by Sarah Hall
At a small clearing, she stops again. The light is thin and pouring away fast. She turns and looks behind. A smirr of shadow. Bark the colour of grey and white fur. Nothing is there. It is better not to allow the imagination liberty, she knows; twilight senses will assist with any lurking conceit. She’s not in any real danger. That is to say, the risks are very low. She adjusts the receiver’s antenna, but she is on borrowed time. The forest is extinguishing itself all around her.
You OK? she asks Charlie, and strokes his hair again.
He mumbles something, shifts a fraction.
Me too, she says. Time to go back, I think.
She follows the path back through the trees. Dusk, the time of border patrols. She half expects to hear them somewhere close in the forest – a declarative chorus, in minor key, sounding the new territory, but there is just the great, imperfect silence of the trees. She is not lost, but when she encounters a piece of fence with an old checked shirt attached to the wire, looming like a man, her heart lurches. She stumbles a little and gasps. She is in a different part of the woods. Shit, she thinks, this is stupid; this is reckless. She takes her bearings again, starts forward, walking as quickly as she can without tripping. Can she hear voices? Men talking? It is then she begins to panic a little; not because of the dark or the wolves, but because there might be humans – and they are far more likely to do her, and the baby, harm. She is just a moving shape. A hunter might mistake her for something else.
She breaks onto the road a few hundred yards short of the car and walks up the track, a little breathless, relieved.
Look, Charlie, she says. We’re back. We made it.
Speaking more to sedate her own nerves than to calm the baby. A new moon hangs above the forest. Despite the modern shine of the paintwork, the car looks as if it has been parked in this place forever. An artifact or caravan left stranded in the Galt by some older tribe. She opens the boot and puts the aluminium case inside. She takes out a bundle of blankets. It is not very cold and she has slept in far less comfortable places.
Home sweet home, she says to Charlie. What shall we do now? Have some milk? Read a story?
She changes him again by the light of the open car door – there are three clean nappies in the supply bag. She talks to him, tells him the plan, trying to convince herself at the same time.
We’re going to camp. We’re going to snuggle up and have a nice time. You’ll see Uncle Lawrence tomorrow.
He resists being put in the car seat again, so she sits with him on her lap on the back seat, telling the same stories from the two books in the baby bag, over and over until he is asleep. She sits for a while thinking, then sleeps, upright, leaning against the door, with Charlie in the crook of her body – the rough, musty blankets drawn around them both. Outside, uniform blackness, the moon has gone and there are no stars. At 10 p.m. – which feels like the middle of the night – her phone flashes. Reception enough that a series of texts have arrived. Several more from Huib and Thomas. One from her brother, saying, No problem. Tell me where to be and when. One from Alexander: Saw on the news. Hope you catch them.
Dawn wakes her, cold legs, and stiffness through her back. The car is cool inside and the door moulding feels damp with condensation, but against her side Charlie is a little engine of heat. The windows have misted with their breathing; she wipes the nearest one, looks out at the misty citrine light filtering through the woods. Small flocks of birds break above the canopy and disperse. She reaches onto the parcel shelf for the handheld tracker and switches it on. The battery is on half charge. There’s no signal. She switches to Ra’s frequency, but it’s the same. They have moved on.
She slides carefully from underneath Charlie, inch by inch, as if he’s a bomb she doesn’t want to detonate, and lays him flat on the back seat in the blankets. He stirs but doesn’t wake. Several times in the night he came round, confused, and she had to coax him to slumber again. She opens the car door quietly and gets out, stretches, walks about. The air feels newly laundered, fresh and green. She eats a banana, walks about to find reception, and calls the police number on the card given to her by Sergeant Armstrong, asks to be put through to the officer manning the enquiry. There have been no more reported sightings.
She opens the OS map fully and lays it flat on the dewy ground, charts the position from Annerdale to the point in the Galt where the signal was strongest, then continues the trajectory on into farmland and the hills beyond. Their tendency to travel in straight lines might help her to find them. There are few settlements on the other side of the Galt, mostly small lanes and B roads, until the A66, and the town of Cockermouth. After that, they will have to traverse Bassenthwaite and the North Western Fells. The rural tracts between towns will suit them, might give them cover. They will continue through Greystoke and Hutton, towards the border and Carlisle, the county’s only city. At the Solway Firth, they would be forced to follow the estuary inland and cross by road, where the water narrows, or perhaps at a shallow swim. Then, Scotland.
