“Yor be’in a Gateless Wolf!” Ola exclaimed. “No other creature knows how to be hang’in like that.”
“And what did you think?” Ord replied. “Did you imagine that all the Gateless Wolves are wandering youngsters like yourself?”
There was no need to say more. Ola and Ord both dropped to the floor and embraced like long-lost brothers. Pulling up chairs before the fire, they fell into animated conversation. Talking far into the night, they barely stopped for the dinner that Mar-Marie and Emil prepared.
Emil listened with interest as he and Mar worked on the other side of the room. Much of the talk bore no special interest for him. But a change in his manner of disinterested attention occurred when Ord explained how he and Mar had chosen to settle in the remote unsettled lands along the crest of the Everlost.
“We are pioneers of a sort,” Ord said. “Mar and I made our homestead here nearly thirty years ago. I grew up in a clan of seafaring Norder Wolves, and for a long time the wanderlust of that life carried me along. I sailed for some years as a young rip,” he continued. “But later I grew tired of the sea, and followed the Gateless Wolf path. Although I loved the practice of Enigma and the rest of the Gateless Wolf ways, the lonely life of wandering from place to place did not satisfy me. I could not ignore the promptings of my heart that something was missing. Especially when I first laid eyes on Mar-Marie! Seeing her made me feel like the Gateless Wolf life would be so much more wonderful if she would go along with me. So, I asked her to take to the Gateless Wolf path with me.”
“Yor did what?” Ola exclaimed. “Yor asked Mar to take to the Gateless Wolf ways?” Ola’s head was spinning. Such a thing had never been heard of before. A female following the way of the Gateless Wolf?
Seeing that Ola was speechless, Ord continued. “Calm yourself, Ola,” he said. “Keep listening! If you wonder at what I did, I hope you see how it might be possible to be even stronger on the path, even though I have left the path.” Ord paused, looking fondly at Ola, as if waiting for something.
Ola looked puzzled for a moment, then exploded: “Enigma!” he laughed. “Yor an old Gateless Wolf still!” Ola cried.
Ord told Ola that Mar-Marie had said that the Gateless Wolf path was not for her. “She said that the Gateless Wolf life was fine for me, but she wanted to do something that helped more folk than one traveler here or there.”
“Now, don’t get me wrong,” Mar chimed in from where she and Emil were preparing dinner, “What I actually told him was that wandering around helping creatures you happen to stumble over is fine, but what I wanted was to help the masses of creatures you know are in trouble without waiting to stumble over them!”
“And how are yor do’in that?” Ola asked.
“We’ve been farming here all these years,” Mar replied. “We’re about the only creatures out in this land, but a few other pioneers are beginning to come.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” Ola responded.
“Oh, don’t be too glad of it,” Ord said. “Our whole service to the Gateless Wolf path depends on not too many people being around. We’d rather not have too many neighbors!”
“How does farm’in—here all by yorn lonesome—follow the Gateless Wolf path?” Ola asked.
“Well,” Ord replied slowly, looking to Mar to see how far he should go in his explanation. Seeing her nod, he went on, “Well, you see, Ola, we help slaves escape from the Hedgelands!”
“How?” Ola asked in astonishment.
“Ah! Well, that’s a long story,” Ord replied. “The sort of story where you end up hanging on the gallows if you happen to tell the wrong person.” He sipped some hot tea that Emil had poured for him, got up, and stood at the side of the fire, with his heavy paw on the mantel.
“Could I make a guess, I wonder?” Ola asked. Ord allowed as how Ola could guess all he wanted.
With his heart beating rapidly, Ola rose out of his chair, and walked over to where Mar-Marie’s broom rested in the corner of the room. Holding the broom like he had seen Mar do when she swept the path in front of their house, Ola began sweeping as he had seen Mar do earlier.
“Say, for instance,” Ola said slowly, as he continued the sweeping motion, “that a group of escaped slaves happen’in to be pass’in down yorn path under cover of darkness. Say they carry’in no lamps for fear of call’in eyes upon them. Say they are stumbl’in along in the dark and need’in a place of refuge. Say they find an unusually clean and smooth place in the path.” Ola paused, looking from Ord to Mar with excitement in his eyes. “Say that such an unusually clean and smooth spot in the path is a signal that yorn house is a safe-house for those same escaped slaves!”
Electrified looks passed between each person in the room. Ord smiled. “Well done, Ola!” he said. “You are now eligible to swing on the gallows with the rest of us.”