Wolf, WY

Chapter 1: October-3

Randy’s heart pounded and his ability to stay vertical became questionable. “W-what?”

The man frowned and released Randy’s arm with a push that was effective enough to make Randy stumble.

“So, stupid, then.”

While verbal back-and-forths were no new thing to Randy, outright aggression usually was. As a child, Randy had been taught that one kept one’s hands to oneself at all costs. For all the rage Randy had felt over his ex, there wasn’t a single moment when either of them would have lifted a hand against the other, even if they could imagine themselves doing it. Which Randy had, many times. But keeping your hands off of somebody else was the proper thing to do. It was what sane, normal people did. Intelligent adults discussed, even if the verbal exchange got heated. They did not, under any circumstance, grab someone and shove them.

Randy told himself it was that breach of respectability that had him rubbing his wrist violently. It had absolutely nothing to do with the vibrations radiating from hand to chest—vibrations that were actually so far from painful it would have been laughable to use the word. He should have been able to still the shake in his voice, though. He couldn’t.

“Oh, that’s nice. Real nice. Mr. Big and Bad.” Randy set both feet and straightened his spine as if another toss wasn’t just probable, but likely. “Is that what they teach you out here in the sticks? Is that what passes for respectable behavior out here?”

“Damn more respectable than getting your hand cut off.” Evil Dad’s voice was firm, but he watched Randy rub his wrist with what Randy figured had to be at least a little bit of guilt. “Nobody ever teach you that you don’t go grabbing someone when they’re holding a running chainsaw?”

Randy snorted defiance to mask his tension. “Well, that wouldn’t be a problem if you weren’t over here stealing from me in the first place, would it?”

The assumed concern dropped off the man’s face. He caught Randy’s eyes with his own, and his expression was as cold as ice. “What do you mean by stealing?”

Inwardly, Randy shrank like a frightened Chihuahua; outwardly, he puffed out his chest and assumed an in-case-you-don’t-know-I’m-much-smarter-than-you-could-ever-hope-to-be expression. “Well, sir, the last time I checked, and by all means please correct me if I’m wrong, the civil property laws in this state consider it stealing when someone removes something from another’s property without the owner’s permission or a court-sanctioned mandate. I’m also more than sure—”

“Like I said…what do you mean by stealing?”

Randy flailed his arms in the general direction of everywhere, even as he groaned internally and congratulated himself on providing physical proof that Evil Dad was correct in the assumption that Randy was a half-wit. “Call me crazy, but I’m pretty sure that’s my tree. And I’m pretty sure I just heard you tell Junior to go get your trailer.”

“Okay, you’re crazy.” Evil Dad frowned. “And it’s Lyle.”

“I…” Randy tilted his head to the side as if that would somehow help the man’s reply make sense.

Evil Dad sighed with a tone heavy with bored resignation. “His name is Lyle.” He said it slowly, like he was talking to a child that wasn’t quite catching on. “Not Junior. And I would have figured a big fancy lawyer like yourself would have picked up on that when I spoke his name. And, counselor, you told me to call you crazy, so I did.”

Randy’s lips tightened and his eyes narrowed. There were few things in life Randy hated more than a jerk—unless it was a jerk who thought they were a comedian. “Excellent deflection tactic, neighbor. However, as amusing as you think you are, we were discussing the fact that you are both a trespasser and a thief.”

As they stared each other down, a vehicle pulled off the road and weaved through the trees. Fallen branches snapped and popped under bouncing tires and, from the corner of his eye, Randy saw Lyle stand-driving a trailer-loaded three-wheeler. Lyle came to a stop beside them, his eyes jumping from his father to Randy, Randy to his father. “Everything okay, Dad?”

“No.” Randy said, before the man had a chance to speak. “As a matter of fact, it’s not. Your father was just about to explain why he was stealing my tree.”

Lyle’s jaw hardened and his face became a perfect replica of his father’s stone-cold expression. “Are you calling my dad a thief?”

Both gazes burning into his own made Randy suddenly aware of how alone he was at that moment. Not that he believed either one of them would hurt him. (Mostly.) It was, after all, rural America: the great wilderness of brotherhood, do unto others, God shedding his grace and light, and all. Still…

“Let me tell you something, mister.” Lyle slid off the four-wheeler and around to the front of the machine in a move so fluid it could have been a dance step. “If we wanted to cut a tree for the sake of cutting a tree, we’d cut our own damn tree. You have what, ten acres over here? Well, we have a hundred. You have a few trees? Big deal. We have a whole forest. So how about you don’t go assuming s**t about people before you know what’s going on.”

“Lyle.” Evil Dad’s voice was dark and quiet. “Watch your mouth. I can take care of this.”

Whether Lyle chose to ignore him or was just wound up enough that the demand didn’t register, Randy couldn’t say. But Lyle kept going as if his father hadn’t said a word. “The only reason my Dad and I are out here, sweating our asses off for a smug, unappreciative city brat when we’ve got thousands of our own things to do, is because my dad is a nice guy.”

Randy snorted. He couldn’t help it. His wrist still buzzed with the tingles of that ‘nice guy’s’ grip, but the look that simple sound inspired on Lyle’s face woke every fear receptor Randy had in him. If Lyle narrowed his eyes any farther, he’d lose vision. His lip was curled so far up that one perfect incisor was completely exposed. Even Lyle’s hands were balled into fists.

“Enough,” Evil Dad warned. He turned his attention from Randy to Lyle, and stared Lyle down. Though Lyle did drop his gaze, he did not unclench his hands, and something in the back of Randy’s head suggested that Randy keep an eye on the ground in order to be forewarned of the fire Lyle was about to ignite with his glare.

