“I always thought you smelled like your trenchcoat.”
He made a sound that was almost a chuckle.
“What do I smell like to you?” I said.
He cocked his head for a moment, testing the air, tasting it. He seemed puzzled, like he was still trying to figure out the sensation. “Safe. You smell safe.”
We went inside.
Ben hesitated at the door, once again looking around, nose flaring, wearing an expression of uncertainty and also curiosity. I looked, hoping to see Alice, bracing for Joe and his rifle.
Behind the counter, Alice looked up from the magazine she was reading. She smiled. “Hi, Kitty, how are you today?”
“Oh, fine. I have friends visiting. Alice, this is Ben. Ben, Alice.”
Alice smiled warmly and extended her hand for shaking. Ben looked stricken for a moment—to the wolf side, it was not the most harmless of gestures. In fact, it looked a little like an attack. I waited to see how he’d react and let out a bit of a sigh when he recovered and took her hand.
“Good to meet you,” he said. He wasn’t smiling, but he behaved in a straightforward enough manner.
“Let me know if I can help you find anything,” she said.
“Actually, I did want to ask you something. Do you know any blacksmiths around here? Someone with a forge who could melt down a bunch of metal for me?”
“Well, sure. Jake Torres is the local farrier, he’s got a forge. What kind of metal?”
This was going to be hard to explain without sounding like a loon. But I was crazy, according to Ben anyway. Maybe I should just embrace it. “I’ve got a bunch of pieces of barbed wire that I’d love to see completely destroyed. You think he’d do that for me?”
She creased her brow. “Oh, probably. What kind of pieces?”
“They’re in the car, I’ll go get them. Ben”—I grabbed a plastic shopping basket from the pile by the door— “here. Find some food. Whatever looks good.”
He took the basket, looked at me quizzically, then headed for the shelves.
Feeling like I was finally accomplishing something, I ran to the car, grabbed the bag of crosses, ran back to the store, and dropped the bag on the counter in front of Alice. It landed with a solid, steely thunk. She pulled out one of the crosses, studied it, and looked increasingly worried. That made me worried.
“Something’s wrong,” I said. “What is it? You look like you’ve seen one of these before.”
Shaking her head, she dropped the cross back and quickly tied up the bag. “Oh, you know. Folklore, local superstition. Crosses are supposed to be for protection.”
“Yeah, well, someone’s been dumping them in a circle around my cabin and I don’t feel very protected. Friend of mine thinks it’s part of a curse. Like someone isn’t happy with me being around.”
Alice’s eyes widened, startled. “That’s certainly odd, isn’t it?”
“I just want to get rid of them. Melting them down seems the way to go. You think your farrier will do it?”
“Jake stops in here once a week. He’s due in a couple of days. I’ll ask him myself,” she said with a thin smile. She put the bag under the counter. It was out of my hands now.
That was easy. A weight lifted from me. “Thanks, Alice. That’d be great.”
I went to check on Ben. He was standing with the still empty basket in front of a shelf full of canned soup, chili, and pasta sauce.
“Nothing sounds good,” he said. “I just keep thinking about all that venison in your freezer. Is that normal?”
I patted his arm. “I know what you mean.”
We stocked up on the basics—bacon and eggs, bread and milk. Ben gamely carried the basket for me, and Alice rang up the goods, her demeanor more cheerful than ever. We made it back to the car without incident.
“There,” I said as I pulled the car back on the road, “that wasn’t so hard.”