Kitty's Greatest Hits

LOOKING AFTER FAMILY

The funeral was closed casket. With a body that mangled, the mortician couldn’t do much to make it presentable. Douglas Bennett was forty-eight years old when he died.

His son shot dead the man who killed him. Not that anyone believed a man could do what had been done to Douglas. The police assumed it was an animal—a bear, or maybe even a wolf—so when they saw the second body with a bullet wound through the head and sixteen-year-old Cormac Bennett holding the rifle, they thought they had a delinquent on their hands. Maybe the kid just snapped out of grief and rage at losing his father.

Then the coroner found Douglas Bennett’s blood and skin under the victim’s fingernails and human flesh between his teeth. The kid pleaded self-defense through his court-appointed attorney. The DA dropped the charges.

Douglas Bennett’s sister, Ellen O’Farrell, took the boy in.

Ellen, her husband David, and their son Ben walked on eggshells around him. He had killed a man, whatever the circumstances might have been, and at his age he could go either way: recover and move on, or spiral down into psychosis. They didn’t talk about Douglas and what had happened; they tried to pretend everything was normal. They kept Cormac busy.

Ben didn’t want to keep quiet. He was crazy to ask his cousin what it had been like, how it had felt, did he want to do it again, and what had really happened? He watched Cormac out of the corner of his eye, hiding behind a light brown flop of bangs. Cormac hadn’t said two sentences together in the month he’d been there.

Ben was doing homework at the chrome and Formica kitchen table after supper. His mother was washing dishes in the kitchen. Cormac helped her, drying plates and stacking them on the counter for her to put away. Tall, lanky, he slouched and had a lazy way of moving. His limbs seemed to hang loosely.

David came in from the mudroom attached to the kitchen, wearing his heavy work coat and putting on his cowboy hat. “Cormac? You want to help me put out hay?”

Cormac set the towel on the counter. “Yes, sir.”

Ben stood, jostling the table. “I’ll help, too.”

“No, Ben, you stay and do your homework,” his father said.

“But—”

“It’s cold, and I don’t want you out in it.”

He disappeared through the door. Cormac followed, pausing a moment to look back at Ben, who sat and ducked his gaze, blushing, not wanting to get caught staring. His father didn’t have to tell him off like a little kid in front of Cormac. But Ben supposed he’d asked for it. He’d known what his father would say.

The numbers on his algebra worksheet seemed to fade and jumble together.

A moment later his mother stood beside him, drying her hands.

“He’s right, Ben. It’s too cold out. You know he really wants you to stay in and study hard.”

“Yeah. I know.” He didn’t care about the cold. He wasn’t sick anymore.

“You’re going to be the first one in the family to go to college. It means the world to him. And me, too.” She squeezed his shoulder and went back to the counter to put dishes away.

He knew, but college was such a long way off, and it wouldn’t get him the respect of someone like Cormac.

Ben told his mother he was reading for school, but he turned the light out, sat up by the window in his bedroom, and stared over the nighttime ranch. The moon was almost full and made the patches of snow scattered across the prairie glow silver. The posts and rails of the corral fences were shadows, streaks of dark in the moonlight.

The pickup, its bed empty of hay now, drove around the corner and parked by the barn on the other side of the corrals. His father and Cormac jumped out of the cab and came toward the house. They looked good together. Right. The burly rancher and the tall kid walking beside him. They weren’t even related by blood and they looked more like father and son than David and Ben did. Ben was scrawny, not strong enough for ranch work. Not that he’d had a chance to prove himself or grow into the work. Better suited for books, they’d all decided.

He turned on the light, sat on his bed leaning against a pillow, held his book, and tried to look like he’d been that way for the last couple hours. When Cormac came to live with them, they’d squeezed a spare bed into the room. Ben had lost his only private place on the ranch.

Cormac opened the door.

Ben glanced up, he hoped casually. “Hey.”

“Hey,” Cormac said.

Ben couldn’t think of anything to say after that. So, how are the cows? What’s it like being an orphan? He just watched his cousin over the edge of his book. Cormac pulled off a sweatshirt, unbuttoned the flannel shirt underneath, slung them over the back of a chair. Peeled out of his white T-shirt, dropped it, turned back the covers of his bed, unzipped and shoved down his jeans. Crawled into bed wearing only his briefs. Rolled over with his back facing Ben, who’d lost his chance to say anything.

