Lone Wolf Page 2

  MacKinnon’s shadow, a huge student named Del Zotto, giggled at MacKinnon’s words.

  “I’ve got nothing to say,” Harlan said. That was true. He and MacKinnon had nothing in common other than both attending Redstone. They were rarely in the same class, had never shared a lunch period, and they rode to and from school on different buses. In fact, school aside, the two teenagers were exact opposites. Where Harlan was tall and lithe, MacKinnon was short and fat, weighing close to two hundred pounds. Harlan was quick and enjoyed playing games like badminton and table tennis, while MacKinnon had struggled to make the football team and had spent the last two years filling out a jersey on special teams. And where Harlan consistently had the top marks in all of his classes, MacKinnon rarely even attended them.

  “That’s bull,” said MacKinnon.

  Del Zotto snickered.

  “I heard you in civics class today talking about the Charter of Rights.” MacKinnon moved forward, pushing his face right up against Harlan’s. “You were goin’ on and on, blah-blah-blah…I thought you were never going to shut up.”

  “Miss Thompson asked a question. Someone had to answer it.”

  Harlan was moving into dangerous territory. Miss Thompson hadn’t just asked a question, she had asked MacKinnon the question. Then, after he’d hummed-and-ummed his way through a few lines about Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness, she complimented MacKinnon on his knowledge of the American Declaration of Independence. When the laughter died down, she turned to Harlan and asked for the right answer.

  “You were trying to make me look bad, weren’tcha?”

  Harlan wanted to hold his tongue, but he’d had enough of MacKinnon and Del Zotto constantly grinning over his shoulder. “I wasn’t trying to make you look bad,” he said. “You were doing that all by yourself.”

  The crowd that MacKinnon had been so careful to gather around himself laughed, not with him, but at him.

  “Nice one, Dogface!”

  There it was, MacKinnon’s trump card, the thing he kept in his back pocket for when all else failed.

  Everyone was still laughing, but now it was at Harlan.

  Harlan said nothing in response. What could he say? It was true, after all. While his siblings had all been blessed with attractive human faces, Harlan’s face had retained many of his wolfen features, leaving him with a wide, puglike nose, an extended lower jaw that looked a bit like that of a bulldog, and large ears set high on his head that crested in a slight point. Some of the girls in his class thought Harlan was cute, but MacKinnon’s “Dogface” line always got a laugh.

  “Asshole!” Harlan muttered, then turned to walk away.

  “What did you say?” MacKinnon called out, grabbing Harlan’s shoulder and spinning him back around.

  Harlan said nothing, because nothing he said at this point would help. MacKinnon had come around looking to humiliate Harlan and he’d done it for the most part. All that was left was a few moments of taunting where MacKinnon would try to pick a fight, while Harlan did his best to ignore him.

  “C’mon,” prodded MacKinnon. “You’re good with your mouth, are you any good with your fists?”

  Harlan sighed. This was it, the real reason why MacKinnon picked on him. It was because he could. MacKinnon had figured out that no matter what he did, no matter how much he berated Harlan, taunted him, or insulted him, Harlan would never fight back. Not only that, no one would stick up for Harlan, either. Why should they? As long as MacKinnon picked on Harlan, then he wouldn’t be picking on any of them. If anyone stood up for Harlan, they might become Jake’s next target and no one wanted that. High school was difficult enough to get through without the likes of Jake MacKinnon on your case every day. Better to sacrifice one—in this case Harlan—for the greater good. It was a lousy thing to do, but it worked in its own perverse way.

  “I’m not going to fight you,” Harlan said.

  “Not? Won’t? Or can’t?” MacKinnon spat. Then, just because he could, he added, “Dogface!”

  Harlan shook his head and said, “Not.” He could feel talons of rage tear at his insides. If he’d allowed himself, he could have changed form, torn apart this sack of fat standing in front of him, and chewed on his bones. But he couldn’t because of a promise he’d made to Ranger Brock—a man to whom he and the other members of the pack owed their lives.

