Bitter Waters (3 page)

A few minutes later she announced him completely fit. By then, word of the rescue had reached the media, and four TV news reporters from the local channels arrived, followed by cameramen and more bright lights.

“Mr. Oregon, how did you find the little boy?”

“We're told he's been taken to Children's Hospital. How badly was he hurt?”

“Were there any signs of the other four missing children?”

“No. He just went after a lost ball,” Ukiah told them, following Max as his partner cleared a path to the Cherokee. “He climbed down into the storm drain and got stuck. This wasn't connected to the kidnappings.”

“How did you find him? The police searched the neighborhood for hours. People here say you've only been on the case for less than an hour.”

“Did you follow his scent, Wolf Boy?”

“No more questions.” Max unlocked the Cherokee remotely, and opened the passenger door for Ukiah. “We've had a rough day and we're heading home now.”

The reporters chased Max around the Cherokee as he threw the damp climbing ropes into the back and then got into
the driver's seat, repeating the same questions while he shook his head and said, “No comment.”

Max and Ukiah were silent until they turned the first corner, leaving the chaos behind them.

“Did you get your mouse?”

“Yeah.” Ukiah took the mouse out of his pocket and found a power bar to feed to it. “Where did you get the ropes?”

“Bought them off a neighbor. Rock climber. I paid the little shit twice what they were worth.”

“So you paid him all the money in the world?”

Max looked at him, surprised, and then grinned. “I suppose that is what they were worth to us.”

 

Their offices were in Shadyside, a small, affluent neighborhood filled with boutiques and mansions. Max had bought the house when he was happily married, planning to fill it with antique furniture and spoiled children. His wife died in a car accident, changing those plans, and the mansion was now the office for Bennett Detective Agency. To Ukiah, it was a second home, complete with his own bedroom.

The mansion had a carriage house converted into a detached four-car garage. Max parked the Cherokee in the second bay, between Ukiah's motorcycle and Max's Hummer. “Go ahead and get cleaned up. We'll deal with the equipment tomorrow. Don't forget your mouse.”

Ukiah had forgotten the sleeping mouse. It was annoying that perfect recall did not mean one always remembered important things. He picked up the tiny sleeping bundle of fur, waking it. A moment of concentration reverted it to blood, and then the cells merged with the skin of his palms, making his hands feel bloated and hot.

In the darkness between the garage and the back door, Ukiah stripped down to his boxers. After scrubbing off the storm drain stench upstairs, he dressed in jeans and a black T-shirt labeled P
RIVATE
D
ETECTIVE
, B
ENNETT
D
ETECTIVE
A
GENCY
across the back and went downstairs to raid the fridge. What was in the refrigerator section, however, had sprouted mold while they were in Oregon. The smell when he opened the door was an assault on his sensitive senses. He
closed the door quickly and checked the freezer. Max had it stocked with ice cream bars for Ukiah.

“All the leftovers in the fridge are really foul,” he told Max when he ducked into Max's library office to say good night.

Max grunted, his attention on the answering machine. It played a series of sharp clicks followed by a time stamp; late Friday afternoon was measured off in half-hour increments. “The same person called five times and hung up after the answering machine started to record.”

The next message was from the Volvo car dealership, complaining that the agency's custom-ordered car had gone unclaimed for several weeks.

By the mysterious and archaic rules of depreciation, the agency's Buick had reached the end of its usefulness despite being in perfect working order. In early June, when Max ordered a Volvo to replace the Buick, Ukiah had only cared about its color. At that time, he had been a childlike Wolf Boy. He looked barely seventeen and could recall only eight lean years of living with humans.

Since then his life had been massively altered. He had learned that he was a half-breed alien who aged only when wounded, had been given genetic memories of his father's race stretching back eons, and, most recently, recovered memories of his hundred-year enforced childhood among his Native American family. He had been kidnapped, beaten, and killed, only to heal back to life, aging him body and soul. Some of the changes in him were easily seen in the mirror; in months he had aged years. Most were subtler, surprising him.

