Mary Anne Gruen - The House of Red

Night was drawing near at Emerald’s cottage and the older woman had been nervously expectant all that day. That morning, she’d had Virginia help her put up a series of good strong pegs along the outside of the barn. Emerald did the hammering while Virginia held the ladder to keep it from slipping in the snow.

“They’ve got to be strong,” Emerald said.

Virginia thought of asking what the pegs were for, but something told her not to. She was beginning to feel uncomfortable around her patroness. She talked to her only when necessary and avoided her whenever possible.

Just before dusk, when Virginia was busily making dinner, some men entered the yard. Their clothes were dirty and torn and mismatched somehow. Their faces were set in an emotionless expression that gave you the feeling they never smiled. As to their ages, they had none. It was as if they were lost in some endless place in time where they were never young and would certainly never grow old. One day, they would just cease to exist. They looked liked soulless ghosts, haunting themselves as well as the rest of the world. Virginia shivered when she was them.

Emerald, however, had the opposite reaction. She had been watching by the window and when she caught sight of them, she smiled eagerly and went out at once. Virginia stopped what she was doing and wiped her hands on her apron, but she didn’t go outside. The men were just too unsavory looking. Instead she stayed by the window and counted them. Five men. That’s how many bounty hunters there were supposed to be. Was this what being a bounty hunter did to you, she wondered? Or was this simply the kind of men who were drawn to the job?

Two of them carried burlap sacks slung heavily over their shoulders. The other three had bows and arrows and clubs. The men with the sacks dropped them on the ground and opened them. Then they threw the contents roughly into the snow at Emerald’s feet. Virginia’s mouth opened in horror when she saw the bodies of two young wolves. Their tongues were hanging out and one of them stared unseeing in her direction. But the worst was the sight of the snow beneath their bodies, quickly turning crimson with their blood.

Emerald examined the wolves closely and then pointed to the side of the barn in the direction of the pegs that she and Virginia had put up earlier in the day. While the men hung the wolves on the outside of the barn, Emerald fetched their reward.

The men checked the contents of the little sacks that Emerald handed them. Then they nodded, seemingly satisfied. Their business was now completed. Unceremoniously, without a good night or a good bye on either side, they parted. Emerald returned to the house and the men disappeared back into the forest.

“They didn’t get him yet,” Emerald said, as she hung up her cloak. “They got two small ones. But they’ll catch him. It’s only a matter of time.”

Emerald’s lower lip pulled out over the upper one in an expression of intense rage as she listened to the crashing noises that came from the barn. “Let them,” she said. “The door to my cheese room is locked and solid, with a buried fence to keep out digging vermin. They won’t get in there. And tomorrow I’ll give those men twice as much for every wolf carcass they bring me. Now, go! Serve dinner.”

Virginia did as she was told.

Neither of them talked as they ate, nor for the rest of the night, for that matter. The howling of the wolves continued unbroken till sunrise. Virginia thought she would go mad from the noise. But Emerald didn’t seem to hear it anymore. Her mind was on other things.