Treaty Bound

Chapter 2: Shame and Fear

   Every time I thought of going to see Krysta all I could think of was her standing on the stage with that look of fear in her eyes. Then the whole scene would play out again in my head as I pounded hammer against hot steel in my father's shop. I tried to push those thoughts aside as I worked but they kept creeping back into my mind. Sparks flew as my hammer struck harder and harder against the steel, the image of him carrying her to safety playing through my mind again.

   "Take your anger out on me, boy, not the steel," my father yelled from the front of the shop, saving me from my thoughts. "That bright steel is sensitive stuff and you can't afford to replace what you fuck up and pay for your whores too."

   My father's fury may have also played a part in why I avoided the Angry Ox. When I walked into our log cabin that night bleeding on the dirt floor, I had no choice but to tell him where I had been and what had happened. Since my mother's home cooking sat waiting for me and was now cold on the table, he assumed I went there for women, ale, or both.

   He was half right, of course, but I was in no mood to hear about it just then. I was 19 years old and could spend my money however I wanted and I told him as much. So he said if I am going to waste money like that then I didn't need any and he fired me.

   The fight went on for probably an hour after that and would have kept going too if my mother had not stepped in. Jean Arthur Roberts was a small woman and normally as sweet and caring as could be but she'd had enough and told us both off for being fools. She was right, of course, not that I thought so at the time mind you.

   She told my father, using his full name no less (Bradley Apple Roberts), that he could not fire his own son no matter how stupid a thing I had done. I made the mistake of laughing as she scolded him and instantly regretted it when she turned her attention on me. My father was smart enough to keep his laughter silent behind her back as she lectured me on respecting women and the evils of drinking.

   A tongue lashing was nothing compared to the pain I felt as she started scrubbing the dried blood from my hand. In the mist of our argument, I had somehow forgotten about my wound so the blood had dried. She yelled at me for neglecting it as she scrubbed the wound then wrapped it with a strip of clean linen.

   I didn't respond to my father as I looked at the bloody bandage on my hand. It had been a week since I was bitten and it still looked as fresh as the night I got it. My mother was worried sick by its lack of improvement. Just that morning I overheard her telling my father that she was worried it was cursed and may never heal. My mother's worry was another reason why I went straight home every night after locking up the shop. Of course, something as trivial as a wounded hand did nothing to get me out of clean up duties.

   It was getting close to clean up that night and Krysta would be singing soon. I was once again debating with myself over whether or not to go when the bell hanging over the door rang as a woman burst through the door.

   "Werewolves, ...in town, ...looking for your son, ...well not your son, ...but someone bitten, ...your son was bitten last week, ...I saw it, " a woman said gasping for breath as if she had just been running hard. I was in the back and could not see her but I knew that voice. Krysta was in my family's shop and that startled me so much that I didn't even register her mention of werewolves looking for me. At least not at first.

   I could hear her labored breathing as I stood, unable to move, only a few feet from the closed door that separated the front of the shop from the back. She must have run all the way from the Angry Ox to warn me. I wondered why she would risk upsetting the local pack for me, when what I should have been doing was running for my life.

   "Calm down and explain yourself, girl, " my father said.

   "The pack is in town. They just showed up at the Angry Ox asking everyone if they had seen anyone that looked like they had been bitten. I am not the only one who heard about what happened to your son. He needs to run before they find him," Krysta said, still breathing hard but able to speak normally again.

   It didn't take my father long to connect the pieces. If he said anything to her I didn't hear it before the door flew open and he was yelling at me to run. I didn't run, though. I just stood there looking at Krysta standing on the other side of the counter.


   She was already dressed for her performance in a blue gown with some kind of white frill that went up and covered her neck and out over her wrists. Long thick wavey red hair hung loosely over her shoulders. I don't know much about dresses or womanly things so I am sorry if my description of her is lacking, but trust me when I say that to me she was absolutely stunning.

   "Are you stupid? I said the pack is coming for you and you just stand there staring at me?" Krysta shouted, breaking me from my trance.

   These were the first words she ever said to me and she called me stupid. I look back now and laugh but at the time her words stung. I was at a loss for what to say to her or what I should do.

   "Bryan!" my father shouted. "Wake up boy! You need to run. Don't you know that when the pack comes looking for people they disappear? Now run boy and don't look back."

   Of course I knew about the pack and what they did. Everybody knew about the pack taking people at random from different villages and hunting them for sport. They tried to hide what they did by never taking from the same village twice in a row and always spread out their visits. We all knew though because villagers love to tell tales, even if the packs kept to themselves.

   It was always the same story no matter who told it or what village they came from. Werewolves would come in looking for someone, sometimes by name but most often anyone bitten or scratched. Once they found who they were looking for that person was never heard from again.

   The villager they were looking for would try to run and hide of course but we all knew deep down that it was no use. How do you outrun something that can chase down a deer? How can you hide from something that can track you better than a bloodhound?

   My father knew it too. Though his face was hard I could see it in his eyes when he told me to run. His brown eyes much like my own did not show fear or anger. It was grief that shown there when he told me to run. So I ran past Krysta to the door but stopped with it not quite halfway open.

   Walking down the street, from the direction of the Angry Ox, was the pack. A tall, dark-skinned man dressed in all leathers walked at the head of the group. Behind him followed a woman with fair skin and long hair so blonde it was almost white. The man walking next to her was so large he made her look like a child by comparison. What marked them as a pack though was the large wolf with a red and black brindle patterned coat that trailed behind them sniffing the ground. I quickly stepped back inside and shut the door, hoping they had not seen me.

   "They're coming," I said as I ran past Krysta again and into the back past my father. The shop did not have a back door but the walls on either side opened outward into large windows that spanned the length of the shop. They allowed us to vent the heat from the forge and still lock up the shop at night, unlike many blacksmiths that worked in the open.

   "Go, we will try and stall them," my father said as I jumped over the short wall and out the window.

   As I raced between the wooden buildings of Glen Haven trying to make my way to the edge of town, I worried about my father and Krysta. I ran and left them alone to face a pack of werewolves. My father was tough and strong but also old, and even if he were young he wouldn't have been a match for a werewolf let alone four. Krysta had risked her life to give me this chance and was doing so again to delay them as I ran.

   Guilt mixed with fear as I broke free of the buildings, sprinted across a small field and into the forest that surrounded the town. The dense forest gave me what I knew to be a false sense of security as I darted around the familiar thick oak trees. I had spent many hours in the forest as a child wanting to avoid people and I knew it well. Werewolves were not people though and I knew of no hiding place that could keep me safe from monsters.

   So I ran in fear until my heart pounded so hard and fast it felt like it would tear itself from my chest. I ran from my guilt and shame until my breath came so hard it felt like I was suffocating. I fell to the grass in the middle of a clearing, gasping for breath. My whole body was shaking. My chest ached, as though a knife was stabbing into my side. Even my wounded hand was starting to throb.

   I rolled over onto my back to watch the last of the sun's rays disappear behind the trees. It would be night soon and I was alone in the woods with no food or water. I remember thinking to myself, "how could things possibly get any worse?"

   A howl sounded across the forest, echoing off the trees and sending a shiver down my spine. It was followed closely by a second, then a third and finally a fourth. It was impossible to tell how far away they were but it didn't really matter anymore. They would find me no matter what I did. It would be all over soon. Still, I got to my feet determined not to die on my knees like a coward.