The hunger was on him again. He knelt beside a creek, his eyes easily tracking the swift progress of the winter salmon, and when his paw came down, he had a large fish, helpless, squirming and flapping, which he tore open at once with his teeth.
He savored the raw flesh, and how distinctly different it was from the meat of the juicy sinewy bobcat.
This wasn’t hunger he was satisfying, was it? This was something else—a great flexing and exercising of what he was.
He climbed again, high, fumbling for birds’ nests in the shivering branches, and devoured the eggs shell and all as the screeching mother bird circled him, pecking at him vainly.
Back down beside the creek, he bathed his face and his paws in the icy water. He walked out in it and bathed all over, splashing the water over his head and shoulders. All the blood must be washed away. The water felt refreshing. He knelt and drank as if he’d never satisfied thirst in his whole life before, lapping, guzzling, gulping the water.
The rain sparkled on the rippling, tossing surface of the stream. And beneath it, the indifferent fish swam speedily past him.
He climbed up again and traveled in the trees, high above the valley floor. Never mind, little birds. I don’t want to torment you.
Thou shalt not seethe a kid in its mother’s milk,—indeed.
As had happened before he could see the stars through the thick mist. What a glorious thing it was, the open heavens rising above the thick layer of fog and damp that shrouded this earth. It seemed the tumbling rain carried with it a silvery light in its busy descent. It sparkled and sang on the leaves around him. Then down from the upper branches it became rain again to the lower branches, and from then on down to the world below, rain and rain and rain, until it fell soft on the tiny quaking ferns and on the deep mulch of dead leaf, so rich, so fragrant.
He couldn’t really feel the rain on his body, except for his eyelids. But he could smell it, smell it as it changed with every surface it cleansed and nourished.
Slowly, he dropped down once more and walked, his back very straight, the strong desire to feast having left him, and he felt a wondrous safety in the dark forest, musing with a smile that he had encountered nothing that was not afraid of him.
The annihilation of the three evil men revolted him. He felt lightheaded and liable to weep. Could he weep? Did savage animals actually weep? A low laughter came out of him. It seemed the trees were listening to him, but that was most certainly the most preposterous of illusions that these thousand-year-old guardians knew or cared that anything else whatever was actually alive. How monstrous were the redwoods, how out of scale with all the rest of the natural earth, how divinely primitive and magnificent.
The night had never seemed sweeter to him in all his existence; it was conceivable that he could live this way forever, self-sufficient, strong, monstrous, and utterly unafraid. If that was what the Wolf Gift had in store for him, perhaps he could bear it.
Yet it terrified him that he might surrender his conscious soul to the heart of the beast pumping within. For now, poetry was still with him—and the deepest moral considerations.
A song came to him, an old song. Where he’d heard it he couldn’t recall. He sang it in his head, putting its half-forgotten words in proper order, only humming under his breath.
He came out into a grassy clearing, the light from the low gray heavens increasing, and after the closeness of the woods, it seemed beautiful to see the shimmering grass in the thin rain.
He began to dance in large slow circles singing the song. His voice sounded deep and clear to him, not the voice of the old Reuben, the poor innocent and fearful Reuben, but the voice of the Reuben he was now.
’Tis the gift to be simple,
’tis the gift to be free
’Tis the gift to come down
where we ought to be,
And when we find ourselves
in the place just right,
’Twill be in the valley of love and delight.
Again, he sang it, dancing a little faster and in greater circles, his eyes closed. A light shone against his eyelids, a dim, distant light, but he took no note of it. He was dancing and singing—.
He stopped.
He’d caught a strong scent—an unexpected scent. Something sweet and mingled with an artificial perfume.
Someone was very near to him. And as he opened his eyes, he saw the light shining on the grass, and the rain sparkling gold in it.
He caught not the slightest hint of danger. This human scent was clean, innocent—fearless.
He turned and looked to his right. Be gentle as you are careful, he reminded himself. You will frighten, perhaps terrify, this blundering witness.
Yards away, on the rear porch of a small darkened house, there stood a woman looking at him. She held a lantern in her hand.
In the total darkness that had been the night, the light of the lantern expanded widely, thinly; and surely in this light she could see him.
She stood very still, apparently gazing at him across the expanse of wild soft grass, a woman with long hair parted in the middle, and large shadowy eyes. Her hair appeared to be gray but this might have been a mistake. For as well as he could see, he couldn’t quite make out the details of what he saw. She wore a long-sleeved white nightgown and she was utterly alone. No one in the dark house behind her.
Don’t be frightened!
It remained his first and only thought. How small and fragile she looked standing on the porch, a tender animal, holding the lantern up as she stared at him.
Oh, please, don’t be afraid.
He began to sing again, the same stanza, only more slowly, in the same clear deep voice as before.
He moved slowly towards her, and watched in secret astonishment as she moved along the porch and to the head of the back steps.
She wasn’t afraid. That was plain. She wasn’t afraid at all.
He moved closer and closer, and again he sang the words. He was now full in the strong light of the lantern. And yet she stood still as before.
She looked utterly curious, fascinated.
