Secret of the Wolf (47 page)

or been told of his plan's failure. With any luck—more than she deserved—he knew no

more of May's whereabouts than Johanna did
.

Avoiding the roads that would take her close to Silverado Springs, Johanna returned to

the Haven. Harper came running to meet her
.

"I think you'd better come with me right away," he said grimly
.

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She dismounted and followed him to the vineyard. The tableau that greeted her froze

her in her tracks
.

Irene was on her knees in the dirt, weeping hysterically. Lewis stood over her, holding a

kitchen knife between his shaking hands. His head jerked up at Johanna's approach
.

"Stay away!" he warned. He pointed the knife at Irene
.

Johanna held up her hands. "Lewis. Put the knife down.”

"Evil!" Lewis shouted. "All is evil. Don't you see? First the devil wolf, and now this

Jezebel, who has betrayed us all.”

"No!" Irene shrieked. "Please—”

It was possible, in spite of the day's many disasters, for things to get worse. Johanna

recognized that Lewis had reached the limits of his tolerance. He was on the verge of

submitting to total madness, and there was nothing she could do to help him
.

"You cannot hurt her, Lewis," she said urgently. "No more than you could hurt Quentin.”

"I failed!" Lewis cried. "The beast is loose, because of me! I must rid the world of this

whore of Babylon, who let them take the child—yes, I heard everything!" The knife

began to dip, and he snapped it toward the sky. "She is like all the daughters of Eve, in

league with Satan. Just like, like—”

"Irene is not the enemy," Johanna said. "Another man has taken May. We must find a

way to get her back. That is all that matters.”

"No! Evil must be wiped out, lest it swallow us all." He swung the knife in a wild arc. "I

failed before—failed—but this time—”

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" 'Let he who is without sin,'" Johanna quoted, " 'cast the first stone.' Are you without sin,

Reverend?”

Lewis gasped, mouth working. "Without sin?" He fell to his knees. "She betrayed me.

My Hetty. She lay with another man, and I sent her away. I sent her out to die." Water

ran from his eyes and nose. " 'Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own

eye!'" He pressed the point of the knife against his own chest
.

Harper bolted toward him. Johanna dashed to Irene and dragged her away. With a cry,

Lewis allowed Harper to wrench the knife from his hand. He fell prone upon the earth,

his arms clasped over his head
.

Johanna half-carried Irene back to the house and returned to the vineyard. Harper knelt

beside Lewis, whose sobs had hushed to ordinary weeping. The madness was gone

from his face
.

"He'll be all right," Harper said. "I'll take care of him.”

Johanna knew when she had run out of choices. "I will ask Mrs. Daugherty to take

charge of Irene, but it will be up to you to keep Lewis quiet and hold things together

while I am gone.”

"To find May?”

"We will wait for Mrs. Daugherty's news," she said, "and then I shall decide what to do.

But I need you here, Harper. I'll leave the gun with you, but I must go alone.”

Harper touched the handle of the knife. "Me and Bridget will do what needs to be done.”

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Johanna had no doubt that he meant what he said. Fighting exhaustion, she tended

Irene and went back to the kitchen to await Bridget's return. Everything within her

screamed to ride out again, in any and all directions. She knew the utter futility of such a

plan
.

Three long hours later the buggy drew up in the yard and Mrs. Daugherty climbed out.

Johanna met her at the front steps
.

"I came back as quick as I could," she panted. "The town's abuzz with talk of the wolf.

People who weren't here think the rest of 'em's crazy. No wolf's been seen in these

parts in years." She shook her head, unable to believe it herself. "Some are saying the

wolf must have kilt Ketchum, and they're gathering men to hunt it down.”

No worse than Johanna had expected. "And Bolkonksy?”

"Well, it appears he and Ingram lit out of town this morning, just before the mob came.

No one's seen 'em since.”

So Bolkonsky must have left straight after "warning" Johanna about the mob. But he

apparently hadn't summoned the authorities to search for May, which bought her a little

time
.

Time for what? She was no closer to being able to locate Quentin than she'd been

before. And she had assumed that Quentin had May
.

There was another explanation for those bare footprints intermingled with May's. Fenris.

He arose from Quentin's mind when Quentin was threatened. What better time than

after the mob's attack to seize Quentin's body?

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And if he had, what did he want with May? Were Quentin's protective instincts enough

to arouse like instincts from Fenris's dark, twisted heart? Or had he some unfathomable,

fell purpose of his own?

Johanna sat down in a kitchen chair and bent her head low between her knees. This

sickness and dread and terror were only the beginning of her punishment
.

She had transgressed. She had sinned far worse than Lewis, with all his warnings of

Biblical wrath, could imagine. Her deadly sin had been her arrogant presumption that

she understood the human mind and its frailties, that she could cure illnesses that

daunted far better doctors than she. She had ridden high and serene on the crest of her

own wisdom, her own faith in the infallibility of science
.

Above all, she had forgotten the sacred trust of every physician. She had allowed

herself to fall in love, to become personally involved, with a patient. The very weakness

she had deplored in other females had entrapped her. Had she remained pure, true to

her calling, she would have kept a closer eye on Irene and Lewis, protected May, dealt

effectively with Fenris, and found Quentin's cure. In her blind passion, she'd thrown all

that away
.

