Full Wolf Moon (26 page)
David wasn't ready to be amused. "What do you want to do?"
Max looked away, walked toward the door, still flung open, and gazed out, collecting his thoughts. Finally he said, "I don't want to run away. I don't want you to die with me. There's no particular reason to think Mrs. Tebbe's gone to get the cavalry. She may have just decided she couldn't do this anymore."
He saw himself as he was two evenings ago, in the failing light, crumpled at her feet. Max. She'd called him Max. "I want to stay. If she changes her mind, she can find us here. If she doesn't, if she's gone to get the authorities, we'll know soon enough." He turned back to face David. "I'd like you prepared to run, just in case. If I'm more valuable alive than dead, David, then so are you. Stay alive. Just leave me the gun."
David was sitting on one of the table's stools, hands on knees, his gray hair with its brilliant silver stripe still loose around his shoulders. He lips were pressed tight as he considered what Max said.
"All right," he replied. "Agreed. I think we should set up camp a mile or so from here. We can keep an eye on things through the binoculars. If the law comes, I'll hike across the foot hills to Disjunction Lake and catch the first train home."
"And you'll leave me the gun."
"I'll leave you the gun."
Chapter 33
Tulenar Internment Camp
Mid-afternoon. Waxing Crescent Moon.
Days were barely better than nights. The activities, chores and recreation of Tulenar were mechanical things. A farce, a false hope to keep anxiety and anger at bay for evacuee and WRA official alike. But at least Tulenar had these things, these actions to play out in the daylight. Without them, the nights might smother them all.
At the Shibai theatre, Doris watched Jesse Haku squat beside a bucket of turpentine, rubbing his paint-splattered hands with a soaked cloth. Above him, on stage, several other evacuees were still working on a canvas backdrop for an upcoming performance. Doris sat on a front row bench, near enough to talk without having to raise her voice.
"So the latest petition, Mr. Haku...?"
"It was delivered this morning, for a rally. It's a Block Two request this time. Betty Masuda is leading."
"Good, very good," Doris replied. But when Mr. Haku looked up at her, she knew she wasn't masking her doubts well.
"It seems you don't really think it is so good," he said. "Is there something I should know?"
Doris gazed at him a moment before shaking her head. "I just think we're at the end of our rope. If I know the likes of Shackley, he'll be putting a stop to this soon. I would, if I were him."
Mr. Haku dropped the oily rag into the turpentine and moved to the water pail set nearby. He dipped his hands into the cloudy water to pull out a bar of soap.
"Perhaps he's not as keen as you," he said.
As Mr. Haku scrubbed his nails, Doris watched the others stretch the painted canvas on the stage floor to dry. Their movements were sober. They worked in near silence, as if they were preparing for another funeral instead of an afternoon of performance art. The tang of turpentine and paint found their way into her mouth.
"It was too much to hope for," she said absently. "We aren't going to make it."
"They didn't work?"
"I'm sorry...?" She looked at Mr. Haku, standing now and drying his hands on his shirttail.
"Those strings you were going to pull. The calls to Eisenhower and your senator friends. Leaking things to the press corps. None of that worked?"
That wasn't what she had been thinking about. But Mr. Haku's question pricked a nerve.
"Yes, well...I found out how much clout a senator's widow really has."
Not everybody's memory was as long as Al or Mim Spinner's when it came to favors owed. The strings to which Mr. Haku referred led to a federal judge and Abel's senatorial heir. Neither man could have voiced more sympathy for the Inu Hunters' plight. Nor could they have been been less helpful. Owed gratitude could not withstand the fear of political oblivion. As for the press corps, the only attention her leaks attracted was far outside the mainstream press.
As for the calls to Milton Eisenhower, well...Doris conceded that her attempts to take this all the way to the President was a long shot, anyway. Eisenhower was, conveniently enough, never in when Doris telephoned.
"But I thought," she said aloud now, gazing at the stage work again, "I thought I could buy enough time."
