Chapter Fourteen

Harold had just finished dressing and trying to brush his hair again when Josephine knocked on the door.  He had found that if his hair and beard were still wet, it was easier to pull the brush through.  Using the blow dryer he’d been able to get his thick red hair mostly dry.   

“You brushed your hair?  For me?” Josephine looked flattered but her tone was teasing.   

“Yes.  You seem to think I look like a barbarian.  Many of my kinfolk and friends are very refined and fashionable and I’d didn’t want you to think all ulfhednar were slovenly.”  He wondered if draugar could smell pheromones as well as ulfhednar. He was a little embarrassed and if Josephine realized that she’d probably tease him about that too.   

“Well, you need to use some conditioner after you shampoo.  It’ll get the tangles out.  And if you don’t want me to think ulfhednar are slovenly, why are you dressed like that?”  She asked pointing up down his clothes with her hand.  “It wouldn’t hurt to have some clothes that don’t look like you either slept in them or pulled them out of your dirty clothes hamper.”  

“And I should dress like a draugar?  The latest fashions, bespoken clothes, looking like I just stepped off the cover of some poncy men’s fashion magazine?”    

Josephine laughed out loud, “Now that’s a mental image!  Ha!  No, that would be too much for you.  No, you just carry on with your overly relaxed and casual style.  Besides, you’re just going to stuff all those clothes in a bag and leave them in the forest most of the night.  It would be a shame to do that to a Gucci suit.”  Harold nodded his head in agreement.

“Come on.” Harold walked out the door of the room and Josephine followed, still smiling to herself.

When they got in the car Harold decided to take advantage of Josephine’s jovial mood.  Perhaps she’d be more forthcoming with information.   

“You ate last night, or drank,” Harold wasn’t sure what to call it, “so you’re good for three days or so.  If we spend the entire evening exploring the forests in the reservation, will that cause you to need to hunt again?  We can hunt tonight if that’s the case.”  

“No, I’ll be fine for three or four days.  Although if we come across something I might like to try it.  Elk perhaps. Or those mountain goats I read about.  I bet they’re a challenge.”  

Harold smiled at her, “I’m quite keen to give those a go as well.”  Another interesting tidbit to put in his report.  The responses to his nightly reports had gone from a ‘what in Niflheim do you think you’re doing!’ to a ‘this is brilliant, keep in coming!’.  He was learning much about draugar that had only been suspected before and a couple of things that hadn’t been known.  Harold felt a little dishonourable using Josephine to find out information that would eventually be used to kill more of her kind.  But only a little.  The saving of earðkinar life was his duty, court martialed or not.  

Turning off Highway 101 onto a dirt road that led into the Quinault Indian Reservation, Harold told Josephine to look for a suitable place to hide the SUV.  They drove for a few miles until Josephine said, “There, on the right. A road or close enough to a road.” Harold grunted his acknowledgement and pulled into it.  The road dead ended after a few hundred yards and he stopped the car.   

“Camouflage the car again or are we far enough off the road?”  Josephine asked as she got out and walked around to the back of the SUV.   

“Camouflage.  Always camouflage.” Harold answered.  

When they’d finished with the car Harold started taking his clothes off and Josephine turned her back to him.   

“So, this road just dead ends.  That’s a little odd isn’t it?” Harold realized she was a little uncomfortable and trying to make conversation to ease it.  He grinned.

Putting his pack on top of the car he answered with a question, “What do you smell?”  

“Oh, let’s see…” she paused as she heard Harold yelp and whine as he changed, “the trees, the car, you, animals, water.”  Josephine breathed in deep through her nose, “A lot of water. Is it a river we’re near?” Harold had stopped making noises and she turned around.  “All furry and ready?”

Harold’s teeth shone white in the dim light, “Yes, and yes.  There’s a trail to the left of the car.  I’m guessing it leads to the Quinault River.  We’ll follow it down one bank to the sea and then back up the other.  Ready?”   

“Just a minute.”  Josephine took off her shoes and socks.  Harold cocked his head to one side and looked for all the world like a dog trying to figure out what a human was trying to do.  Josephine looked up at him after she removed her socks and laughed.  Harold quickly straightened up and his brow furrowed.   

“When we were hunting last night I found my shoes would slip on things.  I think I’ll do better with bare feet.”  With that she tossed her shoes and socks on top of the SUV with Harold’s pack.  