Dropping one hand on Lyle’s shoulder, its fingertips tight and white, the man turned and held Randy’s gaze. “Lyle’s right. We’re doing you a favor here, whether you know it or not. This tree has needed to come down since before you even moved in. And it’s not the only one, either. The first ice storm or heavy wind we get is going to have this wood making itself a houseguest of yours through your sliding door or one of your windows, if it doesn’t just rip through the roof and start getting cozy in your attic.”

“Oh—”

“It didn’t seem like you were in any hurry to get someone up here to do it. God knows you couldn’t manage it yourself.”

“Well, you could have just—”

“And I’ll bet you dimes to dollars that you probably didn’t even notice.”

Randy waved through the trees. “I’m right there. You could have just knocked on my door—”

Evil Dad sniffed a nod at Randy’s slippers, speaking as if Randy had been standing there mute. “Nothing personal, counselor, but you just don’t seem the type.”

Once again, a flush rose up Randy’s neck. “What the hell is your problem with me, Mister—?”

Randy’s words died on his tongue. He didn’t even know the man’s last name. Four months he’d been living in a town as small as the head of a pin, and he didn’t know his closest neighbor’s name. He might have not been Mr. Social back in the city, but he could easily recite the name of any one of the dozen people that lived in the vicinity of his parents’ home. Maybe more. The thought made his chest ache, and his shoulders grew heavier.

“His problem,” Lyle retorted, paying no mind to the emotion that had to be playing over Randy’s face, “is that you morons come down here, running away from God knows what, stick yourselves back in the hills, and the first time something goes wrong, it’s us you come running to for help. So, forgive me, mister. But when the snow starts howling and you come running, I don’t want to be the one stuck pawing through it, trying to sniff out your body.”

“Lyle, enough!”

Again, Lyle’s gaze was cast to the ground, but with a surprising show of embarrassment. “Well, not literally.” He looked up quickly, speaking directly to Randy. The aggression had burned out of his face, and a confusing floundering had stepped in to take its place. “Not literally sniffing you out, of course. You know what I mean. It gets cold…people get lost…search parties…”

The growl Lyle’s father replied with was both furious and flustered. “Lyle, I will not tell you again.”

Lyle shifted his feet, kicked at the log, and made a noticeable effort to keep his mouth shut.

Evil Dad pointed at the tree. “Load this wood up. And be quick about it. You’ve still got chores back at the house.” He turned back to Randy and though the hand the man extended seemed cordial enough, Randy had to force himself not to flinch and shrink back. “Vaughn O’Connell. No mister, just Vaughn.”

Randy hoped his surprise over the introduction had been contained. He doubted it, though. While it was nice to know that the man had not, in fact, been raised by ogres, he didn’t trust Vaughn any more now than he had five minutes prior. Besides, his skin still remembered Vaughn’s last touch—the power in it and the fear he’d felt. Even the weird thrill in it that was, in itself, disconcerting.

He forced his hands away from his sides and lifted the right one. “Nice to meet you, Vaughn. I guess. I mean, I think.” He fought to smooth out a nervous grin as Vaughn’s palm clenched against his. “I’m Randy. Randy Connor.”

Vaughn frowned and the expression sent twists of panic through Randy’s guts yet again. Now what the hell had he said wrong? And had the sun suddenly got brighter? Where was the heat coming from? He didn’t realize he’d yanked his hand back until he caught himself rubbing it.

“Randy? Like Randall, you mean?” There was hesitation in Vaughn’s eyes, suspicion, even, and it seemed to turn his eyes into light brown kaleidoscopes that twisted and flashed. “As in ‘shield wolf’?”

“Umm, yes, I believe so.” Randy shrugged. “I don’t think that’s what my parents had in mind at the time. My mother just liked the name. She thought it sounded respectful. A good lawyer’s name. But on a cool coincidence, did you know that Connor means ‘wolf lover’? Lover of hounds, really. But some say wolves.”

He looked up at the expression on Vaughn’s face and told himself to close his mouth and stop talking. Both mouth and tongue refused to follow his demands, and even though he wanted the ground to swallow him whole, his rambling continued, unchecked. “Yours too, right? O’Connell? It sounds like it would be pretty close to Connor, no? I’m no language major or anything but I’m sure the prefix…the Con…that’s the part that means wolf. Or hound, or whatever. But I guess that the O means ‘of the’, right? As in, ‘of the wolf’?”

He tried to stop, he really did, but a further attempt to cull his words was just as fruitless as the first two. “Which is kind of neat with the whole location thing. The wolf, in Wolf.” He gasped a quick laugh. “Anyway, my point being, they sound similar. Maybe we have some kind of super-distant, long-removed family tie or something, hm?”

As his words drifted into silence, both Vaughn and Lyle stared at Randy as if he’d just sprouted a second head. Vaughn’s reaction was at least somewhat contained. Lyle, however, coughed into his hand, desperately trying to catch his father’s eye so they could no doubt share an ‘Oh my God, he really is f*****g nuts, you were right!’ glance.

“Um,” Randy swallowed. “I’m not crazy or anything. I just though the coincidence was cool. I don’t even…”

Another moment passed as Randy mentally ran through ways to reassure the men he wasn’t a moron. There were none.

“So.” He nodded at both of them before pursing his lips and edging away. “Yeah. I’m gonna go. It’s kind of chilly and, you know…I-I’m just gonna go.”

Vaughn shook his head and looked over at Lyle. “Didn’t I tell you to get that wood picked up? Randy, thank you for the introduction, and my apologies for the confusion. We’ll finish getting this cut up and I’ll send Lyle around to stack it for you. You can just show him where.”

Although the thought of Lyle working tirelessly in his backyard didn’t break Randy’s heart any, it didn’t seem fair that the two of them had gone to all that trouble for nothing. “No. I couldn’t. Please keep it. As thanks. For doing the work and everything.”