1. Chapter 1 #3
“Smart, too. And ambitious.” A hint of softness curved his lips. “She did make a couple of movies, bit parts, as Janine Crue. Better than Janet Applebaum. So at least I gave her a name. I hope she was happy. I haven’t heard from her in twenty years.”
I didn’t want to talk about Janet, but I needed to know. “Did you miss her?” Do you still?
“Some, at first. I don’t think I was ever in love with her, but I sure as hell was dazzled by those tits.” He laughed softly. “I missed the sex and her sense of fun, but not the fights. She wanted me to stand up to Dad.”
Something you never did. But then, Micah’s father had been our Alpha. I ran across state lines rather than stand up to Alpha myself. “And after Janet? You didn’t remarry?”
“Nope. The war came along. The world changed. And you? You never found a pack, a mate?”
I turned toward my cabin rather than meet Micah’s eyes as I said, “Happy bachelor, that’s me.”
I’d thought about joining a pack, many times.
Especially when loneliness had dug in deep after the war, when the band of brothers I’d fought with splintered and vanished in the wind.
I could’ve hidden my homosexuality from an Alpha, maybe.
There was only one man I’d never been able to resist. I didn’t lust after random men, at least not enough to betray me.
But the hate of the packs for queer men was a visceral thing, deep and vivid, well beyond the practical contempt that made Alphas purge their packs of criminal wolves and careless wolves and crazy wolves.
Werewolves hated the queer among us, not just as a risk to successful hiding from humans, but perhaps for how one man loving another cut into the heart of our traditions.
As many times as I’d imagined joining a pack, I’d imagined knowing I was that thing they all loathed.
Smiling and running with men who would tear my throat out, if they saw the real me.
I knew I’d rot away inside and die. So I’d been lone the last twenty-five years.
I beckoned to Micah. “Come on, let’s get you settled.”
My cabin had once been Hank’s, before he sold it to me and moved to Boulder to live with his daughter.
In addition to an airy, open main room with exposed beams, I had a kitchen nook, a bedroom, bathroom, and a spare room I used for storage.
Micah set his bag down by the front door and looked around.
“Not bad, Lee. It suits you.”
“Thanks.” I shut the door and threw the latch, a thousand questions tumbling in my head. The one that made it out of my mouth was, “Why are you here?”
“You invited me?” Micah smiled at my growl. “Just kidding. If you mean here in Highcrest, I was simply passing through for work.”
“Work? Out here in the boonies?”
“I’m a photographer. Landscape and wildlife. A client’s doing a book on North American mammals and wanted me to get pictures.”
“And by some chance, you passed through the town I live in? Even though I made sure no one with our old pack knew where I was?” I’d changed my name and cut all contact back in the Depression years. Then, after the war, I’d moved again and washed up here. “That’s a hell of a coincidence.”
“Yep.” Micah’s grin faded. “Or something.” He turned to stare out the big window that gave us a view of the Teton mountains, their gray rocky slopes reaching to the sky.
“I was in Yellowstone, and when I had three dozen rolls of exposed film and all the bison photos a man could want, something pulled me south. I’ve always followed my instincts, and this was the same.
Except here, at the end of the rope, there’s not a lynx or a mountain goat, but you. ”
You could call me a mountain goat. I gave my inappropriate humor a stern reprimand. No goating of any kind around Micah. I groped for something to say that wasn’t driven by past pain. “Wildlife pictures? Isn’t that hard, the way critters act around us wolves?”
“Not that different from anyone else. They don’t like ordinary humans either. I stay downwind and use powerful lenses. And I can scope out an area in fur, get a scent for where they live. Gives me an advantage.”
“Did you run here in fur all the way from Yellowstone, then?” I’d recognized the shape of his canvas pack as suited to a wolf’s back. “That’s fifty miles away.”
“A day’s run. I have a car up there but, well, I was out in fur, scouting locations, and I was hit by the impulse. I had my pack on my back in case I wanted my camera, and no deadlines coming up. So I decided to see where my instincts would take me.”
And they brought you to me. I reminded myself that Micah was still yearning after tits like Janet’s, not whatever we’d so briefly had. “I guess you don’t need me to give you work, or a place to stay, an artist like you.”