Harold nodded, “You might at that.  Do your best to keep up. If you fall behind give a shout.”  With that Harold bounded into the forest.   

They reached the river and turned west to follow its winding path to the sea.  Harold enjoyed himself immensely.  Sometimes running through the woods, sometimes climbing trees and leaping from tree to tree, even swinging from some of the sturdier branches.  There were many advantages to being part wolf and part brachiating primate.  He glanced over his shoulder from time to time to check on Josephine.  She fell behind a little when he suddenly changed direction or climbed a tree, but managed to catch up each time.  Harold wasn’t thinking of what he was doing, it was all instinct to move through the forest.  Instead he was focused on the existence of the forest itself.  The smells of the different animals, trees, bushes, mosses and their lives. The sounds of the branches, breeze, river and animals.  He felt tireless, powerful and loved by the forest and the gods.  

“Harold!!”  Josephine’s sudden shout brought him to a crouching stop ready for some threat.  She sounded scared.

“A wolf!  I smell a wolf!” She shouted.  Josephine looked more excited than scared now.  Harold relaxed and walked back to where Josephine was pacing around sniffing the air.   

“Not bad.  It’s a day old, there were four of them, three females, a young male, the child of one of the females.  The male peed on the tree over there.” He said pointing to a cedar.  

“It smells like you.  Or at least very much like you. I thought I’d found one of your people.  Sorry.” Josephine looked embarrassed.

“No need to apologize.  I would hazard a guess you’ve never smelled a real wolf before.”  Harold walked over to the tree the male wolf had peed on and smelled it a little more.  Yes, a two year old.

“I have, just in a zoo and it wasn’t the same.  It was mixed with all the other animals and people smells. Not like this, here.” Josephine looked up to the trees and breathed in deeply.   She was motionless but for her breathing.  Harold relaxed and crouched down to wait for her to return to the here and now.  After a few minutes she turned and looked at Harold.  Her face was a melancholy beauty artists had been trying to capture for centuries.  Harold wanted to say something but couldn’t think what.   

“You look like you belong here.  I wish I did.”  Josephine’s voice was wistful and a hint of a smile flitted across her lips.  Before Harold could say something Josephine leapt to a tree and then to another.  Harold followed.   

She had travelled for about a mile and suddenly stopped again, “A cat, sort of.  A lynx?” She looked at Harold with a furrowed brow.   

“Bobcat.  Male.  About four years old. It had a fresh kill in its mouth.  Smell the blood that dripped on the mother tree there?” Harold pointed to the mother tree behind her.  Josephine turned and smelled the tree.  “Why do you call it a mother tree?” she asked as she ran her fingers over the moss covering it.  

“You see all those saplings growing from it?  The moss, the ferns.  This tree is the mother to all those new trees which will grow in it and all the other plants and animals that make her their home. She fell, but the wight who lives with her didn’t leave and works to continue her wyrd.”

Josephine seemed to break out of her almost reverent mood and cocked one eyebrow at Harold. “Wight, wyrd?  More of your heathen gods?”

Harold laughed and jumped onto the mother tree.  He patted the moss next to him and Josephine jumped up to sit next to him. “A wight is the spirit that lives in an object of nature.  Trees, bushes, ferns, boulders, streams, all have a wight that dwells in or around them.  Some have more than one.  Each thing has a wyrd, from the smallest grain of dirt, to this moss we sit on, to this mother tree, the animals that live within it, the deer, the mountains, you, me, earðkinar.  The wyrd is the thread of our lives first spun by the Norns when we are born or created.  It’s made of all the things our ancestors were, did and said.  It sets us on the path of our lives.”  

Josephine interrupted, “Our fate.” She seemed disappointed.

“Nothing that fatalistic. There are three sisters, Urð ‘What Once Was’, Verðandi, ‘What Is Coming into Being’ and Skuld, ‘What Should Be’.  These are the Norns, they record all that was before, what is happening and tally up what should be because of what was and what is becoming.  Another way to understand Skuld is that she is the debt or profit of what we had to start with and what we have done with it.  Verðandi or the gods sometimes step in and set things up so we choose a certain path.”  Harold thought back to the four dirty diapers at the airport and smiled.  “Sometimes in odd ways.”  

