Overwinter Page 3

  The harbormaster was seventy-two years old and had a beard that went halfway down his chest. He wore suspenders over his thermal shirt and a captain’s hat on his head. He was not the kind of person who stared at people in the street based on how they looked. He was far more used to being the object of scrutiny. Besides, people in Menden tended not to get hung up on appearances.

  The visitor who jumped down out of the helicopter’s belly would have attracted second looks anywhere, though. He was a middle-aged man, in good physical shape, wearing a dirty flight suit and ear protectors. And his skin, what could be seen of it, was a deep blue verging on purple in places.

  “My passport,” he said, holding it out to the harbormaster. “And here is that of my pilot. Will you confirm that my papers are all in order?” The newcomer had a thick accent but his English was fluent. The harbormaster took one last look at his blue face, then opened the man’s red passport and glanced at the photo page. The owner was named Yuri A. Varkanin, he read, born in Leningrad. In the photo he wasn’t blue, though the face looked the same otherwise.

  “Now, I’m not sure what the protocol is, but—”

  “Ah,” Varkanin said. “You are confused by my coloration. I am a sufferer of a condition known as argyria. A kind of heavy metal poisoning, which has had the effect of changing me into this.” Varkanin waved a hand over his face. “I can produce documents from a physician proving this, if necessary.”

  “I don’t suppose it is.” The harbormaster fumbled a stamp out of one of his own pockets and held it above a blank page. “Business or pleasure?”

  The Russian’s face darkened. “Business. I am carrying out an investigation.”

  “Oh?” the harbormaster asked.

  “I wish to learn something,” Varkanin said, “of the werewolf.”

  “Oh.”

  “I understand she murdered four of your fine citizens before disappearing,” Varkanin went on.

  “It’s not something we really like to talk about,” the harbormaster said. “After the government and the media came through here, I guess we figured we were done with all that. We’re still grieving for some good people, but that’s private.”

  “Believe me, I understand this pain,” Varkanin said. There was something soulful in his eyes that made the harbormaster believe him. “I am very interested in two things only, and when I learn them I will go and leave you in peace.”

  “Alright. That sounds fair. Why don’t you start by asking me?”

  The Russian nodded agreeably. “First I would like to know if you ever learned where she came from.”

  “Well, we think from your country. From Siberia, I guess. We found a boat we think she used, because nobody else could account for it. The whole thing didn’t make any sense.”

  “In what fashion?”

  The harbormaster shrugged expansively. “It was a twelve-foot dory, not much more than a rowboat. It had no motor and no sails, not even an oar. No food or water onboard either. The best guess we have is that she put to sea in Russia and just floated over, hoping she would hit land eventually. You’d have to be crazy to try that. It must have been well below freezing in that boat even when the sun was shining, and there was no source of heat onboard, nothing warmer than a couple blankets.”

  “I have reason to believe that she may be that crazy,” Varkanin offered. “And a werewolf could survive the voyage without nourishment or protection from the elements.”

  “Alright, fine,” the harbormaster allowed. “But then—why? She got bored over there in Siberia and decided she’d try picking on us for a change?”

  “I do not pretend to understand the thinking of a crazy werewolf,” Varkanin said. “My second question, then, is which way did she go?”

  The harbormaster frowned. “Away from here was good enough for most of us,” he said. “But I did hear one or two things. Some hikers claimed they saw a naked lady walking in the woods, about fifty miles up in the hills, heading due east. About a week later a forest service man said he saw her and she was still heading in that direction.”

  Varkanin nodded. The harbormaster could tell the man had known all this long before he came to Menden. He had just been looking for confirmation.

  “So, now, that’s all you wanted? Really?”

  Varkanin smiled. The harbormaster felt his heart going out to the Russian, just seeing that smile. There was something of intense sadness in the man, and also compassion. The Russian smiled like a saint. “Really and truly. I do not wish to take up any more of your time. And besides, I have a long way to fly tonight.”

  The harbormaster frowned. “Where are you flying to?”

  “The east,” Varkanin said, and offered a good-natured shrug.

  “Business, you said. You’re here on business. What exactly is your line, Mr. Varkanin?”

  “I am a hunter,” the Russian said.

  6.

  Dzo’s return eased the tension between Chey and Powell—without an exchange of more than a dozen words the three of them fell back into a familiar rhythm and Chey felt like her life was back to normal. Well, normally weird, anyway.

  The three of them hiked back to the remains of Fort Confidence in a companionable silence marked by lots of shared smiles and the occasional laugh. It was a warmish day, considering how far north they were, and the sun was shining bright. The wolves hadn’t run very far before the moon went down, so the walk wasn’t too brutal. Sighting on the outcropping of rock, they found the site easily and when Chey saw the chimney stones she almost felt like she was coming home.

  She wanted to lie down in the grass, roll around in it until it took on her own shape and just go to sleep right there, but of course Powell was already thinking about what they should do next.

  “We can clear out some of those trees, there,” he said, pointing downhill, “and have a clear view of the water. That way we’ll know if anyone comes in by boat. And we can use the wood we fell to build a cabin.”

  “Okay,” Chey said. “You got it. How do we do that?”

