The Wolf You Feed
Chapter 36
Growing a baby inside her body was hard work. As her pregnancy progressed, Rowan had been sleeping harder and longer. More times than not by the time she rose in the morning, the other members of her household already awake and busy with whatever they had planned for the day. So it was a surprise to the woman when she found herself sitting up wide awake in bed in her still pitch dark bedroom for no immediately obvious reason. She thought she heard someone whisper in her ear. But other than Daryl's softly snorning form and two large sleeping dogs, Rowan's bedroom was absent of other living beings. The whisper she heard must have been part of another one of her strange incoherrent pregnancy dreams.
Knowing that there was no way she was going to be able to fall back asleep anytime soon, Rowan slid out of bed as quietly and quickly as she could. Nokake kept a small nightlight on in the hallway. Enough light was shining through the oppressive darkness of the room for Rowan to see Daryl's arm sweeping the bed, searching for her to be sure she was beside him even in sleep. Rowan smiled and turned her pillow longways, pushing it towards the man. By the way he pulled it closer to him Rowan knew he would remain peacefully asleep unless something else woke him.
Rowan slid her hands under the blanket, searching for the colorful robe she had wriggled out of earlier. She found the garment tangled up in the blankets near where her feet had been. Shrugging it on, she pulled it closed and knotted the cloth belt above her protruding stomach. Her daughter turned and moved inside her, filling Rowan's belly with what felt a bit like a fish doing somersaults. She rubbed her hands over her stomach. Are you hungry little girl? Me too. But what are we hungry for? Little cubes of venison steak smothered in horseradish, sauteed kale with hot sauce and piles of homemade kraut on top. Then a nice glass of pickle juice over ice for dessert. The thought of drinking pickle juice straight from the jar made her mouth start to water. Rowan lifted her hands to muffle her giggles. She knew some women got strange food cravings when they were pregnant, but since it hadn't happened to her yet she had assumed she wasn't one of them. Apparently she had been wrong.
As Rowan crept from the dark room, Tank stirred from his sleeping place on the foot of her bed and padded silently to the floor to follow her. Rowan ducked into the hall bathroom to relieve herself, something she found herself having to do more and more the further along her pregnancy progressed. Tank nudged the door open a crack, intent on keeping the woman in his line of vision. Rowan wasn't usually up and moving around the house in the middle of the night. Her a-typical behavior already had the large dog on high alert. Or as alert as he could be being that his eyelids were still droopy with sleep.
With her personal business taken care of, Rowan headed down the stairs, avoiding the steps that had a tendency to creak when she stepped on them. The digital clock in the kitchen told her it was only about an hour until sunrise. Rowan wasn't up quite as early as she had originally assumed. Nokake, her father's wife, was usually the one who got up and made breakfast for everyone. The woman liked to cook, but Rowan bet that she still might enjoy a morning off. Her plan to make herself a midnight snack turned into breakfast for everyone in the house. The thought of cooking Daryl breakfast made her happy. She always felt like she was never quite as domestic as a manly man like him deserved.
Rowan didn't consider herself to be much of a cook. She knew how to make cheese and pickle cucumbers. There were a few native american dinners that her paternal grandmother had taught her how to make when she was a little girl. But other than that the limit of her culinary expertise was baking potatoes and stir frying vegetables. That left her with limited options on what to make for breakfast. Opening the fridge, Rowan spotted what looked like a pie crust wrapped in a thin kitchen towel. Next to it was a reusable plastic carton half full of eggs. And a small bowl of tangy goat cheese. All those things added together meant a breakfast quiche. It was a dish Rowan's father favored, so they had it for breakfast at least once a week as long as they had the necessary supplies. Rowan had never made it before but the dish seemed simple enough, especially if she didn't have to make the pie crust. She was hopeless when it came to making anything even related to a pastry.