“Your gods don’t know the span of your life?  What you will do? Are they so limited?” Josephine seemed surprised by Harold’s explanation.  Before Harold could answer she added, “Our God is supposed to be the ultimate entity.  Greater than time, space, everything.  All that has been and will be is already known to him.  We are supposed to work with his plan and reap the rewards of that.  If we defy him we are to be punished with true death and eternity in Hell being tortured by demons.”   

Harold nodded his head, “Yes, an omnipotent deity is an excellent justification for all manner of things.” He stood up, “Come.  We’ve yet to reach the sea and the night is wearing on.”  With that he bounded off along the length of the mother tree.  

After running a few hundred yards he glanced back to check on Josephine but didn’t see her.  He noticed her smell was above and to his right.  Cocking his head slightly he saw her lithe figure leaping from tree to tree.  He grinned and made a deep huffing sound.  Speeding up he decided to see how fast she could move.  He’d seen her running in Coventry, but moving in a city wasn’t the same as moving in a forest.  

Hitting his maximum speed on the forest floor for almost a minute, Harold suddenly heard, “Harold, slow down! Harold!” He came to a stop on top of some moss covered boulders and waited for her.  He was panting hard and felt wonderful.  Catching up after a few seconds Harold saw that Josephine wasn’t winded.  Not having to breathe had its advantages.  

“Were you trying to leave me behind!?” she demanded.   

“No, I just wanted to see how fast you could go.  When did you have to leave the trees and start running on the ground?”  Harold rolled on to his back and scratched himself on the boulder.  

“Just after you sped up.  What are you doing?”  

“Scratching my back.  It feels good.  Don’t you get an itch or a muscle that needs to be rubbed or scratched?”  He rolled back over and crouched looking at her.

“No.  I never feel itchy, sore, tired, nothing like that.  I almost wish I did just so I could appreciate its absence.”  The idea seemed to amuse her and she leapt up to the boulder and crouched next to Harold.  “How far to the sea?  I can’t smell it.”

“Only a few miles.  Give a shout when you can.  The town of Taholah is there.  It’s the headquarters for the Quinault tribe.  It’s a small town so we can probably reconnoiter the whole place in an hour or so.” Harold breathed deeply through his nose.  There was something different about Josephine’s smell.  He inhaled again.  Josephine looked at him, “What is it.  You smell something good?”  She seemed eager.  

“No.  Just getting a good whiff of the forest.” Standing up he said, “Remember, shout when you first smell the sea.” Leaping from the boulder he set a steady pace he knew Josephine could match.  

They had only gone a little way before Josephine joyously shouted.  “The sea, I can smell it!”  She caught up to Harold, “The river flowing into the sea, humans, cars, dogs, the forest, the animals.  There’s so much to smell.  I can’t make sense of it all.”  Harold was fascinated by her ability to maintain a running pace and yet talk normally.  She was only breathing to push air past her larynx.  He was breathing hard and had to slow down.   

“It takes practice and focus.  You may not be as good as I, but it gets easier to sort out the individual scents with time and experience.”  They could see the town now and he came to stop and climbed a tree on the edge of the forest.  Josephine followed him to the highest branch that could hold their weight.  

Harold looked over the town and used the time to catch his breath.  He could see only one car moving through town.   

“Here’s the plan.  You’ll walk around town, staying in the shadows.  I’ll be on the roof tops out of sight.  If you find an ulfhedinn or vampire scent, whistle.  If I do, I’ll bark.”  Harold start to climb down the tree when Josephine said, “You’ll do what?  Bark?  Like a dog?  Really? Can’t you whistle?” Here tone was almost belittling.  

“The sound of a barking dog is a normal sound.  Besides, I can’t whistle in this form.” He started down the tree again feeling a little miffed with Josephine.   

“Sorry.  I didn’t mean for that to sound insulting.”  She sounded sincere.  

“Apology accepted.  Let start at the south end and work north to the river.”  Harold ran silently to the first house and leapt to the roof landing on the peak.  He stopped and smelled the air and got into a position to leap to the next one.  His movements were slow, almost gentle so as to make no noise that could be heard in the house.  Keeping his body low and in the shadows of the chimneys and other roof tops, someone on the street would have to know what to look for to have seen him.  He caught a glimpse of Josephine from time to time as he worked across the town.  She was doing a good job of staying out of sight.  Harold took his time going from houses to buildings and back.  At each building he sniffed at the vents, but all he found were earðkin smells.   

