He crouched, very still. A cold understanding crept into his mind: this smell was a warning. Other canines were not wanted here. Something had claimed the Ramble as its own.
He knew then that he was being observed, and from very close by. He had blundered into the middle of a pack of some kind, and it did not want him here.
As if in response to his thought, they flooded him with their smell, a straw-blood odor shot with urine and feces. It revolted him, and their dark little eyes revolted him more. Two of them came prancing stiff-legged out of a blackberry thicket.
They bared razor teeth. The eyes with which they regarded him were astonishingly intelligent. One animal stared him down while the other glanced constantly about, keeping watch. Their ears moved with method back and forth. These wary beings never ceased to test their environment, not for one instant.
They were the size of scrawny sheepdogs and a lot thinner. Their heads were wide and their ears big and pointed, like giant cat ears.
This was no motley pack of stray dogs. As more of them slipped into view Bob found himself stopped by awe and understanding. These were wild animals who made their living off New York City. They were the legendary coydogs of New England, a strong cross between the coyote and the dog, among the smartest animals nature has ever produced.
They were notorious dog murderers. And they obviously did not like big, wheezy wolves too much either. They were wiry little monsters, their faces sharp with hate and hunger. It was clear to Bob that they would kill him if they could. He could locate six of them in the shadows around him. He noticed the bones of a dog scattered about. It had not been a small dog.
He could sense movement all through the dark shrubbery, ahead, to the sides, behind. The only thing that prevented them from attacking him was the locked stare he was giving the leader. If he broke the look first, he was going to be torn to pieces.
Every whisper of fur against leaf, of paw in loam registered in Bob's ears. The breathing of the coydogs sounded like tiny pumps hissing. When he cocked his ears toward the leader, he could hear his heart beating faster and faster. And his scent was changing, rising to greater sharpness. He was a creature cocked, ready to dart like an arrow for the throat of the big, slow animal before him.
There was a frisk of movement just at the corner of Bob's eye, and a high-pitched squeal as one of the coydogs snatched a bat from the air and gobbled it down, the wings fluttering against its chin.
For the edge of an instant, the leader glanced at his companion. It was enough: feeling as clumsy and lethal as a tank, Bob ran at him. The little creature did not expect this. Bob shouldered him aside and took off running as fast as he could toward the lights of the Transverse Parkway.
As he ran one of them dropped down from a tree, its claws spread, growling rage. Bob took it on his back and felt the hot touch of its claws before he managed to scrape it off against an overhanging limb.
Then he was at the reservoir and the coydogs were still with him, slipping dangerously along nearby. If only he understood this situation, but he did not even begin to: if he had any wolfish instincts at all, they were a vague mental stubble. Bob was no more a part of this secret wild than he was a part of humankind.
Thirst made his tongue feel like a wooden paddle. His nose was tight and he longed to dip his muzzle in clear, fresh water. His hunger made his insides seem like a hollow shell. The feelings were astonishingly intense, much more than they had been before he changed. Even the various diets Cindy had tried out on him had not created burning, passionate hunger like this.
The coydogs attacked as swiftly and silently as Indians attacking a prairie schooner. One moment he was loping along, aware of their odor around him but more or less minding his own business, the next moment he was in the middle of a dusty, snarling, snapping crowd of the vicious little killers.
One of them nipped his belly, and it hurt like a blast from a blowtorch. He screamed his miserable, human scream and rolled, covered with coydogs. A small one wailed as his weight compressed it, but the creature was like rubber, and it was digging its teeth into his neck before he even got to his feet. Dragging five or six of them, he struggled on. If only he could get to the Transverse Parkway, surely the cars would scare them off. A terrific flash of fire exploded in his breast. One of them was lodged just below his chin, his dewlap in its mouth. It shook its head, furiously tearing the meat of his neck.
He went to his foreknees, biting air, flailing and kicking. Now the one on his belly bit down. The heat of it made him scream again. He gnawed the ground, he knew that death had come to him: they were tearing him apart. He was big but he had no idea how to fight them. Involuntarily, he tried to use fists that weren't there anymore.
