The Loop (50 page)

She was wiping her eyes. ‘I called Ruth. She said I could stay with her for awhile. You’ll go to Helen’s?’

He nodded. His mother lifted her head from his chest and looked at him.

‘You love her very much, don’t you?’

He shrugged and tried to smile. For some reason, suddenly, he wanted to cry too. But he didn’t.

‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I guess.’

‘Does she love you?’

‘Oh, Mom, I . . .’

‘I’m sorry, it isn’t my business.’

She gave him a final little hug and kissed his cheek.

‘Promise you’ll come see me?’

‘I promise.’

He dumped his bags in the living room and went to the gun rack in his father’s office and took down the .270 Winchester that had become his when his brother died, though he had hardly ever used it. There was a box of cartridges in the drawer below and he took them and put them with the rifle in one of the bags. From their hooks in the kitchen, he collected his coat and hat and slicker and took a spare pair of boots, then carried everything out to the Jeep.

As he pulled away from the house, he looked down across the pasture and saw Moon Eye standing with the other horses near the tree that grew from the old Ford. They were too far away for Luke to be sure, but the horse seemed to be staring back at him.

When he drove under the skull of the gateway, he looked over his shoulder toward the ranch. His father and Clyde were moving some heifers up to the barn. Clyde turned and stood there a moment, watching him go. But his father kept on walking.

 

Before he died, the wolfer wanted to say sorry but there was no one to say it to.

The only person who’d understand was Winnie and she was dead. He wondered how long she’d known about ‘that little flicker’, as she’d called it, and why she hadn’t told him before, though he knew in his heart he’d never have listened.

He had thought of going to the biologist woman’s cabin and saying sorry to her. But he didn’t know her and he was too ashamed to tell her what he’d done. And anyhow, it wasn’t just this he needed to apologize for. It was a whole lifetime. In the end, he’d come straight to the mine. It was as good a place as any.

When he’d first gotten here, his mind was racing so crazily that he thought maybe the pup he’d shot the night before might not be dead after all and if he could only find the entrance to the mine, he might yet be able to save it. He’d hunted all around, but he couldn’t find it and in the end he’d come to his senses and remembered the damage the bullet had done.

Now he sat naked, with his back propped against a tree at the edge of the clearing where the covered airshaft was. He’d thrown all his clothes down there and imagined them lying on top of the wolves. His withered skin was almost as pale as the snow. He watched the stars grow dim and disappear one by one in the dawn sky.

The cold was taking possession of him. He felt it creep up his legs and up his arms, closing in stealth upon his heart. He felt it coalescing on his scalp like a cap, while his breath slowed and froze and stiffened in his beard.

He was so cold that he wasn’t cold at all. In fact, a dreamy kind of peace was settling on him. And as it did, his thoughts began to play tricks. He thought he heard Winnie calling him and he tried to call back to her, but his voice was frozen inside him. Then he realized that all he’d heard was a pair of ravens, flapping across the salmon sky above the clearing.

He had dealt in death all his days and thus had little fear of it. And when at last it came, there was no clamor or fanfare of pain, nor any vengeful recitation of his sins.

Instead, in his reverie, he saw a baby’s face, by the light of a candle, staring at him. Perhaps it was the baby down at the house, though it seemed somehow different. Perhaps it was the child he and Winnie had never had. Then, suddenly, the wolfer knew it was his own young self. And in that moment, the shadow of his unknown mother leaned toward the candle flame and gently blew it out.

32

T
he second thaw of the year came with more discretion than the first. There was no sudden, ardent wind to melt the snow in a rush and the Hope River, satisfied perhaps with earlier extravagance, confined itself, brimming but benign, within its banks.

By now, the first week in April, the snow had left the plains to dry dun-colored in the watery sun and had retreated like a tide up the valley. It lapped awhile from the fringes of the forest and reached in streaks of foam into the shaded folds and runnels of the higher ranches. It was too early yet for any tree to trust this wasn’t merely another trick of winter, and though the forest’s warmer clearings clicked and fluttered and prepared to unfurl, the cottonwoods that ribboned up along the valley would stay cynically gray and leafless for at least another month.

