Fly by Night

by Andrea Thalasinos

  “And Jethro?” Amelia asked quietly.

  She sighed and shook her head. “Hasn’t been seen.” She looked up at Amelia. “They run together. They’re mates.”

  “There were no tracks around the house, nothing. Bryce looked, we both did,” Amelia said.

  “Might have gotten him too,” the woman said. “He’s bigger, even more wolflike except for the collar.”

  Amelia looked up. “A big dog just crossed the road. It ran into the woods; in fact we swerved to avoid hitting it, which threw us into the skid. Bryce thinks it might have been a wolf.”

  Charlotte looked closely at her. Amelia saw her eyes narrow and didn’t know what it meant. The irises were so dark Amelia couldn’t see her pupils.

  “Describe it.”

  “Sort of gray and white—”

  “Nope.” Charlotte cut her off and looked out the window. “Jethro’s a black wolf, same size, about a hundred pounds. Amber eyes. That sounds like one of the pack members who live up on the ridge by Gloria’s house.”

  Amelia felt the breath of the pups as they began to warm.

  “What’ll happen to Jethro?”

  Charlotte looked at her.

  “Dunno,” she said. “Might turn up, might not. Might keep going back to the last spot he saw Lacey, wherever that was. They do that. Over and over again, they keep returning, hoping their mate’ll be there,” Charlotte said and looked out through the windshield to where Bryce and TJ were digging with shovels, working to free the Jeep. “For now, Jethro might be spooked, hiding in the woods.”

  Amelia turned to her. “So what about the Endangered Species Act?”

  “What about it?” Charlotte ground out the question, her voice brittle as she shot Amelia a side glance.

  “I thought wolves were protected.”

  Charlotte looked at her in a way that no one ever had, as if measuring her against the weight of all things.

  “Yeah.” The woman turned. “They were until that changed. It’s called cronyism.”

  And it was as if she and Charlotte felt the heaviness of the rabbit in Lacey’s mouth as the animal rushed back to her babies, before the sharp pierce of her flesh, that no matter how painful, she held on to her kill, knowing that she needed it, knowing she’d been gone too long from the den but dragged herself along the path and onto the county road she’d crossed hundreds of times before, bleeding out as the sounds, sights of traffic were getting fuzzy, too fuzzy for her to make sense of the approaching vehicle.

  Then Charlotte looked away. The moment was too strong for Amelia and she almost couldn’t breathe.

  “Sounds like you and I have lots to talk about,” the woman said while looking out the window, seemingly lost in her own thoughts.

  Amelia sat thinking. One of the pups began twitching under her coat. Soon the other followed as if giving chase until Bryce’s voice startled them all as he tapped on the window. She depressed the button to roll it down.

  “TJs getting out jumper cables.” His voice sounded bright. “Killed the battery alright.” He snorted a chuckle as he looked over the side of TJ’s truck. “Now this is what I call a real man’s truck,” Bryce said, his voice lusty with admiration.

  Amelia couldn’t focus on his words. It was the type of disorientation that comes from being startled from a daytime nap by a ringing phone.

  Bryce stopped. “Hey, Am?” He touched her cheek. “Amelia.”

  She looked at him.

  “Are you okay?” He made the okay sign that divers make underwater. She thought his blue eyes looked even more watery, like the sea in the odd light of the storm.

  “I-I don’t know.”

  “Bryce.” He turned toward his name. TJ was calling him back.

  “Be right back,” he said and then turned back once before joining TJ.

  Snow was falling so heavily she could no longer see to the end of the truck’s hood and listened to sounds of TJ and Bryce discussing strategies for freeing the Jeep. Their voices seemed amplified by the quietness of the hillside.

  “I’ll give you a jump, then tow you out as you give it gas.” She heard TJ’s voice trailing off with the business of extraction. Sounds of tow chains, winches, and motors whining, opening and closing of the truck’s back gate. More snow shoveling and digging and scraping, TJ and Bryce called to each other.

