The Wolf Border

by Sarah Hall

  The following day Kyle makes an appointment to visit the executives of the tribal council – a courtesy call. The arrangement is not under threat. Hikers will be steered away where possible and the territorial section of land will remain undeveloped. The Nez Perce have sponsored the project since its inception, before hunting bans and their reversals. It is a relatively small affair for the elders to consider – the Reservation’s campaigns and lawsuits are wide and more complicated than species, involving ideologies, citizens versus sovereign nations, and Supreme Court interpretation. The Chief Joseph pack is safe, if only on host land. Meanwhile, photographs have been posted on an Idaho hunting site, of a wolf in a steel foot trap. Not one of theirs, but disheartening nevertheless. The circumference of pink, limped-over snow is sickening. They study the shot. Kyle shakes his head.

  Ah, buddy, he says.

  Rachel cannot help feeling depressed. Just for a moment she wonders about putting her head against his shoulder. Would it be such a terrible thing? It would, she knows. She feels unusually low, vulnerable. She wishes the bug in her system would just materialise and lay her out fully. The memory of that night is like a fever; it is passing, but there are vivid flashes. His grip across her neck. The rawness. She attempts a joke, about whose turn it is to refill the office coffee pot – who is the wife? He does not respond to the banter as he ordinarily would, but fixes her with a look, patient, undefended. And it is this that convinces her there is something more, something very real underneath the silence. The unspeakable is always louder than declaration.

  True panic comes only days later, while looking in the bathroom cupboard at the unused tampon box. How many weeks have passed? There was a little bit of blood maybe; she has sore breasts. She picks up her keys and walks out to the truck in her T-shirt, her trainers unlaced, impervious to the chill, zombie-like. She drives to town, to the all-night pharmacy, does not even wait to get home before opening the packet and doing the test, but squats at the side of the road like a destitute. Positive.

  She drives back to the Reservation, pulls off the road, sits in the pick-up, and stares ahead.

  Now every rule is broken. Her programming is that of the serialist, she knows it, and that’s fine. Romance fails because it is never supposed to work, past the act itself, the momentum of lust. She was raised by an expert. Binny was practically Roman in her operations: arriving in the village, taking the spoils, then razing everything to the ground. Through the walls of the post office cottage Rachel could sometimes hear the sound of male weeping, a sound exotic and horrendous. And her mother’s vexed responses. Buck up, man, there was never anything to it. Go back home to her. How desperately they tried to convince her of love.

  The next day she calls her doctor’s office, then calls her insurance company, but there is no additional rider to her policy; she is not covered, and there is no life endangerment. She’ll have to find a doctor and pay for it herself, after state-directed counselling and a wait period. She is furious with herself. A baby! It seems impossible. It is the worst possible scenario, the worst of all failures. Not even a stranger, but her best friend, her colleague, whom she must face every day. In the storm of it all, she does not consider that for years they have been together, companions, lovers of sorts, mutually obsessed with the family under their care – with their feeding, their nurture, their scat, the routes along which they travel – as if parents already.

  *

  It is mid-February when she calls the estate office and asks to speak to Thomas Pennington. Honor Clark puts her through. The line is bad, the sound of an engine, he is in transit, on board a plane perhaps. If the position is still open, she will take it.

  Yes, yes, he says. Wonderful, Rachel, I’m so glad you are joining us. Honor will get a press release together immediately.

  As if she is some kind of celebrity. She does not ask about salary, or for any contractual details. She writes a formal letter of resignation, though to whom can it be sent? She is project manager; the Chief Joseph Trust is a cooperative entity. Kyle will run the project solo, until a replacement can be found at a later date. Almost ten years of her life; it is no small commitment. In the end it’s more difficult to break the news to Kyle than she had expected, but he hears it almost as he would an expected weather forecast.

  Yeah, fair enough. That’s about right.

  They are sitting on his deck, drinking beer and wearing heavy coats against the cool wet mist. Mist drifts between the trees, conveying the fetid, arable smell of the paper mill downriver. He laughs.

  Off to live in a castle. Well, we can’t compete with that.

  Hardly. Anyway, I won’t be living at the hall. Just somewhere on the estate, I think.

