Read Online The Wolves of Andover by Kathleen Kent - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Kathleen Kent
Tags: FIC014000
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herself, the frenzied surge of teeth at her hands gave her no purchase to push herself away. Her captive eye, pressed against a widening gap in the slats, could not close itself for terror, and she wildly tracked the wolf’s eye within a hand’s breadth of her face, reddish gold and unblinking like a rust-stained moon; and she saw there was no vengeful, manlike designs in its gaze, only the singular will to free itself.
The world narrowed to the closing span between them, and she inhaled sharply, breathing in a fleck of bloody foam from its laboring tongue, and tasted the salt from a still-warm body. Her jaws, unhinged by fear and anger, became an open cavern and she screamed. A sulfurous explosion behind her deadened her hearing to all but her own voice. She felt a forceful ripping away of her hem as the smaller wolf was flung backwards from the bite of the lead shot. Still she screamed into the roaring mouth of the standing wolf, as though she would offer up every part of her frothing innards, liver, spleen, and heart, feeding them to the beast one by one like boiled sweetmeats. The second shot exploded, shattering the wolf’s throat, laying open the tender gray neck. And with a great geyser of blood, it crashed heavily to ground.
As the wolf fell away, she felt hands grabbing her shoulders, encircling her, dragging her away from the pen. She was spun about and shaken, her neck bobbing loosely over her shoulders, spineless and weak with terror. She could see John, ashen and spent, as he stared at her with bulging eyes; and her cousin as well, standing barefoot in the yard, open-mouthed and sobbing over the children, who were safe at her side, hiding their faces within the folds of their mother’s thin night shift.
Thomas bent over her and wiped the blood away from the scratches around one side of her face where the wood had gouged the flesh, looking for and finding an open bite mark at her lip where a wolf’s poisonous spittle could hide, turning her from woman to changeling, to be chained to a post, ranting and howling away the rest of her days. He carried her to the house, where Patience bathed her face and hands and spread a quilt over her quivering form.
Later, she would come to stand in the rim of torchlight, silently watching the men winching up the wolves, one male and one female, side by side in death as in life. With immense skinning knives, the men opened up the carcasses like wings and sluiced buckets of rainwater over the fur, carving out the organs until both were clean of blood. It was only when they began to strip the fur away from the muscles and sinew, revealing the pink and defenseless flesh beneath, did she slip away again.
CHAPTER 6
T HE FIGHTING BITCH was short in stature, her forelegs deeply bowed, but with a massive head. They called her Whistler, not for any sound she herself made, but for the sound the opposing dogs often made through their throats after she had buried her teeth deep into their windpipes. This was to be her fifteenth fight, and her owner, Samuel Crouch, had bet heavily on her. She was the odds-on favorite to win, even though the brute in the ring with her was larger and younger as well.
Their two respective handlers held tight to the straining leads, the dogs already lathered in great, glistening mantles of sweat and spittle, their snapping jaws tearing at the air. The crowd standing around the circular walls of the pit pushed aggressively forward, each man eager to see the match. A roaring had begun that was greater than the usual gaming noise. Bettors called encouragement to their fellows standing close by or threw insults, friendly or not, to men on the other side of the ring.
Sam Crouch caught the eye of a gaunt, dour-faced man standing on the far side of the pit and, with the barest possiblemovement, raised his chin in recognition. The dour-faced man spat and shouted last-minute instructions to his handler to hold more tightly to the brute’s lead.
Crouch
The world narrowed to the closing span between them, and she inhaled sharply, breathing in a fleck of bloody foam from its laboring tongue, and tasted the salt from a still-warm body. Her jaws, unhinged by fear and anger, became an open cavern and she screamed. A sulfurous explosion behind her deadened her hearing to all but her own voice. She felt a forceful ripping away of her hem as the smaller wolf was flung backwards from the bite of the lead shot. Still she screamed into the roaring mouth of the standing wolf, as though she would offer up every part of her frothing innards, liver, spleen, and heart, feeding them to the beast one by one like boiled sweetmeats. The second shot exploded, shattering the wolf’s throat, laying open the tender gray neck. And with a great geyser of blood, it crashed heavily to ground.
As the wolf fell away, she felt hands grabbing her shoulders, encircling her, dragging her away from the pen. She was spun about and shaken, her neck bobbing loosely over her shoulders, spineless and weak with terror. She could see John, ashen and spent, as he stared at her with bulging eyes; and her cousin as well, standing barefoot in the yard, open-mouthed and sobbing over the children, who were safe at her side, hiding their faces within the folds of their mother’s thin night shift.
Thomas bent over her and wiped the blood away from the scratches around one side of her face where the wood had gouged the flesh, looking for and finding an open bite mark at her lip where a wolf’s poisonous spittle could hide, turning her from woman to changeling, to be chained to a post, ranting and howling away the rest of her days. He carried her to the house, where Patience bathed her face and hands and spread a quilt over her quivering form.
Later, she would come to stand in the rim of torchlight, silently watching the men winching up the wolves, one male and one female, side by side in death as in life. With immense skinning knives, the men opened up the carcasses like wings and sluiced buckets of rainwater over the fur, carving out the organs until both were clean of blood. It was only when they began to strip the fur away from the muscles and sinew, revealing the pink and defenseless flesh beneath, did she slip away again.
CHAPTER 6
T HE FIGHTING BITCH was short in stature, her forelegs deeply bowed, but with a massive head. They called her Whistler, not for any sound she herself made, but for the sound the opposing dogs often made through their throats after she had buried her teeth deep into their windpipes. This was to be her fifteenth fight, and her owner, Samuel Crouch, had bet heavily on her. She was the odds-on favorite to win, even though the brute in the ring with her was larger and younger as well.
Their two respective handlers held tight to the straining leads, the dogs already lathered in great, glistening mantles of sweat and spittle, their snapping jaws tearing at the air. The crowd standing around the circular walls of the pit pushed aggressively forward, each man eager to see the match. A roaring had begun that was greater than the usual gaming noise. Bettors called encouragement to their fellows standing close by or threw insults, friendly or not, to men on the other side of the ring.
Sam Crouch caught the eye of a gaunt, dour-faced man standing on the far side of the pit and, with the barest possiblemovement, raised his chin in recognition. The dour-faced man spat and shouted last-minute instructions to his handler to hold more tightly to the brute’s lead.
Crouch
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