  Charlotte looked at her and smiled. “These two are gonna get big.” Charlotte let out a sigh. “Lacey was almost ninety pounds; Jethro probably closer to a hundred, if not over. Never weighed either of them, it’s just a guesstimate. He had that narrow-chested, long-legged conformation of a black wolf, those golden eyes of his. Lacey’s were blue.”

  Charlotte sat up and reached for the cooler.

  “Time for another feeding,” she said.

  The two women worked without speaking. Charlotte shook both bottles and Amelia handed over the gray pup in exchange for a bottle. This time she clutched the black pup with her forearm as she held the bottle, hoping he’d feel safe, hoping he’d keep the nipple in his mouth.

  “Gosh, you look so much like TJ,” Charlotte said with amazement, watching Amelia as she fed the pup.

  “Think so?” Amelia said. “I never think of myself as looking like anyone. Even my son doesn’t look like me.” He’d resembled Christopher Ryan from birth.

  “Eyes,” Charlotte said. “Shape of your face.”

  Suction broke and the gray pup started howling with such conviction that it made them both laugh.

  “Oh, sorry,” Charlotte said with a soft voice. “I’m not paying you enough attention,” she said in a funny voice.

  “It’s good you know how to do this,” Charlotte said. “Some folks make the mistake of feeding ’em on their backs like a human infant and the darn things aspirate and choke to death.”

  The black pup sucked on the bottle so hard the second time that it felt as if it would go flying down his throat like a missile if Amelia loosened her grip.

  The male had a look of desperation as he gulped down the food. Amelia stroked his velvet cheek with her finger. She bent over and leaned on the top of his head.

  “He feels warmer.”

  “They’re getting there.” Charlotte nodded. “They have strong sucking reflexes.” She looked at Amelia. “Always a good sign.”

  Amelia looked up at her, remembering how cold they’d felt less than an hour ago.

  “Doubt they’d have lasted another thirty minutes,” Charlotte said, holding Amelia’s gaze for a few moments.

  The tiny footpads that had felt like ice against her skin were now warm, the transfer of body heat had saved them.

  “Funny,” Amelia said, watching her pup drink. “I’m reminded of a time out in the Indian Ocean. The captain had a couple of sons. When I’d asked about their ages, two were the same age. I asked if they were twins, and he explained that the one young man, though not a biological relative, was now his son too because he’d saved him from drowning years before. In that culture you save someone, you are responsible for them.”

  Charlotte smiled with closed lips. “You’ll need to feed them every two to three hours round the clock for the next two to three weeks,” she instructed. “Can’t miss a feeding when they’re this young, this thin.”

  “How do you know when they’re full?”

  “They’ll spit out the nipple…” Charlotte paused and then laughed just as her puppy did. “Just like that.”

  Charlotte sighed and pushed back her bangs with her free hand.

  They sat in the stillness.

  Amelia had no conception of dog size.

  “So I take it one hundred pounds is big for a dog,” Amelia said.

  “Uhh—” Charlotte looked over her glasses at her. “You never had a dog I take it.”

  “Nope. My mother believed they carried disease,” Amelia said and then chuckled. “My father wanted me to have one but Penelope wore the pants in that family.”

  “Huh.” Charlotte looked at Amelia as if thinking of s
omething she wouldn’t share.

  In the marine world, categories included sea horses and microorganisms that were so miniscule that their weight measured in grams, and then the larger marine mammals and fish that tipped the scales at anything from five hundred pounds to the weight of a small car. Tiger sharks easily weighed in at five hundred to a thousand pounds. Seals, sea lions, walruses were easily hundreds of pounds—newborns about fifteen pounds at birth before bulking up faster than the staff could get their wriggling bodies into a net to be weighed.

  “Like I said, we’ve got the five dogs at home along with a few other house pets,” Charlotte said. “An otter with only three legs so she couldn’t be released and a beaver who’s blind, but he’s a sweetie. We usually have others but this has been a good year and we’ve been able to release most of them back to the wild.”

  The driver’s side door opened and TJ climbed in.

  “Okay, here goes,” he said over his shoulder. The smell of cold and ozone had followed him in. He put the truck in gear and maneuvered it into position right in front of the Jeep. The wipers cleared the windshield.

