Granny Wine & the Refugees: Episode 5 - The Turn of the Hunt
Don’t be gettin ahead of yourself, you should start at the beginnin with Episode I
Rourke ran.
Fog slammed the woods flat around him. Trees lunged out black and sudden, then vanished back into white. Wet leaves slipped under his boots. Roots grabbed. Mud sucked. He heard howls to the left, to the right, behind him, ahead—too many, too close, and never where they ought to be.
He looked down. Steel.
Big-jawed traps waited half-buried in the leaves. One under roots. One in black mud. One right where his next step wanted to land. Wire flashed low between saplings.
He jumped. Landed. Ran.
Another howl. Closer.
He looked down again.
That was the rule. Watch the ground. Watch the traps. Don’t let the steel take you.
A dark shape moved through the fog ahead.
He cut hard right.
Trap.
He leapt it.
Wire.
He twisted over it.
His breath tore in and out. The fog shoved against his face. The trees were only streaks now, black smears flying past like he wasn’t moving through the woods at all, like the woods were moving around him.
Paws in leaves. A shape pacing him.
Another trap.
Jump.
Another.
Turn.
Something rushed across his path—
He swore, stumbled, looked down—
—and steel cracked shut with a sound like bone.
Rourke came awake with a strangled shout, hand already going for the knife.
Tent. Cold. Gray light through canvas.
His heart hammered so hard it hurt. Sweat stuck his shirt to his back. For one ugly second the dream still had him—the running, the howls, the steel—then the pain in his lower back lit up and the morning crashed in around it. Cave. Old woman. Cane. Blood.
He sat there breathing hard, jaw tight. “Just a damn dream.”
Outside, something clanged. Then a voice: “You’ve gotta be kidding me.”
Rourke shoved out of the tent into a gray, mean little dawn.
Fog dragged through camp in strips. Everything looked damp, tired, wrong. Gear lay spread where it had been argued over and abandoned. Dead batteries on the tailgate. Open cases. Cold coffee gone to sludge in a tin cup.
Ken stood by the truck with a dead battery in one hand and the tablet in the other, staring at both like betrayal had gone electronic.
“It’s dead,” he said. “All of it. Again.”
Rourke barely listened.
The transport cage sat near the truck tire.
Inside, the boy was curled in the back corner, wrists tied behind him, fur puffed against the cold. No blanket. No bedding. Just bars and steel and morning. He looked up as Rourke came out.
And stared right back.
No shrinking. No pleading. Just a brave, hard little stare from a child who either didn’t know better or did and was doing it anyway.
For half a second Rourke almost respected the nerve.
Then the cough hit the boy deep and ugly, and the defiance broke under it. He hunched into the spell, fighting to get air around it, then lifted his head again anyway, still staring.
Ken followed Rourke’s gaze. “What did you do?”
Rourke didn’t answer right away.
Ken looked from the cage to the tied wrists to the little body huddled in the corner, and something in his face hardened for real.
“That’s a child.”
“That,” Rourke said, “is leverage.”
Ken laughed once, sharp and joyless. “No. Don’t do that. Don’t stand there calling this leverage like it makes you sound smarter.”
Rourke turned his head. “It is what it is.”
“No, it isn’t.” Ken slapped the dead battery onto the tailgate. “This was supposed to be track, contain, call it in, get paid. Not drag off a sick kid and use him as bait.”
“They’ll come for him.”
Ken stared at him. “Yeah. No kidding.”
Rourke’s mouth twitched. “Good.”
Ken’s eyes cut back to the cage. The boy had gone still again, listening.
“You’ve lost your mind.”
Rourke’s temper tightened. “Careful.”
“No, you be careful.” Ken stepped in now, voice low and furious. “Ben’s already half gone on you. The old woman’s onto us. The tech is trash. Something on this ridge is chewing through every advantage we brought, and your answer is to snatch a kid and wave him around like a lure?”
