Blackfeather
13 Wolf
NEITHER OF US TRAVELED. But what an adventure. We obeyed Moms and Pa and closed the windows, even though I had to turn off the heat. Seemed like it was either all on or all off. In a month or so, when it was snowing and cold, ‘on’ would be fine, but right now I wished for just a little fresh air.
Cold or not, that wall between our apartments was like paper. I swear I could almost smell Aubrey getting turned on. Then I pulled the covers up over my head and I really could smell her. Oh yes. That was way too warm, though, and I pushed the covers off me and sprawled out on the bed with my fingers flying over my clit. Oh god, oh god, oh god. I want that girl. By the time Aubrey left Kyle and came to me, I was lying in a pool of my own sweat and come. She walked through the door stark naked.
“Aubrey!”
“Why should I put my clothes on five feet away just to take them off again when I walk in here?” she asked. She came to the foot of the bed and looked up my body before she just fell forward with her face in my pussy and started licking.
“Yes!” I screamed. It hadn’t been that long since my last orgasm and I was primed and ready to go when she started tickling my button with her tongue. She didn’t let up and I just kept coming. I couldn’t breathe. I pushed at her head and she kept on. And when I thought I was going to pass out, she clamped her lips over my clit and lashed it with her tongue again.
Then I did pass out.
It was the first time Kyle and I walked Aubrey to her door together and both gave her a kiss that let her know we were serious.
“I think I am the luckiest girl in the world,” she sighed. If she hadn’t opened the door and gone in, we’d probably still be there kissing her.
Kyle started up as soon as we were in the car.
“Did you travel? Nothing happened last night. Well, nothing except me coming a quart listening to you two. But I didn’t go anywhere! You been doing this so much longer than me. Did you go off last night? How does it work?”
“Kyle. Kyle! Stop! I didn’t travel last night either. I haven’t been off since Halloween night. We’re way out of sync on this. The first two or three times I went, you two were having sex and I thought that was what was triggering it. And don’t be embarrassed about listening to us. If you are, then I got to be embarrassed about all the times I rubbed one off listening to you. But then it happened and you weren’t even home. I was just… masturbating. And one night I was just standing on the front porch and poof! I was gone. That’s where you found me that night. I started thinking it was the raven that was calling me. But then, when I was with Aubrey, I heard the raven calling but nothing happened.”
“God, Ramie! How many times have you been off time traveling without telling me?”
“Around once a month or so. But I tried to tell you. I saw you at Ford’s Theater and tried to talk to you the next day. But you kept insisting that you weren’t traveling so I quit talking about it.”
“But how is that possible? You went back there six months ago and I went back to the same moment just two nights ago. Do we go back and forth?”
“I don’t know, but I’ll tell you this. You are going to get on a train in Baltimore headed for St. Louis. I’m getting on the same train—or my host is. You’ve got to follow that girl anytime she gets off the train and protect her, Kyle. You’ve got to.”
“I’ll do it if I can get him to. He doesn’t just fade away and let me drive. I had a hell of a time convincing him to try to save the president.”
“Kyle, I don’t like this, but we gotta talk to Pa.”
We stood in front of Pa’s big chair in his office. He had Moms on his lap and they were all looking at us.
“Well? Did you talk?” Mom Ash demanded.
“Yes, Mom Ash. We’re good,” I said.
“Don’t stop talking,” Mom Mar said. “You’ve got to think of what will happen if she breaks up with one of you. You’re still brother and sister, don’t forget. You can’t divorce each other.”
“We’ll talk about it all, Mom Mar. But it’s going to take a long time to cover everything. We all agreed that we’re just playing it by ear right now but we’d keep talking.” I almost snorted when Kyle said, ‘playing it by ear,’ since we were listening to each other through the wall. “But Pa, we need to talk to you.”
“About time travel,” I added. Pa jumped so suddenly I thought he’d dump Moms on the floor. He grabbed hold of them and settled back down.
“Sit down,” he said. “Can I assume that you don’t think we’re crazy any more?”