As he had estimated, it took a little over an hour to check each building.  Josephine had made it to the last house before Harold and was walking down the spit that projected into the mouth of the river.  Her short hair was blowing with the wind as she walked along a sea bleached log.  Harold crouched down in the shadow of an ocean beaten tree stump and watched her walk.  Josephine stopped and faced the ocean.  Gracefully raising her arms and face, she closed her eyes.  Harold could see her chest slowly rise and fall as she breathed in the ocean air.  Harold titled his head to one side.  Her pose was the same his people used to pray to the Ǣsir and Vanir.  She held the pose for a while then lowered her arms and looked to the house she had last checked then around the beach.  Harold realized she was looking for him.   

“Here.” He spoke softly but knew she’d still hear him.   

She turned her eyes to his location and Harold stood up.  The wind from the ocean was strong and steady making it difficult for him to detect an earðkin if there was one nearby.  He crouched back down.   

“It’s a little risky for me here.”   

Josephine looked around.   

“It’s late.  I see no one.” She replied.

Harold looked around too.  There was no one to be seen, but he still felt exposed.  “Let’s move across the river mouth to the other bank.” Josephine nodded and with a running start leapt over the river mouth to the north side of the river.  Harold did the same and landed next to her.   He walked to a load of bleached logs and with a single jump landed on the highest one.  He crouched down and looked at Josephine.  She leapt up and landed by his side standing.   

“Smell anything interesting in town?” He asked as if asking a co-worker how their weekend was.   

“No.  You?”  Harold shook his head.  They stared out to sea.  Harold wanted to just enjoy the smells and sounds of the beach.  He glanced at Josephine.  She was frozen but for her slow breathing through her nose.  He realized she didn’t want to leave just yet either.   They sat like that for almost an hour before Harold finally roused himself and stood up.   

“We need to head back.”  Without waiting for her to reply he ran up the beach to the low cliff face and leapt to the edge and then over it to the forest beyond.  He could hear her following behind.  The journey along the north side of the river was uneventful.  Harold made note of some of the animals they could hunt on subsequent nights, but didn’t point them out to Josephine.  He’d ask her about them as they drove back to the lodge to see what she had noticed.  

Dawn was only an hour away by the time they reached the car.  Harold grabbed his night pack and took the keys to the car from it and tossed them to Josephine.  She waited in the car as he changed form and put his clothes back on.  She came back out to help him put the camouflage away and then said, “I’ll drive.”

Harold looked at her and shrugged.  He was feeling a little tired anyway.  Driving back Harold noticed Josephine stuck to the speed limit precisely, even the recommended speed around curves.  He wanted to ask why she was such a cautious driver, but considered that might be a long conversation.  Instead he asked about the animals she had caught scent of on the way back.  

“The forest was full of animals.  There was one smell I caught a few times. It was like a deer, but different.  What was it?”  

“Elk.  We crossed paths of a group of males, and two groups of females.  Those are good eating.  Very tasty.”  Harold smiled in the darkness at the thought.   

Josephine smiled too, “Tomorrow night, we need to hunt elk.” She said it as an imperative.  

“Fine with me.”

They didn’t talk anymore until they arrived at the lodge.   

“You look tired.” Josephine sounded almost surprised, “I thought ulfhednar were tireless hunters.” This she said with a slight mocking tone to her voice.

Harold drew himself up, “If need be I could continue through the day.  But I don’t.”

Josephine just smiled.  When they got to their rooms Harold glanced at his watch.  “It’s five thirty.  Knock on my door at two thirty this afternoon.” Without waiting for Josephine to respond, Harold walked into his room.  He still had to put his gear away and make his report.  The sooner he had that done and was in bed the happier he’d be.   

He hardly had to think about his gear.  He’d been using it, maintaining it, checking it for decades.  When he was in a pack, some pack-mates would steal or slightly damage something from a pack-mates kit just to make sure they were paying attention.  Harold smiled a little.  No need to worry about that anymore.  Harold heard Josephine turn on her telly.  Good, the sound of that would mask the sound of him opening and closing his laptop.  The report reflected his tiredness.  It was short, succinct and devoid of his usual formal writing style.  As he was about to hit Alt+S he remembered to add a question about a draug that may have been hunted in Texas the previous summer.  Finished he pulled off his clothes, threw them over a chair and climbed into bed.