The Howling II (17 page)

“Are you sure they’ll make it up the mountain?” Chris said.

“Estos es muy buenos burros,” said Guillermo, catching the tone of Chris’s voice, if not the meaning of his words. “Muy robustos.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet,” Chris muttered.

“What about saddles?” Karyn asked.

Guillermo looked blank.

She patted the seat of her jeans, then the bony back of one of the burros. “Saddle,” she repeated.

A light came into Guillermo’s good eye. “Oh, si, las manias!” He limped into the shack and returned with two thin, tattered blankets. He folded them carefully and lay them over the backs of the burros.

“Swell,” Karyn said. She glanced over at Luis.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “These burros do not move fast enough to throw you off.”

“That’s not what I’m worried about,” Karyn said drily.

“We’d better get started,” Chris said. “Which one do you want?”

Karyn looked the two animals over. They were about the same size, and their gentle, sleepy eyes told her nothing. She rubbed the ruff of hair between the ears of one of them. The burro did not move.

“I like this one,” she said. “He’s got spirit.”

With help from Luis and his cousin, they climbed aboard the animals. Guillermo showed them how to hold onto the rope that was attached to a simple bit in each burro’s mouth.

“You’re sure we’ll be able to find the place all right?” Chris said.

“The burros will take you there,” Luis assured him. “They will follow the trail, and the trail leads only to the gypsy.”

“And you’ll meet us here when we come down?” Karyn said.

“Si, senora. I will be waiting a full two hours before sundown. Take care you are not caught in the darkness. Night comes quickly in these mountains.”

“Don’t worry,” Karyn told him, “we won’t take any chances.”

They clucked to the burros, and with a little urging the animals started off at a slow, patient pace up the rocky trail that led into the mountains.

Karyn soon found that riding burro-back was every bit as uncomfortable as she had imagined. In less than half an hour the insides of her thighs were chafed raw, and her buttocks ached from the steady jolting gait of the beasts.

Chris, riding ahead on the narrow trail, turned back. “How you doing?”

“Just great, but I may never sit down again.”

After riding up the ever-steepening grade for more than another hour, they came to a clearwater spring that bubbled out between two rocks. Karyn and Chris dismounted gratefully and drank deeply of the icy water while the burros dipped their muzzles in the pool downstream.

“How about a short rest?” Chris said.

“I’d appreciate it.”

Chris sat down on a rock among the scrubby chapparal that grew along the trail. Karyn eased into a semi-reclining position beside him.

“I sure hope this trip is worth the aches and pains,” she said.

Chris grinned at her. “I was willing to come up alone, remember?”

“Come on, cowboy, let’s ride,” she said, pushing painfully to her feet.

Chuckling, Chris remounted his burro and they set off again.

The sun had passed its zenith when they topped the first crest. On the other side the trail dipped down sharply into a steep valley of tangled green rain forest.

“God, how much farther can it be?” Karyn said.

“I think this is it,” Chris said. “Look over there.”

Karyn followed his pointing finger and saw, just over the rise of ground, the top of a cabin. The walls were unfinished logs, the roof a heavy thatch of dry grass. From a hole in the roof a trail of gray smoke drifted into the air. The cabin had an unreal, fairytale look.

“The house of the wicked witch,” Karyn said, and immediately wished she hadn’t.

They got down off the burros and tied them loosely to a clump of chapparal, undoing the rope bits so they could eat. The docile animals lowered their heads and began to chew on the coarse grass.

Karyn and Chris approached the hut together. There was no door. Instead, the heavy tanned hide of some animal hung across the opening. From inside came the smell of something gamy cooking.

“Hello?” Chris called at the door. “Anybody here?”

No answer.

Chris looked at Karyn with a shrug, then drew aside the hide covering the doorway. The smell of cooking, new and old, hit them like a fist. In the center of the single room a low fire burned in a pit lined with rocks. Over the flame, a blackened five-gallon can was suspended on a pole. Something bubbled sluggishly in the can. The room was oppressively hot.

“Vayase. Go away.”

