Wolf and Iron

CHAPTER 9

The dinner Nick put together was essentially a stew made of beef and vegetables. To Jeebee’s surprise, the other man opened an apparently heavily insulated and tightly fitting locker in the room containing trade goods, in which there was a good deal of bacon and smoked meat, as well as what looked to Jeebee like a quarter from an obviously recently butchered, cow-sized animal.

He puzzled silently to himself as he watched and helped Nick in the preparation of the meal, as to how they could have fresh meat like this when they showed no signs of taking time out to hunt for it. Then it woke in him that of course the meat had come from the same place the vegetables had. Paul would have customers with such things to trade along their route. At a guess, the smoked meats and the bacon were for a time when such fresh meat was not available.

The wagon had a small metal stove, ingeniously designed to be easily detached from its flue and carried outside by insulated handles.

Nick carried it outside this evening after the wagon stopped and did the cooking. It had a firebox underneath its solid metal top that was fed with chunks of already burning wood from the fire he had lit immediately beside the wagon when they had finished moving for the day.

With the stew they had bread, produced from another locker, and which also must have been traded for. Both foods were served up on a sort of compartmental tray like those Jeebee had occasionally seen in school lunchrooms. Folding lawn chairs were brought out from the wagon and they all ate with their trays on their knees, sitting around the fire. After they were done, everybody gave their trays and utensils to Jeebee, and Nick took him around to show him how to get hot water from the solar-heated tank on the far side of the wagon. The water flowed from a spigot at one end of the tank, into a washbasin that opened out like a swinging compartment table from the side of the wagon, forward of the tank.

“Wash your hands before you wash the dishes,” said Merry.

Jeebee felt a moment’s irritation at the tone of her voice. However, he was surprised to notice, it was not as much irritation as he might once have felt; and it went away in a moment. There was something about these new times that allowed for peremptory orders, and for a lack of resentment on the part of those who had to take them.

He was at the bottom of the chain of command, here at this wagon. It seemed natural, therefore, that everybody should give him orders. Besides, he realized, looking at his hands, they were indeed dirty. He used the basin’s soap and some water from the tank to wash at the spigot. The water was, remarkably, not merely warm, but hot. He wet his hands, then turned the water off while he soaped up. It was a shipboard trick to conserve water, which he had read about. When he had scrubbed his soapy hands together thoroughly, he turned the spigot on again, briefly, and rinsed them clean.

He was slightly ashamed to realize he had forgotten to notice how dirty they were. Now, with clean hands, he filled the pan with water and washed the dishes.

Nick appeared in time to show him where to put them away, then led him back to the fire, where they found Paul and Merry simply sitting, talking and enjoying the colors and heat of the fire as the sunset faded and the day cooled. Nick took one of the two empty chairs. Jeebee hesitated, not taking the other one.

He turned to Paul, and waited until he and Merry paused in their conversation. Paul looked at him questioningly.

“Wolf won’t come down to the wagon,” Jeebee said, “but he’s used to getting together with me most nights just at twilight and at dawn. If you don’t mind, I’m going up into the woods where he can come up to me and feel safe.”

Paul nodded. He got to his feet and went into the wagon, coming out a few minutes later with something that looked like a very large fishing reel loaded with line. Its base was welded to a block of metal, so that it could be set upright. He carried this back to his chair, sat back down with it beside him and pulled the end of the line out, handing it to Jeebee.

“Just hang on to that when you go up into the woods,” Paul said. “Have you got a watch?”

Jeebee nodded and pulled back the cuff of his leather jacket to show the digital watch he had strapped to his right wrist.

“Right here,” he said to Paul. Consciously, he lied to them. The fact was that the watch was an experimental model with a hundred-year battery, the first and only one of its kind. It had no more been available on the market at the time when the world had fallen apart than the electric bike. But, since the others were not going out of their way to give him any unnecessary information about themselves and their possessions, Jeebee felt no need to give them information it was not immediately necessary for them to know.