Rowan was pulling the things she needed from the fridge and setting them on the large wooden cutting board when she heard Tank's low whine drift up from near the back door. She set the cheese and the eggs down. As she moved quickly towards the door the bottom of her robe kicked open, exposing her long freckled legs to the cool morning air. Rowan shivered, making sure to hold her robe closed when she opened the back door to let her dog out. Just as she was slowly easing the door shut, a stray breeze blew in. The broom that was normally kept inside the small kitchen pantry was leaning against the wall near the table. It slid down the wall and clattered to the floor with a loud crack of wood hitting tile. Rowan jumped, startled easily by the loud noise that sounded even louder due to the quiet silence of the early morning hour. A broom falling often meant some sort of company was about to arrive. Rowan rubbed the gooseflesh on her arms and wondered if that was the real reason she had woken so suddenly from her dreams.
The next noise that caught her attention was the sound of the front door being slammed shut. Tank thumped against the outside of the door, his loud warning bark clearly audible through the heavy reinforced wood. As Rowan grabbed for the small knife she had set out on the cutting board in preparation to slice cheese she snorted a little grunt of indignation. What good was a reinforced door if no one ever remembered to lock it? With her eyes adjusted to the dark, Rowan had only turned on the small light above the stove when she entered the kitchen. Because of this she couldn't tell who had barged into her living room in an attempt to escape Tank's barred teeth. She only knew that the silhouette suggested it was a man and that he must be a stranger or her dog wouldn't have chased him in the first place. Rowan adjusted her grip on the small knife in her hand, surprised by her desire to fight instead of running straight out the back door and away from the unexpected threat.
Rowan was brave. But she wasn't stupid. She kept an eye on the shadow near her front door as she moved towards the back door and swung it open to call for Tank. To wish for him was to make the large dog appear. Rowan turned to face the man inside her house, feeling much less vulnerable now that she had a large growling beast at her side.
"Stay close," Rowan commanded the dog, patting her thigh with the hand that wasn't weilding the small pairing knife. She took a few steps forward, one hand resting protectively on the rounded top of her stomach. The man shadow raised his arms, putting his palms facing her. It was the stance of a person that was trying to suggest they were not a threat. Then the man began slowly walking towards her. Whoever he was, he was brave, Rowan would give the man credit for that. Tank's black fur was standing on end, forming a rough mohawk down the line of his spine. A growl rumbled low in his throat and his lips curled up into a menacing snarl.
The man continued. He took one step at a time. His hands still raised in a classic surrender position as he closed the distance between him and Rowan. She slowed her breathing and waited. One more step and the man's face would no longer be masked in shadows. He took that step and Rowan felt herself relax. Not completely. But she stopped holding her knife with a white knuckle grip. Her hand lowered from her stomach to graze over Tank's head, calming him.
"Hi Jesus," Rowan said, her greeting scarcely above a whisper. The man only had the chance to smile back before he was tackled roughly to the ground. Rowan hadn't screamed when the broom fell. And she hadn't screamed when Jesus slipped inside her house. But when her father appeared out of thin air and started pounding the man into the ground she let out a shriek loud enough to wake everyone in the house.
Daryl woke to the sound of Rowan screaming. He bolted out of bed. For a moment he was sure he had been having some sort of terrible nightmare. But then the dogs were up and barking. Downstairs he could hear the sound of a struggle accompanied by Rowan's father's voice. The man was yelling in Sioux. This was never a good sign. The blankets pulled from the bed and tangled around Daryl's ankles. He cursed and almost fell as he attempted to kick them off.
He and Rowan had fallen asleep naked. Something Daryl repeatedly chastised himself for doing and then always did anyway. Her skin felt so good against his. Daryl always told himself he was just going to hold her for another minute before he got up and at least put pants on. Then he would wake up hours later with his naked form still wrapped around hers. Completely unprepared for the disaster or emergency that he was convinced would eventually happen while they slept. And last night had been no exception. Forgetting whatever little modestly he had left, Daryl opted to grab for his crossbow instead of his pants before he sprinted down the hall towards the stairs.
