Season of the Wolf

by Jeffrey J. Mariotte

  Table of Contents

  PART ONE

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  PART TWO

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  PART THREE

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  PART FOUR

  31

  32

  33

  34

  35

  36

  37

  38

  39

  About the Author

  About the Publisher

  First Edition

  Season of the Wolf © 2013 by Jeffrey J. Mariotte

  Cover Artwork © 2013 by Stan Tremblay

  All Rights Reserved.

  DarkFuse

  P.O. Box 338

  North Webster, IN 46555

  www.darkfuse.com

  Become a fan on Facebook:

  www.facebook.com/darkfuse

  Follow us on Twitter:

  www.twitter.com/darkfuse

  Copy Editor: Steve Souza & Robert Mele

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Only a mountain has lived long enough to listen objectively to the howl of a wolf.

  —Aldo Leopold

  This book has been a long time coming, and it wouldn’t exist at all but for the assistance of the many people who helped it along. Foremost among these is Ted Adams. Others who contributed include Carlo Soriano, Greg F. Gifune and Shane Ryan Staley, the Colorado Division of Wildlife, and the usual crew, including Howard Morhaim and Alice Speilburg, Dianne Larson, and of course my family.

  PART ONE

  1

  Bark had been scraped off the Ponderosa pine, leaving a light streak against the bare trunk. Mike Hackett moved in closer. Elk rubbed against trees, but so did bears. So, sometimes, did hunters. This spot, though, had a little velvet snagged at the edges, curling down like Spanish moss he’d seen in Georgia.

  He was on the track of a good-sized bull, based on its hoof prints. They were cut especially deep in the wet muck around a wallow he’d found about an hour before. Judging from those tracks, the animal might be big enough to keep him and his wife in meat for much of the coming winter.

  Mike Hackett hadn’t intended to be out alone. Frank Trippi was supposed to hunt with him, but Frank had sprained a wrist the other day. Slipped in his own bathtub and caught himself the wrong way. Mike had a license, though, and the first rifle season only lasted a few days, so here he was. In one of the later seasons, he could come back out with Frank, and in the meantime he’d have meat in the freezer.

  Truth was he didn’t mind hunting alone. He occasionally enjoyed Frank’s company, though that was an enjoyment better sustained on a limited basis. A few hours here and there were plenty. On an all-day or an overnight trip, Frank’s nonstop jabbering got old quick.

  Mike felt much the same way about most of the folks in Silver Gap. He was basically happiest when he was by himself, flat on his back looking up into the innards of an automobile. Spending time with his wife was okay, too. Marie didn’t talk too much or demand a lot from him, and that was what he liked in a woman.

  He was wearing camo pants, a long-sleeved black T-shirt under a camo shirt, and heavy boots. A blaze orange vest was cinched around his gut, and a hat of the same brilliant hue covered his flattop. Orange was supposed to make a person stand out so he wasn’t shot by other hunters, but these last few years the pines around here had been turning orange and brown, like spreading rust, and he was starting to think he would be safer in some other color. Green, maybe, which was quickly vanishing from this elevation. People said beetles were to blame, and he guessed maybe that was so. He fixed cars; what he didn’t know about bugs would fill an encyclopedia. He didn’t like it when they bit him or got into his house, but that was about the sum of his insect wisdom.

  What he did know was elk, or wapiti, which meant “pale butt” or something like that. White rump, that was it. A nice six-pointer decorated the wall of his living room, and he had room for another. He was hoping for a 7x7 this time, but he’d take what he could get. The .338 Winchester Magnum rounds loaded into his Remington would stop any bull elk he could draw a bead on.

  The summer had been hot and dry. There had only been one decent snowfall since, and on this mid-autumn day there were only remnants of snow, a few frozen patches on the north side of boulders or ridges where the sun never reached. Mike tromped across earth strewn with discolored needles and up a steep rise. At the top he paused for a moment, catching his breath and taking in the view, searching for the fleeting movement that would indicate his target.

  The trouble with tracking elk was that every sense they had was stronger than his. They could see him at a greater distance, smell him. He didn’t worry too much about them hearing him, because elk in the wild were not the quietest creatures themselves. But he tried to move slowly and carefully, sticking close to the tree line, and he had put on scent control to neutralize his odor.

  As Mike’s gaze drifted down he saw antlers, tawny fur, and the familiar pale yellow behind of an elk. But he also saw white and red—jutting bone and spilled blood—staining the dirt and the fallen pine needles. Something had beaten him to his prize. He drifted closer, Remington at the ready with his finger resting lightly on its trigger guard.

  The big animal—the seven-pointer he had hoped for, in fact—had been ripped open at the haunch and up the belly. A strip of skin, meat gnawed from it, flapped to one side like the canvas flap of a tent opening. The organs were gone. Tufts of fur were scattered around the carcass, blown about by the breeze or scattered by whatever predator had done this.

