The Wolf Tree (12 page)

She had the Elemental Rose.

They camped that night at High Rocks, and the next morning, Sally woke before the sun had broken over the mountains. She started the fire and had a hash of wild tubers sizzling in the skillet as Dmitry and Nel got up from their blankets. Dmitry wandered off to refill the waterskins. Nel
sipped at a tin cup of tea and asked, “I’ve been puzzling over this Elemental Rose of yours. I’m still not sure why you think it will help you discover your father’s whereabouts.”

Sally placed the breakfast to the side of the coals to stay warm until Dmitry returned. “Well, that’s not really what I think it will do. Not directly anyway.”

Nel’s wooly white brows lowered. “What do you mean?”

Sally took the
Incunabula
from her rucksack and walked over to Nel, flipping through the pages until she found the Verse of the Lost. “It’s this poem.”

Nel took the book from her and turned it around. Sally backed a step away as he read it, her heart pounding. Nel squinted as his gaze moved down the page. When he at last looked up, he asked, “What does this mean?”

Sally began with the line about losing the potent passage. As she made her way through the explanation, Nel’s eyes grew wide and fearful.

“Let me just try, Mister Nel.”

Nel frowned. “My powers are gone, never to return. With the loss of my leg, the powers were stripped from me.”

“The Elemental Rose will give you back your powers,” Sally said. “That’s what it does. It restores things that are lost—”

Dmitry returned and dropped the waterskins. “Ah! I’m starving. Can we eat?”

Nel pulled his gaze from Sally. “Yes, help yourself, son.”

Dmitry took out the tin plates and flicked the hash with his knife onto the plates. Handing them around, he began
devouring his breakfast with a pleasant smile on his face, but Nel and Sally did not eat. As Dmitry noticed, he cocked his head curiously.

Sally whispered to Nel. “Will you at least try?”

Nel picked distractedly at his plate.

“Try what?” Dmitry asked. He looked back and forth between Sally and Nel.

“We need to get to Mother Salagi’s,” Nel said. “We’ve wasted enough time already on this journey.”

After covering the fire, they cleaned the campsite and set off toward the Clingman’s Dome. The wind snapping atop the mountain was cool, but the bright sun warmed their skin. Dmitry led them off the ridge and through a hollow, where the woods were darker and the air moist.

“I bet we’ll reach Mattias over at Bee Gum by nightfall,” Dmitry said. “And then it’s just a half-day journey further.”

The ground beneath their feet had the crunch of the last frost of the season. Sally trudged along behind Nel and Dmitry with tears fighting to rise.

By midday they were passing through a thick hedge of rhododendron when they came upon a small pool. It was trapped in a natural dam of rocks, before splashing over into a waterfall to form a stream running down the mountainside.

“Let’s lunch here,” Dmitry said. “Hand me your canteens and I’ll fill them down in that pool.”

After Dmitry left, Nel settled on a log. Sally took out the biscuits and sliced ham from her rucksack and began making sandwiches.

“Sally,” Nel said.

She looked up. Her eyes met Nel’s, and within those enormous moonlike orbs she saw his expression clouded with sadness.

He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “I’ve walked this earth for so many years as Peg Leg Nel … I’ve forgotten what it means to be a Rambler. I’ve forgotten who Joe Nelson was.” Nel touched a hand to the amulet beneath his shirt. “Since losing my powers, my only goal has been to keep you children safe. First Conker when he was little more than a baby, and then the children of my medicine show. And now, you dear ones of Shuckstack. There was much danger. Danger from the Gog. I was never … I’m not a warrior. I see myself as a caretaker. A protector. To be a Rambler again means to take up other responsibilities. Do you understand?”

“I think so, Mister Nel,” Sally answered. “Someone has to watch over us children.”

“I fear this Darkness,” Nel whispered. “I fear what it means for you children.”

“But that’s no reason not to have your powers back, Mister Nel,” Sally said.

Nel sat upright slowly. “Sally, I don’t know of another who could unravel the
Incunabula
as you have. Mother Salagi is gifted with the vision of sight, but she could never return my powers to me.”

“The Elemental Rose can,” Sally said.

Nel nodded.

Sally suddenly understood what he was saying. “You’ll let me try?”

Nel nodded once more.

“Thank you, Mister Nel!” Sally jumped up to hug him.

Dmitry came back with the canteens. “What are you all excited about?”

“We’re going to save Mister Nel!” Sally cried.

Dmitry looked at Nel. “Save you from what?”

Nel frowned apprehensively. “Let Sally tell us what to do.”

Sally was already removing supplies from her rucksack, placing the four objects beside her, opening the
Incunabula
to the drawing of the compass. She pointed to the ground. “Come over here. Do you have your fox paw?”

Nel got up from the log and unbuttoned his shirt collar. He lifted the rawhide cord until the heavy silver paw lay across his chest.

“Which way is south?” she asked.

Dmitry pointed across the pool.

“Lie down on your back with your feet toward the pool.” Nel took off his fez and set it aside to lie down. Sally knelt where Nel’s wooden leg and his tall leather boot rested side by side.

She put the tin of brimstone below them. Then she squinted at the
Incunabula
lying open on the ground and looked at what was next. West was black, earth. Circling Nel in a clockwise fashion, she placed the Black Sampson root next to the old pitchman’s right hand.

“You’re certain this is what these objects are for?” Nel asked, his lips tight as he spoke.

Sally nodded. “I’m certain.” Shuffling around another
quarter turn, she positioned the bundle of spiderweb a few inches above Nel’s wooly white head. She double-checked the
Incunabula
with a glance. Last was east. Red. Air. She set the cardinal feather by Nel’s left hand. Finally, she adjusted the silver paw, centering it on top of Nel’s chest, picked up the book, and stood.