  On the estate!

  She does not apologise for leaving, or offer any explanation, and he does not ask her why. He goes to get another beer, uncaps it, holds it to his lips.

  I’m going to grill some steak. Want some?

  OK.

  Over the food, they talk about the same old things. Perhaps he is a little quieter than usual. Later that evening she books a one-way flight. Two weeks, then she will be gone.

  News from the northern partners is that the pack has reunited and is coming south. She hopes she’ll see them before she goes. The workers track their progress towards the Reservation. They arrive a few days before Rachel’s flight. The yearlings have all survived. There’s the glinting of eyes on the night camera, the writhe and scramble of black bodies near the earth walls. The breeding pair, Tungsten and Moll, are sleeping close together. He is attentive, licking her muzzle. Good signs for a new litter. The centre prepares for spring visitors and Rachel packs up her cabin. There’s not much to box. Meanwhile, some breathtaking aerial footage is sent down from Canada, which Oran uploads onto the website. The pack is on the frozen edge of a lake, waiting in formation for a cornered grizzly bear and its cub to come out of the water. Tungsten and Moll flank, their tails lowered, inching forward, the others are lined up like guards, like a firing squad. The bear cub flails around and its mother roars at the hunters, but they do not retreat. The pilot circles back over the scene, saying, Holy shit, Andy, are you getting this; and the co-pilot, filming, replies, Yeah, is that even possible? Within twenty-four hours it has 20,000 viewings.

  Rachel watches the clip again and again in the office. Over the years she has learnt never to be complacent, that they are capable of extreme feats, but the manoeuvre is astonishing: their audacity, their strategy. The aircraft circles twice more, then pulls up and continues on its course. Whether the kill was made, she will never know. But, watching the footage, the decision to leave Chief Joseph suddenly feels easier. They are matchless predators; they exist supremely, she is irrelevant to them.

  There’s a small, low-key leaving party. Two of the tribal elders attend and some friends from the Reservation. They drink punch from plastic beakers, barbecue. It has been a warm day; it’s a warm evening. There are no speeches. When pressed, Rachel stands up and thanks everyone. They give her a tourist sachet of wolf hair, with Cat Repellent written on it, and a Kwakwaka’wakw carving of a she-wolf by one of the local artists. The woodwork is beautiful, a fecund representation, the muzzle elongated and stylised. There are many teats beneath her belly and the shell eye glimmers. No one knows her condition, but she wonders for a moment – have they guessed? She is moved, uncomfortable in her skin, and excuses herself to fetch more beer.

  On the day she is due to leave, Kyle takes her to the airport. She does not have much luggage. Her books are being sent via freight. Her employment documentation will be surrendered to the embassy at a later date, if she doesn’t come back.

  I might come back, she says. Who knows.

  Well, we aren’t going anywhere, Kyle says. Unless they come fracking for oil.

  They drive in companionable quiet most of the way. From time to time she glances at him. When they speak it is about the pack. He pulls into the airport parking lot.

  Thanks a million, she says.
>
  She does not want him to come inside with her. There’s no point, he’ll just be hanging about, and, finally, there might need to be acknowledgement of their actions. The information she is living with is too sensitive – better to cut and run. He parks, turns off the engine, opens the door.

  Come on, he says. Let’s do this properly.

  Do what?

  Rachel. Don’t be a hard-ass.

  OK.

  They print her ticket from the machine in the terminal. She checks her bags. Through the window they watch the plane landing from Pullman, steering down, nose pulling up at the last moment, a burst of smoke from the tyres as it touches down. She turns to him, looks at him properly – for the first time in weeks, it seems. His hair is very long again; he hates having it cut. Dark eyes. He is attractive.

  You will keep me up to speed about them, won’t you?

  Yeah, of course.

  The plane taxis up. The propellers are cut. The ground crew wheel the steps up; passengers dismount and filter into the terminal building. The stewardess begins to take and tear in half the boarding passes of the outbound.

  Well, he says.

  He takes hold of her waist gently, with both hands. She flinches, draws her stomach in, though it is too early to be rounded, blushes, is both annoyed and upset. Please don’t, she thinks. He doesn’t try to kiss her, just smiles.

