Part 6
"Not hungry?" Justin clicked his tongue. "Poor thing; you're probably in too much pain." He reached over to the pack leaning next to his sleeping mat and pulled out a roll of bandages and a tin of ointment Red recognized. Hadn't Deborah Garrity been using tins for her salve up until last year? Judging from the amount of ointment left, she deduced that Deborah might have bartered a few tins to him for things she needed a couple years back. If anything was going to help her wounds heal quickly, it would be the ointment made of crimson hoods.
Justin pulled out another jar, this one stopped with a sturdy cork. He popped the cork, poured a little of it on a cloth, and very gently brought it up to Red's nose. The potent scent filled her nostrils, and she gave a little sneeze. She could feel him bring the moist cloth closer, until he was rubbing it all over her snout and under her chin. Her whole body felt very heavy, and her willpower slowly slipped away.
 |
| "Crimson hoods" |
Now she found herself the victim of its tranquilizing effects, augmented by the fact that this was a potent oil extracted from a large amount of blossoms. Her entire body felt like a warm candle, bending and sagging to the ground at the man's feet.
"There now," Justin soothed, "lie still. This is going to take a while, and I don't want you springing up on me too suddenly."
Red couldn't move a muscle as Justin set about cleaning her wounds and bandaging them with a thin layer of salve on them. He talked while he worked.
"Holy smokes, Rascal, you really did a number on this one! In fact, that stunt you pulled in town nearly cost me everything I'd made to that point." He chuckled as he moved from the wounds on her shoulders to the ones on her flanks. "I have to admit, though, it was a nice cover for the side business. Those bumpkins had no idea what was going on!"
It rankled her, hearing him speak so glibly about the people she had sworn to protect. So Rascal's appearance wasn't happenstance, and it wasn't a provoked attack--he'd been a diversion! And she'd played right into their hands! Diversion for what, though?
Justin placed the last bandage and sat back. "There!" he said. "Just a few hours of rest, and you'll be good as new!"
Her body never moved, but on the inside, Red smiled. He wouldn't know that her dual nature allowed her to heal far faster than average, wolf or human. In fact, now that she was no longer actively bleeding, she felt stronger already. She set her mind on turning human again, imagining what it would feel like to suddenly confront the peddler, letting him taste the full wrath of Red, the Guardian of Queston. She felt the chill ripple down the length of her body. Red opened her eyes.
Nothing had changed. She was still a wolf. In her mind, Red cursed and raged at herself. Was it something about the extreme concentration of crimson hoods coursing through her veins right now? How long would the effects last? Would she remain unable to shift until her body filtered out the drug?
Rascal had plopped down next to the fire. He and Justin shared bits of the roasted lamb.
A wave of nausea twisted in her gut, and Red let out a small moan. Rascal perked up his head and looked from the bandaged wolf to the man sitting over him.
Justin chuckled. "You want to offer something to your partner over there? Well, I suppose she's earned it, considering how much help she was for us today. I don't think you would have made it out of that little village alive, if it weren't for her!" he pulled out the shank bone, still with a good-sized chunk of meat attached. "There you go, Rascal. Take it to her."
Rascal held the bone gingerly in his mouth and trotted over to where Red lay. Just the smell of it made the nausea worse. Partner! And she didn't even know what crimes had been committed against the villagers, besides convincing them to give up their priceless handiwork for mere trinkets and baubles. Her own moral dignity nearly won out, but the smell and the sight of the tender, dripping meat proved too much for the emptiness of her stomach. She was more wolf than woman at the moment, and the wolf badly needed to feed. Red forced herself to swallow a few bites. Her head swirled with a thousand penances she would owe Burch Garrity after consuming one of his lambs--something she swore she would never do as long as she lived.
Justin finished his share of the meat and let Rascal have the rest of the carcass. He trudged over to Red, still laying on the tarp. Crouching down, he rubbed the side of her neck.
"I can't let you loose on the mountain," he murmured. "People will wonder where the bandages came from." He tilted his head to the side. "The villagers knew you, and refused to risk hurting you--that means you must be important to them. But why would a simple little village want to protect a wild wolf?" He stroked his scruffy chin.
Red felt her eyelids drooping. As much as she wanted to keep watch over Justin and Rascal, whatever the peddler had smeared on her snout was dragging her into unconsciousness. She fought to keep awake, to listen to what Justin was saying. She felt him wrap the tarp around her and lift her up. He grunted a little as he set her on a flat surface with a hollow thud.
The tarp fell away, and Red could see that she was now in the bed of Justin's wagon. There was his pile of merchandise, covered with assorted blankets in the corner.