  “Think you got it?” Charlotte asked.

  He looked at her in the rearview mirror, which had also fogged up. He wiped it with his land. “We’ll see,” he said and then turned around to look over the seat, his cheeks scarlet.

  “They ate,” Charlotte reported.

  “Good.” He nodded. “Got your engine started,” he said and glanced back at Amelia as if to check if she was still there. “Now we’ll see if it’ll budge.” His phone rang and he answered. “Ready, Bryce?” he said into his phone and put it on speaker.

  “Alrightee.” She smirked at Bryce’s blasé response. She could picture him, camo hat, pajama bottoms, and all.

  Amelia watched as the wipers cleared the windshield.

  The Jeep budged and then moved out of its pocket.

  “Good old Rhode Island Jeep,” Amelia said, proud of it.

  TJ climbed out, inspecting the outside of the Jeep as he unhooked the chains and winch.

  “Follow me. Be careful, Bryce, it’s really slick,” she heard him warning. “Even worse in town; I’ll be watching for ya.”

  “Sounds good.” She heard Bryce.

  TJ climbed back in.

  “Here we go,” he said. The truck began creeping along on the snowy road.

  “Where you stayin’?” Charlotte asked.

  “Ahh—nowhere.” Amelia shrugged. “Was supposed to be a day trip, you know, a Sunday drive but on Monday since today’s our day off.”

  Charlotte pushed glasses up on her nose. “Doozie of a day to take a drive, but lucky for them you did.”

  “Yeah, lucky for them we did,” Amelia repeated in a soft voice, thinking about how so much depends on the actions or inactions of others. Had she not awakened, recruited Bryce, the pups would be dead. If she’d gone alone, she would have quit at Duluth. Even if she’d made it to Bayfield she’d probably have driven past the plowed-in driveway, and said “screw it” until spring.

  “Sure hope you two are off tomorrow,” Charlotte said in a teasing way that lightened the moment.

  “Guess we are now.”

  28

  The three of them rode in silence, hypnotized by the heavy snowflakes. Amelia dozed off, the pups like little heating pads tucked into her coat until the turn into the driveway woke her.

  TJ parked and then got out, motioning where Bryce should park. The snow sounded squeaky under TJ’s rubber soles as he walked toward the Jeep. The pups squirmed in protest when Amelia stepped down from the truck, like worms moving around beneath her coat. She could feel toenails, the hardness of skulls and paws kneading her shoulder. She swore they felt heavier even after only two feedings. The snow was almost up to her knees and the cold made her shudder.

  Their squealing signaled they were either unhappy at being jostled about or else had awakened to discover they were hungry.

  Charlotte looked over. “Someone’s hungry again.”

  Though Amelia’s feet had warmed, they hadn’t dried. Once the cold air hit, she was chilled and began to deeply shiver. Fluffy snow tumbled over the tops of her boots.

  “Let’s get you both into dry clothes,” Charlotte said, as if having read her thoughts.

  Charlotte looked over at Bryce, who was trudging through the snow. “You two must be starving.”

  “Bryce is always starving,” Amelia joked and turned to look at him.

  “Fair enough,” he said as he caught up with them.

  TJ and Charlotte’s house was a cedar-sided two-story with white Christmas lights lining the inside windows. It was positioned on a ridge overlooking Lake Superior.

  Hard to believe it was early afternoon as the storm had darkened the sky. Snow weighed down the branches of surrounding trees, in other places the trees looked wrapped in quilt batting.

  “As many feedings as we can get into these guys today, the better,” Charlotte explained. “Increases their chances of survival.”

  TJ opened the front door and stomped off his boots before stepping into the foyer. The area was neatly organized with outdoor gear hanging on pegs, hooks. Low shelves were lined with boots and shoes.

  As TJ opened the inside door to the house it smelled of cinnamon tea, pine tree, and leather.

  Amelia heard a crow.

  “Is that a crow?” she asked as TJ chuckled at the way she asked.

  “Barney,” he said.

  All five dogs spilled out into the foyer, sniffing around Amelia, their noses pointing up to where the pups were huddled under her coat.

