouflaged netting is stretched across the trees preventing aerial viewing.

The main cabin is made up of planks, logs and mud. It sits isolated off to the corner of the

clearing. Like all the other structures, it has a skillion roof which allows snow to slide off the

back. The front porch has a single chair and a milk crate serving as an ash tray holder. Empty beer cans and cigarette butts litter the area.

Stef takes a few steps onto the property and finds the nightmare of nightmares; A dozen bear skins draped over a clothesline, drying. A skinning station is set up with buckets of animal intestines covered in blood and buzzing flies.

Stef fights tears from the sight. It’s horrible. She spins around, “how could you do this?”

The question catches Dinks off guard. He’s not seeing this for the first time the way she is. He

looks again, seeing the things she’s seeing. The waste, the disregard, the cruelty. He’s ashamed of himself and what he’s become. He shuffles from side to side, eyes to the ground. For a moment, he almost looks autistic.

Stef walks to a shed on the edge of the property. A sign posted over the door captures her attention. It reads, MacArthur’s Park.

“Is this your shed? Dinks, is this your shed?”

“Yes, ma’am. I mean, miss. . . I did this.”

“Yes you did. You should be ashamed of yourself.”

“I know. I’m so sorry.”

“Do you understand why?”

He does.

“Do you have a pair of jeans and a shirt I could borrow?”

“Inside.”

“You like Richard Harris,” she says.

“How did you know?”

“I love the song.”

“Really? I got a surprise for you.”

“I don’t have time for any more surprises. You have to go.”

Sᴇarch the FindNovel.net website on G𝘰𝘰gle to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.