For a moment Karyn could not locate the source of the voice. Then, as her eyes adjusted to the gloom inside the cabin, she saw a tall woman, thin as a stick, with straight white hair and a black dress that had been patched many times. The woman stood on the other side of the fire pit, looking at them.

“Luis Zarate told us to come to you,” Chris said. He squinted into the shadows, trying to get a clear look at the woman.

The gypsy took a step toward them. The glow from the fire accentuated the highlights and shadows of her face. Her nose was thin and highly arched. The cheekbones stood out prominently over the deep hollows of her cheeks. Her skin was leathery and wrinkled, but in the dark fiery eyes was a hint of the wild beauty she once had been. She fixed them with a steady gaze, Chris first, then Karyn.

“You are the ones, then,” she said. Her voice was steady and ageless.

“Luis spoke to you about us?” Karyn said.

“I have not seen him.”

“You said - we are the ones.”

“I knew you were coming.”

“Can we speak to you?” Chris said, his tone automatically respectful.

“Ah, well, come inside if you must,” the old woman said.

Karyn and Chris entered the dark interior of the cabin. There was no carpet on the hard dirt floor, and little furniture that was recognizable. When Chris let the hide fall back over the doorway, the only light came from the fire.

The gypsy, Philina, motioned Karyn into an old wooden chair that had no back. Chris stood beside her. The old woman sat down on a pile of rags facing them, She drew her legs up and crossed them beneath her.

“Tell me your story,” Philina said.

Karyn began to talk, haltingly at first, then more freely. She told the old woman about the things that had happened to her, beginning with her first encounter with the werewolves in the California village of Drago. She talked about the renewal of the horror this summer in Seattle, and how it followed her to her parents’ home in Los Angeles, and finally here to the west coast of Mexico.

The old gypsy listened silently. She did not move or change her expression. The only sign that she was not asleep was the glitter of her eyes in the firelight.

When Karyn had finished there was no sound in the cabin for a long time. At last Philina spoke. “So you have come to me.”

“Yes,” Karyn said. “Can you help us?”

Philina gazed into the fire for such a long time, Karyn began to think she had fallen asleep. Then abruptly she looked up and said, “Let me see your hand.”

Karyn glanced at Chris, then rose and walked over to where the gypsy was sitting. She knelt next to the old woman and held out her hand. Philina took it in her own bony fingers. There was surprising strength in her hand. She traced the lines with a cracked fingernail, muttering to herself in a language Karyn did not recognize.

After a few minutes the gypsy released Karyn’s hand and turned to Chris. “Now yours.”

Chris came over and offered his palm. Philina scanned the lines briefly, then dropped his hand.

“I cannot help you,” she said.

“What did you see?” Karyn asked.

Philina looked up. The shadows thrown by the dull red fire made her face skull-like. “Sometimes it is better not to know.”

“For God’s sake, let’s hear it,” Chris said. He took out his wallet and began thumbing through the bills. “I’ll pay you. How much do you want?”

The old woman made a dry sound in her throat that might have been laughter. “Your money is of no use to me. If you insist on knowing, sit down and I will tell you what I saw in your hands. But do not blame me afterwards.”

With a gesture of impatience Chris put away his wallet. He went back and sat on the broken chair. Karyn stayed where she was next to the old woman.

Philina paused, looking again into the fire before she spoke. “I need give only one reading for the two of you, for I see the same thing in the hands. I see pain. And blood. Much blood. And death.”

“No!” The word was out before Karyn could think.

The old woman looked at her sharply. “What did you come looking for, some carnival trickster? Did you expect me to tell you of long, happy sea voyages and surprise gifts of money? Of romantic strangers entering your lives? Bah! You asked me what I saw in your hands. I have told you. Now go.”

Chris stood up, but said nothing. He helped Karyn to her feet.

“Is there nothing we can do?” Karyn said.

“Arm yourselves as you did once before,” the Gypsy answered. “Then you may have a chance.”

“Is there no place we can be safe?”

The gypsy shook her head slowly. “There is no place. Your destiny is here, and you cannot run away from it. It is here that your story must end.”

“End?” Chris said sharply. “What do you mean end? End how?”

The old woman returned to staring at the fire. She said nothing.

