The Talisman

  He paid the ten dollars.

  He stuck out his thumb at every passing car as he hurried back to the shed, but of course none of them stopped. Perhaps he looked too wild-eyed, too frantic. He certainly felt wild-eyed and frantic. The newspaper the hardware store clerk had let him look at promised sunset at six o'clock P.M. on the dot. Moonrise was not listed, but Jack guessed seven, at the latest. It was already one p.m., and he had no idea where he was going to put Wolf for the night.

  You have to lock me up, Jack, Wolf had said. Have to lock me up good. Because if I get out, I'll hurt anything I can run down and catch hold of. Even you, Jack. Even you. So you have to lock me up and keep me locked up, no matter what I do or what I say. Three days, Jack, until the moon starts to get thin again. Three days . . . even four, if you're not completely sure.

  Yes, but where? It had to be someplace away from people, so no one would hear Wolf if--when, he amended reluctantly--he began to howl. And it had to be someplace a lot stronger than the shed they had been staying in. If Jack used his fine new ten-dollar padlock on the door of that place, Wolf would bust right out through the back.

  Where?

  He didn't know, but he knew he had only six hours to find a place . . . maybe less.

  Jack began to hurry along even faster.

  6

  They had passed several empty houses to come this far, had even spent the night in one, and Jack watched all the way back from Daleville for the signs of lack of occupancy: for blank uncovered windows and FOR SALE signs, for grass grown as high as the second porch step and the sense of lifelessness common to empty houses. It was not that he hoped he could lock Wolf into some farmer's bedroom for the three days of his Change. Wolf would be able to knock down the door of the shed. But one farmhouse had a root cellar; that would have worked.

  A stout oaken door set into a grassy mound like a door in a fairy tale, and behind it a room without walls or ceiling--an underground room, a cave no creature could dig its way out of in less than a month. The cellar would have held Wolf, and the earthen floor and walls would have kept him from injuring himself.

  But the empty farmhouse, and the root cellar, must have been at least thirty or forty miles behind them. They would never make it back there in the time remaining before moonrise. And would Wolf still be willing to run forty miles, especially for the purpose of putting himself in a foodless solitary confinement, so close to the time of his Change?

  Suppose, in fact, that too much time had passed. Suppose that Wolf had come too close to the edge and would refuse any sort of imprisonment? What if that capering, greedy underside of his character had climbed up out of the pit and was beginning to look around this odd new world, wondering where the food was hiding? The big padlock threatening to rip the seams out of Jack's pocket would be useless.

  He could turn around, Jack realized. He could walk back to Daleville and keep on going. In a day or two he'd be nearly to Lapel or Cicero, and maybe he would work an afternoon at a feed store or get in some hours as a farmhand, make a few dollars or scrounge a meal or two, and then push all the way to the Illinois border in the next few days. Illinois would be easy, Jack thought--he didn't know how he was going to do this, exactly, but he was pretty sure he could get to Springfield and the Thayer School only a day or two after he made it into Illinois.

  And, Jack puzzled as he hesitated a quarter-mile down the road from the shed, how would he explain Wolf to Richard Sloat? His old buddy Richard, in his round glasses and ties and laced cordovans? Richard Sloat was thoroughly rational and, though very intelligent, hard-headed. If you couldn't see it, it probably didn't exist. Richard had never been interested in fairy tales as a child; he had remained unexcited by Disney films about fairy godmothers who turned pumpkins into coaches, about wicked queens who owned speaking mirrors. Such conceits were too absurd to snare Richard's six-year-old (or eight-year-old, or ten-year-old) fancy--unlike, say, a photograph of an electron microscope. Richard's enthusiasm had embraced Rubik's Cube, which he could solve in less than ninety seconds, but Jack did not think it would go so far as to accept a six-foot-five, sixteen-year-old werewolf.

  For a moment Jack twisted helplessly on the road--for a moment he almost thought that he would be able to leave Wolf behind and get on with his journey toward Richard and then the Talisman.

  What if I'm the herd? he asked himself silently. And what he thought of was Wolf scrambling down the bank after his poor terrified animals, throwing himself into the water to rescue them.