The clock that ticked in the womb of the white wolf, however, would brook no such delay. Three weeks ago, she had found a deserted coyote den at the foot of a clearcut and while her two surviving pups looked on bemused, she had dug for hours on end until it was remodeled to her taste.

Her belly bagged heavily now and in the melting snow she found it ever harder to hunt. The two pups were now full-grown yearlings. But although they had the weight of adults, they lacked the wiles and wisdom. They had helped in many a kill but never until now had to clinch one themselves. And with their mother grown so slow they were a poor match even for the weakest winter-wasted deer.

Together, a dozen times a day, they stalked and tested and chased and failed. Sometimes they would catch a rabbit or a snowshoe hare and share it with their mother, but the meal was rarely worth the energy it cost. Rangy and restless, they would follow the scent of carrion and plunder food from lesser predators.

It was a different scent one day that led them to the drifted edge of a clearing where an old man sat propped against a tree. His bare toes poked through the snow which was marked at a wary distance by the tracks of coyotes and bobcats. The wolves were warier still for there was something fearful yet familiar in his smell and something worse by far in the air of the place where they had found him. They slunk away with their ears flat and their tails tucked beneath them and left his carcass for the waking bears.

The smell that wafted on the warming air from the valley ranches was more tempting by far. The main herds were calving now and the wolves had already found those places where the ranchers dumped their dead. They had chased off coyotes and eaten undisturbed. Traveling the cracks and coulees of the land, they witnessed the birth of these creatures whose flesh they had sampled and they saw how slow-witted and vulnerable they seemed.

Now the white wolf’s hour was approaching and she disappeared alone into her den. The two yearlings waited all night and all the next day for her to emerge. They paced to and fro and lay for hours with their heads on their paws, watching the mouth of the den. Sometimes they would put their heads into the hole and whine and a growl from below would warn them to keep out. And on the second evening, when still she failed to emerge, hungry and impatient, they wandered off.

And while their mother bore six new pups, they followed in their dead father’s footsteps, stole down from the forest and, with consummate ease, slew their first calf.

Their choice was impeccable: purebred Calder Black Angus.

 

It had seemed like a good idea when she set off from the cabin. But now, as she parked and looked across the street toward the gift store, Helen wanted to turn right around and drive off again. It was probably too late. Luke’s mother might have already seen her through the shop window.

She had told Luke she was coming into town to pick up some supplies from Iverson’s. She was pretty sure he wouldn’t like the idea of her going to see his mother. But Helen felt she owed the woman some kind of explanation. Quite what she was going to say, she didn’t know. Sorry I stole your son, perhaps? Sorry I stole his virginity? She found it hard enough to explain it to herself, let alone anyone else.

How could anyone begin to understand how she’d felt that day, when he’d shown up at the cabin with those two big bags and said he’d left home and could he maybe ‘stay for a few days’? She had just put her arms around him and they’d stood there for a long time, holding on to each other.

‘You’ll be safe now,’ he’d said. And that’s how she felt.

And to be living with him in that tiny place, which was their world and no one else’s, seemed the most natural thing imaginable. Luke joked that they lived like wolves. And in a way it was true, for there was a kind of unashamed animality about them. At night, before they went to bed, they would often heat a tub of water on the stove, then take off their clothes and wash each other’s bodies with a cloth. Never had she known a lover so tender and never, even with Joel, had she felt so physically needful.

With Joel, there had been passion and pleasure, and friendship too, but only now did she realize that there had never been real intimacy of the kind that she shared with Luke. With Joel, she had become watchful of herself, careful at all times to be the kind of woman she thought he wanted and would want to keep.

It seemed to her now that true intimacy was only possible when two people were simply themselves, not constantly monitoring. And with Luke, that’s how she could be. He made her feel wanted and beautiful and, most important of all, for the first time in her life, completely unjudged.