She plots a route on the closest roads, waits again for the wandering phone reception, and texts Lawrence, gives him a rendezvous point to meet and pick up Charlie. He is already up and texts back. There in one hour. It’s an ambitious timescale, almost heroic; if he makes it, he will not have observed the speed limit.
She hears Charlie murmuring sleepily and lifts him out of the car, hugs him, and talks quietly to him. He is clingy in the morning these days. She wipes his crusty nose, gives him some formula, and changes him. She walks him around for a few minutes – he is still unsure on his feet, likes to make stumbling rushes towards her, then collapse into her arms. She tries not to hurry him – she will need cooperation for the ordeal of the car seat. They examine some notable things on the verge – curling bracken, a puffball, which she sets smoking with her foot, some spindling toadstools.
After ten minutes, they set off along the bumpy forestry road. It’s a brilliant October day, with a flawless sky. The summit of Galt Fell rises behind her, the north face of its crags dark and fissured. Charlie begins an invented song; a tuneless string of noise with emphatic peaks and murmuring rests. He’s in a good mood; he likes travelling. He reminds her of Kyle that way. She begins to feel hopeful. Perhaps it will all work out. She keeps the receiver next to her on the passenger seat. The ruts begin to even out, and she picks up speed. At the forestry commission gate there’s an official warning sign set up – Danger, Please Do Not Enter. Too late, she thinks.
The car breaks free of the trees; she turns onto the road and heads into rolling pastureland, a stretch of fallow fields surrounded by drystone walls. The receiver begins to sound. She notes the coordinates. She keeps checking the map, follows a series of single lanes, lonnings that all look the same, webbed with brambles on either side. As she passes a gate, she notices three horses gathered in the corner of a field. She stops and reverses, looks through the wooden bars. The creatures are visibly upset. Their heads nod up and down, and they push against each other and vie for wall space. One rears up, a white crescent cupping its dark eye. Something has spooked them, and not long ago. She dials Sergeant Armstrong’s number, but does not get through, then drives on. When her phone rings, she pulls over.
Morning, Rachel. I was on the other line. Where are you?
Near Priest’s Mill. I think I might be close to them. We need to think about getting them back to the estate, if I can dart them. The sedative lasts about two hours.
OK. Listen. We just had a call from a farmer at Mire Hall Farm. He said one of his dogs was going crazy this morning, barking and growling. When he went out to investigate, he saw one of the wolves in the field where his sheep are.
There’s a pause.
And?
Her mood of levity begins to fade. She knows what’s coming. Charlie is burbling louder, singing away, fighting for her attention now that she is on the phone.
Hush, hush, darling, she says, over her shoulder.
I’m afraid he fired a shot off, S
ergeant Armstrong says.
What?
He fired at it.
Did he kill it? she asks.
Well, he says it’s not in the field any more. He thought he hit it. How he described it is: its back end sort of dropped to the ground, but then it ran off.
Bastard, she thinks. Not even a clean shot. She wonders which is the unfortunate one: possibly a juvenile opportunistically trying its luck with the flock.
Any other information? Size? Markings?
No. I’m sorry. The farm is about four miles from Priest’s Mill. Are you near there now?
I think so. Mire Hall, you said?
Yes. The farmer’s name is Jim Corrigan. We’re sending someone out, but I thought you’d want to know. We’ve told him not to go looking for it, in case it’s injured.
Good. I’ll go there now.
She hangs up, grips the wheel tightly for a moment. Charlie is still burbling; she looks at him in the rear-view mirror. She checks the signals from Merle and Ra’s transmitters – they are still in the area, have not moved far. She won’t know whether it’s one of them until she finds the pack, or a body.
Mama, Charlie says.
Yes.
Mama.
Yes.