“Sorry, Pa. But it still feels like it could all just be a dream. Like one of those lucid dreams we read about,” I said. I touched my throat where Harriet had tried to strangle me. It sort of felt sore even now.
“So. How long?”
“I started back in May. Kyle just started a couple nights ago.”
“The gun?”
“Yeah. And the knife.” I started crying. He was going to find out. I was so ashamed. Kyle put his arm around me but he’d hate me, too. There was nothing to do but get it over with. “I killed three men, Pa.”
I was wailing. Moms were closing in on us hugging from both sides. Pa was on his knees in front of me holding my hands.
“It’s okay, baby girl. It’s not you. It’s not you.” Kyle squeezed me so hard I thought he’d break my shoulders. “I remember the first time my host killed a man while I was in his body. I retreated and stayed silent for days. You just got to remember, it’s not you.”
“But it was, Pa. My host wasn’t in control. They were gonna rape her.”
“And you took on three at a time?” I shook my head.
“Two different occasions. First time it was just one guy who was going to grab her and put her on a trawler to ship to a brothel. It was his knife I grabbed and sliced him open.” I gasped as I remembered his blood and guts spilling over my hand. “The second time, two men had kidnapped a bunch of girls and were hauling them west to Texas to be whores. I got loose because they never checked her boot for the knife. I raised a ruckus and one of them lifted the tarp to beat me and I cut his throat. The third one was sort of her. I had the knife at his throat questioning him and she moved the hand and cut him.” I looked up into Pa’s eyes could see his tears. “I don’t want to believe it’s real, Pa. If it is, I’m a killer.”
“Ramie, you were saving your host’s life. That doesn’t make you a killer, it makes you a hero. Now let’s try to set things straight and see what kind of help you really need.”
We talked most of the night. Kyle didn’t know about me killing men. Mostly, we talked about the mechanics of how time travel worked.
“I thought it was Kyle and Aubrey making love that triggered me to go,” I said. “Then I thought it was just me masturbating. Then it seemed like I had a connection with that old one-eyed raven that hangs around and he was making me travel.”
“That sounds like the most likely,” Pa interrupted. “For me it was a redtail hawk that kept showing up at the most inopportune times. When he called, I left.”
“Yeah, but then the other night I heard him calling and I didn’t go,” I said.
“Is that the night Kyle went?” Mom Ash asked. I creased my brow and nodded. “Cole?”
“Anything is possible,” Pa answered. “We’ve got half the known time-travelers ever sitting in this room. The other three are dead. For me, it was always very specific. I’d see him or his shadow, he’d screech, and I’d jump between times. All I can say is to try to be aware of when it happens next and keep building your data. And watch each other’s back.”
“Thanks,” I said. I might have sounded a little grumpy. “Any other advice?”
“Yes. Don’t try to change anything. You can’t do it.”
“What do you mean, Pa?” Kyle asked.
“History is history. We already know what happened. You can’t change it. I don’t mean it’s against the rules. I mean it can’t be done.” I looked at Kyle. Pa caught it. “You already tried, didn’t you?” We nodded. “What?”
“We tried to stop President Lincoln’s assassination,” I said.
“You could have got yourselves killed!” Pa said. “What happened?”
“Neither of us knew the other was there. We stopped each other,” Kyle said.
“You’re damned lucky. If it’s already happened and we know about it, don’t bother to try to change it. You can only hurt yourselves.”
“What’s the use of time traveling?” I asked.
“It’s all the things that are still in the box,” Pa said. “Look up Schrödinger’s cat. You’ve got computers. History is an open box. We know what happened, or at least what the result was. But there are lots of questions that are still unknown. They are still in the box. Until you open it, you don’t know if the cat is alive or dead. Those are the things you can affect. You can affect the kind of people your hosts are, too. I know Kyle Redtail was a lot mellower after I started visiting. You can influence what kind of people your hosts are or become.”
The one thing definite was that whatever happened, we weren’t in control of it. It was hard to accept that, especially not knowing who was in control. It didn’t make a difference. With or without Aubrey, we weren’t traveling.
