The Change
by Thomas Lee Joseph Smith
It was night. My companion and I entered the tavern and sat at a small table by the far wall. Candles and a tepid fire in the fireplace provided what little warmth there was... what little light there was. The tavern owner had three daughters.
The owner approached our table. “If you’re traveling salesmen you’re too late. My daughters are upstairs with a one-legged corset salesman what had a parrot on his shoulder.”
“Did the parrot say anything?” I asked.
“Hop... That’s all he said. He said it while they climbed the stairs.”
“We hear there’s been bodies found out on the moor. Bodies with their throats torn open and their guts eaten.”
“You have the facts,” he said.
“We’re here to hunt the creatures responsible. I’m Captain Rice from Scotland Yard and this is Mr. Copeman. We hunt Werewolves. Big violent Werewolves. Men who turn into wolves when the moon is full.”
“Will you also be wanting doe tags?” the tavern owner asked.
“No,” Copeman said, “I don’t think so.”
“And how about a fishing license? Will you be doing any fishing?”
I looked at Copeman and he shrugged his shoulders. “I shouldn’t think so,” I said.
“That’s twenty-six shillings each. Hunting is such an iffy proposition... Let’s start with five.” He tore the tags from the booklet marked “werewolves and such.” “Now remember, just as soon as it’s down, put the tag on, otherwise it’s punishable.”
“We know,” I said.
“Do you need any wolf’s bane?”
Again I looked at my partner. “No,” I said, “can you tell us where the gypsy camp is?”
“It’s in the forest, just east of town.”
* * *
We left the tavern. We checked our firearms, climbed up on our huge horses, and rode east. We rode at a conservative pace. Clouds were prowling about in the dark sky. The moon was very bright, but it was not yet a full moon. Not quite yet. We had two more days before that trial hit us.
We entered the forest just as an owl called out. It posed a long and pointless question. Copeman said softly, “It’s just us.” And then he let the conversation chase itself out into the darkness.
The forest was creepy.
In almost any forest there are some dead trees with dead roots and dead branches, aged and withered trees whose upper reaches resemble severely arthritic hands flung upward from below the ground or from the deep and silent province of Hades. The whole wooden edifice of such a great dead tree, when touched by the winter wind, will rock back and forth in the ground like a man suffering a great seizure, and there’s no spoon on earth big enough to push into the opening where it barks.
But this forest had no trees like those I describe, none. But there was a small grey bush that could have used a bit of watering.
We passed some ancient stone images, ruins dating back to the age when the gods were also monsters. We stopped to rest the horses. I’ll have to say that even with our hard vigilance pulsing through our veins, the monk came upon us swiftly and silently. His hood was up and we couldn’t see his face.
“I have a warning for you,” he said.
“Go on,” I said.
“It’s about werewolves.”
“We guessed as much.”
Then he said, “Even a man who goes to church... and prays as the Good Book says, can lose the voice of reason... and Babbaloo like Desi Arnez.”
“Thanks,” I said, “we’ll try to remember that.”
And then the monk walked away cursing silently and smacking his forehead... saying something about never getting that particular saying out exactly as it should be said.
A few hours later we rode into the gypsy camp. There were twenty wagons in a circle, a few more parked farther away. There were kerosene torches, and a few small cooking fires, and one main blaze had been set up in the clearing. We got down off our horses and approached the central fire.
Copeman carried his rifle level and ready. I was a little more circumspect.
Men gathered around us; dark-haired brawny men with small gold earrings and baggy pants who carried sharp knives in their red cloth waistbands.
“What do you want?” asked one of the armed men.
“I think you know why we’re here,” I said.
“Is it to tickle one of us till we pee our pants?” asked an old man.
“What makes you ask such a question?”
“You look like you could be from Congress. You look a bit like that congressman from New York. I think his name was Massa.”
“We ain’t from Congress.”
“You sure you ain’t from Congress?”
“We’re not from Congress,” I said.
“Do you think Gypsies should be allowed to carry guns? All we have is knives and you guys have guns.”
