The Loop (56 page)

Instead, he whispered to Clyde to stop.

‘There’s one coming out. When I tell you, shine your light.’

He raised his gun and centered the crosshairs on the moving shape emerging from the mouth of the den.

‘Now!’

At exactly the same moment that the flashlight beam found its mark, Buck pulled the trigger and the shot rang out.

There was a cry. Sharp and terrible.

And Buck and all who heard it knew that it wasn’t from a wolf.

 

‘Luke? Luke?’

It was the moon calling him and he couldn’t understand why or what it might want. And he couldn’t understand why it kept getting lost in a whirl of red clouds and then suddenly bobbing out again. Except they were more liquid than clouds and closer too, almost as if they were actually in his eyes. And now he found he was in control of them, because when his eyes filled up and the moon went red, all he had to do was blink and everything would clear and there was the moon, all clean again, calling him.

‘Luke? Oh God. Luke?’

It sounded like his father, but it couldn’t be, because his father didn’t want anything to do with him anymore. And there were other voices, voices he didn’t recognize, and sometimes their shadows loomed across the moon and he wished they would get out of the way and leave him alone so he could watch it.

He thought of telling them, because he knew he had a voice. Helen had found it for him. But he didn’t know where it was at the moment. Perhaps she’d borrowed it. There was a kind of cold space in his throat where it normally was, like a hollow in a snowdrift. It was the only thing he could feel. Except that when he blinked, one of his eyes felt funny and he wasn’t sure he was looking through it anymore. It seemed to have something wet and lumpy in it that even the blinking couldn’t clear.

Thwuck-thwuck-thwuck
.

Now there was another moon coming across the sky. Or maybe it was a star or a comet. But it was lower than that and really, really bright. Blindingly bright. It hurt his eye. And he could hear it too now, getting louder and louder and louder.

Thwuck-thwuck-thwuck-thwuck
.

And then both it and the moon flooded with red clouds again.

It wasn’t clouds. It was curtains, red curtains, closing across the sky. And this time he couldn’t blink them open. Someone was trying to do it for him, but they just kept on closing.

Crimson curtains.

Thwuck-thwuck-thwuck-thwuck-thwuck
.

Where was she?

He wanted her to bring him his voice so he could talk with her and touch her and feel more than just this cold hollow in his throat. There were so many people now. And there seemed to be some new ones too and they were sticking things into him and putting some kind of mask thing over his face.

But where was Helen?

Just for an instant, he thought he heard her voice, among all the others, calling his name. But they were lifting him up now and away and the red curtains had closed for the last time. Maybe when they opened again she would be standing there. Maybe he’d be there too, beside her.

Two stone statues, hand in hand.

36

E
leanor sat alone in the mall café, sipping a soda and watching the holiday crowds go by. It was the Fourth of July weekend and the place was teeming. The café was on a corner by the escalators and had counters serving food of almost every ethnic kind, provided it was fast and fried. There were troughs of plastic greenery and the tables were of plain white plastic, each with its own blue and white umbrella, whose purpose (since the mall was hermetically sealed to the elements) Eleanor found puzzling. Perhaps they were to protect those eating from any missile thrown from the escalators.

At the next table, a group of teenage girls sat trying out make-up and nail polish they’d just bought. Occasionally they would all erupt in screams of laughter or call out in chorus to someone they had spotted on the escalator. The waitress had already warned them twice to be quiet. Nearby, a young couple was feeding identical blond baby girls, who lounged happily in the most splendid double stroller Eleanor had ever seen.

She looked at her watch. He was ten minutes late. Perhaps he was having trouble finding the place. He’d always hated malls, but when he’d called she hadn’t been able to think of anywhere else to meet. It was right across the street from the apartment she was renting.

The prospect of seeing Buck again, after all these weeks, didn’t make her feel nervous, only sad. The last time had been at the hospital on the night of the shooting, while the surgeons were trying so hard to save Luke’s life. Eleanor hadn’t been able to look at Buck, let alone speak to him. She wasn’t going to let it be like that today.

