The Loop (16 page)

Buck didn’t like the guy from Fish and Wildlife, Prior or whatever he called himself. He didn’t trust him either. The other one, Rimmer, the predator-control fellow, seemed okay, but when it came to the crunch, whatever they might pretend, feds were feds and wolf lovers, every goddamn one of them.

Buck was standing with Clyde, looking over Nat’s shoulder. It was noon and the heat shimmered off the rocks that dotted the pasture. The only sounds were the flick of the grasshoppers and now and again the call of a cow farther up toward the forest. Buck was still sweating from the steep walk up here. They’d left Nat’s car down at the house and the three of them had driven up as far as they could get in Clyde’s truck. They’d had to leave it about a half-mile farther down the slope where the land got too rough. It would have been better to come up on horseback.

It was Clyde who had found the calf this morning and what riled Buck was why Luke hadn’t found it earlier. He had given the boy the job of riding the herd up here on the allotment as soon as Prince got killed. If there were wolves around, someone needed to keep watch on the cattle and as Luke knew the lie of the land and wasn’t a whole lot of use at much else, it might as well be him.

Buck had told him to keep an eye out for exactly this kind of thing and the boy hadn’t found it. Probably because he spent most of the time with his head in the clouds, dreaming and reading books or scrabbling around for bits of old bone or whatever. How Buck was ever going to make a half-decent rancher out of him, he had no idea.

‘Well, Nat, what d’you reckon?’

‘Sure ain’t too much to go on.’

‘How long’s he been dead?’

‘Oh, three, four days maybe.’

‘Reckon it was a wolf?’

‘Well, he’s been chewed up real good. See these teeth marks here on the neck? That’s a predator with a fair-sized jaw and it sure doesn’t look like a bear. Could be a wolf or a coyote. Have you looked around for tracks?’

‘Too dry,’ Clyde said. ‘And you can’t see the ground for grasshoppers.’

‘Could be he was already dead and whatever it was has just been chewing on him.’

‘My cows don’t go falling over dead of their own accord, Nat. You know that.’

‘Sure, but from all that’s left of him here, he could have been struck by lightning, anything—’

‘Struck by lightning. Give me a break, Nat.’

‘Well.’

Buck looked down at the carcass. He noticed something and bent to pick it up. It was a scrap of hide, hardened by the sun. On it was the linked HC brand of the Calder ranch. He blew a grasshopper off it and turned it over in his fingers.

Sure, you got to lose a calf from time to time up here. Sometimes one got sick or got himself stuck in a gulch somewhere. A few years back they’d lost a couple to an old grizzly and a predator-control agent had come and taken it out. If you were ranching this kind of country, losing the occasional calf was part of the deal.

But for the last two falls every animal that had summered on the allotment had come back safe and sound. And seeing his brand on this piece of hide, Buck felt a surge of anger.

He knew in his bones that a wolf was to blame and he was damn well going to prove it. It was probably the same one that killed Kathy’s dog, one of those varmints the goddamn feds had let loose in Yellowstone. And they expected you to stand by and serve it five-hundred-dollar calves for its dinner! It made a man sick. Buck wasn’t going to stand for it.

He slung the piece of hide away and watched it curve like a skimming stone down into the gully.

‘So, Nat, are you prepared to back me on it being a wolf or not?’

The vet stood up and scratched his head. Buck could see how uncomfortable he was, being put on the spot. The two men had known each other since they were kids. Both were aware that Nat and his father had made good money from the work the ranch provided.

‘Well, Buck, you know, it’s a tough call.’

‘Well, he sure didn’t die of old age.’

‘Maybe not, but—’

‘And you said it wasn’t a bear.’

‘I can’t say for sure it wasn’t.’

Buck put his arm around the vet’s shoulders. Nat was short and Buck towered over him like an uncle.

‘You’re a good friend, Nat, and I don’t want to put words in your mouth. But you know what these bunny-huggers are like. They’ll do all they can to pretend it isn’t one of their precious wolves that did it. All I want is your best opinion, just a little ammunition.’

‘Well, maybe.’

‘Maybe isn’t going to cut a lot of snuff with these fellas. What are you saying, that it’s ninety percent certain it was a wolf? Eighty? You tell me.’