She tries to think positively; nothing has been confirmed yet. The dropped rear might have been a cowering flinch, a reaction to the noise of the shotgun. She checks the map, finds the farm, turns the car round in the next gateway, and sets off. She stops again almost immediately and calls Alexander. It’s still early – the conference in Belfast will not have begun yet. He picks up straight away; everyone, it seems, is on standby. Briefly, she fills him in.
I haven’t got the means, she says, if it’s badly hurt. I’ve only got the dart case.
I know someone in practice round there, he tells her. I’ll call and let her know what’s happening. She’s good; she’ll take care of it. Are you OK, Rachel? Are you out there by yourself?
Yeah. I’m OK, just pissed off.
Have you spoken to Thomas? Sounds like you could use some help.
Not yet.
Maybe call him.
I will.
Charlie, who has been fussing for the last few minutes at her inattention, begins to wail.
Is that Charlie?
Yes. Lawrence is on his way to get him, though. I’ve got to go.
OK, he says. Let me know how it pans out. I’ll call Justine and give her your number. Rachel, don’t do anything crazy.
Like?
Just take care.
She finds the farm: a dirty whitewashed building in a courtyard of dilapidated barns and asbestos sheds. A dog is barking inside one of the bothies. Slurry and spilt straw on the cobbles as she pulls up. She half expects to see the wolf strung from a hook, but there are only farm vehicles, a rusting tractor and ancient threshing machines, an agricultural reliquary. A scruffy herd of sheep is penned inside a wooden enclosure – their fleeces trail, in need of shearing. In the window of the farmhouse is an anti-Europe poster, left over from the by-election. She leaves Charlie in the car, which he is not happy about, writhing and shouting, and knocks on the front door. She tries to dismiss her preconceptions, but the man who answers is latch-faced, suspicious, and rude, an old-school Cumbrian belligerent. At first he does not believe her – she is not the police, and he is expecting the police. How does she know about the wolf? Is she a reporter? She tells him again who she is and who she works for, that she is here to track and recapture the pack. He tuts, and frowns. She asks which direction the one in the field headed. He points to a nearby copse, standing half a mile away on the horizon.
Up there. They say not to go. Fucking thing was in on my ewes. Had one of them dangling by the neck. You should see the state of it.
Where is it? she asks. Do you want to show me?
It’s in the range, he says, it’s been incinerated.
Of course it has, she thinks. She holds her tongue, nods. He is angry, aggrieved. He also seems pleased. But then, he has shot an escaped wolf. He will dine out on the fact for years, retelling the story in the pub for a free pint.
Are you a reporter? he asks again.
No. I’m not.
She makes her way back to the car. Charlie is howling; his eyes screwed tightly shut and streaming wet, his fists clenched, furious at being abandoned. She opens the back door, and the wail escapes, ringing all round the courtyard. She hushes him, but does not release him from the car seat. The man is watching from the farm doorway, scowling – a crying baby in her possession, sinister proof that she is not who she says she is.
They said not to go up there, he calls. It’s a big fucker.
She gets into the driver’s seat and pulls away up the slippery cobbles. The petrol light has come on – less than a quarter of a tank. She heads towards the copse, finds a gateway clearing a few hundred yards from the farm, and parks the Saab. She gets Charlie out, soothes him, puts him in the last clean nappy – he is developing a rash – gives him some soft fruit and a jar of baby food. He struggles a little as she attaches him in the papoose. He is reaching the end of his tether, needs to get back to normality or there will be a huge meltdown, but she cannot let the creature suffer, if it is suffering. She takes the dart case out of the boot, and her binoculars, checks the handheld receiver, climbs the stile into the field, and walks towards the copse. The signal is strong. They are within close range, perhaps hesitating over the wounded member of the pack. If the bullet is in the hind area, the animal might have limped a mile or two, at best, and she will have to crisscross the fields and woods to find it, or get back in the car and wait for the police searchers. There’s a slim chance that it could be darted, taken to the local vet, and saved, but she doubts it. If it has been hit anywhere critical, it’ll be lucky to have come further than the top of the paddock. She makes her way uphill, scanning the area. The grass is empty, rutted and hummocked here and there, lost whorls of dirty wool caught on stalks. Charlie swings his legs, more content to be on the move and outside again, but it will not last.