I studied up as much as I could on the routes from Tennessee to St. Louis. I’d ordered a bunch of USGS topographical maps online and plastered them all over my walls. Nobody much came into my room and when Aubrey looked at them, she just assumed they were Wyoming maps. I practiced with Merv Longsteer twice a week on my knife work. While Kurt had some legitimate work for the three of us, he spent a good bit of time working with me on how to quickly load and safety the old Colt Navy. Kyle liked what he saw and chose a Colt Army .44 caliber repro to start practicing with. Aubrey rolled her eyes and minded the store while we were at the practice range.
She practiced with her gun, though, especially on Saturday morning when we all had practice out at the ranch now. We’d hit a rhythm and she came out to the ranch almost every Friday night and went home on Sunday. I wasn’t traveling, but I was really liking this sex thing.
This Saturday was going to be special. It was my seventeenth birthday. Thanksgiving was as late as it ever gets this year, which meant my birthday was the weekend before. We had a family meeting when the hunting lottery rules came out and all went down to pay our fee and enter the drawing, but we’d decided that we wouldn’t be taking any deer or elk this year regardless. There just weren’t enough with the rate the wolves were killing them.
Since there wouldn’t be a hunting trip this year, Aubrey and I were pretty lazy getting started Saturday morning. She made me lie back and do nothing while she gave me her ‘birthday special.’ After that, I didn’t want to move. I was like a wet noodle. We finally called Kyle and all went in for breakfast. We weren’t really doing anything but sitting at the kitchen table and laughing about me being so old.
Phile and Caitlin came bustin’ into the kitchen at a dead run.
“Ma, Pa! We hear wolves down in the bottomland. It’s got all the horses spooked!” Caitlin yelled. “They were galloping toward the river.” That was all we had to hear. Kyle and I were running one direction and Pa and Mom Ash were headed the other. Mom Mar grabbed Aubrey and held her in her seat.
“Sit. Caitlin and Phile, you stay out of this,” Mom Mar commanded. “Stay in the upper pasture with the work horses and keep them calm. Take your rifles, but do not head down to the lower pasture. Cole, Ashley, Kyle, and Ramie will coordinate their search and don’t need the distraction of you kids. Protect the stock up here.” With that, Mom Mar was on the phone to the cattle hands to alert them.
Kyle and I grabbed our parkas and rifles. I saw Pa come out the back door fastening on his Smith & Wessons. Mom Ash held two rifles. Kyle and I hopped two three-wheelers and the parents loaded in the four-wheeler. Pa motioned that we should head straight for the pasture and they’d circle around above the ridge.
The horses were nervous and gathered in a circle at the water’s edge when we reached the pasture. There was no question they sensed something. It takes a strange kind of wolf to attack a herd of horses. Cows are more to their liking. You can cut a cow out of a herd, or more likely a calf, and run it down pretty quickly. Horses don’t respond the same way. They know those tricks. They don’t run away as easily or break the herd. Still, there was something wrong. You could sense it.
I looked around, standing up on the three wheeler. The only thing I saw was that old raven with one cloudy eye, sitting up on top of the shelter looking south. I motioned Kyle to follow the river and I headed out below the lower ridge toward the pond.
At the west end of the watering hole, as I rounded an outcropping, my heart jumped into my throat. One of the four horses Kyle and I brought back this summer was stranded with his back feet slipping on the frozen mud. He was still pretty skinny and the big wolf that faced him was pacing back and forth waiting for the horse to make a bad move. Just one wolf?
“Oh, no, you don’t,” I growled to myself. I grabbed my rifle and steadied it against the handlebars of the three-wheeler. I had to kill the engine to keep it from vibrating. I was a good hundred yards away, but I didn’t dare try to get closer. I didn’t have time. I drew down on the wolf and squeezed the trigger.
I saw the impact and the wolf roll in the air as it leapt toward the old horse. Then everything happened at once. I heard a snarl above me and saw a second wolf at the top of the ridge about ten feet above me. I swung my rifle around as the bitch sprang at me. I knew I was going to be too late. That old raven swooped in between us screaming Awkawkawkawk. I heard the rifle go off and felt the weight of the wolf as her teeth hit my throat.
Then I wasn’t where I was any more.
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