  He blinked as if she’d surprised him. “We cut them down, of course.”

  “With our teeth?” Chey scratched her head. “When we left Port Radium, we didn’t bring anything but the clothes on our backs. As far as I know you don’t have a chainsaw hidden in your coat, and I know I forgot to bring any hatchets.”

  “We’ll need to make our own tools.”

  “Out of what?”

  “Rocks. Just like the cavemen did.” Powell shrugged. “How hard can it be, for supernaturally strong lycanthropes?”

  “Or I can go fetch some real axes,” Dzo suggested. “I could even go back to our old place, gather up what we need, and bring it back in my truck.”

  “I loved that truck,” Chey mused, with a little laugh. “And you can’t deny it would be a handy thing to have up here.”

  Powell shook his head. “They might be watching there. I don’t think it’s worth the risk.”

  “You really think they’re sitting around waiting for us to come back?” Chey asked. She picked a long stalk of grass and twiddled it between her fingers. “Maybe they’ll just let us be, now.”

  “That’s just wishful thinking,” Powell said. He made it sound criminal. “No, they won’t give up just yet. We made a mess back at Port Radium. Killed a government employee—”

  “Who was trying to kill us! Who wanted to take me back to a lab and dissect me!”

  “—and governments have very long memories,” Powell finished, as if she hadn’t spoken. “I’m not even sure that we’re safe here. I really would have liked to get farther north before we stopped, honestly.”

  Chey shrugged. “Okay. I guess you’re right. So why stop here at all, then? Why not press on?” She was loath to think about hiking any more, but she knew he was right. Knew they were still in danger, although it was hard to feel scared on such a nice, quiet day. “Why not keep moving until we know we’re clear?”

  “You don’t know this country,” Powell sai
d. “Winter is coming, and it’ll be here sooner than you expect, and a lot harder. If we had to, we could survive out here naked, in the open—but personally I prefer to be inside in the warm when it starts to snow. We need to start preparing now if we want to be ready. I want to have at least some kind of shelter before it really starts freezing up.”

  “Okay,” Chey said, and rose wearily to her feet. “How do we start?” She suddenly realized that Dzo was staring at her. That he had, in fact, been watching her closely the whole time Powell was talking. “What?” she asked. “Is something wrong?”

  “Well, no. It’s just—your shoes,” Dzo said.

  “Huh?” She looked down and saw them dangling in front of her. She’d tied the laces of her boots together and hung them around her neck, with the socks balled up inside them.

  “I don’t claim to understand you wolves so good,” Dzo said, scratching at one ear. “But I always assumed you wore those on your feet.”

  Chey frowned. “The grass felt good between my toes.”

  “Yeah, but—did the snow? Half the way back here we were trudging through old snow. And you never did put them on.”

  Chey blushed. She hadn’t really thought about it. Her body, even in its human form, was a lot tougher than it used to be. Still, it was weird that she hadn’t just put the boots on automatically. She’d never been a big fan of walking over rough ground barefoot before.

  Powell shot her a look she didn’t like. It was far too worried. Too paternal.

  “I’ll put them on now, okay? It’s no big deal,” she said.

  But she could tell by the faces of the men that they didn’t agree.

  7.

  Dzo and Powell set to work right away, making stone axes of the kind people hadn’t used in a couple thousand years. The trick seemed to be to find two nice sturdy rocks and hit them against each other until they split open. If you did it just right one of the rocks would be left in a sharp wedge shape that was still strong enough to cut through wood. Doing it right, though, was a long, slow, repetitive process, and you ended up ruining most of the rocks you tried it on.

  At first they wouldn’t let Chey help. “You can weave grass together to make lashings, and find good sticks to use as ax handles,” Powell suggested.

  “What, because that’s woman’s work?” she asked, smirking. “I know you’ve been living alone for most of the twentieth century, so you probably missed a few lectures on gender equality,” she said, and grabbed a pair of stones for herself. She knocked them together so hard that the bones in her forearms vibrated.

  “It’s all in the wrist,” Dzo said, and showed her how to hit them together in a shearing motion. A long thin chip came off the top of one of her rocks. It was too small and thin to work as an ax, but it was a start. “Boy,” Dzo said, laughing, “I remember when we used to do this all day. Then somebody invented iron and you can’t imagine the sighs of relief.”

  “Exactly how old are you?” Chey asked. She’d never gotten a good answer out of him on that issue.

  “That’s kind of hard to say,” he told her, shrugging. “Time’s funny,” he added, after a while. “You know?”

  “Sure.” She brought down her rock with a clang. Tiny chips flicked off, joined a pile of the same between her feet.

  She knew very little about Dzo, other than that she trusted him.

  She knew his name was pronounced like “Joe,” except not really, that was just the closest her Anglo tongue could get to the sound.

  She also knew that he was not human.

  Instead he was some kind of animal spirit, the incarnation of the musquash. He was immortal and he could travel between one place and another, even into locked and hidden places, as long as there was some water there. He could swim through water in a way that she could not, in some kind of mystical fashion where all water was one. She didn’t claim to understand it at all, but she had relied on this ability often.