"Enough time for what, Mrs. Tebbe?"
Mr. Haku's brusqueness snapped her attention back to him.
"These past weeks," he said, obviously annoyed, "everything we could think of protesting was protested, from low wages to curfew. We're the ones who have been buying you time. You were supposed to be finding a way to stop the arrests. Are you saying that all you've been doing is trying to stall them?"
On the defensive, Doris squared herself for a retort. But what could she say? I've been struggling to choose between something I understand and something I may never comprehend?
"I'll see what else I can do," she finally said, and walked away.
/ / / /
Leonard Shackley must have been waiting for her. He was striding from Administration at a brisk clip. Trailing behind him was one of his seconds.
As they intersected on Doris's way from the camp proper to her little house, he called, "Mrs. Tebbe. I need to talk to you."
Doris stopped. "Talk away."
"One moment for Mr. Phillips."
Shackley needs a witness. Christ, here it comes.
As Mr. Phillips drew up to Shackley's side, the latter fished a folded piece of WRA stationary out of his inside coat pocket. He handed it to Doris and said as she unfolded it, "That is your copy of the official notice, Mrs. Tebbe. I am hereby banning you from the camp proper. The perimeters off limits to you are clearly defined in the notice. You're restricted to the area designated Administration and the M.P. headquarters. You may not enter camp proper for any reason, without express authority from me. If you violate this order, you'll be confined to your quarters for the duration of this investigation."
Doris glared at Shackley as she crumpled the notice in her fist. Shackley seemed unimpressed.
"I hope that's not a threat to ignore me," he said, pointing to her balled hand. "If you persist in this behavior --"
"What behavior, for the love of Heaven?"
"Mrs. Tebbe, do you think I'm a fool?"
"No, Mr. Shackley, I certainly do not."
"But, surely, you do, since you thought I wouldn't catch on."
Doris knew he had her. But to let him call her bluff would not only betray Jesse Haku and his network of evacuees, it would be contrary to her nature.
"I can't imagine what you're talking about," she said.
"Don't think I can't see your hand in this. There will be no more committee meetings, no more civil rights debates. No more permits to rally. While you persist in the delusion that Captain Pierce -in all probability the late Captain Pierce- is gleefully slaughtering Tulenar residents --"
"I never said he was gleeful about it..."
"You are provoking the real suspects to kill again! I don't understand you. Are you blind?"
Doris stared at Shackley a moment before saying, "I wish I were."
Shackley closed his eyes and shook his head. When he opened them, he looked to Mr. Phillips as if to say, I don't know what else to do with this woman.
"Mrs. Tebbe. I have offered you every opportunity to give me a reason, a good reason, one good reason, not to round up those boys."
"And I gave it to you."
"Bullshit!" Shackley blurted, then heaved a sigh as if to regain his temper. "I apologize." He stared long at Doris, and seemed a little beaten. "I don't want to arrest those boys."
"And you don't have to, Mr. Shackley. I just need some time, just a little more time, and the proof--"
"No. Oh no. You've wasted ample time. You've fueled a cruel, empty hope among the residents. The latest request, from Block Two I believe, has been denied."
The fire of Doris's resistance sputtered against a dampening dread. She held up both hands imploringly, dropping the crumpled notice.
"Mr. Shackley. Please..."
Shackley placed each word deliberately. "No more, Mrs. Tebbe. Unless you have something very, very solid to change my mind. Now. Do you or don't you?"
/ / / /
Conscious living. What is he saying about conscious living? He speaks to her, but Doris can't see him and she realizes it's because she refuses to look at him. But only because she's so frantic. She has to keep the two ropes in her hands, clutched tight in her hands. She wants to look at him, but if she does, she'll lose one of the ropes, tugging and straining in opposite directions. Maybe lose both. She, the only thing stopping them from whiping off into disaster unless she can keep clutching them no matter how her hands burn. She is their middle. It is her responsibility.