  Get on home now, crazy lady.

  Let me know about them, she says.

  Sure.

  He releases her. He turns and walks through the terminal and out of the building. She steps up to the gate. The stewardess tears her boarding pass, tells her to have a good flight. She walks down the short corridor, past the sign that says, Thank You for Visiting Nez Perce Idaho, and out onto the tarmac.

  EVERYTHING TENDS TOWARDS IRON

  Seldom Seen Cottage feels suitably abandoned when she arrives. The taxi drops her off and reverses back down the unmade track. The key has been left in the front door, trustingly. She unlocks it and walks inside. The building seems not to have been inhabited for quite some time – the prevailing smell is of stone, a graphite emptiness, and recent cleaning products. Like the island folly, it is built in the same pink sandstone, and is oddly romantic-looking under the trees – whimsical almost. Pennington Hall is a mile and a half away – far enough. She drops her bags in the hallway, walks from room to room. The interior has been painted white throughout. There are new white goods in the kitchen with labels stuck to their sides. New wooden sash windows – double-glazed. Nothing on the estate, it seems, is allowed to moulder and rot. She opens the back door. Even the garden has been cut: grass clippings and boughs left in tidy piles by the back fence. There are dark patches on the slates around the chimney where moss has been scraped up, stubs in the wall cracks around the doorway where vine has been stripped. The logs in the lean-to by the porch are yellow and freshly cut, enough to last all spring, and beyond.

  She goes back inside, opens cupboards and drawers. There are no souvenirs from previous tenants, trysting couples, or estate workers – no condom packets, lost shoes, or final bills. She walks into the sitting room. Something flutters up the chimney, dislodging a skitter of soot. A packet of paraffin firelighters and a stack of kindling have been left by the hearth. There’s a flat-screen television. The furniture is plain but quality. Stiff new curtains smelling faintly of chemicals. But there are no cushions, no welcome flowers in a vase on the table.

  The stairs are narrow, with a dog-leg halfway. Her bags scrape on the walls as she hefts them up. She dumps them in the larger of the two bedrooms, whose window overlooks a blossoming quince tree in the garden. Petrified globes of the previous year’s fruit hang under the whitish blossoms. There are towels folded on the bed and a voluptuous, airy duvet. More linen and bedding in the airing cupboard. In the bathroom next door, a lemony tang and lurid blue bleach spanning the toilet bowl. She sits on the bed and looks out. The quince’s leaves agitate in the wind. It seems too far north for such a tree, but the estate also has its forcing houses, an orangery, alongside the traditional meadows and the rose beds. A small grey bird is creeping up the trunk, pausing, creeping up again. An ersatz paradise, she thinks. The tree, the pink house, the dense, deciduous woods – she is the wrong woman for such a story. But it is too late. She will not stay long, she tells herself, just until she can find her own house. She will rent in one of the villages nearby, and commute. She has had enough of living and working in close proximity, in a closed community – there are no borders, no escapes. Meanwhile, she has the cottage, and use of a car, a newish Saab, parked at the side of the house, its key left on the kitchen table. A converted coach house in the estate’s complex will be available as the project hub. There are funds for one full-time assistant, whom Rachel will interview and select, a hugely competitive position. She stands, opens the catch on the bedroom window, slides the pane up, and sits back down. Home. The sheets are luxurious, hotel-like – a high thread count. It is undeniably an upgrade from Chief Joseph.

  The woods beyond the garden rustle and flicker; the branches mesh and lift gently. On the other side of the trees is the fence. The taxi driver had asked her about it on the way in, seeming to think it was some kind of science experiment, animal testing or the like. There have been protests already, gatherings at the estate gates. Individuals expressing concern, as it was described, somewhat evasively, by Honor Clark, when Rachel asked to be filled in. Such matters are never insignificant. She must press for more details, names. Annerdale is less than a tenth the size of the Reservation; any achievement here will be small scale, microcosmic, any hype misfounded. There will be trouble, she knows, because they are never without enemies, they are too successful a creature, too good at what they do. It will be up to her to convert suspicion and fear into something positive.