“I guess if the local custom is to carry knives,” I said, “and the prevailing attitude is that guns aren’t necessary unless you have property to defend. Maybe there could be a referendum or a commission set up.”
“They’re Congress,” someone said.
“Or from the census,” someone suggested. “Are you here to pass out questionnaires?” he asked.
“No. And we’re not here for gay marriage or to install cable. We’re here looking for a werewolf. We want to talk to a man called Larry Talbot.”
“Is he a rich gentleman what has an evil curse?”
“And carries a cane?”
“Yes. That’s him,” I said.
“Do you mean to do him harm?”
“Depends on what he is... and what he does.”
The old man answering our questions walked off and consulted the clan. After a few moments he came back to the fireside. “You need to talk to Elaina, the gypsy.” He pointed to a red wagon with blue trim.
“Go fetch her,” I said.
“Yes, Massa,” he said and hurried away.
I walked closer to the fire; Copeman came with me. “You know why I hunt them, but... what got you hunting werewolves?” he asked.
“I know.... quite a mistake.” I said. “If I was after the Phantom of the Opera at least I’d get to hear some music. If I hunted vampires, I’d get to work in the daytime. Not much outlay for equipment either. All I’d need is a hammer and a wooden stake. I wouldn’t be spending 75 dollars for each custom-made specialized holy-water-filled silver bullet. I’d also get to visit London on occasion.
“If I hunted vampires I’d be spending a lot of time with women in slinky nightgowns. You know a vampire needs to be invited inside before he does anything. That means the women he normally seeks are the kind that are used to issuing invitations, if you get what I mean. Or hadn’t you thought of that?
“Hunting werewolves means I’m always out in the forests where it’s dank and creepy. I’m always riding horses, there’s a chance I’ll get Lyme disease. You kill a vampire and you go through his pockets and you might find some gold coins or a ruby. Maybe not a gold chain and crucifix, but something. At the very least you get to keep his cape and pocket watch. Maybe his shoes are the same size as yours.
“You kill a werewolf and all he has on is torn smelly pants, some rag that used to be a shirt, and one shoe what’s got guts on the bottom and the laces chewed off. I sure chose the wrong game. Wait... here comes someone.”
She was gorgeous. Elizabeth Taylor eyes. The long, haughty stride Halley Berry used when she portrayed Cat Woman in that godawful movie. She walked right up to us. She was surrounded by one hundred men who would have killed for her, if they thought that’s what she wanted. She showed no fear because she didn’t have any. She stopped so quickly her large golden earrings danced forward and didn’t settle down till they saw we were committed to a small dialogue.
“Were you sent by the townspeople?” she asked. Her voice felt like a soft warm blanket had been placed over my weariness. I settled into her voice and pulled it up and buried my face in it.
I answered. “No.” My own voice was unfamiliar to me. It contained no authority and very little dominance. I felt like I was seven years old and the woman was asking me to hold her hand.
“I hate people from towns,” she said, “especially the people from that town.” She was looking back in the direction from whence we’d come.
For a moment I took my eyes off of her and looked back where we’d left our quiet tavern. From that same direction the monk I’d seen earlier, the one from the stone ruins, could be seen entering the clearing. He must have followed Copeman and myself to the gypsy encampment. He still had that dark hood over his face. He still looked fervent and confused.
I looked back at the beautiful woman and caught her still expressing her complaints. “They say we’re purloiners. That’s another word for thief. That’s what they call us, purloiners. That’s what you’ll hear if you listen to the people from the town. They also call us vagabonds, sometimes. Vagabond is another word for tramp. So putting it all together...” At this point she rolled her eyes and looked up and shook her head a little. “Putting it together; they call us gypsies, vagabonds and purloiners.”
She looked down at her red nails, spreading her hands wide to get a better view of her nails. She appeared bored, but she went on with her next line anyway. “But then every night all the men come around and they lay their money down.” Then she sighed, content that her testimony was over.
The monk spoke next, entering the lengthening silence as though he were climbing in a dark window. “I gave you guys a warning earlier and I’d like the chance to correct it a little.”