‘That’s pushing it, Buck.’

‘Seventy-five then.’

‘Well, I dunno. Maybe.’

‘Seventy-five. Okay.’ Buck took his arm off the vet’s shoulders. He’d got what he wanted. ‘Well, thank you Nat. I appreciate it, old buddy. You can put the tarp back now, Clyde.’

They’d brought an old green tarpaulin up in the truck and Clyde swung it over the carcass, sending up a cloud of grasshoppers. Nat Thomas looked at his watch and said he was already running late on his calls and had better get going. Buck knew the poor fellow just didn’t fancy being around when the feds got here. Buck slapped him on the back and they set off down the hill.

‘I’ll drive you down. Come on Clyde, let’s go call the bunny-huggers.’

 

‘Luke? Are you coming to eat?’

Luke opened his eyes and saw his mother standing beside the bed, looking down at him.

‘Are you all right?’

‘Yeah, I was doing some exercises and must have dropped off.’

She stroked the hair from his forehead and smiled, but he could see in her eyes that something was wrong. He sat up, swung his legs off the bed and started pulling on his boots.

‘What’s the matter?’

She looked away and sighed.

‘Mom?’

‘Clyde found a dead calf. Your father’s making a big thing of it.’

‘W-where?’

‘Oh, somewhere, I don’t know.’

‘Up on the allotment?’

She looked at him and nodded.

‘And he thinks it’s a w-w-wolf?’

‘Yes. And so does Nat Thomas. Come on, everybody’s down there. Let’s get it over with.’

He followed her out and along the corridor toward the top of the stairs. What was he going to say? He knew his father would blame him. How on earth had Clyde found it? And what was he doing checking up on him anyway?

Luke had come across the carcass two days ago. There were fresh wolf tracks in the dust and some scat too. He’d dragged the calf down into the gully and covered it with rocks. He’d broken off a branch of limber pine and brushed away the tracks, then gotten rid of the scat. He’d figured no one was going to know anything until the fall when the cattle came down and got counted.

As he walked toward the kitchen doorway, Luke could hear them all chatting. Clyde was laughing and telling the two hands who were helping with the haying, Ray and Jesse, what Nat Thomas had said. But he stopped as soon as Luke stepped into the room. Everyone looked up at him. His father was sitting at the head of the table.

‘Hi, Luke,’ he said. ‘Had a good sleep?’

‘I w-w-was—’

‘Come and eat. It’s going cold.’

Luke sat next to Ray, who gave him a nod.

‘How’re you doing, Luke?’

‘G-g-good. ‘

His mother was cutting him a slice of meat loaf, which was one of the few meat dishes he actually enjoyed, though right now he didn’t feel hungry at all. Everyone else had almost finished.

‘Anyhow,’ Clyde went on. ‘He’s scratching his head and getting all fidgety and saying how it’s a real tough call and all, and so Buck here says, “Well, Nat, he sure didn’t die of old age!”’

Clyde bellowed with laughter and the ranch hands laughed too. Luke knew his father was looking at him, but he kept his own eyes on his plate while his mother piled it with salad and potato. She put it down in front of him and started serving second helpings to the hands.

‘So, Luke,’ his father said. ‘You heard we found a dead calf.’

Luke had his mouth full so he just nodded. His father waited for the reply.

‘Yes sir. W-w-where did you f-f-find it?’

‘Over by Ripple Creek,’ Clyde said. ‘You know the gully that runs along the foot of the meadow there?’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘Just up there.’

The hands were concentrating hard on their food, sensing this was family business. His father’s eyes hadn’t once left him.

‘I thought you said you checked along there every day,’ he said.

‘Not down in the g-g-gully always. I ride al-along the t-t-top. ’

‘That’s where it was. Along the top, lying there right out in the open.’

Something had found it and hauled it up there again, Luke thought. What would do that? Maybe the wolves had come back.

‘Wh-wh-what k-k-k—’

‘What killed it?’

‘Yes.’

‘Nat Thomas reckons it was a wolf. That Prior fella’s trying to get hold of Bill Rimmer to come up this afternoon. What bothers me is how many more dead calves have we got up there?’

‘I d-d-don’t think there are—’

‘You wanted that job, Luke. If you’re going to do it, you’re going to have to do it properly. Okay?’