A few minutes ago he had been congratulating himself on his newfound wolf prowess. Now where was he—being eaten alive by a pack of really skilled killers. They gnawed, they tore, he snapped and thrashed. Soon one of them was going to open an artery or disembowel him. Then this odd traverse would end, here in the night and dirt.
They melted away, disappearing like dreams in morning light.
He stopped growling, stopped his futile snapping, stopped his kicking. Then he heard the rhythmic thudding of human feet. Shakily, he stood up. He was near the reservoir/Through the bushes was the jogging track. A man and a woman came pounding past, Walkmen on their heads, their bodies pouring off odors of sweat and various perfumes. Bob had never been so glad to see anybody in his life. Gleefully, he followed along behind them. The coydog odor dwindled and soon was gone.
South of the reservoir Bob adopted a long lope. Obviously he couldn't hide in the park. As soon as the joggers disappeared around the far curve of the track, the coydogs would be back.
Bob had decided to go home. If the media wasn't too crazy, maybe he would have some chance. There was no place for him in this world, not as a wolf without instincts, or as a man without the form of a man. Home, though, was different. Cindy and Kevin would care for him and love him, and give him what comforts they could. Of course, if the press was whipping up real hysteria, the apartment could turn out to be a death trap.
He reached the Park Drive and hurried south, his various wounds all demanding attention even as his tough new body kept at its job. The creature he had become was a real survivor, it appeared able to stand a great deal of punishment. But it had an end, he knew that. The beast would fail.
He was down an awfully lonely crack in the world. If he had to die, let it happen at home, in Cindy's arms.
Before he reached the zoo, he moved out onto Fifth Avenue. Zoos were dangerous.
He huddled along the streets, keeping to the shadows cast by parked cars. Seen from his new angle the city was a very different place, menacing, darkly looming, fast and full of surprises. Dogs on these roaring comers must be grateful for their leashes.
Because it is a street devoted to business and not well tenanted at night, he chose to go south along Madison Avenue. As swiftly as he could manage he went through midtown, scrabbling under cars twice as patrols passed. The second police car had four men in it, and a rack of hunting rifles. He had never seen rifles in a police car. The only logical conclusion was that they were a special detail assigned to him.
It was a strange thing indeed not to feel that the law was backing your right to live. He had no rights.
He kept on, reaching the end of Madison and proceeding south on Park. He finally got into his own neighborhood.
Just as he was turning onto Fourth Street, he was spotted. A pretty girl of about eighteen with a shaggy green punk hairdo put her fists to her cheeks and screamed like a thing gone mad when she saw him slide across the sidewalk. "The wolf, the wolf," she cried, and the cry spread.
He rushed along, his tail down, his head low. Maybe he ought to just let them catch them.
The prospect of home kept him going. His mind fixed on that one, single, true place. His place, the place of Robert Duke. He wasn't much of a provider, not much of a success, but there was lo
ve there for him.
He rounded a familiar corner. Even the graffiti was familiar, that and the black plastic bags neatly stacked for tomorrow's garbage pickup, the line of five ginkgo trees, the ironwork in front of his own building with the newspaper machines chained to it.
He looked up. His windows were lighted. Lupe would be off by now. Maybe he could break down the glass door and get into the lobby, somehow punch the buzzer, somehow call the elevator. Or, Cindy might come out. Once, twice he paced the block. He'd hide under a car until—
He saw her. His soul, his blood, yearned toward that silhouette in the sixth-floor window. She stiffened, leaned forward. He cocked his ears. Just barely, he could hear her saying something. But the window was closed and he could not make out the words.
Then the silhouette disappeared. Bob moved away from the building and crouched under a car.
It was from that vantage point that he saw the headlines on the Post. It was a red-banner extra, and it said:
KILLER WOLF STALKS CITY
POLICE WARN: IT'S A FREAK
What he could read of the story described him as a giant, marauding wolf so dangerous that he was to be shot on sight.