“As I say, hang on to the line then,” said Paul, “and give a yank on it every five minutes or so. If you don’t feel a yank back, wait a bit then yank again. When you feel a single yank back, you’re good to stay up there for another five minutes. If you get three quick yanks, then stop whatever you’re doing and come back. If you don’t feel anything, use your own judgment about what you want to do. On that basis, go ahead.”

“Fine,” said Jeebee. He took the end of the fishing line in his grasp, wrapped it several times around his left hand and then started across the fairly level land toward some trees that here were only about fifty yards away.

The line was light, and the reel ran freely. He was hardly conscious of the pull of it against his hand as he walked into the trees. He went into the trees about fifteen yards, found a little open space that was actually no more than a wide spot between the tree trunks, and sat down.

The light was fading slowly but inexorably. He remembered that when he stopped at night, he normally built a fire. Wolf might be expecting that. He tied the string to a nearby tree trunk and scraped together some twigs and fallen branches so that he would have dry wood. He used the fireplace starter that he carried, folded up like a jackknife in his pants pocket. It gave off a spark that caught on the dry leaves and other tinder he had placed under a little pyramid of twigs.

A tiny flame flickered up. Delicately and carefully, he fed it to greater life with slightly heavier pieces of dry branches, and in a matter of minutes he had a small but cheerful fire going.

He waited by it but Wolf did not show up. He waited, in fact, until it was full dark, tugging on the line every time the silent alarm of his watch sent a vibration into the skin of his wrist at the five-minute intervals for which he had set it. At last he faced the fact that Wolf would not come, tonight at least. He put out the fire, feeling a little empty inside, and made his way back out of the woods, the string taking up its slack as the reel evidently rewound.

Once again in the open he saw the wagon clearly, like a lantern lit from inside. The thick red paint of the sign was now black against the yellow-lit outer body canvas, in a night that had already seen the sun down and the moon not yet up. The sky, moonless, was thickly sprinkled with stars above him. But these did not give enough light to do more than announce their own presence.

The lantern-lit letters spelled out Paul Sanderson and Company, Peddler, almost as plainly as they had in sunshine. It was as good an advertisement and beacon at night, lit up this way, as it had been in the daytime. He went toward it.

As he got close, he saw the other three still by their fire. An L-shaped, black, metal rod had its long end vertically driven into the earth beside the fire and its short, horizontal end bent into a hook from which a coffeepot hung over the flames. The three had cups in their hands.

“Didn’t find him?” Paul said as Jeebee got close. “Help yourself to the coffee cup on your chair seat, there.”

“He didn’t come. That’s right,” Jeebee said flatly, filling his cup at the pot. He tasted the dark liquid. It was real coffee.

“Thought so.” Paul nodded. “The dogs would’ve sounded off if he had.”

Jeebee looked around for the dogs but saw only the yellow female, Greta. She lay with her head on the boots of Merry, who sat, coffee cup in hand, on the far side of the fire.

“Where are the rest?” Jeebee asked.

“They’re posted,” Nick answered. “Out beyond the horses and around us.”

“Why do you think we have them?” said Paul. “If anyone comes close, they’ll sound the alarm. So will the horses for that matter, but they’re not as quick to pick up someone moving in on us as the dogs are.”

“All except Greta,” Jeebee said. “Is she posted?”

“Greta,” said Paul, looking at his daughter. “Greta’s Merry’s special pet. She found us and took to Merry right from the start.”

Jeebee sat down on his chair, holding his cup, and looked almost directly through the flames at Merry. She looked back at him. For such a cheerful face it was not an unfriendly stare, but there was nothing warming about it either. She had hardly said a kind, or even a semikind word, to him since they had met, he thought. Then he relented, within. Times were different now. It was natural to suspect a stranger and he was still that to those here—as they were to him.