  If he didn’t know better, he would have thought wolves had taken the elk down. But this was Colorado, and Colorado didn’t have wolves. He squatted beside the gory mess, breathing through his mouth but still catching the musky, sour-sweet aroma. Fat flies buzzed about the thing. He put a hand on its still side. Not yet cold.

  Silver Gap was in Larimer County, close to the Jackson County line. He might even have crossed over that line, on the hunt. Both counties abutted Wyoming, where gray wolves had been reestablished. There, and in Montana and Idaho, damn enviro-libs had practically put out bowls of Alpo, inviting wolves down from Canada to predate livestock and game animals.

  Coyotes wouldn’t have brought down such a magnificent beast. And there were no wild dog packs in these mountains that he had heard about. No, it had to be wolves. He rose and walked around the carcass, finding paw prints in the blood. That wedge-shaped rear pad and four clawed toes. Definitely doglike.

  Mike swore and spat into the dirt. Wolves. Shit.

  They had stolen his prize, and they would pay for it. Wolves had been expelled from Colorado decades ago. If he had his way, he would eliminate them again.

  He started following those tracks. Six or seven different animals, he thought, but they were all on top of each other so it was hard to be certain. After a while, he wondered why they had left the elk behind with so much uneaten. Crossing a slender axe-edge of a valley and starting up the far slope, he remembered something he had read in Field & Stream—along with TV Guide, th
e only magazine to which he gave any credence at all. Wolves, it had said, would eat until they were full, and if they had not finished consuming their prey they would go someplace nearby to rest, then return to the prize later. But they wouldn’t go far, and they rarely left a meal altogether until they had exhausted the supply of meat.

  Sweat tickled his upper lip and streaked down his sides.

  They might be nearby. Watching him right now, even.

  Hunting wolves was one thing. But if they were hunting him?

  Something else altogether.

  A shadow crossed the sun at the top of the ridge. Mike scanned, but didn’t see anything. It could have been the wind blowing tree branches in front of the sun, except the pines on that ridge, like many around here, had been stripped of needles, their branches bare.

  He heard something off to his left, a sharp intake of breath. Like a sniff.

  Then he saw the first dark, furry muzzle. Yellow eyes gleamed in the sunlight. Lips peeled back to expose huge, sharp fangs.

  He raised the Remington to his shoulder, aimed quickly, and fired. The round went way wide. He tried to rein in growing panic and fired again, but his hands betrayed him. They were shaking, and he couldn’t slow down his heartbeat or hear anything but blood rushing in his ears. He snapped off a third round—or was it? One in the chamber, three in the magazine. Had he already fired one or two? He couldn’t remember.

  There were more of them now, coming toward him from different directions. He couldn’t shoot them all.

  He hurled the rifle at the nearest one. It spun in the air and missed by more than a foot. He turned and started to run.

  That was the worst thing he could have done.

  2

  Charles Durbin took a last look at the lobby of the Mountain High Lodge. “Lodge” was an over-inflated word for a motel, but he had tried to maintain a traditional western lodge atmosphere in the lobby, with mounted animal heads and high ceilings with huge wooden beams from which antler chandeliers were hung. The stone fireplace usually had a fire roaring in it, but it was cold now, its ashes swept up. The knotty pine floors were mostly free of the heavy wood-and-leather furniture that had once occupied them. Most of that was piled in a back corner, along with rolled-up Indian rugs. He’d thrown tarps over it all to keep the dust off. In a couple of weeks a dealer from Fort Collins would be up, and Charles hoped he would buy the whole lot. He’d had no takers for the lodge, though. He had inherited it from his parents, had grown up in it, and now he had driven it into the ground.

  He had tried everything, but in the end, the place was doomed because Silver Gap was not one of Colorado’s major winter or summer recreation hotspots. There had been some good cross-country skiing in the area, a few popular snowmobiling spots, and hunting and hiking were always in style. But since the economy had turned sour people vacationed closer to home, or they stuck to the tried and true: Aspen and Vail, Denver and Colorado Springs. The condition of the forest hadn’t helped; nobody wanted to spend time in a wooded wonderland that looked like it had been ravaged by fire.

  After the second deathly slow summer in a row, swimming in red ink, he gave up. To keep the place open would use up every last bit of savings he and Clara had, driving them deeper into debt. As much as he despised the idea, which felt like a betrayal of both his family legacy and his convictions, he had accepted a job at one of the national motel chains, down in Fort Collins.

  Clara was waiting in the car, too upset by the reality of leaving Silver Gap to accompany Charles on this final walk-through. Maybe if she had been bringing in another income they could have stuck it out another year. Instead, whenever she wasn’t needed at the lodge, she had volunteered at Reverend Gil Calderon’s Chapel in the Woods. She enjoyed the work, liked the church and its parishioners. But though it might have brought her spiritual comfort, instead of bringing in money, she actually spent it on the church.

  They needed to get on the road. It was a couple of hours to Fort Collins, and the sun was already sinking. The winding mountain road below Silver Gap could be treacherous at the best of times, even for locals who drove it often. It was even worse at night, when you never knew if a deer or elk or bear might wander onto the pavement.