“Okay. That’s it, I think,” Sally said, backing away a step with Dmitry at her side.

Dmitry’s eyes anxiously flickered from Sally to Nel.

Nel’s fingers clenched. He closed his eyes. His nostrils billowed with each deep breath.

“What’s going to happen?” Dmitry whispered.

“Hush!” Sally hissed, pulling his arm to back away another step.

What would happen? She wondered how she would know if it was working. She looked around but nothing seemed to be happening. Then she smelled it. Rotten eggs. She looked at the tin of brimstone. Smoke was rising from the corners of the lid. She pulled her sleeve over her fingers to protect her skin from the heat and popped off the lid. Yellow flames danced up from the powdered brimstone.

“What’s happening?” Dmitry gasped as she came back.

Sally squeezed his arm. Smoke began to form around Nel’s legs. Water ran down from the spiderweb onto his hair. The feather fluttered, and the root twisted and began boring into the dirt. The smoke grew thicker and thicker, dancing over Nel like a phantom, covering him and clouding him from Sally’s sight.

“Sally?” Dmitry gasped.

The smoke illuminated and within it she saw Nel’s body shadowed as if in silhouette. He cried out. There was a flash, and she was thrown backward.

When she lifted her head, dancing lights lingered in her vision. She rubbed her eyes to clear them, and when she did she saw that Dmitry had also been thrown back. He was unhurt but looked around wildly. Nel lay still.

The silver paw was no longer on his chest. Only the leather cord remained, snapped at the ends.

Nel’s wooden leg was also gone.

The boot covered his right leg, but at the left, with the pants rolled up to the knee as he had worn them to accommodate the mahogany peg, lay Nel’s other leg. His calf, ankle, and foot were bare and dark brown and whole. Two legs, side by side.

Sally jumped to her feet, coming to Nel’s side. “Mister Nel! Mister Nel!”

He opened his eyes. His gaze was peaceful, as if he were coming out of a gentle afternoon nap. He smiled softly and said, “Sally. What have you done?”

He took her shoulder to sit up and looked down at his feet, both of them. He wiggled his toes. “Help me stand.”

Dmitry ran to his side. Nel extended his hands to the children. They pulled him until he was upright. Nel put his weight on the boot, making little circles with his ankle before touching his bare foot to the earth. Gingerly he shifted his weight to it. He walked a few steps, limping at first, but then finding the strength. He kicked his foot to the ground, and then danced, shuffling his feet in a frantic rhythm.

“Ha! Ha, ha!” he shouted over and over. Then lifting Sally in his arms, he spun her around. “Sally Cobb! You must be the greatest conjurer of our age!”

Dmitry joined them, circling around and whooping. When the three finished their wild dance, Nel cocked a hand to his ear. “The birds! Their speech,” he said. “I hear them again! The jays and crows and sparrows. They’re calling to one another, building their nests for their younglings. I understand them again.”

Sally and Dmitry laughed with Nel, until Nel stopped to wipe his hands across his eyes. “Let’s go, children. Let’s get on our way to Mother Salagi’s.”

“What about your other boot?” Dmitry said, pointing to Nel’s bare foot.

Nel broke again into a deep, roaring laughter until he held his side. “I’ll have to order new ones, I suppose. At last, I’ll get my money’s worth out of a pair of shoes.”

8
STONES IN THE PASSWAY

A
FTER RATTLING OVER THE HILLS AND PAST THE FARMS
of Tennessee, Kentucky, and Illinois, the
Ballyhoo
finally reached the massive rail yard just across the Mississippi River from downtown St. Louis.

Back in the caboose, Ray gathered his supplies: a blanket and a change of clothes in a haversack, waterskins, some needles and thread, a small cook set, a bowie knife sheathed at his belt, and his red flannel toby tied to a cord around his neck. The toby felt lighter without the rabbit’s foot, although it was a little fuller now with Nel’s charms.

Before Ray left Shuckstack, Nel had given him a pouch filled with cinquefoil, wintergreen, crushed ash leaves, and other ground roots and herbs to protect them from the Darkness. He had instructed Ray to divide the charms into three once they reached Redfeather.

Satisfied that he had everything he needed, Ray planted his brown felt hat on his head and headed down to the mess car.

“Ma packed us some food,” Marisol said as he came in. She held up a gunnysack bulging with crackers and cheese wrapped in waxed paper, biscuits with thick slices of ham, a dozen apples, and sandwiches heavy with tomatoes and smoked meats.

“That’ll last longer than the train ride to Vinita,” Ray said. “Mister Everett’s gone to the depot to book us passage. Should be back soon.”

“How long do you think it will take us to reach the Indian Territory?” Marisol asked.

“Should be there in a day or two,” Ray answered. “I suppose after we find Redfeather, it’ll take us longer to reach Omphalosa. I don’t think the trains run there.”

Marisol put the gunnysack in the top of her leather valise and clasped the belts around the floral print of the suitcase. After neatly tying her hat beneath her chin, she held out her hand to Javidos and called him with a whisper. The fat copperhead slid up her arm, disappearing beneath her ruffled sleeve.

“Is that what you’re wearing?” Ray asked.

Marisol looked down at her long blue and green dress, kicking a button boot out from the ruffled hem. “This is a good carriage dress. My boots are sturdy. I’ve worn them all over Shuckstack Mountain.”

“What about when we leave the Indian Territory?” Ray asked. “Could be travel in the open country up to Kansas.”

She scowled. “I’ve got other travel clothes packed for that part. What do you want me to do? Dress like a boy?”