  More important than all that, he was a friend. He’d been Powell’s only friend for decades before Chey came along, following the werewolf as he migrated north, away from human habitation. Unlike every human being on the planet, Dzo had nothing to fear from a werewolf. When Chey had become a lycanthrope herself he had saved her life a few times—and helped her find her way when she needed it the most.

  “Okay. Maybe let’s try something easier. Where were you born?”

  Dzo grinned. His teeth were big and brown and she would have preferred if he’d kept his mouth closed. “I’m not sure if I was. If I really think back, really, really far back—I used to live somewhere up there.” He pointed north. “Good people up there. They worked hard but they laughed a lot, too. And there was always music. They didn’t look like you two.”

  The rocks slammed together with a resonant sound. Like the world’s most primitive drum band. “Were they Indians? I mean, Inuit?” she asked.

  He had to think about that for a while. “No,” he said. “Before they came along. I think they were, you know. Whatchamacallems.”

  Chey squinted as she tried to remember her social studies classes from grade school. Because she wasn’t paying attention she missed as her rocks came together and one of them skidded off the top of the other, flying off into some bushes. Sighing, she reached for another. “Before the Inuit there were just the Paleo-Indians,” she said. Which would make him at least six thousand years old. “You’re telling me you used to live with the Paleo-Indians?”

  He shook his head. “Nah. Before them. What did they have before them?” He turned to look at Powell, who was sucking on a bleeding thumb. “Remember, we talked about this once? The first people up here. The first ones who could talk.”

  Powell pressed his lips together as if stifling a laugh. He glanced at Chey and rolled his eyes. “Nowadays we would call them Neanderthals.”

  Eventually they had three decent axes. Dzo’s was the best, the blade thin and tapering to a slick edge. The stone he’d used was flecked with mica and streaked with darker stone. It looked like a real tool when he’d lashed it firmly to a handle as thick as his thumb. Chey’s ax looked more like a rock tied to a twig. She was at least pleased to see that Powell hadn’t done much better than she had.

  The next step was to take down some trees. Chey was enough of a twenty-first-century eco-liberal to feel real guilt at chopping down any growing thing, but she knew they needed the wood if they were going to build themselves a house. She picked a thin sapling that was kind of dead on one side, figuring she could put it out of its misery. Then she took a good stance, brought her ax up like a baseball bat, and brought it swinging down toward the tree’s trunk in a perfect arc.

  The head of her ax collided with the tree trunk—and tore out of its lashings. It spun away from her and bounced off another tree before crashing into a pile of dead leaves. She was left holding a broken stick.

  She looked around quickly to see if Powell had seen that. He was facing away from her, so maybe he hadn’t. He was smashing away at his own tree, a big old larch so thick he wouldn’t have been able to get his fingers around the trunk. So far he’d managed to make a tiny dent in the bark.

  Forcing herself not to curse or even sigh, she went to find the ax head so she could re-lash it to her stick.

  8.

  By nightfall they had, between the three of them, brought down two trees and started to strip off the branches. Dzo assured them that wasn’t a bad showing for stone ax work, and that they could be proud of themselves.

  Powell muttered something under his breath that didn’t sound as if he was very pleased with himself.

  The work had been hard. Chey’s muscles were tight and sore. She hadn’t got as tired as she’d expected, though she had built up a pretty nasty sweat. She stripped off her clothes—both men had seen her naked plenty of times before, so she didn’t bother with modesty—and ran down to the lake to jump in and wash herself off. The water was frigid and she started shivering instantly, but it felt so good that she didn’t care.

/>   She ducked her head under and scrubbed out her hair, then surfaced and started swimming slow circles around the water, just stretching out her muscles, letting the soreness and stiffness of the day ease away. Eventually even her supernaturally tough body started to get really chilled, so she swam back to shore. The bottom was jagged with small rocks and she picked her way carefully along toward a place where the shore didn’t look too muddy.

  A noise from up on the eroded bank startled her and she spun around, splashing. It had sounded like someone stepping on a twig.

  Her first reaction was to cover her breasts with her arms. She looked up at the shore but couldn’t see anyone there—it was a jutting outcrop of mud that leaned over the water, an eroded bank thickly overgrown with small evergreens. “Powell?” she called. “Is that you?”

  There was no reply, but she saw branches up there moving, as if someone were stepping back into the shadows.

  “Did you want to come swimming with me? Or maybe you’re just being a gentleman and bringing me my clothes,” she said, laughing. Still there was no reply. She stared into the clump of trees, trying desperately to see him up there, but it was getting dark. The last blue light of the day was lying in great ragged sheets on the water and she could already see stars overhead.

  Was Powell spying on her? Was he watching her, too embarrassed to say anything?

  She looked straight into the trees, as if she could see him plainly, and lowered her arms, exposing her breasts. Then she took a long stride toward the water’s edge, straight toward him. As she came closer the water got shallower and she could feel water streaming from her hips and belly. If he wanted a good look, she would give him one.

  It was a dangerous game she was playing, she knew. Feeling very wicked, she reached up and laced her fingers behind her neck, then slowly, sinuously, arched her back.