  The soft purring of a telephone downstairs – she had not even realised one was connected yet. She goes in search, finds it on the windowsill of the kitchen, and picks up hesitantly, as if she hasn’t the right.

  Hello?

  Rachel?

  It is Honor Clark, of course.

  Yes.

  Settled in alright, I hope? We’ve set you up.

  Yes, fine, thanks.

  Got everything you need?

  I think so.

  Excellent. Just to remind you, Thomas is hoping you’ll be able to join him and a few other guests for dinner this evening. A small welcome affair, but it would be useful for you to attend. Will that be convenient?

  It is less of a question than an expectation.

  Yes.

  Good.

  She wonders whether she will be summoned regularly to the big house, now that she is in situ, and biddable. The thought is unsettling. But this is her first night, after all.

  What sort of time?

  Seven for seven-thirty.

  I’ll see you then.

  There’s a pause.

  Thomas will look forward to it. I’ll be in touch again in the morning about the advertisement – we thought the Guardian, Times, National Geographic, the usual.

  She senses mild rebuke – a reminder of the separation of staff and employer, the strata of the estate. She will have to get to know the system. She will have to ascertain where she herself fits in, or doesn’t.

  OK, fine.

  Pop over when you’re up and about, let’s say nine?

  See you then.

  Rachel hangs up. Too late she wonders about dress code, then thinks to herself, No, there must be some limits, preservation of the ordinary. She is as she was the day before: the same person, charged with similar duties. Even here. She opens the refrigerator door. Inside is a bottle of fresh milk. She opens a cupboard. Gold-label tea bags, Illy coffee, sugar cubes. Set up, yes, and welcomed, but she has a distinct feeling that something may be forfeit.

  The thought of a formal dinner is not appealing. She would rather settle in, be by herself, and try the fireplace. And think. She has been not thinking, and has been making
a point of not thinking. She isn’t due at the Hall for a couple of hours – there’s time for a short walk first. The light is good outside: pale spring light, citrine. The cottage is near the lake, she knows, there were glimmers through the trees from the taxi window. She takes a cagoule from her bag and changes into boots. She locks the front door, though it seems unlikely anyone will attempt to break in, unlikely anyone will even pass by along the lane. A stray walker, maybe. A horseback-rider on the bridleway. She starts out along the track, which is rutted on the outside with deep tyre marks from the transit of large construction vehicles, then she cuts into the trees, walks through a beautiful stretch of old woodland. Buds and blossom; there’s a sweet, spermy fragrance in the air, a scent both exquisite and intolerable. The last few weeks she’s noticed a strange sensitivity to such things, aversions, smells that are nausea-inducing. For all that the business of pregnancy is interruptive and alarming, she cannot deny it has its interesting frontiers.

  All about her, the season is surprisingly lovely, unsettled and kinetic, then windless, held. The air is moist and downy. There are flashes of tropical colour on bare twigs. She does not remember Cumbria looking so exotic. The path disperses, broken up by surfacing roots. Moss and columbine. The boulders are occluded, starred with orange and yellow lichen. Ahead, through the low branches, she can see the lake water rustling with light. She breaks clear of the trees, walks along the shore, and sits on a flat rock at the edge of a shingle bay. The wooden island has no reflection today, but floats, like a mirage. She cannot see the folly from this angle. The river-mouth is nearby, rushing and spilling. She breathes in, exhales, tries to relax, to formulate a plan.

  Tomorrow she will register with a GP and make an appointment, get the process moving. There will be, at worst, a day or two’s inconvenience. She will buy groceries, stock the cupboards, then take one of the estate’s quad bikes and go into the enclosure. Perhaps she will even call Lawrence, try to sort that mess out. She must, of course, sort it out, though part of her, a faulted, habitual part, would let the aggravation fester, let the gap grow until it is too wide to bridge. She gets up and walks slowly along the lakeshore to the river, where the water is very clear. Fish glimmer in the shallows, dark gold, blunt-headed – trout. The wolves might go for them, once released, straddling the rocks and snapping them out – she’s seen them fish for salmon before. The rich protein in the brain is worth the wet paws, the patient vigil, and many misses. She wonders how things are at Chief Joseph. The same, no doubt, without her.