Rourke’s eyes narrowed. “Works, doesn’t it?”
Ken stared at him like he was seeing him clearly for the first time and wished he weren’t. “Jesus Christ.”
Rourke looked back at the cage. The boy stared at him again, small chest working under the aftershock of the cough.
“Runt’s got grit,” he said.
The boy’s ears twitched back, but he did not look away.
Ken heard it. “You hear yourself?”
Rourke didn’t answer.
Ken stood there another second, weighing something, then gave a short disgusted shake of his head. “You’re gonna get us all killed.”
Rourke looked at him dead on. “If you’re scared, then leave. Tech’s useless anyway. So are you.”
That landed.
Ken blinked once. “Fine.”
He moved fast after that—not noble, not dramatic, just done. He started throwing what mattered into the truck. Cases. Cables. Whatever still had a prayer of working. He left the rest.
Rourke let him.
He was watching the tree line.
Something moved in the fog.
A long howl rolled through camp.
Closer than before.
Ken froze with one hand on the truck door.
Rourke saw her then—standing still between two trees at the edge of the gray. Pale eyes. Lean frame. The female from the cave.
Just standing there. Watching.
The sight of her hit him like a slap.
Ken saw her too, and whatever hesitation he had left burned off at once.
“Nope,” he said. “I’m done.”
He yanked the truck door open and got in fast.
Rourke didn’t take his eyes off the trees.
Camp was fixed. Known. Exposed.
Ken was bailing. Ben was suspect. The woods were closing up around the edges, and if he stayed put, he’d get boxed in here like a fool waiting behind his own gear for something older and faster to come take it from him.
No.
He didn’t need the truck. Not yet. Once he had the prize secure, he could hold ground and call for pickup later. That was the whole point of a live asset.
The engine caught hard.
As Ken threw the truck into gear, Rourke snatched the rope off the tailgate.
Mud spat from the tires. The truck fishtailed once and tore out down the ridge road.
Rourke barely watched it go.
He turned to the cage.
The boy backed up as far as the bars allowed.
“Out.”
The boy held his stare one second too long.
Rourke yanked the latch, reached in, caught him by the shoulder and scruff, and dragged him out. The boy hit the dirt on one knee, coughed, fought for balance with his hands tied behind his back, and got half upright.
Rourke shook out the loop and shoved it over the boy’s head.
The rope settled at his throat.
The boy froze.
Rourke shortened the slack and jerked it once.
The boy stumbled forward with a gagging sound.
“Move.”
He drove the boy into the woods.
Fast. Too fast.
The boy tried to keep up and couldn’t. He was sick, half-choked already, wrists tied behind him, and every time he stumbled the rope snapped tight at his throat and yanked him back into motion.
A howl split the fog off to the left.
Rourke cut right.
The boy got dragged with him, boots skidding through wet leaves.
Another howl. Ahead now.
Rourke swung left.
A trunk loomed out of the fog so close he nearly hit it shoulder-first. He swore, pivoted, hauled the boy after him.
The woods came in flashes. Black bark. White fog. Another trunk. Open space that wasn’t open at all. Brush slapping his legs. The boy coughing. His own breath too loud.
He looked down.
No traps.
Good.
Move.
A gray shape flickered between the trees to his right. Low. Lean. Gone.
Wolf.
He yanked the rope and changed direction.
The boy made a small strangled sound and had to half-run to keep his feet under him.
Howl. Behind him now. Another from farther down. Another up high.
It wasn’t an attack. It was pressure. Angles. Sound from one side, movement from another, just enough to keep him turning.
He checked the ground again.
Nothing.
No steel. No wire.
Clear.
Good.
Move.
A figure stood ahead between the trunks.
The pale-eyed female.
Still as a post. Watching him.
Rourke swore and veered hard away from her.
The boy went stumbling sideways, caught himself, coughed so hard he nearly folded in half, then got jerked upright again by the rope.
A crash came out of the fog to the left.
Big. Heavy.