The dogs rushed ahead of him. Lily pounded down the steps and Morgan trailed her. By the time Daryl got halfway down the stairs all three of Rowan's dogs were barking at once. They formed a loose circle around the two men that were struggling on the carpet. Rowan's father was dressed only in the pair of loose grey cotton drawstring pants he wore to bed. His hair was a wild black crown of tangles around his head. He was on top of the man Daryl recognized from earlier that day. Or maybe it had been the day before depending on how long he had been asleep. Either way Grey Wolf was choking the man. Jesus was fighting back but Daryl could see his strength was fading. The old jagged W scar stood out on Rowan's father's head, looking as angry red as the vein that appeared ready to pop from his efforts to subdue the man beneath him. Grey Wolf had a crazed look in his eyes that made Daryl uneasy despite his feelings of closeness and familiarity to the man.
"STOP!," Rowan screamed at her father, still unaware of Daryl's presence on the stairs behind her, "You're going to kill him! STOP!" When her father ignored her loud shouts and continued to choke Jesus, Rowan charged forward and threw a cup of cold water directly into his face. Daryl tossed his bow on the steps behind him and darted around her, using her father's momentary confusion as an opening to get ahold of him. Daryl locked his arms under Grey Wolf's armpits and laced his hands behind the man's head. He staggered back, dragging Rowan's father up and away from the man he had been choking.
"Get you're hands off me!," Rowan's father hollered. He was still thrashing wildly but at least he was screaming in English now, which Daryl decided was a slight improvement. The last thing Daryl had in mind as a fun activity was getting into a wet and mostly naked wrestling match with his father in law. He wished the man would hurry up and calm down so he could let go of him already.
Rowan grabbed for Jesus's hand, pulling the man to his feet before helping him into the kitchen. "Are you alright?," she asked, leaning down to check his color. His hand resting against his rapidly swelling throat but he nodded and waved her off. Rowan turned her attention back to the other two men who were still wrestling and yelling at each other in the living room.
"Calm down!," Daryl hollered. He was struggling to keep the man restrained. Daryl outweighed Rowan's father but the man was still strong and fueled by whatever hellish nightmare flashback that had taken control over his body.
"I AM CALM YOU FUCKING WENDIGO!," Rowan's father screamed back. Along with his angry words, the man's tone implied that behaving in a calm manner was about the furthest possible thing from his mind. If Daryl let him go there was a good chance he was going to go after Jesus again or maybe even turn and try to fight Daryl himself. Rowan crossed the space between them, dodging one of his legs that flung out his attempt to free himself. She pressed her open palm to her father's cheek.
"Até." Her tone was soft and soothing. She hadn't called him by the childhood nickname she had for him in years. At the sound of it, she could see the light come back into her father's eyes.
"Hekaza," the man murmured. Rowan nodded to Daryl that it was alright for him to let go. Her father slumped to the floor and wrapped his arms around her legs. "I thought he was going to hurt you. Mi-chunksi. I swore I would never let anything else bad happen to you."
Rowan felt the tears spring into her eyes. Her hands worked, gently combing and smoothing her father's tangled hair down and away from his face. Rowan loved him in a different light than the way she loved Daryl. But he was still a part of her. She had forgiven the man for everything that had happened out in the beyond. Her father kept her alive the best way he knew how and she harbored no anger or resentment against him for anything that Derek had done to her. But despite her forgiveness, she knew her father lived with the heavy guilt of not only what he had done but all the things he had been unable or unwilling to prevent from happening. She could feel it in the way his hands gripped the fabric of her robe as he rested his forehead against her swollen belly, whispering soft apologies and promises to both Rowan and the child inside her.
Jesus had long since risen from the chair that Rowan had parked him in. He leaned against the doorway that led into the kitchen, stroking his hand over the fur of a white dog that was just as tall an almost as heavy as the huge black beast that he had already become acquainted with. He smiled a little, almost ready to shed a tear himself over the touching family drama that was playing out in front of him. These people were a little crazy but that wasn't necessarily a bad thing. The group Jesus and his people were up against were crazy too. The difference was these people had heart. Their caring and devotion to each other was obvious.
Jesus cleared his throat, hoping that his voice wasn't totally destroyed by the beating his throat had just taken. He looked at Rowan as he spoke but his words were meant for everyone. Even the pretty woman with the tan skin that was hovering near the top of the stairs with a chubby baby in her arms.
"We need to talk."