He caught himself wondering how Max determined it was time to trade in the Buick, why he chose a Volvo to replace it, and what the agency would end up paying for the change in cars. Surely this was what moths went through after emerging from their cocoons and first considered the mysteries of flight.

“I told Chino and Janey to call the dealership last week.” Max punched the delete button. David Chino and Moisha Janey were two part-time private investigators that the agency employed. While the two worked well closely supervised,
covering the agency while Max and Ukiah were in Oregon proved too much for them. “I'll pick the Volvo up tomorrow morning.”

A message from their accountant followed, stating simply, “I wanted to talk to you about end of quarter.”

Another mysterious business thing Ukiah had left to Max since being raised by wolves gave him a weak understanding of all things concerning money. It bothered Ukiah that he had no real idea what “end of quarter” might mean for the company. Neither the Ontongard nor the Native American child had experience with business accounting, but he gained some depth in personality, someplace, that wanted to know. As the term “partner” implied, the agency was half his.

The next message was from the airport, stating that they found the lost luggage after Max and Ukiah left, and would be forwarding them to the agency in the morning.

“That reminds me . . .” Max took out his PDA and jotted a note. “We need to order new body armor to replace the stuff that got shot up in Oregon, get it express-shipped.”

The last message was from Samuel Anne Killington, the female private investigator they had worked with in Pendleton. They had hired her to drive Kraynak's Volkswagen van back from Oregon. Max had given her a wireless phone in case of emergencies.

“Hey there, it's me.” Sam's voice was rough with exhaustion. Max had kissed her good-bye that morning at the Pendleton Airport. As their small airplane climbed and turned toward Portland, Ukiah saw her pulling out of the parking lot in Kraynak's van, starting her trip to Pittsburgh. When she arrived in a few days, Max planned on talking her into joining the agency.

“I made Cheyenne, Wyyyyyyoming.” She drawled the state's name out and gave a tired laugh. “I probably could have put in another hour or two driving, but that would put me in the middle of nowhere.” A pause, as if she hoped they'd pick up. “I thought you'd be in by now. Well, I'm calling it a night and getting up at some obscene hour tomorrow. I'll call you in the morning.”

She hung up, and the machine voice added, “Sunday,
nine-thirty p.m. End of messages.” Since Sam left Pendleton before six a.m., she'd driven over fifteen hours of the forty-hour trip.

“We just missed her,” Max said, tapping the caller ID button. “I don't recognize the area code on the hang-ups. Do you remember the phone numbers on the business card Ari had from the federal agent?”

Ukiah closed his eyes to sort back to that memory, the small rectangle of white in the cone of light from Max's flashlight, the cold fingers of rain running down his back. “Office or cell?”

“202-555-3524?” Max read a number from the answering machine's caller ID.

“Cell phone,” Ukiah identified the number.

“Damn.” Max sighed.

Which meant Hutchinson had called them. “Did he leave any message?”

“Nope, just hung up when we didn't pick up.” Max held up a hand to warn off any more questions. He dug a small electronic tool made to detect listening devices out of his desk and flipped it on.

Ukiah waited, his stomach clenching into a knot. They had been leery of any government interest in Ukiah since the paramilitary biker gang known as the Pack kidnapped him in June. The Pack revealed the truth of his half-alien parentage, their own alien origins, and the fact that they were locked in a secret war against their genetic brethren, the Ontongard. In movies, the government always tried to capture the alien to “study” him.

Max walked the tool about his offices before indicating Ukiah could speak again. “Whatever Homeland Security wants, they haven't gotten around to bugging my office while we were gone.”

“Do you think they really would?”

“I don't know, kid.” Max put the tool away. “After the last two weeks, I'm seriously jumpy. I'm probably just being overly paranoid.”

“What do you think the deal with the photos is about?”

“The mind boggles.” Max flicked on his computer. “I'm
going to see what I can dig up on this Hutchinson; I want to know whom we're dealing with. Go home to your moms.”