  Just then MacKinnon lunged forward. The first time he’d done it, Harlan had jumped back and put his hands up to defend himself, which MacKinnon took to be a sign of fear. The second time, and every other time after that, Harlan remained still, doing his best to look bored while he wrestled against his emotions to keep himself from killing the stupid human in front of him. This time though, instead of lunging forward all the way, MacKinnon stopped, looked up, and retreated.

  Harlan wondered if some breakthrough had been made. Perhaps the worst was over.

  MacKinnon hitched the waistband of his pants slightly. “Need your big brother to fight your battles for ya?”

  “What?” Harlan said. He turned around and saw that Argus had moved in behind him.

  “Did I interrupt something?” Argus asked.

  “Just Dogface, here, being chicken!”

  Argus took a step forward.

  “All right, all right,” said another voice. Harlan glanced past his brother and saw Principal Terashita coming down the hall. “I hope you two weren’t fighting.”

  MacKinnon smiled. “No, Sir. Fighting’s against the rules. We were just talking.”

  Principal Terashita looked unconvinced. “Well, if you insist on more ‘talking’ I’m going to start taking people to my office.”

  Everyone knew it was a toothless threat, but it did the trick, sending MacKinnon on his way, and convincing the onlookers that the show was over. In moments the crowd was all but gone, leaving Harlan and Argus standing alone.

  “You okay?” Argus asked, his voice edged with concern.

  “Don’t ever do that again!”

  “What?”

  “I don’t need your help,” Harlan said. “I don’t need you to come to my rescue.”

  “But, I wasn’t—”

  “I can handle guys like MacKinnon myself.”

  Argus was about to say something in response, but Harlan turned his back on him and walked away.

  “Hey, c’mon,” Argus pleaded. “I was just trying to —”

  But Harlan kept going. He knew it was wrong, but he was so angry he didn’t know what else to do.

  * * *

  “Harlan isn’t too happy with me,” Argus said as he slid into a seat next to Noble at their usual table closest to the door in the cafeteria.

  “I heard.”

  “You did?” Argus asked in surprise. “But how could you—”

  “A couple of guys told me about Harlan’s run-in with MacKinnon. They said you showed up at the end and scared MacKinnon off. I’m guessing Harlan didn’t appreciate the help.”

  “No, he didn’t,” Argus said, unwrapping a ham and cheese sandwich and making half of it disappear with a single bite. “But I didn’t do anything to that weasel MacKinnon, didn’t even say anything to him,” Argus said around a mouthful of sandwich. “I know Harlan wants to fight his own battles, but how can he expect me to stand by and do nothing when he’s being pushed around by a human?” When Argus said the last word he leaned in close to Noble and whispered it like it was a secret word that no one else would understand.

  Noble shrugged and took a sip from his milk carton. “There are things we could do to MacKinnon.”

  “Like what?”

  “We could arrange to have someone give him a nuclear wedgie. You know, the kind where the underwear gets pulled up around the guy’s ears.”

  Argus snickered. That would be nice. Wedgies like that hurt like hell, and there was no graceful way to pull the underwear out of your crack. Half the fun was watching someone trying to set themselves right. But as much as Argus wanted MacKinnon to get his, he knew it would never wor
k. The smile lingered on Argus’s face for a moment. When it was gone he turned to Noble and said, “But that would only make MacKinnon more angry at the world, and he’d end up taking it out on Harlan anyway.”

  Noble nodded. “And if word ever got around to Harlan that we’d arranged it, he’d never forgive us.”

  That was true. While there were plenty of guys who would be willing to give MacKinnon a wedgie or stuff one of their socks in his mouth or tape him to his locker, none of them could be trusted to keep quiet about doing Noble such a favor. They’d be too proud of themselves and would just have to brag. Or if they were hauled into the office, they’d tell Principal Terashita it was Noble’s idea before the door even closed behind them. So, while the thought of a wedgie had been good for a laugh, it wasn’t much help to Harlan.