"There we go," Justin remarked. "Now you'll be out of harm's way during the night. I've decided to take you with us, Beauty--ha!" He chuckled to himself. "There's a name for you! Rascal and his Beauty; you're one of us now, and when we get down the mountain, I can find you a real apothecary to get that leg looked at." He nodded toward her lame foreleg. "That miracle lotion can do a lot of things, but setting bones isn't one of them. Sleep well, Beauty!" He thumped the side of the wagon with his hand and ambled away.
Alone in the darkness, Red felt another rush of coolness wafting over her. Had the crimson-hood oil faded already? She opened up all her senses, called up her humanity hidden below the surface, and concentrated all her energy on trying to change form. A cry built within her, beginning deep in her gut and filling every part of her until it rushed out of her mouth in a long, wailing howl. Red tilted her head back and bellowed at the sky, as if to let the villagers back in Queston know: Your Guardian is in trouble! Rescue her, for you are now defenseless!
"Beauty?" She saw the misshapen silhouette outside the wagon.
Red gave a small whine, and she heard Rascal's pathetic yelps under the baseboards.
Finally, Justin's shadow shifted. "Never mind, Rascal; she's just scared and hurting, that's all. You'll both be fine in the morning."
Red let her head flop back onto her paws. Her body felt like someone had filled her skin with stones. She was losing her grasp on wakefulness. Each blink lasted longer than the one before it, and at last, her vigil ended and she succumbed to the black depths of slumber.
Red awoke with a small jerk. She felt the familiar ache of staying in one position for too long. She felt the urge to sit up, wanted to stretch her arms, but somehow her body didn't respond like a normal human. She stared down a long snout at a pair of paws. Well, no wonder; she wasn't a normal human just now. Her body ached at being in wolf form for too long. Until now, she had never had reason to be a wolf for more than a few hours. Why couldn't she change?
Awareness of her surroundings brought back memories of the events that led her here. She lay in a wagon bed, severely wounded, at the mercy of an unscrupulous peddler and his pet wolf. Red slowly rolled onto her belly and attempted to stand. She could hardly feel the wounds on her flank and side, but her shoulder still felt like it was on fire. She tried ignoring it by focusing on her other senses.
Outside the wagon, the mountain lay still. She could hear the soft snores of man and wolf as they slumbered blissfully. Red lifted her nose and sniffed.
She could sense a familiar odor rising from the pile of goods in the corner--the smell of Queston. Each breath brought back memories of the Town Square, of the faces she regularly saw there, and the people whose lives she studied from afar. Nostalgia mixed with curiosity, and Red hobbled over to the pile. Her probing nose connected with something hard and metallic. She heard it scrape loose, and when she backed up, something long, thin, and heavy tilted off the pile and rolled toward her.
Red clearly identified the item in the shaft of moonlight streaming into the wagon: a candlestick. She bent down and sniffed again, giving the round base a lick for good measure.
Not just any candlestick. Deborah Garrity's candlestick.
"Heirlooms from my mother's family," she'd said.
Red's instincts rose, and she took a corner of the blanket in her teeth and pulled.
Clunk. An object slightly wider than the candlestick fell down, and Red pawed at it to figure out what it was. A pewter goblet! Hadn't she seen someone setting out those same goblets for the welcoming celebration?
Further inspection yielded three of the goblets, the missing gold-plated platter, a brass kettle, and the other candlestick. Red stared at the haul, a righteous fury building in her chest.
Justin wasn't just a swindler--he was a thief! Surely this was the "side business" he mentioned: while he kept the villagers occupied with bargaining and showing off his stock of "the latest things", no doubt Rascal would be the one to trot around in the background, nipping things here and there, like the little girl's doll. The fact that she had torn around town after the white wolf and caused such a ruckus only provided yet another type of diversion, allowing the shyster himself to pilfer items while everyone's back was turned.
Red's lips curled, exposing her fangs, but she dared not growl, lest the sound awaken the sleepers outside. Now it was more than a personal preference that she should be human; it was her moral duty to hold this man accountable--and she couldn't do that in wolf form! Even if she did manage to escape and run back to the town, no doubt Justin had been engaging in this scheme for so long, he could easily talk his way out of culpability, with none to refute him!
Red vented her frustration by ripping the tarp into shreds with her teeth and claws. She lay down again in the wagon bed. She had no choice but to wait until she could either find a way to escape him, or figure out what was keeping her from changing into a human--or the entire village of Queston would remain vulnerable, and she would be doomed to be a wolf for the rest of her life.
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