Black fur. Scarred muzzle.
Bear.
Rourke recoiled so fast his boot skidded.
“Jesus—”
The shape was gone.
Fog. Nothing.
The woods had stopped making sense.
He knew these ridges well enough to move. Knew roughly where yesterday’s sets had gone in. Knew where bad ground ought to be. But every time he thought he had his line, the fog and the howls and the shadows shoved him somewhere else.
He looked down.
Still nothing.
So he ran harder.
The boy was fading. That much was obvious. He was almost hanging on the rope now, coughing when he could, breathing shallow when he couldn’t, trying desperately not to fall because the rope got worse when he fell.
“Keep up!”
The boy tripped on a root and went down hard.
Rourke dragged him two steps before the kid found his feet again.
Then a voice cut through the fog.
“Stop.”
Ben stepped out into the narrow run between trees like he’d been planted there.
Rourke stopped because the word had been sharp enough to break the whole rhythm of the woods.
Fog drifted between them.
The boy coughed.
Ben looked at the rope around the boy’s neck. At the tied wrists. At the way the kid was trying to stay upright and failing by inches.
His face shut down.
“Let him go.”
Rourke laughed once. “You first.”
“Let him go.”
Rourke pulled the rope short, bringing the boy staggering in against his side. “Or what?”
Ben took one step forward. “It’s over. You know it is.”
“You’re tellin’ me?”
“I’m telling you,” Ben said, voice low and dead serious, “one more step with that boy and you’re dead.”
Rourke’s face twisted. “He ain’t a boy.”
Ben didn’t blink. “He is to me.”
That hit like a fist.
Rourke moved first.
Ben lunged for the rope hand, but Rourke already had the knife. The blade flashed and opened Ben’s forearm. Ben hissed and recoiled. Rourke drove a shoulder into him, slammed him sideways into a tree, and shoved past.
The boy looked back once.
Rourke jerked the rope and nearly pulled him off his feet.
“Move.”
The fog thinned. Not much. Just enough.
Rourke hit the clearing breathing hard enough to taste blood.
The boy stumbled beside him, wrists bound, rope at his throat, eyes wide and wild.
Then he saw them.
The old woman at one edge, cane planted.
Earl off to one side, broad and still.
The mother opposite, all of her fixed on the boy.
Good. He could see them all now.
He shortened the rope until the boy gagged.
“Got him,” he rasped. “What’re you gonna do?”
The mother tensed but did not move.
The old woman’s voice came flat and steady.
“You’re done, son.”
Rourke laughed. It came out too high. Too quick.
“Don’t look done.”
Leaves shifted at the clearing edge.
Ben came in then, pale around the mouth. One sleeve was half-torn, and a strip of shirt had been ripped off and wrapped tight around his forearm. Fresh blood was already seeping through it.
He looked at the old woman. At Earl. At the mother. Then at the boy.
“I tried,” he said.
And that was all.
Fred hit Rourke from behind.
No warning. No sound. Just force.
A massive shove low and hard that took Rourke’s legs clean out from under him. His hand flew open. The rope went slack.
The mother was already moving.
She came across the clearing in one blur, scooped the boy clean out of the collapse, and was gone again before Rourke hit the ground flat.
She carried him straight toward Ben at the edge of the clearing.
Ben dropped to one knee and cut the rope from the boy’s neck first. Then the wrist bindings. Fast. Nothing said.
Back in the churned leaves, Earl hit Rourke before the man could rise.
The tackle was ugly and perfect. Shoulder. Weight. Impact.
They slammed down hard and rolled.
Rourke fought dirty because that was what he was. Knife flashing. Elbow jamming. Knee driving. Thumb going for the eye. Earl had the size and fury, but Rourke had filth and panic, and for one second panic won. He rammed an elbow into Earl’s ribs, smashed the knife hilt into the side of his head, and surged on top.
He straddled Earl in the leaves, breath ragged, one knee grinding into his chest.