"How much more conscious can I be?" she demands of him, still refusing to look. "I'm doing everything I can!"
The ropes jerk and strain Doris's arms. Panic roils through her chest and she struggles to hold more tightly. She can't let go, she mustn't let go, even if the ropes tear her in two!
Conscious. Are you choosing to hold the ropes?
"Yes! Yes, I am!"
Are you really?
The ropes stretch farther and Doris's reaction is immediate, automatic. Clutch! Tighter! She feels the tear at each shoulder, she feels the flesh surrender to pain. But it is her helplessness, her inability to control anything at all that causes her to scream in agony --
Her scream pulled Doris out of her nightmare. She was certain she had cried aloud and looked around in the dark as if expecting someone to burst in. But no. She was alone. She left her bed, not bothering to turn on the nightstand's lamp. She preferred stumbling around in the night, guided only by the thinnest of moonlight.
Moonlight. Coming out of dream, it was as if she only now realized the first quarter was upon her. Upon them all. Doris struggled through the house's gloom until she was free upon the porch, where she stared into the sky, alive with so many stars it seemed dusty. Arcing above the camp, the slender, silver warning that was the quarter moon.
Seven days left. No. Seven nights, as of tonight. She could see the silhouette of the M.P. compound near Tulenar's main gate. Before long, one particular military truck would be poised there, waiting for the right moment. Seven nights left.
Doris shivered in her flannel gown, her dark, red hair spread across her shoulders. She pulled her arms around her for warmth and tentatively touched her shoulders, wondering if maybe she would find the flesh torn there. Foolish, but somehow she thought she would.
A cold was growing in her stomach that had nothing to do with the chill of the night. It was all for naught. All her fighting these past weeks, every trick left to her that she had turned. All she had done was waste what little time she had. The cold spread through her until she had to sit or collapse. She made it to the porch swing.
My God. What have I done?
Chapter 34
David Alma Curar's Shack
Pre Dawn. Waning Gibbous Moon.
"How are you doing?"
Max startled. He hadn't heard David come up from behind. He shifted, to make room for the healer on the worn, wooden step and lifted his eyes to the moon again, growing fatter and deadlier night by night.
"Max...?"
"The dreams are back. The memories, I mean. It's hard to deal with."
David's tone was kind, but frank when he replied, "Did you think they would end because you've accepted things?"
"... I dunno..."
"Come inside. You're letting the cold in."
May as well. He couldn't stop what was coming, couldn't slow the moon's relentless yearning to be fully born. He heard David stirring the stove's embers and went inside, closing the door.
The little one-room shack was littered with the camping equipment they had returned with a few days ago and had not bothered to stow. Trying to prepare for First Night had been too difficult at the camp. They decided to take their chances and return to the shack. They had rigged a couple of crude noisemakers -fashioned of bailing twine, triggering poles and tin cans- across the rutted, overgrown path, hoping to give David a head start should the law come. The healer's backpack lay near the door, ready for grabbing up.
Other things cluttered the shack. Even in the pre-dawn gloom, with only the glow of the stove's embers, Max could see them. Several two-pound sacks of silver plating were piled near David's cot, a bullet mold leaned against the wall closest to the stove. Two sacks sat next to it: one with surplus silver, one quarter-filled with completed bullets.
Max hated silver. Hated it. Now, at least, he knew why.
David saw him staring at the bags and said, "Having it so close doesn't help things, I know. It stirs the beast, makes it restless."
"I'm sorry I woke you."
"Don't worry about it. I'm restless myself."
Max pulled his gaze away from the little sacks of burlap and lit the lantern sitting on the table. "How do you bear it, David?"
"You're still very raw, Max. Even if all goes well, you will be for some time."
"But it gets better?"
"Better?" David pulled away from the stove and closed the grate. He came to the table and sat, his brow furrowed as if he hadn't considered the question before. "It deepens your soul, if you accept it. Drives you mad, if you don't. It's difficult to call it better or not better. Holier, perhaps."
