Now there was the wolf-one wolf if what the census-taker said was right. There was no doubt in my mind what had happened to the other two. They had caught up with Elmer and the Bronco and that had been a great mistake for them. But while Elmer had been dismantling two of them, the third one had escaped and probably even now was upon our trail-if there were a trail to follow. We had gone along high, barren ridges, with a strong wind blowing to wipe away our scent. Now, with the breaking of the storm, there might be no trail at all to follow.
“Fletch,” said Cynthia, “what are you thinking of?” “I am wondering,” I said, “where Elmer and Bronco might be at this moment.”
“They’re on their way back to the cave,” she said. “They will find the note.”
“Sure,” I said, “the note. A lot of good the note will do. We are traveling northwest, it said. If you don’t catch up with us before we reach there, you’ll find us on the Ohio River. Do you realize how much land may lie northwest before you reach the river and how big that river is?”
“It was the best that we could do,” she said, rather angrily.
“We shall, in the morning,” said the census-taker, “build a fire, high upon a ridge, to make a signal. We will guide them to us.”
“Them,” I said, “and everyone else in sight, perhaps even including the wolf. Or is it still three wolves?”
“It is only one,” said the census-taker, “and one wolf would not be so brave. Wolves are brave only when in packs.”
“I don’t think,” I said, “I would care to meet even one, lone, cowardly wolf.”
“There are few of them now,” said the census-taker. “They have not been loosed to hunt for years. The long years of confinement may have taken a lot of the sharpness from them.”
“What I want to know,” I said, “is how it took Cemetery so long to send them out against us. They could have turned them loose the minute that we left.”
“Undoubtedly,” said the census-taker, “they had to send for them. I don’t know where they are kept, but doubtless at some distance.”
The wind went whooping down the valley that lay in front of us and a sheet of rain came hissing into the mouth of the cave to spatter on the rock just beyond the fire.
“Where are all your pals?” I asked. “Where are all the shades?”
“On a night like this,” said the census-taker, “they have far-ranging business.”
I didn’t ask what kind of business. I didn’t want to know.
“I don’t know about the rest of you,” said Cynthia, “but I’m going to roll up in my blanket and try to get some sleep.”
“Both of you might as well,” said the census-taker. “It has been a long, hard day. I will keep the watch. I almost never sleep.”
“You never sleep,” I said, “and you almost never eat. The wind doesn’t blow that robe of yours. Just what the hell are you?”
He didn’t answer. I knew he wouldn’t answer.
The last thing that I saw before I went to sleep was the census-taker sitting a short distance from the fire, a rigid upright figure that had a strange resemblance to a cone resting on its base.
I woke cold. The fire had gone out and beyond the cave mouth dawn was breaking. The storm had stopped and what I could see of the sky was clear.
And there, on the rock shelf that extended out in front of the cave, sat a metal wolf. He was hunkered on his haunches and he was looking straight at me and from his steel jaws dangled the limp form of a rabbit.
I sat up rapidly, the blanket falling from me, putting out my hand to find a stick of firewood, although what good a stick of wood would have done against a monster such as that I had no idea. But in grasping for the stick, I found something else. I wasn’t looking where I was reaching out because I didn’t dare take my eyes off the wolf. But when my fingers touched it, I knew what I had-the four-foot metal rod that Cynthia had unearthed from beneath the pile of leaves. I wrapped my fingers around it with something like a prayer of thankfulness and got carefully to my feet, holding the rod so tight that the grip was painful.
The wolf made no move toward me; it just stayed sitting there, with that silly rabbit hanging from its jaws. I had forgotten that it had a tail, but now its tail began to beat, very gently, very slowly upon the slab of rock, for all the world like the tail-beating of a dog that was glad to see someone.
I looked around quickly. The census-taker was nowhere to be seen, but Cynthia was sitting upright in her blanket and her eyes were the size of saucers. She didn’t notice that I was looking at her; she had her eyes fastened on the wolf.
I took a step sidewise to get around the fire and as I did I lifted the metal rod to a ready position. If I could get in just one lucky lick, I thought, upon that ugly head when it came at me, I stood at least some chance.
But the wolf didn’t come at me. It just sat there and when I took another step it keeled over on its back and stayed there, with all four feet stkking in the air, and now its tail beat a wild tattoo upon the stone, the sound of the metal beating on the stone ringing in the morning silence.
“It wants to be friendly,” Cynthia said. “It is asking you not to hit it.”
I took another step.
“And look,” said that silly Cynthia, “it has brought a rabbit for us.”
I lowered the rod and kept it low and now the wolf I turned over on its belly and began creeping toward me. I stood and waited for it. When it got close enough, it dropped the rabbit at my feet.
“Pick it up,” said Cynthia.
“Pick it up,” I said, “and it will take off my arm.”
“Pick it up,” she said. “It has brought the rabbit to you It has given it to you.”
So I stooped and picked up that crazy rabbit and the moment that I did, the wolf leaped up with a wrigglingjoy and rubbed against my legs so hard it almost tipped me over
Chapter 16
We sat beside the fire and gnawed the last shreds of meat off the rabbit’s bones, while the wolf lay off to one side, its tail beating occasionally on the stony floor, watching us intently.
“What do you suppose happened to him?” Cynthia asked.
“He maybe went insane,” I said. “Or turned chicken after what happened to the other two. Or he may just be laying for us, lulling us to sleep. When he has the chance he’ll finish off the two of us.”
I reached out and pulled the metal rod just a little closer.
“I don’t think that at all,” said Cynthia. “You know what I think. He doesn’t want to go back.”
“Back to where?”
“Back to wherever it is that Cemetery keeps him. Think of it. He and the other wolves, however many there may be, may have been kept penned up for years and . . .”
“They wouldn’t keep them penned,” I said. “More likely they would turn them off until they needed them.”
“Then maybe that is it,” she said. “Maybe he doesn’t want to go back because he knows they’ll turn him off.”
I grunted at her. It was all damn foolishness. Maybe the best thing to do, I thought, was to pick up the metal rod and beat the wolf to death. The only thing, I guess, that stopped me was a suspicion that the wolf might take a lot of killing and that in the process I’d come out second best.
“I wonder what happened to the census-taker,” I said.
“The wolf scared him off,” said Cynthia. “He won’t be coming back.”
“He could at least have wakened us. Given us a chance.”
“It turned out all right.”
“But he couldn’t know it would.”.
“What do we do now?”
“I don’t know,” I said. And that was exactly right. I really didn’t know. Never in my Hfe had I felt so unsure of what my next step should be. I had no real idea of where we were; we were lost, as far as I was concerned, in a howling wilderness. We were separated from the two stronger members of our party and our guide had deserted us. A metal wolf had made friends with us and I was far from sure of the sincerity of its friendship.