The Man With the Barbed-Wire Fists

Vin slapped the six-gun strapped to his thigh and attempted to keep his voice television cowboy cool in the manner of Cheyenne Bodie or Paladin. “Honey,” he said, “when it comes to me, the thing locked back there in that cell ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog.”

The cellblock was red brick that had faded pumpkin orange over the years. A narrow hallway fronted five iron-barred cells — four of them empty. Along the hallway ceiling, a lone electric line looped from one overhanging, tin-hooded light to the next. The cord was badly frayed, as if it had been chewed, and the dull, waxy circles of illumination that spilled from the fixtures looked as if they had been chewed as well.

The prisoner sat on a cot in the last cell, well out of the light. The deputy and the waitress couldn’t see him, but he could see them. “You got to do something about this bed,” the prisoner said. “Goddamn fleas are eatin’ me alive.”

Vera laughed. Her Bakeresque breasts jiggled in spite of Playtex cross-your-heart engineering, and the dinner plate danced on her little tray. “You hear, that, Vin?” she said. ‘Your wolfman has fleas.”

Vin chuckled and gave Vera a quick squeeze, one hand on her hip but not too low. She felt nice and warm and just soft enough under that Playtex — the girl had some muscle on her and that came as a surprise — and Vin started to think that maybe he could get a “yes” out of the waitress if this little sideshow expedition went just right.

The prisoner chose that moment to step into the light. He was looking down, at Vin’s hand, and then his gaze drifted to the right, to the bulge that strained against Vin’s tight slacks.

The prisoner shook his head as if disgusted. “Must be tough, livin’ in a small town. Slim pickin’s.”

Vin’s hand came off of Vera’s hip like it was a hot skillet, but she didn’t see the connection. She was too busy staring at the skinny boy locked up in the cell, at his black leather jacket and greasy blue jeans and scuffed engineer’s boots and the weird tattooed star on the back of his left hand. “What gives?” she asked. “He ain’t no werewolf. He’s just a kid who’s seen too many Marlon Brando movies.”

The prisoner winked at the deputy. “Oh, she’s a brain surgeon, this one, ain’t she?” He laughed, snapping his fingers in Vera’s direction. “Ain’t gonna be no full moon tonight, sweetcheeks. Unless, of course, you want to bend over and raise that tight skirt of yours. Big white moon like you’ve got, well… it’s bound to make me howl, at the very least.”

Vera gasped. Vin said, ‘You watch your mouth, punk.”

But the kid wouldn’t quit. “I’ll shut up when I’m good and ready, Deputy Fife. This your little Juanita from the diner? That what we have goin’ on here? My my my… what’s Thelma Lou gonna make of this, Deputy Fife?”

Blood raced to Vin’s cheeks. Then the smartass kid sang it just the way Don Knotts did on television… Juanita, Jua-a-a-nita. Next he started to pop his fingers, whistling the theme from The Andy Griffith Show.

Vera laughed, and the kid stopped instantly. “See, your girl thinks I’m funny.” He moved to the bars, wiggled his nose, as if catching Vera’s scent for the first time. “You smell just good enough, baby. Full moon’s comin’ tomorrow night. I’m gonna have quite an appetite, and that big behind of yours might be just enough to fill the bill.”

Vera dropped the dinner tray. The plate broke. Undercooked french fries leapt onto the floor like albinos abandoning a sinking ship.

The kid’s leather-sheathed arm was between the bars in a flash, and he snatched the hamburger just that quick. Tossed the bread and lettuce and various condiments aside. The hunk of gray meat disappeared down his gullet in one swallow.

“See how hungry I am, baby? I’ll even eat dried-out, overcooked cowbutt. But that big behind of yours, it’s gonna take three or four bites, minimum, and I’m gonna have it raw and bloody.” As punctuation, the kid grinned, his lips still slick with hamburger grease. Then he started up whistling Andy Griffith again, real high-pitched.

Vin’s ears hurt. He was all tense, quivering muscles straining the seams of his shirt.

“He scares me, Vin.” Vera latched onto the deputy’s rocklike biceps. “Is he crazy? Or is he… is he really what he says he is?”

Vin barely heard her. He had the key to the cell in one hand, and his gun was in the other, and all he could see was the puckered smirk plastered on the kid’s whistling mouth.

Vin sucked a deep bread. A button popped off his shirt.

“I don’t know if he’s a wolf,” the deputy said finally. “But you watch me bring the dog out of him.”

TWO

When Sheriff Dwight Cole stepped through the jailhouse door at seven-thirty the following morning, Deputies Jerry Rutherford and Ben Hastings looked up from their checker game and said simultaneously, “We didn’t have a damn thing to do with it.”

Sheriff Cole sighed. He hadn’t been getting much sleep lately. Seven-thirty in the a. m., and he hadn’t even had a cup of java or a decent breakfast, because he’d been steering clear of the diner for the last couple weeks.

But that didn’t mean he couldn’t smell trouble in the air. “Vin Miller?” he asked.

“Yep,” Hastings said. ‘Your big old meat-on-the-hoof Charles Atlas deputy has about done it this time.”

Rutherford nodded. “I ain’t gonna say I told you so, Dwight… but I told you that you shouldn’t never leave a gorilla in charge of the zoo.”

Rutherford laughed at his own joke. Hastings joined in.

Dwight Cole didn’t.

“That musclebound Barney Fife of yours figured he’d take my pelt,” the prisoner said. “I gotta admit he did a pretty fair job. It’s a good thing that I’m a fast healer.”

Dwight cringed. The kid’s face was one big welt — green and blue and purple and red all at the same time. The kid could hardly breathe through his nose — which was surely busted — and his voice sounded like a gurgling echo that came from a deep well down in his gut.

“I’ll get Doc Rivers to look at you,” Dwight said.

The kid barked a short laugh. “Forget the doc. Better make it a vet, Sheriff. Or have you already forgotten my warning?”

“I haven’t forgotten,” Dwight said. “You’re a werewolf. When the full moon rises tonight, you’ll change. And then you’re gonna make mincemeat out of me and my deputies and my jailhouse.”

“Unless you let me out of here right now,” the kid added. “Not very likely.”

“No way I can get you to change your mind?”

“Nope.”

The kid shook his swollen head. “Let me tell you something else about werewolves,” he said. “We ain’t much different from real wolves. We run in packs.”

“Is that so?”

‘Yep. And we can pick up a scent.” He lay a slim finger along the swollen sausage that bisected his face. “Even through a busted nose. And you know what I can smell right now, Sheriff?”

“I’m sure you’re gonna tell me.”

“Well… it’s one mean aroma. Motorcycles and blood and misery, all mixed up. There’s twelve of ‘em, and right now they’re real close. I’m number thirteen, you see. We’re like little pieces of a