Secret of the Wolf (28 page)

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The thick limb of the old, blasted oak split in two at the first blow of Quentin's axe. It was

only one of many such branches he planned to reduce to firewood this morning; no

telling how long the pieces of the felled tree had lain at the side of the house, awaiting

someone able and willing to make them useful
.

Winter was far away, but Quentin had a clear choice of vigorous physical labor or going

in search of a bottle
.

He swung the axe again. The morning was hot, and his bare skin ran with sweat. May

and Oscar had watched for a while, well out of the way of flying chips of wood, and then

had gone off to the woods. Lewis was avoiding him, as expected, along with Irene. Mrs.

Daugherty and a hired girl from town were busy with washing. And Johanna

Johanna was gone to town. On business, she said. Something about meeting another

doctor. Quentin felt her absence like a physical ache
.

His entire body ached with wanting her
.

A chunk of wood the size of a man's thigh flew a good several yards and landed with a

thud. Quentin let the axe slide from his grip and wiped his hands on his trousers
.

Careful. He might find chopping up a tree satisfying given the scarcity of more

pleasurable exercise, but not at the risk of doing real damage to the landscape or its

denizens. He retrieved the axe, clamped his teeth together, and lifted it for another

attack. He drove the head so deep in the wood that it stuck. He snorted in disgust
.

"The tree's already dead, friend.”

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Quentin left the axe where it was and turned on his heel. Either Harper had approached

with the silence of a loup-garou, or Quentin had gone deaf to the world. He thought the

latter much more likely
.

Harper raised his hands. "Sorry. Shouldn't have snuck up on you like that.”

"No harm done," Quentin said, concealing his surprise. It wasn't that he and Harper

hadn't talked, but this was the first time the man had sought him out
.

And Harper was beginning to carry the look of a healthy man—healthy in body and

spirit. His eyes were no longer sunk so deeply in his face; the etched lines between his

brows and at the sides of his mouth had flattened. There was even a hint of greater

fullness under his cheekbones, a little more flesh over his ribs
.

That was how much good a few hypnotic treatments with Johanna had done him
.

But it was the expression in Harper's eyes that had changed the most. They hadn't

entirely lost their haunted look, but they were clear and sane. No more retreating into a

world of his own. He was of this world now, and planned to remain in it
.

He had more backbone than Quentin did
.

Company was not what Quentin had in mind, but now that Harper was here he felt the

tension drain from his muscles. Any distraction from thoughts of Johanna was welcome
.

He sat down on the largest branch and stretched his legs. Harper joined him, turning his

face up to the sun
.

The quiet between them was comfortable, almost comforting. Quentin hadn't expected

it. Harper had witnessed his spontaneous trance yesterday, and all that it entailed. It

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wasn't his business to withhold judgment, as Johanna did, and yet he seemed perfectly

at ease
.

Perhaps nothing so bad had happened after all. But if Johanna had failed to tell Quentin

the whole truth about yesterday's incident, Harper might be persuaded to fill in the

blanks
.

"Thank you," he said. "For what you did yesterday.”

Harper shrugged. "Just helping a comrade in need.”

"Even though we didn't fight for the same country, or in the same war?”

The other man's gaze had an uncanny directness. "You sure about that?”

He was equally direct in his speech. Quentin bit back the impulse to ask him what he

meant
.

"I seem to remember," Quentin said, "you saying something about the enemy being

gone, and the war over. I gather that I needed the reminder.”

Harper didn't answer straight away. He stretched out his own legs—long enough to

match Quentin's—and cracked his knuckles. Each movement he made was that of a

man who felt joy in the simplest actions
.

A simple man, Harper. Except that he claimed to see visions
.

"You needed to be reminded, then," Harper said at last
.

"Because the enemy isn't gone," Quentin said. "The war isn't over." He smiled bitterly.

"Are you here about yesterday, Harper? Do you have something to tell me?" His mind

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raced with dire possibilities, matching the tempo of his heartbeat. "Did I do something to

frighten Johanna?”

"Doc?" Harper chuckled, as if he found the notion of Johanna afraid inconceivable. "No.

Not in the way you mean.”

Quentin released his breath. "What did I do, Harper?”

"Reckon she'll talk about that in her own time." Harper searched his pockets for

something that wasn't there. "I don't remember very much of what I said. Must have

talked about what happened during the War. Don't want to think of that yet. Not just

yet." He shivered. "Doc says it'll come back to me when I'm ready. I reckon it's the same

with you.”

So Harper wouldn't discuss it as Quentin had hoped, not without further prompting. Still,

his casual manner laid to rest Quentin's most immediate fears
.

"Do you remember anything about the past few years, while you've been with the

Schells?" he asked
.

"Not much. Didn't want to come out. Not until

" He shot Quentin a keen look. "Why're

you here, Mr. Forster?”

"We hardly need stand on formality." He offered his hand. "Quentin.”

"You know my name." Harper gripped his hand with strong, thin fingers. "I don't

remember when you first showed up, either.”

Quentin rested his palms on the rough, peeling bark of the oak. "I

stumbled across

the Haven two weeks ago.”

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"Seems longer.”