He couldn’t remember what they’d talked about when they were kids. Movies and TV, probably. They’d seen each other every spring—Cormac’s family had always come to help with branding the calves—and at Thanksgiving. They were about the same age and hung out with each other then. Ben could remember playing king of the hill, riding ponies, and taking family trips to Grand Lake. But those times were a while ago, and the person sleeping in the next bed seemed like someone different.

He put down his book and turned out the light. Moonlight bled into the room around the edges of the curtain.

Cormac went through the motions. Wake up, wash and dress, function for the day. Sleep at night. The rest was numb. If he didn’t think, he didn’t have to react.

His aunt and her family were good to take him in, house him and feed him and all. He paid them back by doing chores. It was how he’d been taught. You got more out of life being polite than not. He couldn’t forget what he’d been taught. Especially now.

Full-moon night, he went hunting, like he’d been taught. Full moon was when they came out, and there was no one left to do it but Cormac.

The cops told him he shouldn’t handle guns anymore, even though he’d been hunting for years, helping with Dad’s outfitting business. Too many questions about him and guns. They wanted him to keep his nose clean, they said.

Cormac didn’t care.

Uncle David, a little more practical and a lot more knowledgeable about how they led their lives, had let him keep his rifle. For keeping coyotes off the property, he said. Didn’t matter, as long as Cormac had access to it. He had the bullets, too. His dad’s bullets. The cops hadn’t known about those.

Aunt Ellen and Uncle David hadn’t asked him about the man he shot. They must have known what it was he’d shot, even if none of them could tell the cops about it. They’d understand about him going out now.

He wrapped up a slice of beef from the fridge and carried it with him in a paper bag.

With all the sense of righteousness in the world, he quietly made his way to the mudroom and loaded the silver bullets into his rifle.

“Hey.”

Cormac looked up, too distracted to be startled by Ben’s appearance. He stood there, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, a stripe of moonlight from the window slicing across him, his thin frame, shaggy hair.

“What’re you doing?” Ben asked.

“Nothing,” Cormac said automatically. He snapped the chamber closed.

“Can I go with you?”

Ben stood with his hands clenched, almost trembling, looking a lot younger than he was. He wanted outside so badly. Folks kept him on a chain, and Cormac wondered why. Ranch kid oughta be tough as nails. He’d slow Cormac down, if he came along. Couldn’t be sure he knew anything.

He might go tell Aunt Ellen and Uncle David what he was doing if Cormac left him behind.

After a moment, he said, “Sure.”

Ben rushed to grab coat, knit cap, and thick work gloves.

Let him come along. If he couldn’t hack the trip, he could always turn around and go back home. Wasn’t Cormac’s business, as long as he didn’t get in the way.

The air was the crystalline freezing that only a clear winter night could produce. Cormac breathed it in and let its sharpness urge him on. Only way to keep warm on a night like this was to keep moving.

Also, he half wanted to see how quickly Ben dropped back and complained about not being able to keep up. But he didn’t. His wiry frame gave him a long stride to match Cormac’s.

“Your folks are going to kill you for coming outside,” Cormac said.

“I don’t care. They don’t know anything. Haven’t had an asthma attack in three years.”

They’d walked out of sight of the farmhouse when Ben said, “What’re we hunting?”

Cormac looked at him, wondering again how much he knew. Decided he didn’t care. If Ben didn’t know what was out there, he would by morning. “What killed my dad. Full moon’s when they come out.”

Ben turned the collar of his coat up around his jaw and walked beside Cormac, determined to keep up with the taller boy’s easy stride. Their boots crunched on dry prairie grass and occasional crusts of snow. The air was searing cold, and their breath came out as fog.

God, why did he feel like such a little kid around Cormac?

Eventually, they reached the foothills and the first of the pine trees that became the forest that covered the mountains. The full moon was high, the air crisp and silent. They moved quickly enough that Ben didn’t get cold.

He wondered if he should have brought a gun, too.

A song broke the night, a high-pitched note that held long, then sank into nothing.

Cormac stopped Ben with a hand on his arm. “Hear that?”

The sound had made his gut turn and his hair stand up. The thing that made it might have been far away, or watching them from the stand of trees a hundred yards off. Lots of animals lived out here, between prairie and mountain. Deer, elk, fox. Didn’t see most of them most of the time. They knew how to hide, but they had ways of letting you know they were there.

