Wesley Weyandt's Arc

Chapter 1 of 6

The tax notice was nailed to the porch post when Wesley Weyandt came up the steps. He read it twice. Ninety days to pay the back-taxes on his grandfather's land, or the county would sell it at auction. The number at the bottom was more coin than he had ever held. He stood on the wraparound porch of the gray farmhouse with the maroon shutters and made himself look at what he had come home to. Sagging rail. Broken window in the parlor. A basement that smelled like wet stone. His grandfather had left him the deed and a promise: build a quiet life here, with the man he loved. Wesley had come back from three years of hired work with calluses, a good back, and eleven silver pieces in his pocket. Eleven silver would not cover the tax. It would not cover the window. It would not cover the wagon fare back to town. A dog was sitting at the bottom of the steps. Wesley had not heard it arrive. A German shepherd, black saddle over tan, one eye lit pale as a lantern wick. It watched him the way a judge watches a witness. "You lost?" Wesley asked. The dog stood, walked to the porch rail, and pressed its nose against a folded paper wedged there. Wesley had not put it there. He pulled it free. It was a bounty notice from the reeve's office. A wolf had been killing sheep in the north pastures for two seasons. Black coat, pale markings like moons across its flanks. The reward was written in gold, not silver. Enough for the tax. Enough for the window. Enough, with care, to start. Wesley read the number twice, the same way he had read the tax notice. His hands were steady. He thought of his grandfather's rifle in the hall closet. He thought of the man waiting for him in a rented room two towns over, who had asked only that Wesley come back alive. The shepherd sat again and looked north. "You know where it is," Wesley said. It was not a question. He went inside. He took down the rifle, checked the action, and counted six shells into his coat pocket. On the kitchen counter someone had left a bunch of wildflowers in a jar, red and yellow and blue crowded together. His grandmother's habit. The neighbor still kept it up. He touched one petal and set the jar back down. When he came out, the shepherd was already moving toward the tree line. Wesley locked the farmhouse door behind him. He had ninety days to save the homestead and one lead worth chasing. He followed the dog into the north field.