"It feels longer." As if he'd known the people of the Haven forever. Wanted Johanna

forever
.

Harper closed his eyes. "My family sent me to the docs years ago. Guess I was too hard

for them to care for, after I went back to Indiana. I know I was crazy. I owe whatever I've

got now to Doc Schell.”

Quentin shifted on the branch. He didn't want Harper's personal confidences. The man

bared his heart for all the world to see
.

As he'd bared his to Johanna
.

"She is a remarkable woman," Quentin said stiffly
.

"Is that what you think?" Harper nudged at the dirt with the toe of his boot. "I reckoned

you had a slightly different opinion.”

Quentin jumped up and paced away. "I don't understand you.”

"You understand." Harper leaned back, clasping his hands behind his head. "You're

pining after that woman, and she feels the same. It's just that neither one of you'll admit

it.”

Quentin clenched his fists. Was it that obvious, then? Or was Harper the only one sane,

experienced, and observant enough to notice?

"One of your visions, Harper?" Quentin snapped without thinking
.

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"Guess I must have talked about that when I was hypnotized," Harper said. "Seeing

things, and all. Don't blame you for doubting." He scratched his beard. "It's something I

can't help. Every time I touch a thing that people have touched—well, it happens. It's

just that for a long time I wasn't letting anything through.”

Had Quentin been an ordinary man, he might have scoffed at Harper's words. Who,

after all, believed in visions spawned from merely touching an object?

Who believed in werewolves?

"I reckon you need proof," Harper said
.

"You have nothing to prove to me.”

"No. It's always our own selves we have to prove to." Harper stood up and reached for

the handle of the axe that stood almost perpendicular to the stout oak branch in which it

was embedded
.

"You've been working with this axe," he said. He tugged at the handle, but it wouldn't be

moved. "You didn't work long, but you put a lot into it. Enough for me to see.”

The short hairs stood up on the back of Quentin's neck. "See what, Harper?”

"A little of you." He frowned. "Isn't easy to explain. Sometimes

I can feel something

about a person from a thing they just touched. If they only used it a brief while, it doesn't

linger. If it's a thing people have had for a long time, that's what makes the difference.

Sometimes I see what a body's been doing, or where he's been in the past. Or I see

what's going to happen to him." His prominent Adam's apple bobbed. "Right now, I can

see what you intended to do—chop this tree to bits because you wanted to stop thinking

about other things.”

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"Very good," Quentin said with heavy sarcasm.

"You think you can stop wanting the lady if you tucker yourself out. But you aren't going

to finish what you started.”

"Perhaps because I'm sitting here instead of working."

"I'm just telling you what I see. And what I don't see."

"Is that why you're here, then? To predict my future?"

Harper clasped his fingers together until his knuckles stood out from the flesh. "I wasn't

able to help my friends when I saw what was coming for them. Maybe this time

" He

sought Quentin's gaze, his own earnest and grave. "I see that you have many trials

ahead. Someone is following you—someone you know. He'll hurt you if he can. You

may find what you seek, but your fate depends on the decisions you make.”

Quentin laughed. "Isn't that true of every man's fate?"

"No." Harper looked up at the bulk of Mount St. Helena rising to the east. "Or if it is, I

can't always see it.”

"That's fortunate, or you'd be very unpopular among your fellow men.”

Pain flashed in Harper's eyes. "I found that out early on. That's why I never talked too

much. People don't want to know. I didn't want to know, either.”

Quentin felt something disagreeably like shame. Who was he to mock this man? Harper

had his own tribulations, and he thought he was trying to help. He exposed himself out

of a sense of friendship. He thought Quentin was worth the effort
.

True friends had been a rare commodity in Quentin's life, through no one's fault but his

own. He'd either driven them away or run from them, every one. Quentin Forster, the

ever-popular, who made people laugh or gasp or shake their heads, but never left them

bored
.

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And he always left
.

"I'm sorry," he said. "Some secrets are best left unshared.”

"And some have to be." Harper looked back at him. "You've been running a long time,

my friend. Pretty soon you'll have to stop running and face what's after you. There's no

other way.”

"You received all this from an axe handle?”

"No." Harper dangled his hands between his knees. "No.”

Quentin took the handle of the axe in both hands and jerked it free. "Thank you for your

advice. Now, if you don't mind, I think I'll continue my work—”

Harper stood up. "You've come to the right place, Quentin. This is where you make a

stand, and fight.”

Quentin swung around, and Harper stepped away from his bared teeth. "Will Johanna

come to harm by helping me? Will she?”

"Is that what you're most afraid of, or is it the way you feel about her?”

"Will she?”

"I don't see everything. I just know that you and the doc—" He sighed and shook his

head. "I've told you all I can.”

"You said someone was following me, someone I know. Who?”

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Harper took another step back. "I have to rest now." His voice grew muffled, detached.

"I'm tired.”

"Harper—" Quentin reached out, but Harper was already walking back toward the

house, stooped and weary. Quentin let him go
.

"Your fate depends on the decisions you make," Harper had said. But it wasn't just

Quentin's own fate at stake. Harper had told him little about himself he didn't already

know. And as for the business about someone stalking him

He thought about the many times he'd lost track of hours and events, and his frequent