“Coyotes?”

Cormac gave him a brief, pained look. “Wolf.”

He knew Cormac was right, but he argued anyway. It made sense to argue. “There aren’t any wolves around here.”

“No, there aren’t.” He looked around, eyes narrowed, studying the world. Ben looked, too; he didn’t know what he was looking for, except the shapes of his own fears. The shadows were so black and stark. He could see far, but the landscape wasn’t familiar or friendly. He was the invader here, waiting for the attack that would have to come.

The wolf howl sounded again and was cut short. The tone of it echoed.

Ben wanted to suggest that maybe they go back to the house. But he wanted to see what Cormac was going to do.

There wasn’t a wind for them to walk down of. On such a clear, still night, their scent would just float, and every sound they made thundered.

Cormac went to a stunted tree that had ventured onto the plain. It stood about four feet high and had only a few gnarled branches with spiky tufts of pine needles. He opened the paper bag he’d brought and pulled out something wrapped in butcher paper. From the wrapper, he removed a sizable piece of beef, raw and dripping. He must have taken it from the fridge. Mom was going to be livid.

He stabbed the meat through the end of a branch, then crumpled up the paper and stuffed it back in the bag. “Come on,” he said, and nodded to a stand of trees fifty yards off. Ben followed, looking over his shoulder at the meat, wondering what would come to the bait.

They hunkered down in the shadow of the trees and waited. Now, Ben started to get cold. It seeped into his hands and feet first, then numbed his ears and nose. Cormac sat as still as a rock, not complaining, so Ben didn’t dare thump his feet and clap his hands to warm them. He felt a cough tickling his lungs and swallowed it. He didn’t need to cough. He wasn’t going to catch pneumonia.

He couldn’t stop his teeth from chattering. He tightened his jaw and wondered how Cormac could stand it. But then, Cormac had a reason for being here and the will to stay. Some family gossip said an animal had killed Cormac’s father. But Cormac had shot dead the man who murdered him. So which was it?

“How long we going to wait?” Ben finally asked in a tense whisper.

“All night. Don’t worry, it’s not that cold. You won’t freeze.”

“I’m not worried,” Ben said. “Just bored.”

“Be quiet.”

“You’re crazy, you know that?”

“Shh!” He never took his gaze off the tree with the meat.

Ben tried to see inside his cousin’s thoughts. “Is all this ’cause of your dad? I thought you already got what killed him. Don’t see much point in this unless you just like shooting things.”

What Ben really wanted was for Cormac to break. To get angry, shout, scream, cry, anything. His face never changed. His cold gaze kept staring out.

Then Cormac licked his lips. “My dad taught me how to do this. We went out every full moon. It’s what he did. He taught me, and now I have to do it myself.”

He put his gloved hand in his pocket, took it out fisted around something. He held his hand open to Ben. A bullet lay in Cormac’s palm. Ben picked it up, held it to the moonlight, rolled it between his fingers. It shone, luminous and otherworldly. Silver.

Cormac was either crazy or he was right.

The part of hunting that most people couldn’t stand was the waiting. Dad’s business had been taking people into the back country, equipping them, guiding them, holding their hands so they could bag an elk or eight-point buck and take the trophies and stories back to their corporate boardrooms. High-end outfitting. They didn’t have to like their clients—Cormac didn’t, most of the time. Self-centered, heads up their butts. Treated Cormac and his dad like they were backwoods hicks. And they didn’t understand waiting. Sometimes the best way to find your quarry was to sit still and wait for it. Know where they like to go, then park there and make yourself part of the landscape. The rich playboys wanted their kills now. They’d paid their money and couldn’t understand why the animals didn’t just walk up to them and bare their necks.

The attitude showed a severe lack of respect for the animals. They didn’t understand—they couldn’t, with only five days in the wilderness, with someone else pitching the tents and cooking their meals—that the smarter the animal, the harder the kill. The greater the challenge.

Dad taught him that these were the smartest animals out there. Hunting them was an art. Cormac could wait for it.

His cousin surprised him. Didn’t fidget, didn’t complain. Showing him the bullet had shut him up. At least he was smart. Seemed to be patient, too. Might make a good hunter.