The copse is sparse; once part of the greater Galt Forest, now a denuded cluster of trees, an island stranded in farmland. In the treetops, a few solicitous black crows caw, hopping down the branches, cautiously, peering below, then hopping back up again. It’s here, she thinks. She checks the receiver again. The signal is still strong – they are very close, unseen. She moves carefully, searching for tracks in the softer earth. Single paw prints, a spattering of dark blood. She turns and looks back at the farm, which is clearly visible: a huddle of pens, low chimneys, and a bowed roof. Jim Corrigan will have watched the animal’s departure, might even have fired more shots as it took off, just to be sure.
She begins to circle the copse, keeping back a reasonable distance, trying to separate the undergrowth from a camouflaged body. She makes a full circuit of the trees, moves in closer, and begins again. She sees it, thirty feet away. It is lying on its side, unmoving, head tucked down, legs straight and stiff. The paler of the male juveniles; its ruff is indistinguishable against the pale birches. It looks dead. It has only just made cover, will have limped painfully to a spot where it might be hidden.
She retreats a few paces, kneels, and sets down the aluminium case. She lifts Charlie out of the papoose and puts him in a deep swale of grass, facing back down the hill towards the forest.
Look at the pretty colours, she says. So pretty. Red and yellow and orange.
But he looks all around, at the field, at her.
Mama.
Yes.
Mama.
Yes.
She gives him another piece of fruit. While he is distracted, she steps back over to the case, opens it, and loads the gun with a dart. She picks up the case and approaches the wolf, glancing back at Charlie. She inhales, exhales, thinks of her instructions to the Chief Joseph volunteers every year. Do everything calmly, do everything confidently. The animal does not lift its head or stir, but its side moves very slightly, up and down, still bre
athing. She turns to look at Charlie again and to scan the vicinity. Only the top of his head is visible, a burr of black hair in the depression. He is secluded by the grass, like a leveret inside a form.
She continues towards the animal. There’s not much blood on the ground, but the honey fur is stained along the torso and back legs. The trauma is to the side of the lower abdomen, likely always fatal – there’s no time to save it, or call Alexander’s colleague; even fresh, the best surgeon would have struggled. There are tread marks in the earth around the animal and flattened grass; it has been turning, probably licking itself, trying to bite out whatever is lodged. She leans over the body. The eye is open, pale and bright in the sunlight, the pupil a small dark point. The jaw is slack, the black pleats drawn back over its teeth. Just enough life left to growl – its eye rolls a fraction, the muzzle ripples upward, but it can do nothing more. She aims and fires a dart. The muscle barely flinches as it hits. She fits another dart and fires again. The drug will only hasten what is inevitable, and it is perhaps a waste, but she will not leave the animal like this. The eye closes to a black slit.
She squats down, looks properly. The coat is blended and tawny, thickening for winter. It’s better that he remained unnamed, she thinks, though the loss is the same with or without. She puts her hand on the warm head, moves it down the body, parts the matted fur to find the red os of the entry wound. The feeling isn’t anger, just disgust. It is a pointless waste. She takes her phone from her back pocket, and switches to the camera setting. She will leave it to the police to remove the corpse, but the image might go to work for them now and help the others, horrible and unnecessary as the death is.
The crows clamour above her. She is invading. They have guarded the prize and want it back. From the paddock she hears a thin wail. She rights herself and walks towards Charlie. He is standing up in the hollow looking at the copse, his head and shoulder unburrowed. He is trying to climb out but the sides are too steep, and he cannot get traction. For a second she expects to see Merle appear behind him, pick him up, the straps of his dungarees clasped between her teeth, and carry him off, her abandoned, beloved son. The vision is so clear that she almost panics, almost shouts. His cries carry across the field. The pasture is empty. The sky is enormous above him. The wolves are watching or have already gone. She walks quickly to him, saying his name, telling him she is coming, everything is OK. It’s OK, it’s OK. She kneels at the edge of the hollow and takes the packet of baby wipes out of the papoose pocket and cleans the blood off her hands. Then she lifts him up and kisses him, holds him tightly. He won’t remember this, she thinks. He won’t think it really happened.