But how could she begin to say anything remotely like this to his mother, for heavensakes? Maybe, after all, she should give it a miss and drive home. Instead, she mentally crossed herself and got out of the pickup.

Its freshly painted door looked almost as bad as it had with the writing on it. Luke had found the right shade at a Toyota dealer in Helena and done a great job painting it out. The trouble was, the rest of the vehicle was so faded and rusty that the door stood out like a bare billboard, tempting someone to do it again.

The door of Paragon clanked loudly as she went in. Thank God there were no customers, just Ruth Michaels at the till.

‘Helen, hi! How’re you doing?’

‘I’m fine thanks. You?’

‘You bet. Now all that snow’s gone.’

‘I know. Is Mrs Calder here?’

‘Sure, she’s out back. I’ll go get her. Want a coffee?’

‘No thanks.’

Helen waited, humming a nervy little tune under her breath. She could hear the two women talking, but not what they were saying. Ruth came back, putting on her coat.

‘I have to go out for awhile. I’ll see you later Helen, okay?’

‘Okay.’

The door clanked again and she noticed that, as Ruth went out, she flipped over the OPEN/CLOSED sign and clicked the catch.

‘Hello, Helen.’

‘Hi, Mrs Calder.’

Helen hadn’t seen her since Thanksgiving and she was struck again by how like Luke she looked; the same pale skin and beautiful green eyes. She smiled.

‘What can I do for you?’

‘Uh. Well, I ...’

‘Come back here and we can sit down where no one can see us.’

Helen followed her to the little coffee bar and perched herself on one of the stools. Eleanor Calder went behind the counter.

‘Can I make you a coffee?’

‘Not unless you’re going to have one.’

‘I think I’ll have a Why Bother.’

‘Then I’ll have a Bother. A large one, with an extra shot.’

Helen was still trying to figure out where to start. She watched in silence while Luke’s mother deftly made their coffees. She marveled at how a woman could be married to a man like Buck Calder for so long and yet retain such grace and dignity.

‘I came to explain about me and Luke - not
explain
exactly, just . . . let you know that . . . oh, shit.’

Mrs Calder smiled. ‘Let me make it easier for you.’ She put Helen’s coffee in front of her and went on making her own. ‘You’ve made Luke very happy. As far as I’m concerned, you’ve done him nothing but good.’

She came around the counter and sat down, thoughtfully stirring her coffee. Helen was stunned.

‘Thank you,’ she said, fatuously.

‘As to him moving in with you, all I’d say is, some of the folk around here are a little old-fashioned. But that’s your decision. And in all honesty, I don’t know where else he’d go.’

‘You moved out too, Luke says.’

‘Yes.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t be sorry. I should have done it years ago. I guess I only stayed because of Luke.’

They talked for awhile about Luke’s college application and then about the wolves. Helen said there were probably only three or four of them left now. Out of superstition, she didn’t mention that only yesterday they’d lost the alpha female’s signal too. Though, with luck, that might mean she was denning.

‘What’s happened to the others?’

‘Don’t know. Someone’s killing them off, maybe.’

Eleanor Calder frowned.

‘You know, I forgot to tell Luke and maybe I shouldn’t say a word. But my son-in-law has got someone working for him up at his place, called Lovelace. I couldn’t figure out where I’d heard the name, but then I remembered. There was a famous old trapper called Lovelace used to live here in Hope. A “wolfer”, they called him.’

 

Dan could see straight away that this time Calder and his son-in-law had followed the stockgrowers’ association guidelines to the letter. They had covered the two dead calves with weighted tarpaulins and then carefully laid lengths of plywood over the tracks and the scat that the wolves had left as a calling card.

Luckily, this time they hadn’t called the TV station, but Clyde Hicks was doing a pretty good job himself. He’d had his video camera rolling as soon as Dan and Bill Rimmer drove into the pasture. As usual, Dan had brought his camera along to shoot the necropsy, but Hicks wasn’t taking any chances.