Bad Grrlz' Guide to Reality: The Complete Novels Wild Angel and Adventures in Time and Space with Max Merriwell by Pat Murphy Read Free Book Online

whiskey that Mr. Murphy had purchased. Mr. Murphy smoked one of his fine cigars, nine-inch panetella supers of an East Coast make, far better than the pipes and foul-smelling, six-inch stogies that most of the miners smoked.
    She was serving dinner to a tableful of miners when Max asked her if he might take the portrait of Arno from behind the mirror. She nodded her consent
    Business didn’t slow down until after sunset, when she looked over and noticed that Max was gone. She checked on Mr. Murphy then.
    “Did you have a good chat with Max?” she asked. “Indeed I did.”
    “He’s such a gentleman, Max is,” she said. She sat down in the chair that Max had vacated. “He’s a cut above most of the miners. He reads books and he draws so well. He is really an artist.”
    Patrick nodded. “He mentioned this fellow, Arno, who never came back for his portrait.” He tapped on the portrait, which was spread on the table. “With Max’s permission, I’ll be using this to make a wanted poster.”
    Mrs. Selby nodded. She was less interested in Arno than she was in Patrick’s opinion of Max.
    Max was, in Mrs. Selby’s mind, a bit of a mystery. He was a cultured man, an artist, and he did not seem to be motivated by gold fever, as so many of the miners were. She wondered what had brought him to the gold country. Max had brushed off her questions about his past, saying that he didn’t like to think about all that.
    “You mentioned that you were a policeman when you met Max. Was Max a policeman?”
    Patrick smiled, as if at a private joke. “No, not at all. But our work did bring us together.”
    “An artist and a policeman.” Mrs. Selby raised her eyebrows.
    “Sounds like an interesting story there.”
    “That may be, but you won’t hear it from me.” Patrick put down his whiskey glass.
    Mrs. Selby shook her head in frustration. “You are being far too mysterious, Mr. Murphy.”
    “My good Mrs. Selby, without mystery, life would be dull indeed.” Still smiling, he refused to answer another question.
    The next time she saw Max, Mrs. Selby asked about how he knew Patrick Murphy, but Max said, “We met in Chicago,” and would say no more. Mrs. Selby’s curiosity remained unsatisfied.
    In the hills, the wooden trunk remained safe in Wauna’s den. The jays pecked out Arno’s eyes; the coyotes gnawed his bones. And far from the questionable civilization of Selby Flats, Sarah lived among the wolves.

5 FIRST KILL
    “All you need is ignorance and confidence; then success is sure.”
    —Mark Twain
    W AUNA CARED FOR SARAH as she would have cared for her own pup. She suckled Sarah when the child was hungry, washed her face and hands with a warm wet tongue, kept close watch over her.
    Wauna took the girl to a sheltered hollow on the side of a hill protected on two sides by rocky outcroppings that offered small caves and crevices where wolf pups could hide. On the third side was a mixed stand of oak, incense cedar, and yellow pine. The fourth side was open to a wide forested valley.
    There, under Wauna’s watchful eyes, Sarah played in the sunshine. By day, squirrels scampered and scolded in the oak trees; woodpeckers and jays foraged among the fallen leaves, searching for acorns left over from autumn. At night, Sarah listened to the quavering call of the screech owl, the chirping of the crickets. Sarah learned about the world around her—and she learned about the wolves.
    A wolf pack is an extended family, connected by blood relationships and bonds of affection. The leaders of the pack are the alpha male and alpha female, patriarch and matriarch. All other members of the pack have positions on a social hierarchy, a complex network of relationships that dictate each animal’s behavior. In Sarah’s pack, Rolon and Wauna were the alpha pair.
    In a pack, all the wolves—from the highest to the lowest—help care for the pups. When Wauna, the pack’s alpha female, took Sarah as her pup, the other wolves accepted her