Love had not healed, but destroyed
.

"You need rest, Doc Jo," Mrs. Daugherty said. "I'll see that everyone gets fed. You take

care of yourself.”

Hadn't she done too much of that already? The others, even Harper, were counting on

her to remain strong. She had no right to indulge in hysterics or personal grief
.

But she did need rest; she'd be useless without it. A little more patience might turn up

the one piece of information she needed to make the next crucial decision
.

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After that, common sense be damned. She would find May and Quentin—or Fenris—if

she had to search every inch of this Valley, and beyond
.

"Thank you, Mrs. Daugherty," she said. She made her rounds like an automaton, went

to her room, and fell facedown on the bed. And she wept. She wept until the pillowcase

and the pillow beneath were soaked, so silently that no one came to inquire. Afterwards

she washed her face, visited her father, and returned to her room to pace the floor

through the long, excruciating night
.

Just after dawn an unfamiliar young man came to the front door. Johanna rushed out to

meet him, indifferent to her ravaged appearance
.

It was obvious that he, too, had been up all night. "You the lady they call Doc Johanna?"

he asked, scratching his dirty hair
.

"I am. Have you something for me?”

"Sure have." He pulled out a sweat-stained, coarsely folded sheet of paper. "A man at

the Bale depot gave me this an' told me to deliver it to you soon as I could get here.

Paid me well—not the kind of man you cross." He shuddered. "Took me long enough to

find this place.”

Johanna snatched the paper from his hand. The words had been scrawled almost

illegibly on a sheet of lady's stationery
.

"You know that I have May," the words said. "If you want her back, come to the corner

of Jackson and Kearny in San Francisco tomorrow night. A man will be waiting to bring

you to me.”

It was signed with a single letter: F
.

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The place stank. That was the first thing he always noticed when he woke to another

foggy San Francisco dusk
.

All of the Barbary Coast reeked: of human sweat, rotting fish, stale saltwater, alcohol,

cheap perfume, and broken dreams
.

It was the closest place to home Fenris had ever found
.

And so he ignored the offensive stench and established his territory here, in this

boarded-up whorehouse in Devil's Acre, jammed between Jackson's bordello and a

saloon where more than one unwary sailor had been known to suffer the loss of

everything he owned—even his life
.

He stretched out on the stained mattress and looked across the room with its peeling

wallpaper and moth-eaten furniture. His wolf's eyes needed no light to see the girl

huddled on the decrepit sofa he'd made for her bed. A blanket—relatively clean, for he'd

stolen it from one of the better whorehouses—swathed her fragile form from chin to toe.

Stray light caught the motion of her pupils as she stared back at him
.

What did she think she saw?

Quentin had become the wolf to save Johanna from the mob. Quentin had followed

May's kidnapper, set her free, and driven the man to his knees in fear
.

But it was Fenris who took human shape again; Fenris who put the terror of damnation

into the half-wit he'd chosen, on a whim, not to kill; Fenris who seized May and carried

her off without any sort of plan, realizing only miles later what he had
.

The means to bring Johanna to him
.

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Quentin would have taken May to protect her against those who'd harm her. Fenris had

no such noble motives. But when he looked at the girl, as he did now, he did not wish

her ill
.

He almost pitied her. The mawkishness of it sickened him
.

He arched his back to work stiff muscles and got up, reaching for his trousers. May

watched him, unmoving. Afraid, with good cause. She'd seen him change from wolf to

man; few humans witnessed such a transformation and remained unaltered
.

Yet in all the time since he had caught her up outside the Haven and carried her away

to the south—while he had stolen clothing and coins from unsuspecting farmers and

bought tickets at the Bale depot for the next train to San Francisco—not once had she

screamed or fainted or fallen into hysterics. She understood what he required of her.

She became his meek companion, a mute little sister who wasn't quite right in the head.

Fenris discouraged the curiosity and sympathy of strangers
.

He'd rifled a lady's baggage at the depot and stole the materials to write his letter to

Johanna. He'd paid a boy to deliver it to the Haven, promising retribution if the note

didn't reach its destination by morning. The boy took his meaning, just as May did
.

He and May reached San Francisco by nightfall. Fenris could have found his way

across the city blindfolded; he knew every gambling den and house of ill repute from

Murderer's Corner to Deadman's Alley. He and Quentin had shared San Francisco, but

here Fenris truly reigned. Especially at night
.

May had clung to him, the lesser of two evils, as he led her to his old haunts on the

Barbary Coast. His derelict house remained as he'd left it, for no intruder had dared

trespass in his absence. The citizens of the Coast knew him too well
.

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And he, Fenris, was still in control. Quentin hadn't the strength to return. He'd been

defeated by the knowledge that he'd lost Johanna—and that he was not alone in his

own body. He reached out blindly as he sought a link to his other self, a means of

recognition and communication. Fenris pushed him back with hardly an effort
.

Eventually Quentin would give up. Johanna wouldn't, so long as she believed that she

could reach him. Fenris would teach her the futility of that false hope
.

Two days had passed since she'd have received his letter—time enough to arrange for