He came closer until he stood at the foot of the small steps.
Her hair was gray, actually, prematurely gray surely as her face was as smooth as a china mask. Her eyes were a large glacial blue. She was fascinated, all right, and unshakable, as if she’d lost herself utterly in gazing at him.
And what did she see? Did she see his eyes gazing at her with the same curiosity, the same fascination?
Deep in the pit of his loins the desire rose, surprising him in its intensity. He was growing hard for her. Did she see that? Could she see it? That he was naked, unable to conceal his desire, excited him further, strengthened him, emboldened him.
He’d never felt desire precisely like this desire.
He started up the steps, soon towering over her as she stepped backwards on the porch. But she hadn’t stepped back in fear. No, it seemed she was welcoming him.
What was this remarkable fearlessness, what was this seeming serenity as she looked up into his eyes? She was thirty perhaps, perhaps a little younger, small boned, with a thick well-shaped sensuous mouth and strong though small shoulders.
He reached out tentatively, allowing her plenty of time if she meant to run away. He took the lantern from her in both his paws, oblivious to the obvious heat of the thing, and set it down on a wooden bench near the wall. A door stood partially open. Beyond he caught a bit of very pale light.
He wanted her, wanted to rip the white flannel nightgown off of her.
Very cautiously he reached out for her, and took her in his arms. His heart was pounding. The desire for her was as strange and undeniable as the desire to kill, or the desire to feast. Beasts are creatures of imperatives.
Her flesh was white in the light of the lantern, sweet, tender—and her lips opened and she gave a little gasp. Carefully, ever so carefully, he touched her lips with the edge of his paw.
He picked her up, easily liftin
g her legs over his left arm. She weighed nothing, absolutely nothing. She put her arms around his neck, letting her fingers slide into the thick hair.
And with these simple gestures, she drove him right over the edge. A low secretive growl came out of him.
He had to have her if she would allow it. And she was surely allowing it.
He carried her towards the door, and gently pushing it back, carried her into the warmer, sweeter air of the house.
All the domestic scents swirled around him—of polished wood, scented soap, candles, a touch of incense, the smell of a fire. And her perfume, her lovely natural perfume and a tasty citrus essence she’d added to it. Oh, flesh, oh blessed flesh. There came that low caressing growl from him again. Is that how it seemed to her? Caressing?
There were embers in the small black stove. A digital clock gave its numbers with a tiny bit of light.
A small bedroom materialized around him. He made out an antique bed against the wall, with a high back of golden oak, and white covers that looked as soft as foam.
She was clinging to him. She reached up and touched his face. He could barely feel her touch through the hair, but then it began to zing right to the roots. She touched his mouth, the thin ribbon of black flesh that he knew was there. She touched his teeth and his fangs. Did she realize he was smiling down at her? She closed the thick hair of his mane in her hand tightly.
He kissed the top of her head, and he kissed her forehead, hmmmmm, satin, kissed her upturned eyes and made them close.
The flesh of her eyelids was like silk. A silk and satin little being, hairless, fragrant, petal soft.
How naked and vulnerable she seemed; it maddened him. Oh, please, my dear, do not change your mind!
They sank down together on the bed, though he did not put his full weight on her. He would have hurt her if he had done that, but he nestled close to her, cradling her with his arms, stroking her hair back from her forehead. Blond and gray, with lots and lots of softer gray.
He bent to kiss her lips and her lips opened. He breathed into her mouth.
“Gently,” she whispered, her fingers pushing the hair back from his eyes, smoothing it back.
“Oh, beautiful, beautiful,” he said. “I won’t hurt you. I would rather die than hurt you. Tender stem. Little stem. I give you my word.”
12
THE LITTLE CLOCK on her bedside table said 4:00 a.m. in bright digital numerals. Just this clock gave the room all the light his eyes needed.
He lay beside her, staring at the dark beaded wood paneling of the ceiling covered in a thick and lustrous varnish.
This had been a porch once, this bedroom, and it ran along the entire back of her house. Above the surrounding wainscoting were small-paned windows on three sides. And he could well imagine how lovely this would be when the sun came, and the dark forest which he could see would close in visibly for human eyes with its reddish trunks and feathery green leaves.
He could smell the woods here, smell it as deeply as he had when he was out in it. This was a little house of the woods made by someone who had loved the woods and wanted to be in it without disturbing it.
She lay against him, sleeping.
A woman of thirty, yes, and her hair was an ashen blond, but mostly grayish white now, and long and loose and natural. He’d ripped open her nightgown all right, destroyed it, freeing her from it bit by bit, with her irresistible compliance, and the remnants of it lay beneath her like feathers in a nest.
It had taken all his control not to batter her in the lovemaking, man and beast had worked together, gloried in it together, and her heated desire had been like melting wax. With complete abandon, she’d received him, moaning as spontaneously as he had moaned, thrusting against him hard, and then stiffening in ecstasy beneath him.
There was something about her fearlessness that was beyond trusting.
She’d slept beside him in childlike comfort.