  7

  The shed was empty. As soon as Jack saw the door leaning open he knew that Wolf had taken himself off somewhere, but he scrambled down the side of the gully and picked his way through the trash almost in disbelief. Wolf could not have gone farther than a dozen feet by himself, yet he had done so. "I'm back," Jack called. "Hey, Wolf? I got the lock." He knew he was talking to himself, and a glance into the shed confirmed this. His pack lay on a little wooden bench; a stack of pulpy magazines dated 1973 stood beside it. In one corner of the windowless wooden shed odd lengths of deadwood had been carelessly heaped, as if someone had once half-heartedly made a stab at squirreling away firewood. Otherwise the shed was bare. Jack turned around from the gaping door and looked helplessly up the banks of the gully.

  Old tires scattered here and there among the weeds, a bundle of faded and rotting political pamphlets still bearing the name LUGAR, one dented blue-and-white Connecticut license plate, beer-bottles with labels so faded they were white . . . no Wolf. Jack raised his hands to cup his mouth. "Hey, Wolf! I'm back!" He expected no reply, and got none. Wolf was gone.

  "Shit," Jack said, and put his hands on his hips. Conflicting emotions, exasperation and relief and anxiety, surged through him. Wolf had left in order to save Jack's life--that had to be the meaning of his disappearance. As soon as Jack had set off for Daleville, his partner had skipped out. He had run away on those tireless legs and by now was miles away, waiting for the moon to come up. By now, Wolf could be anywhere.

  This realization was part of Jack's anxiety. Wolf could have taken himself into the woods visible at the end of the long field bordered by the gully, and in the woods gorged himself on rabbits and fieldmice and whatever else might live there, moles and badgers and the whole cast of The Wind in the Willows. Which would have been dandy. But Wolf just might sniff out the livestock, wherever it was, and put himself in real danger. He might also, Jack realized, sniff out the farmer and his family. Or, even worse, Wolf might have worked his way close to one of the towns north of them. Jack couldn't be sure, but he thought that a transformed Wolf would probably be capable of slaughtering at least half a dozen people before somebody finally killed him.

  "Damn, damn, damn," Jack said, and began to climb up the far side of the gully. He had no real hopes of seeing Wolf--he would probably never see Wolf again, he realized. In some small-town paper, a few days down the road, he'd find a horrified description of the carnage caused by an enormous wolf which had apparently wandered into Main Street looking for food. And there would be more names. More names like Thielke, Heidel, Hagen . . .

  At first he looked toward the road, hoping even now to see Wolf's giant form skulking away to the east--he wouldn't want to meet Jack returning from Daleville. The long road was as deserted as the shed.

  Of course.

  The sun, as good a clock as the one he wore on his wrist, had slipped well below its meridian.

  Jack turned despairingly toward the long field and the edge of the woods behind it. Nothing moved but the tips of the stubble, which bent before a chill wandering breeze.

  HUNT CONTINUES FOR KILLER WOLF, a headline would read, a few days down the road.

  Then a large brown boulder at the edge of the woods did move, and Jack realized that the boulder was Wolf. He had hunkered down on his heels and was staring at Jack.

  "Oh, you inconvenient son of a bitch," Jack said, and in the midst of his relief knew that a part of him had been secretly delighted by Wolf's departure. He
stepped toward him.

  Wolf did not move, but his posture somehow intensified, became more electric and aware. Jack's next step required more courage than the first.

  Twenty yards farther, he saw that Wolf had continued to change. His hair had become even thicker, more luxuriant, as if it had been washed and blow-dried; and now Wolf's beard really did seem to begin just beneath his eyes. He entire body, hunkered down as it was, seemed to have become wider and more powerful. His eyes, filled with liquid fire, blazed Halloween orange.

  Jack made himself go nearer. He nearly stopped when he thought he saw that Wolf now had paws instead of hands, but a moment later realized that his hands and fingers were completely covered by a thatch of coarse dark hair. Wolf continued to gaze at him with his blazing eyes. Jack again halved the distance between them, then paused. For the first time since he had come upon Wolf tending his flock beside a Territories stream, he could not read his expression. Maybe Wolf had become too alien for that already, or maybe all the hair simply concealed too much of his face. What he was sure of was that some strong emotion had gripped Wolf.