“You stupid animal,” he hissed.
Earl’s teeth bared.
Then his eyes shifted.
Not far. Just enough.
Steel waited half-hidden in the leaves beside them, jaws spread, ugly and patient.
Earl saw it. Understood.
And growled, low and full of death, “You wanna taste steel?”
Rourke’s eyes flicked sideways.
Too late.
Earl heaved.
It was brute force, not finesse. A violent buck and twist that threw Rourke off line and sent his upper body crashing down across the trap.
The pan struck under him.
Steel snapped.
The jaws slammed high and hard across the upper chest and shoulder line with a crack that ripped through the clearing. Rourke’s head whipped back off the center plate. His scream came raw and immediate.
For one beat, everything held still around it.
Blood spread hot and dark across the leaves. Rourke clawed at the trap in pure reflex, making the pain worse, making the scream break and start again.
This was what he had brought here.
Steel. Pain. Cruelty.
Earl did not get up.
He stayed astride him, chest heaving, mud and blood all over him, looking down into the ruin the trap had made. Rourke stared back through pain and terror, no control left in him anywhere.
Earl lifted one hand.
One clawed finger.
And drew it clean across Rourke’s throat.
Fast. Final.
Then he stayed where he was, straddling the body, shaking with the force of everything he had held in until now.
He threw back his head and roared.
The sound rolled out through the clearing and into the woods—rage, grief, fear, love, helplessness, all of it torn loose at once now that the boy was alive and the danger was dead.
At the edge of the trees, a wolf stepped out.
Gray. Lean. Still.
It looked at Earl.
Earl looked back, still over the body.
Then the wolf lifted its head and howled.
The answer came from deeper in the ridge. Then farther off. Then farther still.
The sound rolled from hollow to hollow, growing thinner with distance, carrying itself across Whiskey Ridge like word passed hand to hand in the dark.
While it was still going, Granny Wine started across the clearing.
Cane planted. Step. Cane planted. Step.
By the time she reached Earl, the last answering howl had gone faint and far. One final note drifted back through the fog and disappeared.
Silence settled.
She looked down at what lay under him.
“We’ll burn him,” she said. “That’s how it’s done on Whiskey Ridge.”
Nobody argued.
At the edge of the clearing, the family had closed around the boy. Runa came limping in from the trees and went straight to her brother’s side. The rope was gone from his neck. His wrists were free. He was still coughing, still shaky, but breathing. Runa pressed tight against one side of him while her mother held him close.
Ben rose slowly from one knee, pale and sweating, blood spreading wider through the rough wrap on his arm.
Granny turned and looked at him a long moment.
“Looks to me your ride’s gone.”
Ben let out one tired breath. “Looks that way.”
“You’re welcome to stay close awhile,” Granny said. “You’re a mountain boy. Might be this ridge has a few things left to teach you.”
Ben looked at her, then at the family, then at the fog-bound trees all around them.
Granny tapped her cane once against the ground.
“Whiskey Ridge ain’t such a bad place to belong,” she said. “Home to many.”
Ben swallowed. “Yes, ma’am.”
After a moment, he stepped closer to Talahey and Rowan and crouched carefully, keeping his movements slow and visible.
Rowan looked at him, wary and tired.
Ben lowered his eyes for a second, then met the boy’s gaze.
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry this happened to you.”
The boy didn’t answer. He just watched him, breathing hard through the tail-end of the cough.
Ben nodded once, accepting that.
“Maybe someday,” he said, “we can be friends.”
Rowan leaned a little closer into his mother and sister, but he kept looking at Ben.
Granny glanced once toward the body behind them, then back to the living.
“Now,” she said, practical as daylight, “let’s get that boy home.”
And together they left the clearing, carrying the living with them while Whiskey Ridge kept its dead until the fire could be made.
The End
Offer whatever name you wish to be known by at the hearth today — real or imagined — we look forward to welcoming your words into the circle.