“Chris, what’s the time?” Karyn said suddenly.

He glanced at his watch, then strode to the doorway and pulled aside the animal skin. The sun had moved markedly toward the horizon. The valley to the east of the gypsy’s cabin was already in shadow.

“It’s time to go,” he said.

Karyn crossed the room and joined him at the doorway. Philina remained sitting on the pile of rags, not looking at them. Chris pulled two bills from his wallet and held them out toward the old woman. She made no move to take the money. Chris laid the bills on the broken chair, and with Karyn beside him left the cabin.

The journey down the mountain trail was much swifter than coming up. The burros, knowing they were headed home, jogged along at a spine-jarring rate. Still, the sun seemed to plunge ahead of them. By the time they reached the shack of Guillermo the burro-keeper, it was twilight. Behind them the mountain loomed black and forbidding.

Karyn was vastly relieved to see Luis waiting there for them in his battered taxi. She and Chris quickly dismounted and turned the burros over to Guillermo. They hurried to the car and got in, automatically locking the doors and rolling the windows up tight. Luis gunned the Plymouth down the dirt road toward the highway and the city.

“We did cut it a little close,” Chris said.

Karyn turned to look out the rear window. “Yes, for a minute there I thought - “

She left the sentence unfinished, for from somewhere back there in the dark, tangled chaparral came the howling.

ROY BEATTY CROUCHED in the brash alongside the road and watched as his wife and his friend climbed into the battered taxi. They were not thirty yards away from him. How open they would be at this moment, how vulnerable to the attack of the wolf! Roy looked anxiously off to the west. The sun was almost down, but enough glowing red showed at the horizon to prevent him from changing. Enough to save the lives of these two people. This time.

The shadows of the twilight lengthened and joined and spread like ink spilled from a bottle until there was darkness. Roy tore the soft cotton shirt from his back. He pulled off the canvas shoes he wore over bare feet, and stepped out of his pants.

He knelt naked in the fast-chilling night and willed his body to change.

His muscles bunched and released convulsively. His joints cracked audibly as the bones shifted in their sockets. He fell forward to his hands and knees. His neck arched. There was an instant of blinding pain as the change wracked his body. Then came the exultation. The wild joy of freedom as the great tan wolf took possession of the man.

The wolf moved silently out from behind the brush. The head turned and the yellow eyes looked off down the rutted dirt road that wound down toward the highway. Far below, the glowing red tail lights of the taxi were still visible. The wolf raised his muzzle to the night sky and howled - a cry of hate and defiance.

In the enclosure behind the shack of Guillermo, the burros twitched their ears at the sound. They looked up from their grazing and stirred restlessly. In their soft, drowsy eyes was the shadow of fear.

The door of the cabin opened the width of a hand and Guillermo looked out. He saw nothing in the night, and quickly withdrew. There was the sound of heavy scraping from within as Guillermo moved things against the door to keep out the evil.

Deep in his throat the wolf growled softly. How futile would be the burro-keeper’s attempt to bar the door if the wolf really wanted to get in. Against the werewolf the flimsy shack would offer no more protection than a house of paper. But Guillermo was safe this night. He was of no importance; he knew nothing. But there was another in these mountains who would not be so lucky. One who must learn the price of betrayal. The wolf turned and started up the mountain.

*****

The fire burned low, and then it died to glowing coals in the cabin of Philina the gypsy. She sat still in the cross-legged position she had been in when the man and the woman were here. The money the man had left lay untouched and unseen on the broken chair. Although the night grew cold, the old woman made no move to rebuild the dying fire. She knew she would not need it.

She had lived many years, Philina. How many was it? Eighty? Ninety? She could not remember. She did remember that once in the long dead past she had been a young girl. A beautiful, laughing young girl. The bloodless lips of the old woman moved in a faint, bitter smile. How long had it been since anyone might have believed that once she was beautiful? Or young?

And yet it had been so. In a village near Torrelavega, where the Cantabrian Mountains came down to meet the Bay of Biscay, the young Philina had laughed and danced and sang and flirted with the boys like any Spanish gypsy girl. Then abruptly it had all ended. The gypsies discovered that she had The Gift.