“I have a little money.” He eyed me from under the long fall of his black hair. “I wouldn’t mind saving it, if you’re willing to have me. I spent last night under a bush, and I’m lucky I was shifted and dressed, taking pictures of a pine marten, when the sheriff’s dog scented me.”
“Ah. I wondered.”
Micah laughed. “There I was, as grubby as a schoolboy from squirming under a fallen log for the best shot, miles from any road, just a small rough pack. The sheriff made the obvious assumption, although the eighty-dollar camera in my hands might’ve clued him in.”
“Not sure the sheriff can tell a Nikon from a Brownie.”
“My skin color didn’t help.” Micah stated that as a simple fact, though it made me bristle.
“I bet not. Still, I’m surprised you didn’t run away.”
“Remember the pricey camera? Couldn’t afford to risk breakage if he tackled me. And vagrancy’s usually a night in jail and being shown the road next morning. Been there once or twice.”
That reminded me Micah had a whole life I knew nothing about, a stretch of time longer and far more emotional— between love and loss and war— than the childhood twenty years we’d shared. No matter how deep those moments were carved in my memory.
Before I could find the words to ask more, a chitter from overhead warned me. I braced myself, and Zipper’s small but solid half-pound weight landed on my shoulder.
Micah startled, then grinned. “You know you have a long-tailed weasel on your back?”
“I had noticed.” I raised a finger, slowly, and Zipper allowed me to stroke his furry cheek.
“And it’s not gnawing your face off.”
“I found him as a tiny baby. Don’t know what happened to the mother, but he was the last of the litter still alive. I hand-raised him.”
“You have a pet.”
“A half-wild one, but yes. He roams outside most of the time, but he does like to come home for meals, the lazy brat.”
“I wondered why your home smelled musky. Didn’t want to mention it.”
I grinned. “You get used to it. Folks around here know about him. I bring him to town once in a while. Then, if a dog growls at me or cowers away, I can say, ‘I bet he smells my pet weasel.’ They like having an easy explanation for why their dog doesn’t like the guy they’re trusting to work in their house.
Well, other than Chuck Fletcher. He just hates my guts. ”
“Nowhere in the world is free of bastards.” We exchanged looks that said, yes, we’d seen how evil men could be. Micah reached a fingertip to Zipper. “Hey there, young man. Perhaps you’d pose for me sometime. Super-closeups could be fun.”
Zipper trilled at him, a friendly sound, before leaping to the floor, scurrying to the front door, and giving a soft bark.
I stared down at the little brown-furred creature. “You have your cat door. I’m not your servant.”
Zipper twisted his sinuous neck to stare up at me and squeaked commandingly at the shrill pitch I’m sure he knew made me flinch.
“Oh, all right.” I unlocked, turned the handle, and cracked the door a couple of inches, wide enough for Zipper to flash through and be gone. When I reclosed the door I saw that Micah was laughing at me. “What?”
“Just enjoying the sight of a fearsome werewolf cowed by a tiny pet.”
“I’m not cowed. I’m annoyed. Wait till he bites your nose in the middle of the night.
” Which brought me right back to the night, and how much I wanted Micah in my bed, though I had no real knowledge of what I’d want to do with him there.
Time to change the subject. “Come on,” I told him.
“I promised you a wash-up, and I have a bathtub and a gas water heater. You can get clean in luxury.” The thought of Micah naked in my tub might half-kill me, but I’d survive.
Micah hesitated, as if he wanted to talk more, but perhaps the weight of all we had to say made him hesitate too. “Sounds good, I admit. Swimming a stream in fur isn’t a substitute for a nice hot bath. But if we’re going to do a day’s work, perhaps I should wait till evening?”
“Ah. True.” I’d said I’d take him with me to the mayor’s job, and if I didn’t, Tomlinson would start to ask why. “Wash your face and hands, then, and I’ll pack us a lunch.”
We left my house twenty minutes later. Micah had washed up, changed his shirt for a clean one of mine, and tied his long hair back at the nape of his neck.
With one of my ball caps on his head, he looked like a respectable tradesman.
The mayor’s home was an easy fifteen-minute walk, but I needed shovels and tools, so we loaded my truck and drove off down the dirt road toward town.
As I took the first corner a little too fast, making the gravel fly, Micah laughed.
Our quick exchange of glances reminded me of a hundred past moments, doing something reckless to see that gleeful look on Micah Crue’s face.
It took all the resolve I had to head on to work, like a responsible man.