When he’d called, his voice sounded so different that she hadn’t recognized him. He’d had to say his name and she’d thought, how strange, not to know who it was, after all those years of marriage.

She saw him now, at the end of the avenue of storefronts, walking alongside his reflection. He had his head slightly bowed, his face half hidden by the brim of his hat. His walk was uncertain, awkward almost, as though he didn’t belong in such a place. He was wearing a pale blue snapbutton shirt and black jeans that seemed baggy on him. As he got nearer she saw how thin he’d become.

The girls at the next table had paid their check and were sweeping out of the café and one of them, who wasn’t looking, collided with Buck. He staggered back and for a moment it seemed he was going to fall. But he didn’t. The girl apologized and was whisked away by her friends. Eleanor saw them all giggling and teasing her as they went.

Buck stood by the entrance, adjusting his hat and scanning the faces. She had to wave to make him see her.

‘I’m sorry I’m late,’ he said as he walked up. ‘I got confused with all the different entrances.’

Eleanor smiled. ‘That’s okay.’

He sat down and the waitress arrived. He ordered a coffee and asked Eleanor what she wanted and she said she was fine with the soda. When the waitress went, they sat in silence for a few moments, neither one of them knowing what to say.

‘So,’ he said at last. ‘You fly tomorrow?’

‘Monday.’

‘Monday. Right. To London.’

‘Via Chicago.’

‘Oh. Then . . .’

‘We’ll have a week in Ireland, then on to Paris, Rome. Then back to London for a few days, then home.’

‘That’s quite a trip.’

Eleanor smiled. ‘You know I always wanted to travel.’

‘Yeah.’

‘I think Lane’s looking forward to it.’

‘She is. She told me. Nice for you to have some time together.’

‘Yes.’

Buck’s coffee arrived and he stared at it and stirred it for a long time, though there was no need because he always took it black, no sugar. It gave her time to study him. He looked almost haggard. There was a patch of gray bristles on his chin that he’d missed with his razor. His shirt looked as if it hadn’t been pressed.

‘Lane was telling me the house you’re buying down in Bozeman is real nice.’

‘It’s lovely. Small, you know. But I don’t need a big place.’

‘No.’

‘You heard Ruth’s moving to Santa Fe?’

‘Yeah.’ He nodded. ‘Yeah, I heard that.’

There was a pause. The music playing in the mall dipped briefly for an announcement about a young boy who’d gotten himself lost. It told the parents where they could find him.

‘You know, Eleanor. That thing between Ruth and me, it was never really—’

‘Buck, don’t. It’s gone.’

‘Yeah, but—’

‘It’s all gone.’

He nodded and kept his eyes on his coffee. He started stirring it again.

‘Anyway,’ he said.

‘How are things on the ranch?’

‘Good. Pretty good. I’ve handed a lot of stuff over to Kathy.’

‘She told me.’

‘She’s quite something, that girl. Twice the rancher Clyde’ll ever be.’

‘He’ll learn.’

‘Maybe.’

‘Little Buck’s growing so fast.’

Buck laughed. ‘Yeah! Yeah, he’s coming along good. Give him a year or two and he’ll be running the whole joint.’

He took his first sip of coffee. Eleanor asked if he’d heard yet when his trial might take place.

‘September, so they reckon. Kathy tell you about Clyde?’ Eleanor nodded. They’d found his fingerprints on that horrible wire loop thing. But, probably because Buck was pleading guilty to everything, charges against Clyde had just been dropped. Eleanor knew that Kathy would never forgive herself for showing him how it worked.

‘Do you have any idea yet what kind of sentence you’ll get?’

‘Nine months, a year, maybe more. Tell you the truth, I don’t really care how long it is.’

‘Oh, Buck.’

She wanted to reach across the table and take his hand. But she didn’t. She saw his face clench up as he tried to fight his tears. As if he hadn’t been punished enough, she thought.

‘When I think of Luke, I . . .’

‘Buck, please don’t.’

‘No. I know.’