But he hadn’t dared to sleep. He’d lain there thinking, reflecting, calling man and beast to account, and yet feeling a kind of muted bliss, bliss in her arms as the beast that she’d welcomed.
If he hadn’t feared to wake her, he would have gotten up and looked around—maybe sat in the large wooden rocking chair she had, maybe looked more closely at the framed photographs on her bedside table. From where he lay he could see a picture of her in hiking gear, with a backpack and a staff, smiling for the camera. There was another picture of her with two small blond-haired boys.
How different she looked in that picture—with coiffed hair and pearls around her neck.
There were books on the table, old and new, all having to do with the forest, the wildlife, or the plants native to Muir Woods and to the mountain.
Not surprising.
Who else would live in such an unguarded place except a woman for whom the forest was the world, he figured. And what a gentle child of that world she seemed. But oh so foolishly trusting. Way too trusting.
He felt powerfully drawn to her, bound to her by the secret of this, that she’d welcomed him into her bed as he was. And then there was the heat of it. He looked down at her, wondering who or what she was, what she was dreaming.
But he had to leave now.
He was just beginning to feel tired.
If he didn’t move fast through the forest, the change might come way too far from the car he’d left hidden on the bluff high above the kidnap scene.
He kissed her now with this lipless mouth, feeling his own fangs pressing against her.
Her eyes snapped open, large, alert, glistening.
“You’ll welcome me again?” he asked, a low husky voice, soft as he could make it.
“Yes,” she whispered.
It was almost too much. He wanted to take her again. But there simply wasn’t time. He wanted to know her, and he wanted—yes, wanted her to know him. Oh, the greed of it, he thought. But he was overcome again by the realization that she hadn’t run from him in fear, that she’d nestled with him here in the fragrant warmth of this bed for hours.
He lifted her hand and kissed it and kissed her again.
“Good-bye then for a little while, beautiful one.”
“Laura,” she said. “My name is Laura.”
“I wish I had a name,” he answered. “I’d gladly give it to you.”
He was up and out of the house without another word.
He moved fast through the treetops, back through Muir Woods, and southeast, seldom if ever touching down until he had emerged from the park itself and was roaming the wooded thickets of Mill Valley.
He found the Porsche without ever consciously thinking about it, right where he’d left it, safe under the shelter of a grove of scrub oaks.
The rain had slacked off finally to a drizzle.
The voices rustled and whistled in the shadows.
Far below he could hear the radios of the police who still swarmed over the “kidnap scene.”
He sat down beside the car, hunched over, and tried to induce the transformation.
Within seconds it began, the wolf-hair melting away, as paralytic waves of pleasure gripped him.
The sky was growing light.
He was weak to fainting.
He dressed in the loose baggy clothes, all he’d brought with him. But where was he to go? He couldn’t make it to Nideck Point. That was out of the question. Even the short journey home seemed out of the question. He couldn’t be at home, not now.
He forced himself to get on the road. He could hardly keep his eyes open. Chances were the reporters had booked the Mill Valley Inn, and every other motel or hotel for miles. He headed south for the Golden Gate, struggling again and again to stay awake as the sunrise broke through the fog with a steely heartless light.
The rain had begun again as he entered the city.
As soon as he saw a big commercial motel on Lombard Street, he pulled off, and got a room. What had caught him were the individual balconies of the top floor, right under the roof. He g
ot a suite up there on the back, “away from the traffic.”
Closing the blinds, and stripping off his uncomfortable rough clothes, he climbed onto the king-size bed as if it were a lifesaving raft, and fell fast asleep against the cool white pillows.
13
FATHER JIM LOCKED UP St. Francis at Gubbio Church in San Francisco’s Tenderloin as soon as it was dark. By day, the homeless slept in the pews, and took their meals at the dining room down the street. But at nightfall, for safety’s sake, the church was locked.
Reuben knew all this.
He also knew that by 10:00 p.m.—which it was now—his brother would be sound asleep in his own small spartan apartment, in a flophouse building just across the street from the entrance to the church courtyard.
The old rectory had been Jim’s place of residence for the first couple of years. But now it housed parish offices and storage. Grace and Phil had sprung for the apartment, with the archbishop’s approval. They’d even bought the building, which Jim was slowly transforming into a decent hotel of sorts for the more stable and dependable residents of the old downtown neighborhood.
Reuben, in his brown trench coat and hoodie, clawed feet bare, and paws bare, had traveled over the roofs to reach the church, and dropped down into the dark courtyard. The transformation had come over him three hours ago. He’d been fighting the voices since then, the voices calling to him from all around him. But he could fight no more.
He rang his brother now on his cell, a little more adept at handling it now that he had a bit of practice.
“I need to go to Confession, in the church,” he said in the deep guttural voice that was now all too familiar to his own ears, but not at all recognizable to Jim. “I need the confessional. I must do it there.”
“Ah, right now, huh?” His brother was struggling to wake up.
“Can’t wait, Father. I need you. I need God. You will forgive me for this when you hear me.”
Well, maybe.
Reuben adjusted the scarf up around his mouth and pushed the sunglasses in place as he waited.