Tent City (30 page)

Three, two, one…I open my eyes and it’s still there. The shear mass of the animal would be enough to stop
anyone
in their tracks. Then add in the fact that my baby brother is there sleeping, cuddled up beside it with Avery inches away, nestled deep inside her own patch of fur.

I know they’re sleeping because I can see their chests heave up and down with each breath. They look as comfortable with that wolf as they would inside their own beds. I know it’s a wolf, as I remember pictures from a textbook. Coyotes have smaller faces and this animal is just
huge
. There is no other word for it.

I make no sudden movements as I try to wrap my brain around what is happening. I am trying to figure out why a rabid animal would tolerate children sleeping on it. Just then, it lifts its sleeping head and makes eye contact with me.

It’s in the eye contact that I suddenly realize this animal is not rabid. I’m not sure what it is, but I can feel deep in my gut it means no harm.

I take a step closer, hands raised in a sign of faith. He makes no aggressive moves and just continues to keep eye contact.

“Brody,” I call out. He’s out cold.

“Avery,” I say a little quieter, as I begin to take more steps closer. The animal lazily gets up, dumping the children from their slumber. They both rub their eyes and look around, slightly confused.

I can’t figure out why my alarm bells are not going off. But more than that, I’m wondering what to do with the animal now. Do I gather the children and just walk away? The wolf starts sauntering away and the three of us watch as it makes a perimeter run and then returns.

“Did he stay with you all night?” I ask Brody. He’s clearly not startled and it feels as if we are not talking about a huge wild wolf, but merely a helpful dog.

“Yeah, we were cold and then he came and warmed us up.”

The wolf has returned and I can tell from the stance, it will be coming with us. It keeps a few feet behind Brody and Avery in a protective posture.

Once in a while it sniffs at something and takes off, but always returns. How am I going to explain this? Already I can picture our arrival and Jonah with his gun.

It is Jonah we see first, but instead of lifting the rifle to the wolf, he drops it as soon as he sees it. Kit is screaming at him to do something.

Avery turns around to look at the wolf and in some form of silent communication she sends the wolf away. My head is spinning at all of it and Jonah puts his hand on my shoulder.

“It’s probably time we talked,” he says.

Kit says we are all crazy, and I think she might be right. She is busy cleaning my shoulder wound and re-dressing it for the third time, as Jonah and Jess try to explain to her what’s going on.

I know it sounds crazy too, but after my encounter with the wolf, I find myself just about up for anything, still dazed by what I found.

“What do you mean guardian?” she asks with disgust on her face. “It’s obviously rabid. We’ve seen the animals. Jonah, you’ve probably shot half the sick animals yourself!”

“That’s not what this is, Kit,” he explains again. “Guardians come in animal form, and only when absolutely necessary. It must have been sent for Brody and Avery when the raid happened.”

“You realize how ludicrous that sounds, don’t you?” she says, searching around, hoping to find a reasonable voice in the room to agree with her. “I’ve never heard of these…
guardians
,” she pushes further.

Jess continues in support of her husband, “I know, Kit, but it’s the only rational explanation. We don’t have to know why or where it came from. I’m just thankful it did. The kids must have needed it, and I’m not going to question it.”

“Rational!” she scoffs, and then leaves. She probably would have liked to slam the door.

I don’t know if it’s because I’m so happy to have Brody back or if it’s the freshly administered morphine, but there’s a slight buzz in my body and it feels like something bigger has gone on today. Could my mom have been part of this? We found ourselves at her flowers again. I felt her everywhere.

The more I think about the wolf though, it seems like a fluke.

The most logical explanation I can come up with is that the wolf had been a mother and maybe lost her pups. Then she stumbled upon human pups and took them under her wing. It reminds me of a story I found in an old book in the attic.

The family was from Canada and they lived in a trailer house near the Canadian forests. Their toddler had slipped out in the middle of the night and the family feared the worst, as it was the middle of the winter. Days had slipped by and when they were about to abandon the search, they finally spotted the child wearing only a diaper curled up beside a massive gray wolf. When the wolf sensed other humans, it first tried to protect the toddler, but then eventually ran off, howling in grief at another lost pup.

Kit’s right. The idea of an animal guardian is crazy. Jonah and Jess are from the religious compound. They probably have all kinds of odd ideas that come from living there.

Jess can see me turning ideas over in my head and I can tell she wants to tell me more to try and convince me.

“I wasn’t completely honest with you about why we left the compound,” Jess begins.

I stay silent, encouraging her to continue.

“They were going to take our baby,” she says. This comes as no shock to me. They’re taking all the children five and older; why not take the other ones too.

“He’s looking for the prophet,” Jess continues.

“Who is?”

“Burke, of course.”

“What do you mean looking for the prophet?”

“There’s to be a ‘Golden Child’,” she continues. “He’s checking all the new babies. They are to be born with a marking. Thankfully, DJ has no markings, but I couldn’t risk it. What if he had? They would have taken him for sure.”

