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he could see clearly, and his progress to the far side of the turnpike was
smooth.
Before him was a sea of reeds interrupted far to the north by the tall bulk of
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the People's
Gas and Electric power station, and to the south by the rusty hump of the
Pulaski
Skyway. He stepped into the marsh. At once he sank to his knees, but
fortunately no further. He took a step, then another. Like an envelope
closing, the world of the marsh embraced him. It might be in the middle of a
brutal traffic pattern, it might be viciously polluted, but it was alive, and
as long as it lived it spread its magic over all who entered it.
The roar of the highway was replaced by the click of insects and the busy
fluttering of birds. Driving along, he'd always thought of this as an empty
world, reeds, muck, that was it. He now found rich life pouring into his ears
and nose.
The smell of the man's world dwindled fast.
For the first time since he had entered this
new life he did not smell a single human presence.
He sloshed along, thinking that he might soon scare up a rabbit or another
rat. Given how the last rat had gone down, he no longer found this a
particularly unpleasant notion, although he did hope to find a cleaner victim.
Soon he was moving through shallower water.
Then he came to a bald place. The sun was high, the day warm for autumn, and
it occurred to him that he was free to lie down.
He curled up in the reeds, drawing his tail almost to his nose.
It was peaceful here, but he knew that these marshes did not extend very far.
Beyond them were suburbs full of peril, then the
Poconos and beyond them the Catskills. He would have to go far to the north
before he found the forest that his wolf soul and wolf blood sought.
Lying still, he could hear the traffic's faint wail, a hungry ghost half a
mile away. When he slept he dreamed that a helicopter was nosing about in the
reeds, looking for him.
Then his dream changed, and in it he was
matching the turns of a rabbit, delighting in the prospect of a meal.
He awoke sometime past sunset. The western sky was deep orange, and the
evening star hung on the edge of the horizon.
For a long moment he considered the young woman on the palisades. Had he
really been able to turn her into a wolf? No, surely not.
But it had happened to him.
When as a young man he would lie on the ground in the deep country and look at
the stars, he would think that their light must have been purified by its
journey. So also souls are purified by journeys, and it was time for him to
move on.
He set out to cross the marsh, moving toward the jeopardy of the lights, and
the dark promise of the hills beyond.
Chapter Sixteen
It might be two o'clock in the morning but he was a fool to be standing on a
street corner in
Morris-town, New Jersey, peering at a newspaper through the wire of a rack. He
was aware of a car cruising slowly up the street,
but he was so fascinated and horrified by his picture in the paper that he
didn't retreat. It was remarkable to see himself like this. He really was a
wolf, a perfect wolf. His mind had conjured a more muscular, vaguely human
shape for him a sort of man on all fours with the head of a wolf. He wasn't
like that. There was nothing at all human about him.
Below the picture he could see the first few words of the accompanying news
story.
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"After critically injuring one man, the animal escaped across the Hudson . .
."
The words froze his blood. He stared, stupefied, as his shadow defined itself
beside him. Even the gentle rumbling of the car's engine did not break his
attention. He had injured somebody, hurt them bad. But who?
Maybe the man he fell on in the alley. It had all happened so fast, he wasn't
sure.
The poor man.
When Bob looked up, it was into a flaring explosion of brilliance. These eyes
were wonderful in the dark, but he discovered that they did not work at all
well under an assault
like this. He was staring into a glaring, impenetrable curtain, behind which
he could hear an engine idling, doors opening, and the shuttle of weapons from
holsters to hands.
He shrank back, one ear cocked toward the clicking of the pistol.
A shot seemed to explode in his face. He reeled, twisted, scrabbled wildly to
the middle of the street. Then there was another shot and the slap of wind
against his head.
He ran for all he was worth. Up the street he raced, past an Italian
restaurant with a full garbage bin waiting for dawn, past a hobby shop, a
drugstore.
Then he stopped, panting. Behind him there were pattering footsteps. He
crouched behind some trash cans. What was in them? They smelled like heaven.
Then another police car swept past, its lights flashing. There was no siren,
not in this suburb of high executives and broad, quiet lawns. Nixon had once
lived around here.
Bob went on, trotting close to the storefronts, slinking across streets,
taking advantage of
every bit of foliage he could find. He left
Morristown on a long, straight road. Every so often he would see a police
cruiser and crouch down. The car would glide past, and he could hear the men
inside. "Man, I haven't had this much fun since deer season."
"Who gets the head, the guy that does the shooting or the mayor? That's my
question."
Horrible!
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