“I can help.” He didn't want to be sent away like a little boy.

Max shooed him off. “Go say good night to Kittanning. I'm sure he missed you.”

Only for Kittanning's sake, Ukiah went home.

Evans City, Pennsylvania
Sunday, September 12, 2004

Mom Jo's wolf dogs were in full chorus as he made the last turn into his moms' driveway. The storm had rained itself out, and the night skies were clearing. Ukiah had the Hummer's windows down, letting in the chilly autumn air. He was home, and enjoying the familiar scents. The rain had dampened the cut fields of hay and corn. The road shone slick black in his headlights, the leaves drifting down in whirls of brilliant gold and crimson to vanish into the darkness beyond the twin pools of light.

Had the wolf dogs heard and recognized the Hummer's engines? It was unlikely—he rarely drove the big sports vehicle. Still he liked to imagine that they were singing him home. He went slow, savoring the small changes he noticed on the way. Mom Lara had pumpkins and cornstalks out already at the end of the drive by the mailbox. Yellow mums were planted at the bottom of the hill. When he topped the hill, his headlights cut through the kennel, and the wolf dogs showed as dark forms and glowing eyes, eight pairs in all.

As he stepped out of the Hummer, a dark form detached itself from the shadows and moved toward him. The wind changed, bringing him the scent of his Mom Jo just before she called to him. She smelled of herself, wolves, and an exotic blend of animals she worked with at the zoo.

“Did you find the little boy?” She was still just a shadow with a familiar voice.

“Yes.” The gravel crunched under his feet as he moved to join his adopted mother in the darkness. She reached out a hand and touched his arm, and used it to guide herself to him.

She hugged him fiercely, typical of the rough affection with which she raised him. “Good boy.” Mom Jo was a lean, dark-haired woman, a shade under average height. When she first trapped him in a humane wolf trap years earlier, he tucked under her chin. He had grown in odd fits and starts over the years, and she now had to cant her head back to look up into his eyes. “You've grown again. It must have been a rough trip.” She meant the trip to Oregon, and it had been. “I wish Max wouldn't drag you into these things. One of these times—maybe we should find you something else to do.”

“Mom!”

“You're good with animals. We could expand the kennels and board pets. It would give you lots of time with Kittanning, and you could even go to school, maybe get a degree.”

“I like my work. I'm good at it.”

“It got you killed in June.” She hugged him tight. “And it got you killed again in Oregon. One of these times you're not going to come back to us.”

“I'll always come back.” He was glad now that he didn't mention the flooding storm drain. “Look, I'm tired. It's been a long day.”

“I'm glad you're home in one piece, this time.” Then, as if speaking of pieces, she said, “Kittanning has missed you horribly. He's been trying to talk; it sounds like ‘Dada.' He says it over and over again, as if he's calling for you.”

“Is he still awake?” He mentally reached for Kittanning. “Ah, no.” He found only warm cottony thoughts. “He's sleeping.”

“You should look in on him before you turn in.” Her tone indicated that it was a command.

“I will.”

“And you need to clean your room; it looks like a tornado hit it.”

Oh, God, she went up to his room? He winced, flashing
over his last seconds of frantic packing. To him, it was obvious that Indigo slept over one night while his moms were at Kitty Hawk, but would his moms notice? Could they smell the sex? Had they changed his sheets? Did they find Indigo's forgotten socks and panties in his laundry basket? Had they emptied the waste can?

Not that Indigo and he planned the one night—they had fallen asleep after making love. Nor did his moms actually forbid her staying over, but during a frank conversation about birth control, they also let him know that they thought he was too young, emotionally, to handle a sexual relationship. Since then, they continued, in looks and silences, to express this belief, but not once had they tried to prohibit it either.

On the heels of his panic came a surprising flash of anger. Why had she gone up to his attic bedroom? His parents' bedroom had always been off-limits to him; after his first big jump in maturity, he'd asked for the same respect. Laundry proved to be a minor stumbling point, since Mom Lara still washed his sheets, towels, and dress shirts for him. He took over those responsibilities to gain privacy and independence. There should have been no reason for her to go into the attic.