Max looked away, walked toward the door, still flung open, and gazed out, collecting his thoughts. Finally he said, "I don't want to run away. I don't want you to die with me. There's no particular reason to think Mrs. Tebbe's gone to get the cavalry. She may have just decided she couldn't do this anymore."
He saw himself as he was two evenings ago, in the failing light, crumpled at her feet. Max. She'd called him Max. "I want to stay. If she changes her mind, she can find us here. If she doesn't, if she's gone to get the authorities, we'll know soon enough." He turned back to face David. "I'd like you prepared to run, just in case. If I'm more valuable alive than dead, David, then so are you. Stay alive. Just leave me the gun."
David was sitting on one of the table's stools, hands on knees, his gray hair with its brilliant silver stripe still loose around his shoulders. He lips were pressed tight as he considered what Max said.
"All right," he replied. "Agreed. I think we should set up camp a mile or so from here. We can keep an eye on things through the binoculars. If the law comes, I'll hike across the foot hills to Disjunction Lake and catch the first train home."
"And you'll leave me the gun."
"I'll leave you the gun."
Chapter 33
Tulenar Internment Camp
Mid-afternoon. Waxing Crescent Moon.
Days were barely better than nights. The activities, chores and recreation of Tulenar were mechanical things. A farce, a false hope to keep anxiety and anger at bay for evacuee and WRA official alike. But at least Tulenar had these things, these actions to play out in the daylight. Without them, the nights might smother them all.
At the Shibai theatre, Doris watched Jesse Haku squat beside a bucket of turpentine, rubbing his paint-splattered hands with a soaked cloth. Above him, on stage, several other evacuees were still working on a canvas backdrop for an upcoming performance. Doris sat on a front row bench, near enough to talk without having to raise her voice.
"So the latest petition, Mr. Haku...?"
"It was delivered this morning, for a rally. It's a Block Two request this time. Betty Masuda is leading."
"Good, very good," Doris replied. But when Mr. Haku looked up at her, she knew she wasn't masking her doubts well.
"It seems you don't really think it is so good," he said. "Is there something I should know?"
Doris gazed at him a moment before shaking her head. "I just think we're at the end of our rope. If I know the likes of Shackley, he'll be putting a stop to this soon. I would, if I were him."
Mr. Haku dropped the oily rag into the turpentine and moved to the water pail set nearby. He dipped his hands into the cloudy water to pull out a bar of soap.
"Perhaps he's not as keen as you," he said.
As Mr. Haku scrubbed his nails, Doris watched the others stretch the painted canvas on the stage floor to dry. Their movements were sober. They worked in near silence, as if they were preparing for another funeral instead of an afternoon of performance art. The tang of turpentine and paint found their way into her mouth.
"It was too much to hope for," she said absently. "We aren't going to make it."
"They didn't work?"
"I'm sorry...?" She looked at Mr. Haku, standing now and drying his hands on his shirttail.
"Those strings you were going to pull. The calls to Eisenhower and your senator friends. Leaking things to the press corps. None of that worked?"
That wasn't what she had been thinking about. But Mr. Haku's question pricked a nerve.
"Yes, well...I found out how much clout a senator's widow really has."
Not everybody's memory was as long as Al or Mim Spinner's when it came to favors owed. The strings to which Mr. Haku referred led to a federal judge and Abel's senatorial heir. Neither man could have voiced more sympathy for the Inu Hunters' plight. Nor could they have been been less helpful. Owed gratitude could not withstand the fear of political oblivion. As for the press corps, the only attention her leaks attracted was far outside the mainstream press.
As for the calls to Milton Eisenhower, well...Doris conceded that her attempts to take this all the way to the President was a long shot, anyway. Eisenhower was, conveniently enough, never in when Doris telephoned.
"But I thought," she said aloud now, gazing at the stage work again, "I thought I could buy enough time."
"Enough time for what, Mrs. Tebbe?"