  “They just want to sniff you,” TJ said. “They’re gentle.”

  Amelia noticed, as he walked ahead, there was a bald spot in the same shape as her father’s framed by long strands of gray hair secured at the nape of his neck.

  The dogs surrounded her and she felt panic coming on as Charlotte touched her shoulder.

  “Now breathe, relax, and let your hand down, let them sniff. They’re just curious.”

  Amelia did and a few rubbed their faces against her thigh. She held out her hand for them to sniff and then reached to scratch their necks.

  “They’re so sweet,” she remarked, surprised by the sudden comfort she felt.

  “Yep, they are,” the woman said. “Roll around with my sister’s grandbabies on the floor, sleep in the beds with them too.”

  Charlotte diverted them toward a darkened room. The sound of a clothes dryer door opened and shut.

  “Bryce?” The woman handed Bryce a pair of sweats. “Bathroom’s there.” She pointed. “TJ’s should fit okay.” Then she handed Amelia a pair and chuckled. “You’ll have to roll these up.”

  “She’s small but tough,” Bryce said through the bathroom door as he changed.

  “Do you have a scale to weigh the pups at home?”

  “No, but we have one at work.” Amelia nodded.

  “Good. So you know about weighing them every day.”

  Amelia nodded. “It’s the same with orphaned marine mammals.”

  Bryce came out, wearing black sweatpants.

  “Here.” Amelia handed him the pups. “Take your children.”

  They shrieked in protest. All five dogs came barreling back to sniff at what the fuss was about.

  “Oh, I’m not so awful,” he whispered as all five noses looked up at Bryce.

  “Yeah, he is,” she said and went to change. Pulling off her wet pants and socks she was immediately warmer. Slipping into the sweats, she rolled them up around the waist and tied them off with the string.

  Stepping back out, she reached for the pups.

  “I think they like you better,” Bryce said.

  “Of course they do.” She pressed her elbow into him as he turned. “Bet ya a dinner they always will.”

  “You already owe me too many dinners,” he said.

  Charlotte stopped and turned, her face surprised.

  “My God, you do the betting thing too?”

>   “She started it,” Bryce said.

  Amelia shrugged. “My father always bet me a nickel, a quarter…”

  Charlotte snorted and chuckled. “TJ’s always done that too. From when we first started dating. Almost broke up with him a couple of times because it was so damn annoying, but like everything else, after a while it was funny.”

  Amelia looked at her and sighed.

  The pups sniffed as they looked around. The male then rested his head on Amelia’s shoulder.

  “Hi, little one,” Bryce said. He leaned toward her, moving his finger over the silky fur of the male’s dark head. She could feel Bryce’s breath against her skin. He smelled of the same fabric softener as her pants.

  “So is TJ’s office out there?” Amelia asked, her chin gesturing to the front door. Earlier she’d seen the GLIFWC sign half covered with snow, the organizational signature on his e-mails.

  “Yes,” Charlotte said. “When he’s not in Bad River at the main office, he’s here.”

  Amelia heard the front door open and close again. TJ walked in with a small medicine bottle, a scale, a molded plastic animal crate, plus a heating pad dangling from his arm.

  They followed Charlotte into the great room where a Christmas tree filled the front of the house. The tree reached up two stories, touching the cathedral ceiling and covering much of the wall of glass windows that opened to frozen Lake Superior.

  The tree was so tall that the top had bent against the two-story paneled ceiling. A railing spanned a second-floor walkway around most of the great room leading to the bedrooms.

  “Wow.” Amelia looked up to the top of the tree.

  TJ bent down and crawled under the tree to plug in the Christmas lights. The room glowed.

  “Rockefeller Center sized,” Bryce said. They were hushed and began exploring the branches like little kids as they circled the tree. Ornaments hung from every branch, tinsel shimmered with the colors of the tree lights as strands swayed in unison from air currents.

  “How do you get it all decorated?” Amelia asked.

  “Our sons, my sisters grandkids, and kids from the community start from the bottom and go as high as they can reach. Then we use stepladders, and me and my sister go upstairs and do the top,” Charlotte explained.