“What were you doing in my room?”

“I'm sorry, but Cally was playing private investigator with your stuff,” Mom Jo said. “I went up to get her out of your bedroom and was surprised at how messy it was.”

“I was in a hurry. We only had a few hours to get ready before flying out to Oregon.”

“It still needs to be cleaned.” Mom Jo stopped them even with the Hummer. “Where's your bike?”

“I had too much luggage to bring home on the bike.” He illustrated by taking said luggage out of the back. Actually, between the troubles of the Oregon trip and the federal agent checking into them, Max was jumpy and wanted Ukiah in something that afforded more protection than his motorcycle. If he told his mother that
Max
insisted on the heavier vehicle, though, she would worry.

“You should have taken the Cherokee or the Buick.” Mom Jo picked up his carry-on. “You don't realize how expensive Hummers are to repair. You did ask before you took it?”

“Max said it was okay.”

“I don't know what that man thinks of sometimes,” she said, meaning Max. “Letting you drive off with a hundred-thousand-dollar vehicle. I hope you thanked him for letting you take it.”

“Mom, it's a company car; insurance will cover any damage, and Max values me more than the Hummer.” He slammed shut the hatch, pressed the lock button on the key fob, and picked up his other bag. “The Cherokee still had all of Max's luggage in it, and Max is trading in the Buick tomorrow morning.”

She took a deep breath and sighed it out. “I'm sorry, honey. I shouldn't snap at you.” She started for the kitchen door, and he followed. “Kittanning has been desperately unhappy since you left and he has stopped sleeping through the night. Cally started kindergarten and has gotten
very
clingy. It's been bitter cold and dry—between the two we lost all our late harvest crops. Oh, good news, Lara got a surprise part-time job at Pitt, but her Neon is dying, and we've got a depressing lack of money for everything. We shouldn't have gone to Kitty Hawk; even with staying at Aunt Kat's place, we spent too much money.”

“Mom got a job?” He had heard about Kittanning, Cally, and the weather when he called home last week and talked with Mom Lara. The early onslaught of fall spelled a possibly hard winter for his moms with higher heating bills and less homegrown food stockpiled. The job was news—as was the Neon dying, but that was to be expected, considering its age.

“She's going to be teaching one class a week at Pitt starting Tuesday,” Mom Jo said. “But her first paycheck won't be until October. We're going to have fun juggling things until then.”

“Still, that's great!”

“I know.” She sighed tiredly. “But the timing sucks; we're having a fund-raiser here on Saturday, the twenty-fifth, to mesh with the Octoberfest down in Evans City.”

All of Mom Jo's wolf dogs had been rescued from humane shelters over the years. There was a small thriving group of breeders selling the mix-breed dogs, although almost none
had access to purebred wolves. Large, frequently unpredictable, often destructive, rarely trainable, and very adept at escaping, the animals made poor pets. New owners were often unable or unwilling to deal with the difficulties of raising wolf dogs. Many humane societies and animal control agencies, however, had policies against placing any problem wolf dog up for adoption. Mom Jo took in animals from western Pennsylvania that couldn't be placed, saving them from being destroyed.

The big dogs needed room and lots of food. On the farm, they had the room. Dog food companies sometimes donated food as a tax write-off, requiring the shelter to pay only for the shipping. Even so, his moms were always short of money. Fund-raising was a common family activity, but it was Mom Lara who did the lion's share of the work.

“I'll take Kittanning in to work with me tomorrow.” Ukiah set his bag down in the mudroom, and pulled out his wallet. Prior to leaving for Oregon, he had pulled out two hundred in cash, but Max had covered most of his expenses. He left himself a ten, and handed the rest of the bills to his mom. “Here, take this.”

She eyed the money with dismay. “Honey, you pay rent already, and you're paying for Lara's health insurance.”