Mr. Haku's brusqueness snapped her attention back to him.
"These past weeks," he said, obviously annoyed, "everything we could think of protesting was protested, from low wages to curfew. We're the ones who have been buying you time. You were supposed to be finding a way to stop the arrests. Are you saying that all you've been doing is trying to stall them?"
On the defensive, Doris squared herself for a retort. But what could she say? I've been struggling to choose between something I understand and something I may never comprehend?
"I'll see what else I can do," she finally said, and walked away.
/ / / /
Leonard Shackley must have been waiting for her. He was striding from Administration at a brisk clip. Trailing behind him was one of his seconds.
As they intersected on Doris's way from the camp proper to her little house, he called, "Mrs. Tebbe. I need to talk to you."
Doris stopped. "Talk away."
"One moment for Mr. Phillips."
Shackley needs a witness. Christ, here it comes.
As Mr. Phillips drew up to Shackley's side, the latter fished a folded piece of WRA stationary out of his inside coat pocket. He handed it to Doris and said as she unfolded it, "That is your copy of the official notice, Mrs. Tebbe. I am hereby banning you from the camp proper. The perimeters off limits to you are clearly defined in the notice. You're restricted to the area designated Administration and the M.P. headquarters. You may not enter camp proper for any reason, without express authority from me. If you violate this order, you'll be confined to your quarters for the duration of this investigation."
Doris glared at Shackley as she crumpled the notice in her fist. Shackley seemed unimpressed.
"I hope that's not a threat to ignore me," he said, pointing to her balled hand. "If you persist in this behavior --"
"What behavior, for the love of Heaven?"
"Mrs. Tebbe, do you think I'm a fool?"
"No, Mr. Shackley, I certainly do not."
"But, surely, you do, since you thought I wouldn't catch on."
Doris knew he had her. But to let him call her bluff would not only betray Jesse Haku and his network of evacuees, it would be contrary to her nature.
"I can't imagine what you're talking about," she said.
"Don't think I can't see your hand in this. There will be no more committee meetings, no more civil rights debates. No more permits to rally. While you persist in the delusion that Captain Pierce -in all probability the late Captain Pierce- is gleefully slaughtering Tulenar residents --"
"I never said he was gleeful about it..."
"You are provoking the real suspects to kill again! I don't understand you. Are you blind?"
Doris stared at Shackley a moment before saying, "I wish I were."
Shackley closed his eyes and shook his head. When he opened them, he looked to Mr. Phillips as if to say, I don't know what else to do with this woman.
"Mrs. Tebbe. I have offered you every opportunity to give me a reason, a good reason, one good reason, not to round up those boys."
"And I gave it to you."
"Bullshit!" Shackley blurted, then heaved a sigh as if to regain his temper. "I apologize." He stared long at Doris, and seemed a little beaten. "I don't want to arrest those boys."
"And you don't have to, Mr. Shackley. I just need some time, just a little more time, and the proof--"
"No. Oh no. You've wasted ample time. You've fueled a cruel, empty hope among the residents. The latest request, from Block Two I believe, has been denied."
The fire of Doris's resistance sputtered against a dampening dread. She held up both hands imploringly, dropping the crumpled notice.
"Mr. Shackley. Please..."
Shackley placed each word deliberately. "No more, Mrs. Tebbe. Unless you have something very, very solid to change my mind. Now. Do you or don't you?"
/ / / /
Conscious living. What is he saying about conscious living? He speaks to her, but Doris can't see him and she realizes it's because she refuses to look at him. But only because she's so frantic. She has to keep the two ropes in her hands, clutched tight in her hands. She wants to look at him, but if she does, she'll lose one of the ropes, tugging and straining in opposite directions. Maybe lose both. She, the only thing stopping them from whiping off into disaster unless she can keep clutching them no matter how her hands burn. She is their middle. It is her responsibility.
"How much more conscious can I be?" she demands of him, still refusing to look. "I'm doing everything I can!"