Luke nodded. ‘Y-y-yes, sir.’

‘Or we’ll just have to put Jesse here onto it.’

‘Phew,’ said Ray, wiping his brow and grinning. ‘That’s good. Least I ain’t going to get chewed up by wolves.’

Everyone laughed and the tension loosened a little. His father stood up and, as if attached to him by invisible strings, so did Clyde.

‘Probably wasn’t a wolf anyhow,’ his mother said.

‘That’s not what Nat Thomas says,’ Buck said, putting on his hat. Luke’s mother was cleaning pans at the sink, not looking at him.

‘Nat Thomas would swear it was the Easter Bunny, if you gave him ten dollars.’

When his mother said things like that, Luke realized how much he loved her.

 

Dan had told her a lot about Buck Calder, but nothing he’d said had quite prepared Helen for the shock of the real thing. The sheer physicality of the man was overwhelming. He made those around him seem like suckerfish to a shark.

Dan had introduced them down at the house, telling him Helen had just come on board to help find the wolf, taking care to keep it singular. She and Buck had shaken hands. His hand was huge and strangely cool and he had held on to hers just a little too long, fixing her with those pale eyes. The gaze was so direct, so immediately intimate, that Helen had found herself blushing. He had asked her to ride up here to the pasture with him in the truck and she’d replied, a little too quickly, that no, it was okay, she would ride up with Dan and Bill Rimmer. Dan had teased her about it on the way up.

‘Sure missed your chance there, Helen.’

‘Whoa! My mom calls eyes like that
bedroom
eyes.’

‘Bedroom eyes?’ Bill said.

‘Yeah. First time I heard her say it I was only little and I thought she meant, you know, sleepy or something. And one day she heard me tell Eddie Horowitz, the kid next door, that he had bedroom eyes and she gave me a slap.’

Bill Rimmer laughed loudly. He seemed a nice guy.

Calder’s son-in-law had called the office in Helena just as she and Dan were about to set off up to the cabin and were packing the Toyota with Helen’s gear and the ton of provisions they had just bought at the supermarket. It was still all stacked in the back.

Now they were standing around this supposed wolf-kill with grasshoppers jumping all over their boots.

Bill Rimmer was on his knees beside it, inspecting it and taking his time. Helen stood beside Dan who was videoing it. Facing them across the carcass, Calder and his son-in-law stood waiting for the verdict.

It was a farce. Dan clearly thought so too. She had caught his eye briefly when Clyde swung the tarpaulin off and the flies cleared enough for them to see what was left of the calf. It was so far gone, nobody could possibly say how it had met its end. It could have been shot or died of a broken heart.

A horse snickered somewhere below them and Helen looked down into the gully and saw Calder’s son riding up toward them through the rocks. She had seen him down at the house but no one had bothered to introduce him. She had been struck immediately by how good-looking he was and wondered why he had hung back, listening while his father and Clyde did all the talking.

Once Helen had caught him staring at her with those intense green eyes and she’d smiled but he looked away immediately. They had passed him on his horse coming up here and Dan had told her who he was.

Luke got off his horse when he was still some way off and stayed there, standing beside it and stroking its neck. Helen smiled again and this time he gave her a little nod before looking away to where the others stood around the carcass.

Rimmer was standing now.

‘So?’ Calder said.

Rimmer took a long breath before answering.

‘You say Nat Thomas saw this just this morning?’

‘About three hours ago.’

‘Well, I don’t see how he can say this animal was killed by a wolf.’

Calder shrugged. ‘Experience, I guess.’

Rimmer ignored the insult. ‘You see, sir, there’s just not enough to go on. We can take it away and have some tests done—’

‘I think Nat’s the man to do that,’ Calder cut in.

‘Well, that has to be your decision, sir. But, frankly, I don’t reckon tests would give us anymore of an idea. Dan and Helen here have both seen a fair number of cattle predations. Dan?’

‘I’m afraid I have to agree.’

‘Well, there’s a surprise,’ said Calder sarcastically. ‘Miss Ross? Would you care to venture an opinion?’

Helen felt the power of his stare again and she cleared her throat, hoping her voice wasn’t going to show how nervous he made her.