“But there's Kittanning now.” Ukiah pushed the money into her hands. “Between the formula and diapers, he's not cheap.”

Things had to be bad for her to tuck the money away with no more protest; his mothers were still struggling with medical bills left over from Mom Lara's illness, several years ago.

“Maybe we should talk to Max,” Ukiah suggested. “He's very good with money.”

“No!” Jo snapped, and then gave a wry smile to soften the word. “Honey, I like Max, even though he occasionally drives me nuts, and I know you trust him, but I'm not about to turn my life over to a man.”

“As I get older, am I going to increasingly become the enemy, one of
them
?”

“No!” She swatted him on the shoulder. “It's just—it would feel like an invasion of privacy. Like undressing in
front of him. And then him telling me what I've done wrong and how to fix it.” She shuddered a little. “I've got a PhD, for pity's sake.”

Since financial counseling was out, he tried another route of helping. “I can go food shopping too, since I'll have a reliable car.”

“Are you sure? You've never gone shopping by yourself before.”

“Mom, I stop almost every night for milk, or bread, or diapers, or something.”

Mom Jo swallowed whatever argument she was going to make, and messed his hair. “All right. Mom Lara can give you a list. What would really help would be for you to take Kittanning on Tuesday, so we don't need to pay a sitter.”

“I'll take him tomorrow and Tuesday,” he promised, though the agency was extremely behind in its cases; he'd make it work somehow. “It will give us time together. What about Cally?”

“My cousin Steve's little boy is in Cally's kindergarten class.” Mom Jo's family had lived in Evans City for several generations, and she had a huge extended family in the area as a result. Each person had a different level of willingness to deal with Jo's “wife,” wolf boy son, fatherless daughter, and wolf dog hobby. “We've worked it out so his wife takes Cally home on Tuesday and Lara takes both kids on Friday.”

He remembered the woman to be laid-back and friendly so this news surprised him. “She won't take Kittanning?”

“She says that she's done changing diapers.”

The kitchen smelled of lasagna and chocolate chip cookies, evidence that Mom Lara was already in pre-party cooking blitz mode. The kitchen timer started chiming as Ukiah and Mom Jo entered, and Mom Lara shouted from the back porch, “Can you get those?”

“Okay!” Mom Jo called back, opening the oven to a blast of chocolate heat. “Go see your mom.”

The tiny changes to the house since he left struck him like spots of color on black and white photos, grabbing his attention. While the lighthouse beside the overflowing
bills-to-be-paid bin was quite nice, the seashells scattered along his path through the dark house reeked of sea salt and dead shellfish.

Mom Lara sat on the railing of the back porch, staring at the northern night sky. A stiff wind was pushing the last of the rain clouds out, and stars gleamed brilliant in the moonless sky.

“Welcome home, honey.” Mom Lara hugged him. “I was afraid it wouldn't stop raining in time! Look!”

“At what?” he asked.

She pushed him to sit on the railing and then stood behind him, pointing out the northern edge of the sky where ribbons of color waved. “It's the aurora borealis. They had some terrific sunspot activity a few days ago, and they were predicting we'd be able to see them this far south. Aren't they beautiful? The charged particles from the sun are spiraling down the Earth's magnetic field. That's why they look like blankets, they're actually falling in sheets.”

It was so like her and Mom Jo, filling him with odd bits of scientific information. He had a patchwork education, stitched together with a perfect memory.

While in Oregon, Ukiah found memories of his childhood as Magic Boy. Dismembered with an ax early in the previous century, Magic Boy's various body parts fled his murder site. Some unknown amount went on to form Ukiah, a child running feral with the wolves. Magic Boy's hand or foot transformed into the turtle Little Slow Magic, who made his way back to his mother's people. A quirk in his alien genetics meant that the turtle retained much of the memories that the child had lost completely.

Absorbing Little Slow Magic and the memories the turtle held, Ukiah added to his quilt work of knowledge, a heritage only half-remembered. “My people believe they are ghosts dancing.”