  He switched off the overhead light, plunging the lobby into darkness. Stepping outside, he noticed that the hinges were squeaking, and thought about the can of WD-40 in his maintenance closet. But he stopped himself with a grim smile—not my problem anymore—and pushed his key into the lock. The Vacancy/No Vacancy sign that had always kept the parking lot bathed in buzzing pink light was silent, its glow extinguished.

  He heard a vehicle rushing up the road. Somebody’s pickup truck, probably, heading home after a run into the city or a hunting trip. It would race past, as they always did. Likely never notice that the lodge’s lights were off. Charles paused in the gravel lot. He could barely see Clara, sitting in the passenger seat of their Buick, but from the angle of her jaw and the way her hands were raised to her face, he suspected she was still weeping.

  Those hours into Fort Collins would be long ones.

  Instead of rushing by, though, the vehicle turned into the parking lot. Low-beams washed across the Buick and Clara looked up, eyes wide. A Lexus SUV bounced over that bump at the lot’s edge that Charles had always meant to grade, and spat gravel as it came to a halt, pinning Charles in its headlights.

  The driver’s door opened and a man climbed out. A couple of other people waited inside. The man was handsome. Early forties, Charles guessed, but with a five-year margin of error in either direction. Deep crags joined the edges of his nose with his lips, and shallower ones edged the corners of his eyes. Longish, light brown hair splayed out from beneath a dark blue ball cap with a leather bill. He was trim, bundled up in a bulky leather coat and gloves, dark jeans, and hiking boots. “Excuse me,” he said. “Is this place open? Looks kind of quiet.”

  “Not anymore,” Charles said.

  The guy looked at him, confusion showing on his face. He wasn’t a big man, maybe five-nine, but he looked sturdy enough. He offered a kind of half-smile. “Not open anymore, you mean? As of when?”

  “About ten minutes ago.”

  “I’m sorry, I’m a little…are you the manager?”

  “Manager, owner, head janitor, you name it.”

  “And you’re closed?”

  “That’s right. Out of business, I’m sorry.”

  “Is there any place else in town to get some rooms?”

  “In Silver Gap? No, sir. Might be able to find something over in Walden.”

  The guy peeled off his cap and scratched his head. “Man, I don’t want to go that far. You say you own the place?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Well, I don’t know anything about your business, but since you’re standing here and all, what if I offered to rent all your rooms at whatever the going rate is, for say, two weeks? Would that make a difference?”

  “All the rooms? How many people are coming?”

  The guy jerked his thumb toward the SUV. “There’s three of us. And some equipment.”

  “Then why do you need all the rooms?”

  “I don’t. I just want it to be worth your while to let us stay in a couple of them, and, you know, clean the bathtubs, change the sheets, that kind of thing.”

  Charles considered this for a moment. Clara watched intently from the Buick. She longed to stay in Silver Gap, a longing so fierce it scared him sometimes, so he knew what her answer would be. Charles, though, had different concerns. He had accepted a job. He was supposed to start in three days. If he didn’t show up, he would forfeit that. Renting every room for a couple of weeks would put some money in the bank, though, maybe keep them solvent until winter. A good snowfall might bring out the snowmobile crowd. He had not yet had the utilities shut off, so it wouldn’t cost much to reopen. With only three guests, he and Clara could staff the place themselves.

  Another thought struck him. “What kind of equipment are we
talking about?”

  “Some film gear.”

  “You’re making a movie?”

  “A documentary, yeah.”

  “About Silver Gap?”

  “About global warming. Climate change.”

  Charles tried to do some quick mental gymnastics. Global warming was bullshit, but money in the bank was not. And there might be publicity value in having a filmmaker stay at the lodge. Publicity could be good for long-term business. Maybe he wouldn’t have to go to work for some faceless bureaucracy. His gaze swept between the man and the expensive SUV.

  “I guess maybe I could open up again for that,” he said. Playing it cool. “There’d be some start-up costs to get everything back up and running, of course.”

  “Would an up-front grand cover it?”

  Charles tried not to grin. “That’d probably do.”

  The guy stepped forward, peeled off his gloves and offered his right hand. Charles took it. The handshake was firm, but the hand lacked the callus of most people he knew. “Alex Converse,” the man said. “Thanks for doing this.”

  “I’m Charles Durbin.” Charles nodded toward the Buick. “That’s Clara. Welcome to Silver Gap, Mr. Converse.”

  Alex Converse returned to the Lexus. Charles beckoned to Clara and unlocked the front door, flipping the switch up again. Light from the antler chandeliers flooded the lobby. He passed through to the office, where the first thing he did was trip the No Vacancy switch, sparking a jittery buzz directly outside the window. Once again, a pink glow filled the parking lot. When he looked out, he saw Clara hurrying toward the door wearing a huge smile.

  The next thing Charles did was call the home of Alden Stewart, Silver Gap’s mayor. Alden answered on the second ring.

  “Alden, it’s Charles Durbin.”

  “Hey, Charles, what’s up? I thought you’d be on your way by now.”