The Howling II

24

ROY BEATTY CROUCHED in the brash alongside the road and watched as his wife and his friend climbed into the battered taxi. They were not thirty yards away from him. How open they would be at this moment, how vulnerable to the attack of the wolf! Roy looked anxiously off to the west. The sun was almost down, but enough glowing red showed at the horizon to prevent him from changing. Enough to save the lives of these two people. This time.

The shadows of the twilight lengthened and joined and spread like ink spilled from a bottle until there was darkness. Roy tore the soft cotton shirt from his back. He pulled off the canvas shoes he wore over bare feet, and stepped out of his pants.

He knelt naked in the fast-chilling night and willed his body to change.

His muscles bunched and released convulsively. His joints cracked audibly as the bones shifted in their sockets. He fell forward to his hands and knees. His neck arched. There was an instant of blinding pain as the change wracked his body. Then came the exultation. The wild joy of freedom as the great tan wolf took possession of the man.

The wolf moved silently out from behind the brush. The head turned and the yellow eyes looked off down the rutted dirt road that wound down toward the highway. Far below, the glowing red tail lights of the taxi were still visible. The wolf raised his muzzle to the night sky and howled — a cry of hate and defiance.

In the enclosure behind the shack of Guillermo, the burros twitched their ears at the sound. They looked up from their grazing and stirred restlessly. In their soft, drowsy eyes was the shadow of fear.

The door of the cabin opened the width of a hand and Guillermo looked out. He saw nothing in the night, and quickly withdrew. There was the sound of heavy scraping from within as Guillermo moved things against the door to keep out the evil.

Deep in his throat the wolf growled softly. How futile would be the burro-keeper's attempt to bar the door if the wolf really wanted to get in. Against the werewolf the flimsy shack would offer no more protection than a house of paper. But Guillermo was safe this night. He was of no importance; he knew nothing. But there was another in these mountains who would not be so lucky. One who must learn the price of betrayal. The wolf turned and started up the mountain.

The fire burned low, and then it died to glowing coals in the cabin of Philina the gypsy. She sat still in the cross-legged position she had been in when the man and the woman were here. The money the man had left lay untouched and unseen on the broken chair. Although the night grew cold, the old woman made no move to rebuild the dying fire. She knew she would not need it.

She had lived many years, Philina. How many was it? Eighty? Ninety? She could not remember. She did remember that once in the long dead past she had been a young girl. A beautiful, laughing young girl. The bloodless lips of the old woman moved in a faint, bitter smile. How long had it been since anyone might have believed that once she was beautiful? Or young?

And yet it had been so. In a village near Torrelavega, where the Cantabrian Mountains came down to meet the Bay of Biscay, the young Philina had laughed and danced and sang and flirted with the boys like any Spanish gypsy girl. Then abruptly it had all ended. The gypsies discovered that she had The Gift.

The Gift! The old woman made a rattling sound in her throat. The Curse would be closer to the truth. The Curse of Prophecy. When it became known that she could read what was in the hands, girlhood was over for Philina. The people either clamored after her, begging for a reading, or they shunned her to avoid one. She no longer had friends. And the young men who courted her wanted only to use her terrible power.

In the end she had fled from all of them and crossed the ocean to live by herself. She chose the mountains above Mazatlan because it reminded her of her home in Spain, where she had known her only happiness, for such a short time.

But of course she could not forever conceal The Gift. There were gypsies here, too, and they knew, at once. Philina never went into the city, and she discouraged all who would come to her cabin, but still they sought her out. There were not so many now as in the early years, but still some came, like the two young Americans today. They would be the last.

The Gift. In how many hands over the years had she read the future? Happiness, grief, riches, pain, births, illness, and death. She had seen it all. To Philina the gypsy, all hands were windows to the future. All hands, save her own. Some merciful power withheld from those cursed with The Gift that one ability that might drive them mad — the ability to read their own futures.

And yet now Philina knew what lay ahead for her. She knew how short was the time she had left. Minutes. She had read it in the hands of the two young strangers. They had brought her death. They had done so innocently, but they had brought death as surely as though they had plunged a knife into her heart.

The old woman sighed. She was ready. She had lived a long time, and there was nothing left undone.

She heard death coming outside. It moved softly through the grass of the clearing before her cabin. Over the years Philina's sight had dimmed, but her ears were as keen as ever. She heard the snuffling sound as death approached. It stopped just outside her doorway, and she could hear the air rush in and out of its powerful lungs. Still the gypsy made no move.

The hide that covered the doorway was torn away as the wolf burst through. It hesitated a moment, snarling, feet braced on the hard dirt floor. Then it sprang.

Philina made no attempt to protect herself from the murderous teeth. It would have been no use anyway. She had lived a long time, and she was ready.