“That’s not necessary,” I said. “We mostly understood what you meant.”
“But I messed it up a little and I’d like to give you the right phrase,” he said. “It contains a nugget of truth, and I’d hate for you to go through life with the wrong thought pinned to your wall.”
“If you feel you need to,” I said. Now I sounded bored.
“Here goes. The saying says: even a man who is good — basically good — there’s people who try to do bad things, but he ain’t one of them — even a guy like that, who’s basically good, can make a bad mistake.”
A lot of the men standing around nodded their heads. The monk smiled and then frowned. “It’s supposed to say something about werewolves.”
I turned to face Elaina. “Does Talbot lay his money down?”
“Are you calling me a whore?” she asked. A lot of knives flashed out. Shiny knives reflecting the fire.
“I meant did you tell his fortune?”
“So you think just because I’m a gypsy woman that I must also tell fortunes.”
“Your wagon says as much.”
She looked back at the huge blue letters and laughed. “So it does.”
“We’re looking for Larry Talbot and we mean to search that wagon.”
“And what will you use as probable cause?”
“We can have a drug-sniffing dog here in less than a month,” I said.
A lot of the men backed away from the discussion.
“But I don’t think we need to go to those extremes.” I said. “That’s Talbot’s horse tied up to the wagon wheel right there.” I pointed to the fidgety horse.
I started towards the wagon. Copeman was right behind me. The men of Elaina bunched up ahead of us, blocking our way. Copeman worked the mechanism on his rifle and he was about to resort to its enmity when the door at the back of Elaina’s wagon began to open. A man stepped down and stood before us — or was it still a man?
Here he is, I thought, in mid-transformation. His expression was one of pain. His hands were open, but still all the tiny muscles of them could be seen struggling. It looked like he was holding an invisible billiard ball in each hand and that he was squeezing them.
For some unknown reason he was without shoes. His feet were misshapen. The dark toenails were thick as pancakes and most of them were no longer attached to their beds. His toenails sat half way up... which could have accounted for the shoes being off.
The nails of his hands were also distressed. There was dirt under his nails and they were very long, not exactly claws but frightening all the same. And were those big splotches of blood on his hands? On his arms? They were of the same color as dried blood.
I looked at his face. His ears had longs strings of hair adorning them. His nose was bulbous. His eyes were rheumy and the pupils were grey.
It was all I could do to look at him.
“What’s up?” he said.
“These men think you’ve been killing sheep,” Elaina said.
“I do like mutton on a rare occasion,” the man said.
“How rare?” I asked.
“About every six months unless it’s rare, in which case I can eat it more often,” he said. “I don’t like things well done.”
Or well said, either, I thought. “Are you Larry Talbot?” I asked.
“Yes,” he admitted.
“So we caught you,” I said. “Caught you turning into a werewolf!”
“Not yet,” he said. “No you haven’t. Tomorrow you’ll catch me turning into a werewolf. Tomorrow the moon is full. What you’ve caught me doing now is... aging. I’m getting older. The weakening eyes, the liver spots on my hands, the extra hair on my ears and feet... that’s just me getting older.
“You think it’s frightening to witness, you should try doing it, hearing your very own elbow creak when you bend it, getting tired after climbing some steps.”
“You’ve got enough left to visit this gypsy,” I said, pointing at Elaina.
“She holds my hand while she reads my fortune,” he said, “but we both know what my future holds.”
* * *
Copeman and I left the gypsies. We climbed up on our horses and left the great clearing.
“How old are you?” Copeman asked, after riding for about an hour.
“About thirty,” I said.
A few miles farther on I bent my elbow. It seemed fine. It bent easily and without hindrance. No creaking noises. I told myself not to take such things for granted. Not to take youth for granted. But being human I forgot.
The next whole day was wasted in drinking, gambling... whoring... all in that same smoky tavern, laughing along with a talking bird what told me a bawdy tale.
Copyright © 2010 by Thomas Lee Joseph Smith
