“Inti Flynn,” Duncan repeats. “What kind of a name is that?”
“Honestly, who knows.”
“Meaning?”
“I’ve got a Canadian father with an Irish name, and an Australian mother with an English name, I’ve got grandparents from Scotland and Ireland and France, and none of us has a clue where my first name is from.”
He smiles.
I clear my throat. “What about you then? A sturdy Scottish name for a sturdy Scottish laddie?”
“My family are as Scottish as they come and that’s what they’ve been for more generations than we can count.”
“That must be nice.”
Duncan shrugs.
“Do your parents live in town?”
“They did,” he says. “They’re dead now.”
It startles me, and I wish I hadn’t asked. “Why’d you want to talk to me?”
He shifts in his saddle. “I wanted to let you know we won’t be charging Red McRae.”
My mouth opens but no words spill free.
“We’ve got no evidence to contradict his word that he thought the animal was a stray dog, which is within his rights to shoot.”
Duncan replies to my silence. “I can’t prove anything different, Inti. If you’ve got some physical evidence you haven’t mentioned then please, come forward.” He pauses again, then adds, “I’ve got a community to think about. Charging Red for a mistake so soon after the wolves have been freed is just gonna disrupt my people further. I have to show them solidarity.”
I stare at Duncan, who will not look back at me. Some part of me must have thought this was a man with integrity, who would do his job without prejudice. More fool me: we’re alone out here.
“You could have told me back at base,” I say, flat. “Saved yourself a trip.”
“It’s occurred to me that it might serve me better to know a little more about what you’re doing out here.”
Like he did in the auditorium that night, he is surveying his land for threats. What it might serve me better to know is if he thinks the threat is the wolves, or if he believes it’s me.
* * *
According to Niels the den is twenty feet down the side of a steep forest gully. God knows how he managed to find it down there—he must have clambered all over this spot for days. We dismount and creep to the edge of the drop, searching for some sign of an opening. Six has done an excellent job of disguising her den. I can’t see anything among the underbrush, rocks, and fallen tree branches making a latticework of protection.
I uncoil a rope from the saddle of my horse and start looping it around a tree.
“What are you doing?”
“I have to see if she’s there or not before I make any decisions.”
“And if she is?”
Strapped to my back is the first tranquilizer rifle I brought, and I hand Duncan the second.
“The fuck’s this for?” he asks, and I realize he’s nervous. He is glancing back and forth, left and right.
“It’s not for anything, it’s just in case. I don’t think she’ll be here.”
This clearly doesn’t comfort him. I turn away so he doesn’t see me smile.
With the rope fastened around my waist I climb down over the lip of the gully, facing Duncan. Our eyes meet and then the ground divides us. It takes me some time and a lot of scratches to find the opening to the den. I am assuming I’ll find it empty. But this is stupid of me. Never assume anything with a wolf, she will always surprise you.
I catch sight of a dark crevice and there she is, two reflective golden eyes gazing out at me. I go still, watching her. Hello, girl. You came back.
I don’t want to tranq this wolf. Not after everything she’s been through. The stress could cause all kinds of problems for her; waking up back in her pen could be damaging. But I hate the thought of leaving her out here to die. That’s not a thing I could live with, not after Nine’s death, a death that maybe I could have prevented if I’d found a way to move him from the edge of Red’s farm. I knew he was in danger and I left him, and Niels is right to think me timid. If I tranq Six now, I can take her in, give her a shot of penicillin and vitamins, figure out if she’s actually pregnant or if it’s phantom, and then we can support her while she gives birth, feed her as she suckles her pups, let them free once more when the pups have grown enough to start learning the hunt. The shape of this plan takes place in my mind and I start to feel better about it.
I swing the lightweight air rifle off my back and carefully load one of the long cylindrical tranquilizer darts into its chamber. The dart has a furry red tip so we can find it easily, and because the Telazole drug we fill it with is highly dangerous for humans, there’s an antidote in my pack in case I accidentally prick myself and go into a coma.
“Can you throw me a torch?” I call to Duncan. “And the radio.”
Instead of throwing them down, he uses my rope to slide down the incline, awkward on his bad leg.
I radio Evan and tell him to get a transport crate out here as quickly as he can, and to bring Amelia so she can monitor Six’s vitals while we move her.