Ben must have thought he was clever, trying to see through him like that. His words couldn’t touch Cormac, though. Wasn’t anything he hadn’t already thought of. He didn’t have nightmares about what happened, because he’d already seen his fears with his waking eyes. He’d already killed them. Nothing else could get him now. Especially not Ben.

This—this was just what he was supposed to do. His mission, handed down from father to son for four generations. Sacred trust, Dad had called it.

Cormac kept his gaze soft. Wouldn’t do any good to focus on the bait; his vision would close down to that one spot and he wouldn’t see anything approach. He relaxed and took in as much of the land around him as he could, all the hills and trees, all the shadows that something could hide in, watching for that flicker of movement. The moonlit world was bright, but a kind of filtered brightness. The colors were all drained to black, white, charcoal, and deep blue.

Then, there it was. A rustle of movement, something four-legged gliding like fog. That hadn’t taken long at all—the moon was still high.

It was a big one, two hundred pounds or so, three foot at the shoulder. Male. Dark gray, well camouflaged. Big and confident.

He waited. He’d been patient this long; a few more moments wouldn’t matter. Wait until it had the bait, until it was occupied.

He braced the rifle under his arm and sighted down the barrel. There, under the ear, middle of the skull. He had him.

Something exploded. A gunshot, not his. Splinters flew out. Someone had shot the tree they’d sheltered by. Ben skittered sideways and curled up on the ground with his arms over his head.

Cormac looked out, followed the path from where bits of the tree were blown out, up the hill.

A figure dressed for winter hunting moved toward them, holding his own rifle ready to fire a second shot, right at Cormac.

He wasn’t scared. It occurred to him that Ben had the right idea, huddling on the ground for protection. But Cormac found himself staring at the mouth of that weapon and not caring. He’d seen worse. He’d stared down worse. This was nothing. He stood his ground.

The wolf looked up and watched them with interest.

“Put your gun down!” the stranger shouted. His expression twisted with anguish.

“Why should I?” Cormac breathed, in and out, wondering if he was going to have to kill this guy to get to the wolf.

“I won’t let you hurt him.”

He kept moving closer, and Cormac knew he could shoot him. It was self-defense. His second shooting in as many months. The sheriff was going to love this. “That’s close enough. Stop there.”

He did. He looked a little like Cormac himself, young and desperate. Probably not much older. Mirror image. Not quite.

“What business is this of yours, if I shoot that thing on our property?”

“I can’t let you do that. He’s mine. My pet.”

Not likely, not in a million years. Not that big, not that intelligent. The wolf still watched them. A real wolf would have run away by now. But this one knew what was happening, and Cormac grew angry that the stranger with the rifle would lie so blatantly.

“Do you know what it is?”

“Yes. Yes I do. He’s my brother. I look after him.”

Christ, did he think that changed anything? Didn’t matter if he went around twenty-nine days out of the month on two legs, nicest guy in the world. Didn’t matter at all, because that one day he was a killer. They gave men the chair for being killers. Cormac was just part of that process, in a roundabout way.

The wolf growled and started moving toward him. Cormac swung around to aim at it, ready to blow it away, this other guy be damned.

“No, Michael,” the stranger said. “Stay back. Don’t make it worse, please.”

The wolf stopped and wagged its tail. Brothers. Cormac wouldn’t have believed it.

Dad never taught him what to do in a mess like this. Monster was a monster, he’d always said. That was so perfectly clear when he’d been attacked last month. When he’d been killed.

And what if Dad had survived the attack? What if he’d turned into one of those things? What would Cormac have done, shot him?

“He hasn’t hurt anyone,” the stranger said. “Just let us go. Lower your gun and we’ll walk away. I’m telling you, he hasn’t hurt anyone!”

“How am I supposed to believe that?” Cormac’s voice shook, tight with tears that he hadn’t cried, not once.

“It’s true. He listens to me. He’s never hurt anyone.”

He saw his father, his face ripped to shreds, throat torn open so the vertebrae of his neck were visible, blood pouring from arteries.

“But he might. Someday. If you’re not around to stop him.” Do it. He had the shot. For his father.

“You fire and I’ll shoot you!”

He thought that Cormac actually cared, that he actually still had some life in him. “I’ll get my shot off same time you shoot me. Your brother’ll die, too.”

“And I’ll shoot your friend here right after.”

Cormac looked at Ben, who was sprawled at his feet. Ben caught his gaze, begging him with his eyes. Even now he didn’t complain, didn’t shout or cry or anything. But he had those eyes, with fear locked down inside him.