Okay, now I understand what Kit was feeling moments ago. I want to get out of the cabin so I don’t have to hear anymore. The look in Jess’s eyes is almost crazed. I feel foolish for even thinking about buying into the wolf guardian story.

I’m still not letting go of the feeling my mom was a part of today, but they can forget about the rest of it. I’ve had enough.

I step outside of the cabin door to find pure chaos. The guys are back.

I see Bentley right away and I let out a breath of relief that I’ve had held since they left. I’m scanning around searching for Jack, but he’s nowhere to be found. Kit has happily found Grant and I even see Wes and some new kids I don’t recognize.

I normally might hug Bentley hello, but I just want to know where Jack is. He shoots me a look of warning and tells me to follow him into Callie’s cabin.

“He’s been asking for you,” Bentley says.

Jack’s on the bed and he appears to be sleeping. The only thing is that he has a nasty wound on his neck that is hemorrhaging. His face pales as his blood drains. It has bled through the gauze just in the seconds I’ve been here. Callie puts a fresh one on. A huge rush of fatigue washes over me.

“What’s wrong with him?” I can’t keep up with these emotions. I would have liked the enjoy having Brody back for just five minutes before another tragedy happens.

Bentley winces as he is not sure how to say what he wants to. “We got jumped. Actually, the whole mission had gone really well. No problems. We had Wes cleared from the fencing when out of nowhere, one of the guards came up on Jack from behind. I think he meant to kill him right then and there. No hesitation and no warning. He sliced him up pretty go
od, but Jackie, he fought back.” Bentley’s face is flushed with pride and what looks like fear.

“He should be dead, but he got away.” Bentley continues, ”We carried him back, but it doesn’t look good. He needs to go to the hospital.”

“What hospital? That’s ridiculous. We don’t have that option. Move,” I tell Callie, as she is sitting on the side of the bed.

It’s funny how I just realized there is no one to help us. I think we just get panicked and look to someone else to save us, but really out here, there’s no one but us. We either figure out a way to solve it ourselves, or die. Jack has shown me that much.

I wash my hands with some of the alcohol and remove the bloodied strips. It is bad. It’s really deep, but actually the laceration looks very clean. It doesn’t look to have hit any major veins or arteries. The carotid, I think Jack would call it, looks intact. Thank God for small miracles.

“Get me his bag.”

No one moves.

“Didn’t you hear me? Get me his bag now.”

I sit down beside him, careful not to jostle. I take just a second to inspect him and find myself brushing his hair out of his eyes. It has gotten shaggy in the few short months we’ve been here. Jack’s usual impeccably clean flannel and jeans are now spattered with blood. It’s no longer wet blood, but crusted and sticks to his skin.

Callie runs out to get the bag and when she comes back I sterilize everything I need and get to work. I treat the wound with iodine that looks like rusty blood. Smells a bit like that too. I tell myself it’s just a beaver and I get to work. I give him a shot of morphine before I start and I hope he doesn’t wake up. I take the needle that looks like a fish hook. It’s the same one we used on the beaver. I thread it with some suture Jack had in the bag.

When I place the first suture, his eyes dart open and he grabs my arm.

“Easy, Jack,” I say, as calmly as I can.

Damn, I was really hoping he would stay unconscious, for my sake as well as his. I unpeel his fingers one by one and vaguely notice the imprint he has left on my wrist.

“For this to work, I need you to stay very still.” Second stitch. I start to tell him the story about the orange dandelions and this seems to quiet him. I’m up to the part about the honeymoon in the Bahamas. Sixth stitch. Just as I tell him about the little sleeping angels I found this morning, I finish the last stitch. Thirty stitches. No mention of the wolf.

I feel confident about the work and now the bleeding has stopped. Maybe when he is feeling better, he can fix anything I’ve botched. But for now, he’s stopped bleeding and I’m happy with that. I feel a twinge of sorrow at the deep gash in his neck and the angry wound it will leave behind. I push that out of my mind as I realize he’s alive. I lean down and kiss him on the cheek and leave to get cleaned up.

Kit follows me to the stream.

“Who are you?” she asks.

“I know, right?” I smile back at her.

I know what she’s thinking because I’m thinking the same thing. How just a few short months ago, I couldn’t even read a map to travel out here, make a decision on my own, or even take a step without second guessing myself.

And now, all in a period of about 24 hours, I’ve fought in a bloody battle, used some sort of strange intuition to find Brody and Avery, and to top it all off, performed a backwoods surgery on Jack.

I understand Bentley a little more now. There was a time, after I was attacked and I watched him break that boy’s neck that I was afraid of Bentley, even sickened by him. I couldn’t understand how he could just take a life as if it meant nothing.

But that’s not how it was. It was necessary. Necessary for survival. I feel bad about the lives I may have taken, but I understand. It was me or them.

If I had only known that I was capable of all this before we left; this all might have been a little easier. Back then, I was so scared all the time. But maybe this journey is what got me here.

Maybe my parents really did know what they were doing. Maybe I really am capable of taking care of me and Brody.