  Argus sighed. “But we just can’t let MacKinnon pick on Harlan like that. If I find it embarrassing, imagine what it’s doing to Harlan.” Argus could feel the rage creeping into his muscles, along his arms, across his chest, and down his back. He took a deep breath and the feeling lessened, but didn’t go away completely. “We’ve got to do something to stop it.” A pause. “Before something bad happens…to MacKinnon.”

  Noble nodded once more. He knew just as well as Argus that Harlan would be able to put up with only so much, before he would fight back. When that happened, Jake MacKinnon would no longer be a problem, but there would be a whole set of new problems to take his place.

  “I know we’ve got to stop it,” Noble said, finishing off his milk in a gulp, “but I don’t know how. At least not yet.”

  Chapter 3

  It was two in the afternoon, and Donna Hughson had almost finished her walk around the north shore of Puntzi Lake. She went out every afternoon with her dog, a black lab named Daisy, that was never far from her side. She’d been living in a cabin just north of Redstone for six years now, having moved there after the death of her husband, John, to pursue her lifelong dream of becoming an artist. When she first moved into the cabin, the people around Redstone considered her to be a bit of a joke; just another rich old city woman wanting to get back to nature or “find herself” in the woods. But the old woman surprised everyone. She stuck it out, put in her own indoor plumbing, and hooked up a generator so she could paint after sundown.

  When she first began to show her paintings, no one in town thought much of them. Sure, she could render a flower fairly well, and paint a deer or bobcat so you would know that’s what you were looking at, but it was what she did with her subjects that eventually made people take notice.

  Her Wildflower paintings usually featured an array of blossoms full of color and life, with one of them being unceremoniously trampled beneath a hiking boot. Then there were the Forest paintings, which featured stumps of huge trees just a few inches tall, with a sawdust-covered seedling struggling for life in their shadows. There were Hughson paintings hanging in the National Gallery of Canada and eight of the country’s provincial art galleries. Her work had even been shown beside the paintings of several members of the Group of Seven at the McMichael Gallery.

  Donna Hughson’s walks with Daisy were always quiet outings. They both knew that a sound from either of them could scare off an animal or disturb a scene that might make for an excellent painting somewhere down the road.

  That’s why when Daisy began to bark, Donna knew something was very, very wrong.

  “What is it, girl?” she asked.

  Daisy barked and did a sort of half-leap in the air, rising up on her hind legs like a puppy might do to get at a ball held in its master’s hand. But Daisy was no puppy, and there was nothing in Donna’s hand. There was however, an unusual sound coming from somewhere off in the distance—a low rumble that was growing louder with each passing second.

  Donna moved to the side of the road and turned in the direction of the sound. Daisy continued to bark and her leaps became more frenzied.

  “Daisy!” Donna called in a commanding voice.

  The dog kept on barking as she moved to Donna’s side.

  Donna squinted her eyes, then put a hand over them to shield them from the sun. She couldn’t see anything other than an odd dark cloud rising up over the road. Her first thought was of smoke, except if the forest was on fire, the smoke would be over the trees, not the road. Perhaps it was a swarm of black flies, or mosquitoes. She’d never seen such a cloud of insects before, but she’d heard others swear they had.

  And then all at once the mystery was solved as a bright red Peterbilt crested a rise in the roadway. Its chromed front end gleamed in the sunlight and its bright twin exhausts belched out a fresh cloud of blackish smoke that hung in the air between the trees on either side of the road.

  “Get back, Daisy!” Donna said, grabbing the dog by her collar and moving them both off the road.

  The red Peterbilt was followed by another and another, all connected to trailers loaded with tractors and machinery. Then came straight trucks and cube vans, and pickup trucks pulling bullet-shaped airstream trailers. The procession was a dozen vehicles long, each one of them displaying the Conservco Resources logo on all their doors. Then, just as the line of trucks was all but gone, a lone school bus, painted green and loaded with men, chugged past as if it were desperately trying not to be left behind.

  Daisy barked the entire time the trucks rumbled past, and kept barking long after they’d gone.

  “What are they doing here?” Donna wondered aloud. While there had been sections of the Redstone forest that had been slated for selective cutting, the road they were on didn’t lead to any of the approved areas.