He took a deep breath and held it inside him a moment, then let it come slowly, shudderingly, out. After awhile, he sniffed and looked around.

He forced a laugh. ‘Anyway, Abe’s boys say it’s like summer camp in there. Apparently the old guy’s having the time of his life.’

Eleanor smiled. The young couple with the twins was leaving now. She watched Buck’s face as he watched the babies being wheeled past. One of them gave him a glorious smile and it seemed to start the tears welling again in his eyes. He was so very near to the edge all the time. Eleanor sat still and let him get over it. And at last he was able to look at her.

‘All I wanted to say, was . . . I’m sorry, Eleanor. I’m so sorry.’

 

By the time they had driven high into the mountains, as far as the last road would take them, a thin band of pink had risen in the eastern sky. Hope, two hours earlier, had been like a ghost town and as they crossed the river, she had looked toward the church and thought about that day, almost a year ago, when Dan had told her about the road of wolf skulls.

This time, he didn’t say a word and neither did Helen. And the only pair of eyes that saw them as they drove down Main Street belonged to a black cat that stopped in their dimmed lights to assess them then hurried on across the road.

The van they had hired was dark green and unmarked except for the spattering of mud that their night’s efforts had given it. When they were finished, they were going to take it down to the cabin and Dan was going to use it to load it with all the things she didn’t want. By nightfall the cabin would be as empty as the day she’d moved in. The mice could have it back.

The road was getting rough now and as they bumped from rut to pothole, the whole van shuddered. Helen could hear the faint rattle of the cages in the back. She hadn’t been up this high since the day Luke had shown her the wolves’ first den. She remembered the look on his dusty face when he came crawling out and what he’d said about being happy to die down there.

‘I figure this is about as far as we can get,’ Dan said.

‘Seems as good a place as any.’

‘Okay.’

The road was being repossessed by newgrown weeds and flowers and seemed to peter out in a short plateau of rock. To the east, it fell away sharply in a narrow, rock-strewn funnel through the trees. Below, in the wakening light, Helen could see a meadow full of colorless flowers and beyond it the white flash of a creek still swollen with snowmelt.

Dan swung the van around so that its rear was pointing to the top of the funnel. He turned off the engine and looked at her.

‘You okay?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Just like the old times, huh? Prior and Ross, alpha wolf team.’

She smiled. ‘What are you going to do?’ she asked.

‘With my life? I don’t know. Get a proper job, I guess. My mom always said I should “work with people” and I’d say, okay, I’ll be a mortician.’

‘So even back then your jokes weren’t any good.’

‘That’s true.’

Dan had handed in his notice the day after Luke was shot. They’d asked him to stay on and insisted he was in no way to blame for what happened but he said he’d had enough; he was ‘wolfed out’. He agreed to stay on until they found a successor. The new guy was due to start next month.

‘I’ll probably stick around these parts till Ginny’s finished high school, then move on somewhere, I guess.’

They were silent for a moment. Dan peered at the sky.

‘It’s getting light. Better get this show on the road. Ready?’

‘You bet.’

They got out and walked to the back of the van. Helen held the flashlight so he could see to unlock the padlock on the rear doors. Then he pulled the handle and opened them wide.

They pulled off the tarpaulins and the flashlight glinted on two aluminum cages standing side by side. They were similar to the cages that had been used to bring the Yellowstone wolves down from Canada. They were like perforated crates, about four feet long and three feet high, with a sliding door at the front. Poles to carry them with slid out at each corner.

‘I hope someone’s told these guys what happens to wolves around these parts,’ Dan said.

‘I thought you said these were vegetarian wolves?’

‘They are. But, you know, it could be just a fad.’

Helen wasn’t going to ask where they’d come from. Dan had made all the arrangements. All she knew was that they were an alpha pair, untagged, uncollared and untraceable. She and Dan had picked them up just before midnight at a remote spot about ten miles south of the Canadian border. There was no one to meet them. The crates had just been there waiting for them, covered with the tarps and a few branches.

Helen went behind the first crate and slid the handles out.