David Nickle - Monstrous Affections

Skin like silk, like gold.

She and the Waite sisters… they were in the same league, as far as beauty went. Rupert put his hands in his pockets and said hello.

There was some fussing. Rupert was unsure about whether the Captain and Mrs. Gleason knew about the battle between him and their son last week in any particulars. But Mrs. Gleason at least must have intuited that something had been wrong, she being so relieved now that things seemed right. Helen, smile plastered on her face, asked Rupert some questions — mostly about how his brothers were keeping, and he answered as best he could. He would have kept talking ’til dinner was served, but Wallace motioned him back to the sitting room so he excused himself and left the women to their work.

“I got something to show you,” said Wallace. He beckoned Rupert over to a dark cherry-wood cabinet, on top of which was a case with medals and decorations that Captain Gleason had earned, all arranged on a bed of red velvet. He pulled open the top drawer, which was as high as their chests. He looked around apprehensively, then lifted it out.

It was a holster of dark, oiled leather, with straps wrapped tight around it. Wallace held it in both hands like it was treasure, which, Rupert supposed, was exactly what it was.

“It’s Father’s Webley revolver,” said Wallace. He held it out. “You can hold it.”

Rupert touched it, but pulled back before Wallace could put the weight of it in his hands. The revolver was for officers; Rupert didn’t feel right about holding it, not unless an officer said he could, and even then… Wallace shrugged and took it back in his own arms. He cradled it like it was a baby.

“There’s no bullets in it,” he said. “I know where they are, though.”

“Put it back,” said Rupert. “Come on.”

Wallace shook his head. “Remember how I said we have to stick together, brother?”

Rupert swallowed, and nodded.

Carefully, Wallace unwrapped the straps from the holster, and with one hand pulled the revolver out. It was huge in his hand, butt curved like the blade of a scythe. The barrel was short, but wide.

“Good,” he said, holding the gun so it pointed out the window, toward town. He closed one eye and sighted down the barrel. But the gun was heavy enough he couldn’t hold it that way for long. “’Cause tomorrow, we’re going to have to.”

“Put it back,” said Rupert again.

“Yeah.” Wallace slipped it back into the holster and set it back in the drawer. “Don’t worry, brother. We’ll be safe.”

“Safe from what?”

Wallace slid the drawer shut, and walked over to the Maxim.

“There’s—” Wallace hesitated. A dog, is how he should have finished, but the word dog wasn’t the word he was looking for to describe the dog that had assailed him that morning. “There’s a beast,” he said. “We can’t let it be.”

“What do you mean to do? And what do you mean ‘we’?”

Wallace took hold of the grip of the Maxim. He sighted down it.

“I mean we ,” he said. “And you know what happens if we’re not?”

Rupert didn’t have to say. He knew. “Tell me about this beast,” he said instead, and listened, as Wallace described the thing, and what he meant them to do about it.

Rupert said the Grace at supper. Mrs. Gleason said he did fine, but Rupert knew he hadn’t; he’d mumbled and stuttered through the whole blessing, and when he sat down he was sweating. Helen poured him a tall glass of water at the end of it. She even said, “You’re very welcome, Rupert,” and smiled at him after he thanked her.

Meantime, Wallace brooded. He had wanted to get his father to tell the story of the Webley again, but Rupert had said that wouldn’t be a good idea, given everything he had in mind. Wallace didn’t see what the problem was. His father told the story often enough, whether to the family, or to pals over draft beer at the tavern. He had been in transit, promoted to lieutenant after his lieutenant had taken a bullet, on his way back to the war.

Well, you must understand, an army officer doesn’t come from places like Fenlan, where we work with our hands and our backs. Officers are fancy fellows. Gentry. They ought to have a sidearm. They bloody well ought to provide it themselves.

And for officers commissioned on the home front, that’s an easy thing. For those of us who send our pay home… something else again. So. (And he rubbed his hands together, and got a wicked look to his eyes.) There I am, on a troop transport crossing the channel. Back to action. And there are a band of officers, young fellows. From the Imperial army. They stick together — even sleeping together, lying like spokes of a wagon wheel, heads at the rim, feet in the middle. And in the middle of that: they stack their pistols.

And so I wait… I wait until the last of them starts snoring. And everso-quiet, I step between them, and snatch one of their pistols — a Webley revolver, short-barrelled like they carry in the Royal Navy. And creep back to where I’m billeted with the Canadians — tuck the gun away with my kit — and under the bright stars of Heaven, sleep the sleep of the just.

And the next day, sure enough, we’re sitting at breakfast, and isn’t one of those fellows complaining at me: how blimey an’ dash it, you can’t trust an enlisted man. “They’ll steal your sidearm, fast as look at you!”

“What,” I say back, “is the world coming to?”

And Father would chuckle. The same chuckle, every time he told the tale, at the same time in it. The chuckle was part of the story. And it was a great story.

But Rupert had been clear. “You want to do this thing, don’t go letting anyone think you’re thinking about it. Not that I think you should do it.”

So Wallace sat and ate his supper and Rupert held himself in check, and at the end of it, Wallace saw Rupert to the end of the driveway and bade him good night.

Wallace Gleason rose early. It was easy, he told Rupert when they met at the foot of the Gleason driveway. He had not truly gone to sleep.

“I didn’t want to let anything happen to the gun,” he said, yawning, stretching. The butt of the Webley appeared as his shirt stretched past it. The casual gesture made Rupert nervous, and he looked around quickly. But they were alone on the road.

“Is it loaded?” he asked, and Wallace nodded.

“But there’s no bullet in the chamber,” explained Wallace. “So we’re safe.”

“Just stop stretching,” said Rupert, and they headed into town, to school.

Rupert had not slept much either, and when he did sleep, his rest was troubled by dreams: of a huge, black-pelted wolf lurking atop the hay bales of Rupert’s barn… watching his brothers as they flung open the doors, as they came into the great, dark space, unwitting… the flash of its red eyes, the only hint that it was there, hunting.

He knew, in the light of morning, that this nightmare hound was not Wallace’s beast. The same as he knew that taking the Captain’s revolver to the dog that had troubled Wallace so was a dangerous game.

It was a game, however, that he couldn’t quit. There was more at stake than friendship.

They started to school — along the route that Wallace and Rupert always took. First, a mile along the concession road. They passed three other farms before getting to the road between the farms, and the town. Another mile or perhaps a bit more, on this road. The dog’s road.

Along here, the properties were smaller, and farther from one another. Anyone farming what soil there was, would be doing it to feed themselves rather than for market. Most of the houses along here were not even managing that. Roofs needed shingling; fences, a coat of paint. There were no lawns, few gardens. Neither Rupert nor Wallace knew anyone who lived here. As far as they knew, no one did.