It sickened his heart. This was just the sort of thing he had feared. He wasn't going to be safe anywhere in this city, not even at home. Perhaps especially not there.
Then Cindy appeared, hobbling along in a single slipper, her hair a mess, her robe flapping in the wind. "Bob," she called. Her voice was music.
Sadly, he remained hidden. When he could, he slipped away from her, moving quickly under parked cars.
She called and called, her voice echoing in the street. Her tone agonized him. She was suffering so terribly. He wished he could take her in his arms and kiss her, and bring her some measure of comfort.
He hadn't really thought of where he would go. His only destination was away from here. Cindy's cries grew long with despair. They followed him down the streets, catching him, driving him deep into sorrow. He'd been a fool to try this, to subject them both to this anguish. He made his way west through the intricate and hidden streets of the Village.
It was a long time before he lost her in the silent streets. Then he was as far west as you can go, standing on a ruined pier. Before him was the black, muttering Hudson, wide and swift and cold.
Chapter Thirteen
SHE'D BEEN LOOKING OUT THE FRONT WINDOW, WATCHING the grim, blowing mist when she saw his shadow dart out from under a car. For an instant their eyes met and her heart thrilled. "Bob," she said, "Bob!"
She ran down to the sidewalk in her robe and slippers, but when she arrived he wasn't there. She also saw the Post in its machine, was drawn to its cruel, lurid headline.
Her hands shaking so badly she could barely manage to put the coins in the slot, Cindy bought a copy.
She stood there, stunned, staring at the picture of Bob. Blown up to cover half of the front page, even his wolf face communicated the gentleness of his soul. This was despite the fact that an airbrush had been used to make his teeth look larger and sharper and to heighten the gleam in his eyes.
She knew him well enough to see how lost and sad he was. Slowly, reading the story, she sat down on the curb. When she turned to page two, she stifled a scream. Her skin prickled. There was a photograph of her stepping out of a cab, her face pinched, her eyes glaring. WOLF LADY TERRIFIES CITY said the headline above the picture. Below it was a garbled version of her lie about finding Bob on a street corner. She was portrayed as unwilling to meet the police and the press halfway. She was pilloried.
The silent buildings seemed to frown down on her. People do not like to be frightened. They distrust the wild, and she had unleashed it in their midst. "God help us," she whispered.
Then she thought she saw a flash of Bob in the distance. Her paper under her arm, she set off after the shadow. But by the time she reached the comer he was gone again. "Bob! Bob!" There was no answer, no movement in the silent street.
A nobility of love possessed her. "I'm going to find you!"
She looked up at the blowing, cold sky, at the low, pregnant clouds. "What did you do to him! Answer me! God, you answer me! I know you're there, you can't hide anymore, not after what you've done. Answer me, damn you! Don't you dare keep silent, you haven't got the right!" She broke down completely, right out in the middle of the empty sidewalk, weeping bitterly, her paper fluttering down, a crowd of white bat pages around her feet. "God, don't turn out to be a creep. I will sacrifice my life if you will change him back."
She hurried off after him, calling his name again and again, seeking him through the streets. Once or twice she glimpsed a shadow. That was all.
She did not notice that a car had stopped near the sidewalk, nor that a big, expressionless man had gotten out. He put his hand on her shoulder. She looked up, startled, into a face that was very disturbing. There was a red scar running up his tan, hollow cheek. His lips were cruel, his eyes tiny and black and thick with sin. Slowly, sensuously, his hand came up her cheek, tickling her, and something sparked in the black eyes. "May I help you?" he asked.
She turned away from him, wishing she was closer to home. She could imagine his mayhem, the ripping, the snarls: this was a violent man.
"You're the wolf lady," he continued, his voice soft. "I know you from the TV. I've been looking for you. I can give you some help."