  A dozen feet away he stopped for good and forced himself to look into the werewolf's eyes.

  "Soon now, Jacky," Wolf said, and his mouth dropped open in a fearsome parody of a smile.

  "I thought you ran away," Jack said.

  "Sat here to see you coming. Wolf!"

  Jack did not know what to make of this declaration. Obscurely, it reminded him of Little Red Riding Hood. Wolf's teeth did look particularly crowded, sharp, and strong. "I got the lock," he said. He pulled it out of his pocket and held it up. "You have any ideas while I was gone, Wolf?"

  Wolf's whole face--eyes, teeth, everything--blazed out at Jack.

  "You're the herd now, Jacky," Wolf said. And lifted his head and released a long unfurling howl.

  8

  A less frightened Jack Sawyer might have said, "Can that stuff, willya?" or "We'll have every dog in the county around here if you keep that up," but both of these statements died in his throat. He was too scared to utter a word. Wolf gave him his A #1 smile again, his mouth looking like a television commercial for Ginsu knives, and rose effortlessly to his feet. The John Lennon glasses seemed to be receding back into the bristly top of his beard and the thick hair falling over his temples. He looked at least seven feet tall to Jack, and as burly as the beer barrels in the back room of the Oatley Tap.

  "You have good smells in this world, Jacky," Wolf said.

  And Jack finally recognized his mood. Wolf was exultant. He was like a man who against steep odds had just won a particularly difficult contest. At the bottom of this triumphant emotion percolated that joyful and feral quality Jack had seen once before.

  "Good smells! Wolf! Wolf!"

  Jack took a delicate step backward, wondering if he was upwind of Wolf. "You never said anything good about it before," he said, not quite coherently.

  "Before is before and now is now," Wolf said. "Good things. Many good things--all around. Wolf will find them, you bet."

  That made it worse, for now Jack could see--could nearly feel--a flat, confident greed, a wholly amoral hunger shining in the reddish eyes. I'll eat anything I catch and kill, it said. Catch and kill.

  "I hope none of those good things are people, Wolf," Jack said quietly.

  Wolf lifted his chin and uttered a bubbling series of noises half-howl, half-laughter.

  "Wolfs need to eat," he said, and his voice, too, was joyous. "Oh, Jacky, how Wolfs do need to eat. EAT! Wolf!"

  "I'm going to have to put you in that shed," Jack said. "Remember, Wolf? I got the lock? We'll just have to hope it'll hold you. Let's start over there now, Wolf. You're scaring the shit out of me."

  This time the bubbling laughter ballooned out of Wolf's chest. "Scared! Wolf knows! Wolf knows, Jacky! You have the fear-smell."

  "I'm not surprised," Jack said. "Let's get over to that shed now, okay?"

  "Oh, I'm not going in the shed," Wolf said, and a long pointed tongue curled out from between his jaws. "No, not me, Jacky. Not Wolf. Wolf can't go in the shed." The jaws widened, and the crowded teeth shone. "Wolf remembered, Jacky. Wolf! Right here and now! Wolf remembered!"

  Jack stepped backward.

  "More fear-smell. Even on your shoes. Shoes, Jacky! Wolf!"

  Shoes that smelled of fear were evidently deeply comic.

  "You have to go in the shed, that's what you should remember."

  "Wrong! Wolf! You go in the shed, Jacky! Jacky goes in shed! I remembered! Wolf!"

  The werewolf's eyes slid from blazing reddish-orange to a mellow, satisfied shade of purple. "From The Book of Good Farming, Jacky. The story of the Wolf Who Would Not Injure His Herd. Remember it, Jacky? The herd goes in the barn. Remember? The lock goes on the door. When the Wolf knows his Change is coming on him, the herd goes in the barn and the lock goes on the door. He Would Not Injure His Herd." The jaws split and widened again, and the long dark tongue curled up at the tip in a perfect image of delight. "Not! Not! Not Injure His Herd! Wolf! Right here and now!"

  "You want me to stay locked up in the shed for three days?" Jack said.

  "I have to eat, Jacky," Wolf said simply, and the boy saw something dark, quick, and sinister slide toward him from Wolf's changing eyes. "When the moon takes me with her, I have to eat. Good smells here, Jacky. Plenty of food for Wolf. When the moon lets me go, Jacky comes out of the shed."