His mind wandered as he sipped the hot black coffee. He wondered how Wolf was doing. The sudden awareness of a shape beside him brought him abruptly out of his thoughts. He turned his head to find his nose almost inches from the muzzle of Greta. She was standing beside him, leaning toward him, wagging her tail and with her ears laid back and a smile on her face. When he looked at her, she fawned upon him and sniffed eagerly over his pants legs and on up to examine his jacket. Eventually, she completed her survey and came back to manage a brief but successful lick at his face before he could dodge her tongue. Wiping his face, he fended off another tongue swipe. He petted her and she crouched down beside him. In fact, she curled up beside him, almost, but not quite, with her head on his boots as she had on Merry’s.

The thought of Merry made Jeebee look across through the flames at her once more. There was an expression on her face now. And he thought it was an even less friendly expression than before. For the first time it struck Jeebee that she might resent her dog paying this much attention so soon to Jeebee. She would have good cause to, with a dog that was particularly her own taking up like this with a stranger. Almost ashamed to admit it himself, Jeebee identified his guess of a possible resentment in her with a sneaky feeling of triumph inside himself. He might not be able to ride a horse like her, or do half a dozen other things, he thought, but dogs liked him—or at least this dog seemed to.

It was only then that it occurred to him that what might have attracted Greta was not him, but the smell of Wolf on his clothes.

They continued to sit around the fire for some little time, drinking coffee. Very little was said. It seemed to Jeebee that the other three did not talk much simply because they knew each other so well that there was very little to say. In his own case he had nothing to say to them and it could be they said nothing to him because they knew so little about him.

Eventually Paul threw the dregs of his cup into the fire, stood up, and stretched.

“We’ll need to get going with daylight,” he said. “If we want to reach the Borgstrom place by late midmorning, tomorrow.”

Merry had risen at almost the same moment. She whistled sharply and Greta jerked her head up from Jeebee’s legs, got to her feet, and trotted over to Merry.

“Guard,” Merry said to the dog, and turned toward the wagon. Greta walked off a few steps with her back to the rest of them and dropped down on the grass, her paws crossed in front of her, her gaze outward into the darkness. Paul, followed by Merry, disappeared into the wagon.

“Well,” said Nick after they had been gone a few moments. “Guess we’d better turn in, too. You’re going to take that hammock on the south side, Jeebee.”

Jeebee felt a strange reluctance to go inside. He had been sleeping so many nights under the stars that the thought of trying to rest in the wagon struck him almost like entering a prison cell.

“I can bed down out here,” he said.

“No,” Nick answered, calmly, “you sleep inside where I can keep an eye on you until we get to know you better. You’ll like that hammock, once you get used to it.”

He dumped his own cup’s small amount of remaining liquid on the fire.

Looking past Jeebee, he said, almost conversationally, “You got any idea how strong you stink?” Jeebee started.

He had not thought. Of course, that would be one reason Merry would take the attitude toward him she had. How long had it been since he had taken off the clothes he was wearing? How long since he had been ordinarily clean? He could not remember. It was a matter of months, anyway. At least since he had run away from Stoketon. These people here probably could smell him ten yards off.

“I’d forgotten… ” he said.

Nick’s eyes came back to meet Jeebee’s.

“We’ve got a large metal tub inside,” Nick said. “Big enough to get into. You can fill it and the water in the pipe’s just about right for a bath now. Also, I can let you have some soap, scissors, and razor, if you want them. Might be I could even find you some fresh clothes.”

Gratitude warmed Jeebee.

“Thank you,” he said. “I could use all of that. You don’t know what it means—”

“Yes, I do,” said Nick. “I’ve been there myself. Besides I’ve got to share the Quiet Room with you as well as the guns, tonight.”

Nick went into the wagon and came out again with the washtub. As he had predicted, it was a big one—almost three feet across on the bottom and a foot and a half high on the sides, made of galvanized iron. With Jeebee’s help he half filled it with hot water from the tank on the wagon’s side and brought it around to set near the fire. Then he went back inside to come out again with a heavy bar of yellow soap that looked homemade. The clothes were jeans and a shirt, the scissors were large, and the razor was a straight-edged one. Nick had also brought a towel. He threw them all down beside Jeebee.