Ben locked it down tight. His voice didn’t waver when he said, “If you kill that wolf, he’ll turn into a person, won’t he? Like the guy that killed your dad.”

Cormac nodded, wondered what he was going to do. Wondered if Ben’s fear was right: that he would just as soon let his cousin die.

“Cormac, you have to let them go. He’s just looking after his family. Like you.”

Cormac almost lost it then, because Ben was wrong. Cormac wasn’t looking after anything. He didn’t care, didn’t they see that? This was pure, meaningless revenge, because Ben was right, he’d already got the one that had killed his dad. And if he’d been faster, been less afraid, more ruthless, he might have been able to save his father. He should have been able to save him.

That would always be true, no matter how many monsters he killed. This wasn’t about looking after family. Cormac should have done better, should have known better. Dad should still be alive. He’d know what to do.

Ben knew what to do.

Cormac lowered his rifle.

A heart-stopping moment later, the stranger lowered his. Cormac wouldn’t have blamed him if he’d shot them all. That would have been the safest, most ruthless thing to do. “Come on, Michael,” he said and backed away.

The wolf picked up the meat and trotted off. His brother followed him to the trees.

Ben got to his feet. His breaths wheezed a little, and Cormac remembered he’d mentioned asthma. Kid shouldn’t have come along. Cormac shouldn’t have let him. He should have helped him up off the ground. He thought about it too late.

Maybe he’d remember next time.

The wolf and the stranger disappeared into the trees, and Cormac’s heart clenched. He’d missed his shot. His father would be disappointed.

At first, Ben wondered how he was going to keep his cousin from shooting—push the rifle away, yell at him, chase off the wolf, anything. He’d start a fight with Cormac, he didn’t doubt that and didn’t doubt that he’d lose badly—and that would get Cormac in trouble all over again with his folks. Wolves were endangered, he knew that much about them. Shooting one would bring down a lot of grief on Cormac, which he didn’t need since his father died.

Then the stranger showed up, and he was the only one who’d walk away from this, Ben was sure.

Ben wondered at the story behind the pair: How did the brother get this way, and how long had they been doing this? How could someone be so devoted to a brother that he’d follow him into this?

How could Cormac be so devoted to his father that he’d follow him into this?

Ben had no doubt Cormac would let it happen. He only cared about killing the wolf, even if it meant they all died for it. Ben wondered if he could make a run for it. His lungs were already hurting. The stranger had hit the tree from farther off. He’d shoot Ben easy. No running away from that, even if his lungs could take it.

Cormac looked at him. His gaze was stony as ever, and the hard look didn’t seem right on a smooth-faced kid. Ben didn’t know if he stared back at a cold killer, or the cousin who shared his room. They couldn’t possibly be the same person. Cormac had to pick one or the other.

Pick me, Ben pleaded silently. He didn’t remember what he said—probably begging for his life like a snot-nosed kid.

Then it was over. The guns were lowered, and the stranger and the wolf—his brother—went away.

Ben started to get up. Hours must have passed, and he didn’t think he’d ever be able to stand again, he was so stiff with cold. He managed it, his muscles creaking, his hands shaking.

“I should have shot him,” Cormac said, clenching his rifle.

The pain of memories filled Cormac’s eyes. Now that he’d seen the kind of reaction he’d wanted, Ben wished he could make it stop. Cormac was the strong one.

“Come on.” Ben put his hand on Cormac’s shoulder to turn him around. “Let’s go home.”

They walked in silence until the house came into view. No lights were on. They hadn’t been discovered.

Off-handed, Cormac said, “Know how to shoot?”

Ben considered him. Something was different. He couldn’t say how. Cormac still had that cold, rigid stance that made everyone so careful around him. But Ben didn’t think times in the house would be so quiet and strained anymore.

“Course I do. Dad taught me.” Couldn’t live on a ranch with rifles and not know how to shoot. Everybody knew that.

“Maybe we could go hunting sometime.”

Ben looked sharply at him.

He shrugged. “You know, coyotes. Or deer or something.”

“Real hunting?”

“Yeah, sure. I mean, I know you can go out in the cold, even if your folks don’t.”

Ben bit back a grin. Couldn’t let Cormac think he was excited or anything.

The moon set behind the hills.