The ropes jerk and strain Doris's arms. Panic roils through her chest and she struggles to hold more tightly. She can't let go, she mustn't let go, even if the ropes tear her in two!
Conscious. Are you choosing to hold the ropes?
"Yes! Yes, I am!"
Are you really?
The ropes stretch farther and Doris's reaction is immediate, automatic. Clutch! Tighter! She feels the tear at each shoulder, she feels the flesh surrender to pain. But it is her helplessness, her inability to control anything at all that causes her to scream in agony --
Her scream pulled Doris out of her nightmare. She was certain she had cried aloud and looked around in the dark as if expecting someone to burst in. But no. She was alone. She left her bed, not bothering to turn on the nightstand's lamp. She preferred stumbling around in the night, guided only by the thinnest of moonlight.
Moonlight. Coming out of dream, it was as if she only now realized the first quarter was upon her. Upon them all. Doris struggled through the house's gloom until she was free upon the porch, where she stared into the sky, alive with so many stars it seemed dusty. Arcing above the camp, the slender, silver warning that was the quarter moon.
Seven days left. No. Seven nights, as of tonight. She could see the silhouette of the M.P. compound near Tulenar's main gate. Before long, one particular military truck would be poised there, waiting for the right moment. Seven nights left.
Doris shivered in her flannel gown, her dark, red hair spread across her shoulders. She pulled her arms around her for warmth and tentatively touched her shoulders, wondering if maybe she would find the flesh torn there. Foolish, but somehow she thought she would.
A cold was growing in her stomach that had nothing to do with the chill of the night. It was all for naught. All her fighting these past weeks, every trick left to her that she had turned. All she had done was waste what little time she had. The cold spread through her until she had to sit or collapse. She made it to the porch swing.
My God. What have I done?
Chapter 34
David Alma Curar's Shack
Pre Dawn. Waning Gibbous Moon.
"How are you doing?"
Max startled. He hadn't heard David come up from behind. He shifted, to make room for the healer on the worn, wooden step and lifted his eyes to the moon again, growing fatter and deadlier night by night.
"Max...?"
"The dreams are back. The memories, I mean. It's hard to deal with."
David's tone was kind, but frank when he replied, "Did you think they would end because you've accepted things?"
"... I dunno..."
"Come inside. You're letting the cold in."
May as well. He couldn't stop what was coming, couldn't slow the moon's relentless yearning to be fully born. He heard David stirring the stove's embers and went inside, closing the door.
The little one-room shack was littered with the camping equipment they had returned with a few days ago and had not bothered to stow. Trying to prepare for First Night had been too difficult at the camp. They decided to take their chances and return to the shack. They had rigged a couple of crude noisemakers -fashioned of bailing twine, triggering poles and tin cans- across the rutted, overgrown path, hoping to give David a head start should the law come. The healer's backpack lay near the door, ready for grabbing up.
Other things cluttered the shack. Even in the pre-dawn gloom, with only the glow of the stove's embers, Max could see them. Several two-pound sacks of silver plating were piled near David's cot, a bullet mold leaned against the wall closest to the stove. Two sacks sat next to it: one with surplus silver, one quarter-filled with completed bullets.
Max hated silver. Hated it. Now, at least, he knew why.
David saw him staring at the bags and said, "Having it so close doesn't help things, I know. It stirs the beast, makes it restless."
"I'm sorry I woke you."
"Don't worry about it. I'm restless myself."
Max pulled his gaze away from the little sacks of burlap and lit the lantern sitting on the table. "How do you bear it, David?"
"You're still very raw, Max. Even if all goes well, you will be for some time."
"But it gets better?"
"Better?" David pulled away from the stove and closed the grate. He came to the table and sat, his brow furrowed as if he hadn't considered the question before. "It deepens your soul, if you accept it. Drives you mad, if you don't. It's difficult to call it better or not better. Holier, perhaps."
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