“You’re going to have to wash out your own shirt, socks, and underwear,” he said. “Use the bathwater after you’ve cleaned yourself. Wring the clothes out afterward and bring them in the wagon. You’ll find some hooks by your hammock. Hang them on those to dry. Sleep in the fresh shirt. It and the jeans are new. Paul’ll be charging you for those, later on.”

“Thanks,” said Jeebee. “I mean that. It’ll be good to be in clean clothes—new clothes at that.”

Reflexively, he felt his beard and hair.

“I’ll shave the beard,” he said, “but the hair, I think I’ll just cut—some.”

Nick turned to the wagon.

“Good night,” he said. “I’ll turn down the lantern in the Quiet Room. You turn it all the way off after you’ve slung the hammock. By the way, the safe way to get into a hammock is sit down first in the middle of it. I mean, not just in the middle between the two ends, but in the middle of it, crosswise too. Then lay down and swing your legs up, holding on to the hammock edges. If you do it right, it won’t turn over and dump you on the ground. The mosquito netting’s pinned up; and you might as well leave it that way. No mosquitoes this early in the year.”

He went into the wagon and this time did not come out.

Jeebee cut his beard down as close as he could with the scissors; then wet the stubble down thoroughly with bathwater and soap, and gingerly shaved with the straightedge—blind. He had not thought to ask Nick for some kind of mirror.

Done at last, with only five small nicks, he cleaned the razor, peeled off his old clothes, and settled himself slowly into the still-hot water. He sighed, leaning back against the curved metal edge of the big tub. The heat soaked slowly through him.

He thought of Wolf and of the people in the wagon. It was foolish of him, he knew, but he could not help feeling a bit bothered by Merry’s attitude toward him. He told himself that it was simply a weakness in him that wanted everyone to like him. It was also, of course, the fact she was a woman, and he had not seen a woman—barring the monstrous lady in the long black dress at the railroad whistle stop where he had acquired Wolf—for a long time. There had been nothing sexually attractive about the store woman. But Merry was different.

It was not that he lusted strongly after her. It was simply that she was female. He was male, and conscious of her accordingly—he told himself. It seemed to him, now, watching the stars, that she could have at least smiled once at him. It would not have been too much for her to do, and it would have meant a great deal to him.

He shoved the thought from his mind. He was dangerously close to self-pity again. He made himself think once more of Wolf.

Wolf was a free person. Perhaps he was already gone for good. Even if he was not, something that had been between him and Jeebee would be destroyed if Jeebee should ever try to trap him or bring him to someplace like this wagon by force.

But, otherwise, how was he ever going to get Wolf to join them? Well, at least he could keep going from the wagon out into whatever woods were close at twilight, howling and waiting. Perhaps he should have howled from the woods, this evening. But he had been afraid, he faced it now, of getting no answer.

Possibly, somehow, eventually, Wolf might show up and be enticed to come closer to the wagon.

Possibly…

The water was cooling. He washed himself and stepped out. The night breeze was almost instantly at him, robbing him of the water’s warmth, encasing him into a chill that felt as if he was being buried in ice. He toweled himself dry and quickly put on his new pants and shirt. Then he washed the socks and underwear he had been wearing in the bathwater—carefully. He also washed the extra, long-dirty shorts and T-shirt he had carried in his pockets against the day he could clean them. Somehow, the day had never come. Both sets of underwear threatened to come apart in his hands.

After washing his outer clothes, he emptied and rinsed out the washtub.

Picking up the tub with his wet clothing inside it, he went, the night air cool on his naked face. He climbed up and into the wagon, going back past the goods into the weapons room. Nick was in the right-hand hammock and evidently already asleep. He slept silently, without snoring. Jeebee found some empty floor space to put the tub until morning, draping his wet things on hooks and over the tub to dry. He then slung his hammock and found it was not as difficult as Nick had given him to think. It was merely a matter of finding a balance point. Once in, he stretched out, carefully. It was surprisingly comfortable. There had been a blanket rolled with the hammock, and he pulled this over himself now.

He felt the walls and roof and floor close about him, and thought once more of Wolf.

“I’ll never sleep,” he told himself.

But even as he thought this he was falling into a dreamless slumber.