His words seemed to penetrate as if from a great distance, words of fate and solace coming from this huge, horrible creature. She had expected rape in the small hours. Instead a weighty, careful finger slipped along the line of her tears, and she saw that the eyes were not cruel at all, or at least not all the time. For a moment they became merry, and he was a great benevolent elf. Then what she now recognized as an expression of fundamental anger returned. "I am Joe Running Fox," he said. "I know a little bit about the old ways." He glanced again at her, as if willing her to accept him. When he continued, his voice had acquired a tone of pornography. "There was once something called shape-shifting, that medicine people could do. A long time ago. They lost their power when we were thrown out of our land."
"Are you going to hurt me?" How little she sounded, a whining girl.
Tired air rattled through old lungs. He closed his eyes. "I'm an ugly cuss but I never hurt nobody. I have some medicine in me, the old-time kind. You get where I'm coming from?" She did not. He had conjured images of Lydia Pinkham's and Castoria. "Indian medicine," he added.
She looked him up and down. "You're an Indian?"
"A medicine Indian. Power. It's what you need, power to lead your heart to understanding."
In an instant her fears, her suspicions evaporated. A shock brought her snapping to her feet. "You know."
He nodded. "I have a pretty good idea, hawk woman. Is he your husband?"
She wrung her hands in frantic eagerness. "You know, you know all about it!"
"So I'm right. Your husband is the one who shifted out." He stood up. "We need to talk."
She glanced around. "My place—"
"No, a place where I am comfortable. A bar. Do you mind an Indian bar? Drunken savages?"
"My son is asleep in our apartment. I've got to get back."
"Is he wolf clan?"
"What?"
"Is he like his father, especially attracted to wolves?"
"No, I don't think so. He likes Kafka."
"Oh, Kafka. Everything in Kafka happened to the Indians before Kafka was born." He looked up at the sky. "I ought to meet your son. I will find out what kind of child he is."
He took her home, his bar proposal apparently amended by the presence of Kevin. Cindy let him into the building, thinking to herself, You fool. His back was extraordinarily wide, covered by a threadbare and not particularly clean charcoal knit sports jacket, the sort of thing one might get at the Salvation Army. He was wearing ancient, cracked army boots and baggy khaki pants.
She recognized that she was absolutely crazy to be letting this man in her house.
/> And yet there was something stolid and earth-bound about him. He seemed too old, too wide, and too decrepit to be of any danger to anybody. Then you looked at his eyes and there was a sense of spreading wings, of sunlight in the midnight hour. Those eyes were wonderful with love, reflecting back the light that entered them, at once menacing and gentle. She could still feel the delicate touch of his huge sausage finger on her cheek.
His presence was overbearing in the elevator, his odor a mix of beer and beans and thoroughly ripened sweat. There was also, though, something sweet—quite fresh and pleasant—that brought to mind new flowers. Standing beside her, silent, staring at the elevator door, he gave no sign of what might be happening in his mind.
They got off together and Cindy opened the door of the apartment. How did it feel to be forced? Would he make it hurt? Would it last a long time? Fear had strengthened her senses. She felt with great acuity the coolness of the key in her hand, listened fascinated at the rasp of the lock, inhaled the familiar home scents that blew out through the opening door.
He stood shyly in the foyer, his hands folded over his broad waist, his eyes down. "Come on in. Sit down."
"No. I have to get something from the place. Let me walk around." He stared at her. Seeing that she did not dissent, he began a slow, rocking progress, his brow wrinkled, his lips pursed. He crossed and recrossed the living room, circled the dining table, moved through the kitchen. Then he proceeded down the hall to the bedrooms. Occasionally he made a guttural sound. He passed thrice around her bed, then lay down on it, dropping so hard it all but went through into the Steins' apartment below. After a moment he sat up. "Lots of love here," he said. When he smiled, she saw that his teeth were rotted to stumps.
Then, with a grunted sigh, he got up and went to Kevin's room. Cindy followed him avidly. She was now convinced that she had been insane to do this. He might hurt her little boy. He was someone off the New York City streets; she didn't even know his name. "Owl boy," he said absently.