  "What happens if I don't want to be locked up for three days?"

  "Then Wolf will kill Jacky. And then Wolf will be damned."

  "This is all in The Book of Good Farming, is it?"

  Wolf nodded his head. "I remembered. I remembered in time, Jacky. When I was waiting for you."

  Jack was still trying to adjust himself to Wolf's idea. He would have to go three days without food. Wolf would be free to wander. He would be in prison, and Wolf would have the world. Yet it was probably the only way he would survive Wolf's transformation. Given the choice of a three-day fast or death, he'd choose an empty stomach. And then it suddenly seemed to Jack that this reversal was really no reversal at all--he would still be free, locked in the shed, and Wolf out in the world would still be imprisoned. His cage would just be larger than Jack's. "Then God bless The Book of Good Farming, because I would never have thought of it myself."

  Wolf gleamed at him again, and then looked up at the sky with a blank, yearning expression. "Not long now, Jacky. You're the herd. I have to put you inside."

  "Okay," Jack said. "I guess you do have to."

  And this too struck Wolf as uproariously funny. As he laughed his howling laugh, he threw an arm around Jack's waist and picked him up and carried him all the way across the field. "Wolf will take care of you, Jacky," he said when he had nearly howled himself inside-out. He set the boy gently on the ground at the top of the gully.

  "Wolf," Jack said.

  Wolf widened his jaws and began rubbing his crotch.

  "You can't kill any people, Wolf," Jack said. "Remember that--if you remembered that story, then you can remember not to kill any people. Because if you do, they'll hunt you down for sure. If you kill any people, if you kill even one person, then a lot of people will come to kill you. And they'd get you, Wolf. I promise you. They'd nail your hide to a board."

  "No people, Jacky. Animals smell better than people. No people. Wolf!"

  They walked down the slope into the gully. Jack removed the lock from his pocket and several times clipped it through the metal ring that would hold it, showing Wolf how to use the key. "Then you slide the key under the door, okay?" he asked. "When you've changed back, I'll push it back to you." Jack glanced down at the bottom of the door--there was a two-inch gap between it and the ground.

  "Sure, Jacky. You'll push it back to me."

  "Well, what do we do now?" Jack said. "Should I go in the shed right now?"

  "Sit there," Wolf said, pointing to a spot on the floor of the shed a foot from the door.

  Jack looked at h
im curiously, then stepped inside the shed and sat down. Wolf hunkered back down just outside the shed's open door, and without even looking at Jack, held out his hand toward the boy. Jack took Wolf's hand. It was like holding a hairy creature about the size of a rabbit. Wolf squeezed so hard that Jack nearly cried out--but even if he had, he didn't think that Wolf would have heard him. Wolf was staring upward again, his face dreamy and peaceful and rapt. After a second or two Jack was able to shift his hand into a more comfortable position inside Wolf's grasp.

  "Are we going to stay like this a long time?" he asked.

  Wolf took nearly a minute to answer. "Until," he said, and squeezed Jack's hand again.

  9

  They sat like that, on either side of the doorframe, for hours, wordlessly, and finally the light began to fade. Wolf had been almost imperceptibly trembling for the previous twenty minutes, and when the air grew darker the tremor in his hand intensified. It was, Jack thought, the way a thoroughbred horse might tremble in its stall at the beginning of a race, waiting for the sound of a gun and the gate to be thrown open.

  "She's beginning to take me with her," Wolf said softly. "Soon we'll be running, Jack. I wish you could, too."

  He turned his head to look at Jack, and the boy saw that while Wolf meant what he had just said, there was a significant part of him that was silently saying: I could run after you as well as beside you, little friend.

  "We have to close the door now, I guess," Jack said. He tried to pull his hand from Wolf's grasp, but could not free himself until Wolf almost disdainfully released him.

  "Lock Jacky in, lock Wolf out." Wolf's eyes flared for a moment, becoming red molten Elroy-eyes.

  "Remember, you're keeping the herd safe," Jack said. He stepped backward into the middle of the shed.

  "The herd goes in the barn, and the lock goes on the door. He Would Not Injure His Herd." Wolf's eyes ceased to drip fire, shaded toward orange.