  “Something’s not right here.”

  Daisy barked in agreement.

  “C’mon girl,” Donna said, turning for home and moving as quickly as her aged bones would allow. “I think the police, or that ranger fellow…What’s his name again? Brock, that’s it. I’m sure he’ll want to hear about this.”

  * * *

  Harlan walked down the main hallway on his way to his locker. His morning classes were done and he was carrying both his math and science textbooks against his right hip.

  “Hi Harlan,” a couple of cute girls said as he passed their locker.

  “Oh, uh, hi girls,” he responded, wondering why these two girls, these two good-looking girls, would want to say hello to him. That sort of stuff happened to Noble, sometimes even Argus, but never himself.

  “Would you be able to help us with our science homework after lunch?” the blonde one asked. He’d seen her around the school and remembered her name was Margaret, but all her friends called her Maggie. She was a bad girl who wore too much makeup, liked bad boys, and was always on the wrong side of right. But Harlan was able to overlook all that because she was hot, a real fox, and hey…she’d said hello to him.

  “Sure, I could help you with your homework,” he said, stopping next to her locker and casually leaning against it, like it was the most natural thing in the world. “In fact, I’d be happy to.”

  Maggie and her friend giggled.

  And suddenly, Harlan felt sick to his stomach. Something was definitely not right here.

  A moment later the books by his side were gone, kicked out of his hand by a big black boot. His books opened up as they spun through the air, their pages flapping like useless wings that did nothing to stop the books from landing on the floor with a loud thwap, and skidding to a stop.

  Maggie and her friend howled with laughter.

  And so did everyone else.

  Harlan could feel the rage boil within him. He looked up and down for Jake MacKinnon and saw him waving from the far end of the hall. MacKinnon stood there a moment, then ducked into the library and out of sight.

  Harlan picked up his books and began striding down the corridor intent on tearing Jake MacKinnon to pieces.

  Suddenly a hand grasped his shoulder, slowing him down. He took two more steps before a second hand grabbed his arm.

  “Don’t,” said Noble, tightening his grip on Harla
n’s shoulder.

  “I want to hurt him,” Harlan seethed. “Bad.”

  “We all do,” said Argus, keeping a firm grip on Harlan’s arm.

  “You’ll get your chance,” Noble promised. “Just not now.”

  Chapter 4

  Ranger Brock pulled to a stop on the side of the dirt road directly behind Sergeant Martin’s cruiser. There were two other vehicles besides the ranger’s 4 × 4, the first belonging to one of Sergeant Martin’s constables, and the other, a minivan driven by the naturalist and artist, Donna Hughson. The sergeant had tried to tell the old woman to stay home and let the authorities handle the situation. But she’d been skeptical, citing their inability to stop that crackpot TV scientist, Doctor Edward Monk, from trying to steal a wolf from the forest several months earlier.

  Ranger Brock liked Donna and had even bought one of her paintings for a wall in his living room at home. While the sergeant had been concerned that the old woman might get in the way, or maybe even hinder their efforts to find out what was going on, Ranger Brock was glad she’d tagged along. First of all, there was no one feistier than Donna when it came to preserving the forest, and having a civilian watch over the meeting between the police and the forestry company might help keep things from getting out of hand.

  Ranger Brock turned off his engine and got out of his 4 × 4. Their little convoy had kicked up a fair amount of dust and the Conservco site supervisor was already out on the road ready to meet with them, along with a dozen or more of his biggest lumbermen.

  “This should be fun,” Sergeant Martin said as the ranger caught up to him.

  “Maybe,” said Ranger Brock. “But I think they’ll need at least six more men to make it an even fight.”

  The sergeant smiled, greeted his constable, a young man named Neavis, and together the three of them headed for the wall of lumbermen lined up across the road.

  “They’re not supposed to be here,” Donna Hughson said, bringing up the rear, several paces behind the two men.

  Without warning, Sergeant Martin turned on his heels and put up his hand. “Look Donna, I appreciate getting your call, but you asked us to handle the situation, so let us handle it. I don’t want to hear anything more from you.”