Morgan felt as if he were being taken apart piece by piece like the inner workings of a clock. “You are smart, little man,” he said softly. “But you don’t know everything.”
“I believe you are a man of honor, Mr. Holt, though the world may not recognize that quality.” His broad brow creased. “You have faced some great trial that has tested your faith in mankind and driven you into the wilderness. But now you find yourself among those who might begin to understand.”
Words. Accurate words, razor sharp, that wove themselves into a wire made for a single purpose. The noose was tightening inch by inch. Morgan backed away, prepared to toss the blanket and run. Caitlin held out her hand as if to stay him again, and for once she appeared as vulnerable as any other girl of her age.
Morgan took another step and struck a warm, firm surface. Hands caught at him to steady him. He spun about to face Harry French, who held a bottle of whiskey in one broad, chapped hand. The old man blinked in surprise.
“You should not be on your feet,” he said. He looked beyond Morgan to the others. “Caitlin, why did you let him get up? You are pale, my boy, much too pale.”
“Mr. Holt is leaving us, Harry,” Caitlin said.
Harry’s face fell, and it was as if the sun had gone behind a cloud. “Oh, I see. I see.”
The disappointment on this old man’s face pierced Morgan’s dormant heart more surely than any of Caitlin’s reproaches or Ulysses’s recital of disaster. For a moment he saw his father’s face, and the dying of dreams. The end of all hope.
“Well, well,” Harry said, trying to smile, “we must at least share a drink before you depart. I did, as you see, manage to find one bottle.”
“The only one left,” Caitlin said. “Don’t waste it, Harry.”
“We place no price on kindness, Caitlin.” He set the bottle down on the small table and drew a pair of glasses from his coat. “Let us drink to your recovery, Mr. Holt—and to your continuing good health.” He poured and offered Morgan the first glass.
Morgan stared down at it. Had he been able to stomach the stuff, he could not have swallowed it down past the lump in his throat. “I don’t drink.”
“Ah. Very admirable.” Harry lifted his own glass, gazed at it wistfully, and set it back down. “There is no escaping our troubles in the bottle, no, indeed.”
Morgan turned his face away. Harry patted his shoulder.
“Think nothing of it, my boy. We asked too much of a stranger. But you must not go until morning, after you have had a good meal—”
Morgan shook him off and strode out of the tent. He walked blindly across the lot, shivering though he did not feel the evening chill. He stopped at the edge of the camp, let the blanket fall, and willed the Change. His body protested, but it obeyed. He began to run to the hills.
The low woodland of pinon, juniper, and oak closed in about him, and the voices of the circus folk became the distant cries of birds. Thick fur rippled and flowed about his body. Small game fled before him. His broad paws devoured the miles. The sky lit his path with a thousand stars. The clean air sang to him. Human voices, human thoughts were left in the dust of his passing. Far, far to the north, the wolves called him to the old life of forgetfulness.
He had made it over the first range of pine-clad hills and into the adjoining valley before the tether snapped him to a stop. He raged and fought it, but it pulled him southward, back across the mountains step by reluctant step.
He had never taken charity, nor become dependent upon anyone. He was whole, but only because they had made him so. His body was free, but not his heart. Not so long as the debt remained unpaid.
Obligation was not belonging. It did not mean friendship, or love, or any of the worthless words men used so freely. It did not bind him forever.