Duncan floods the crevice with a beam of light. I can make her out properly now, blinking against the brightness. She doesn’t move, except to lower her face a little. There is the line of her pale body, the dark of her eyes and muzzle. I move back to make space, and take aim at her front haunch. I need to hit a muscular, insensitive area so it doesn’t cause her pain. The lack of light makes it harder but being at close range helps; more often than not when you shoot from a distance the feathered dart moves so slowly—like a shuttlecock—that the animal is gone by the time it lands. I draw a deep breath, let my eyes fall shut, and squeeze the trigger. I don’t see the dart landing but I hear the faint fzzt sound.
We wait on high alert for the drug to take effect. There’s a chance it might have agitated her, and I don’t tell Duncan that she’s even more unpredictable in these long minutes. But she stays where she is to sleep, and I’m able to gently drag her free. A quick flash of the torch determines the cave to be empty. She is unconscious, she is her dead mate, the lolling of his head as we lifted him, the sack of bones he became. It is so visceral my hands recoil from her body.
“Inti?”
“Sorry.”
I check her pulse and find it strong, before turning my thoughts to getting her out of here. Clouds have begun to creep in; the sky turns darker. A storm is on the way. I’m about to climb back up for more ropes when I hear a sound, so faint it barely touches me. I go still, listening, but it doesn’t come again.
“Put your fingers here,” I instruct Duncan. “Time her pulse and if it starts to slow yell out to me.”
“I’m not touching that,” he says.
“She’s unconscious, Duncan.”
He shakes his head, but sighs as he edges closer and feels gingerly for the pulse.
I start climbing. And stop. It’s worrying at me, an uneasy feeling like I should check, just to be certain. That sound I’m sure I heard.
A fat drop of water splatters my cheek.
I slide back to crouch before the den. It’s dark within, and very small, so small I can’t believe Six fit in here. Unless the dark is deceptive. The torch reveals nothing; the cave looks empty. I’m not sure what I’m looking for except that the sound was … lost, almost, and animal, and—
There. Something shifts. Sighs.
I reach in as far as I can, scraping my arm until my fingertips brush soft. I know suddenly why she came back, even with Niels’s scent all over everything. As I pull free the tiny creature it gives an adorable mewling yelp. It gazes up at me, sweet and curious. A male, his downy fur an arctic shade of gray like his father’s, his eyes the darkest shade of cocoa. The inside of me gives way.
“Shit,” Duncan says. “What do we do now?”
The pup squirms in my arms, gives another squeaky yelp, and then settles. It’s cold out here with the rain beginning to fall, and I try to keep him shelte
red against my body. I laugh in astonishment. He can only be a few weeks old—Six and Nine must have conceived fast for their pups to be here already.
My mind races with the implications of this, trying to work out what to do. Niels’s comment is loud in my head. You’ve been timid. “There are more,” I say. “We’ll take them too.”
I pass the pup to Duncan, who holds him straight out like a football.
“Cradle him.”
Duncan reluctantly holds the pup to his chest, while I pull the rest of the pups free, passing them to him one by one. “Hang on,” he splutters, but I need my hands yet. The last is so deep in the den that I have to tear at rocks around its edges and just about dislocate my shoulder to reach it. She is the runt of the pack, smaller than the others, a female, and more white than gray, like her mother. She nuzzles into me and I am filled with tenderness.
“Six pups,” I say, turning back to Duncan, who is managing five squirming creatures in his lap and looking harangued. I laugh again. “They suit you.”
He gives me a sour look. “How do we get them back?”
“Transport’s coming. We just need to get them up to the horses.”
But again I pause. I watch Number Six, lying still beside us, and these little creatures, doing their best to squirm their way to their mother’s side.
The others on my team like to feel involved, they like to feel as though they’re helping, always. But everything inside me is saying this is a strong wolf. Give her a chance. And at some point, I have to trust my instincts.
“We’re gonna leave them,” I say.
“What?”
“She can do this. She came back, and she stayed. She can’t flourish if we don’t let her.”
I look at the pup in my arms and allow myself a weak moment, pressing her against my cheek, breathing in her scent. She nuzzles into my neck and oh god, my heart. Then I place her back in the den, where she’s safe and warm. Once the others are returned and we’ve left Six sleeping at the mouth of the den, the restless pups nestle into her body, content. Duncan and I climb out of the gully.
I rest my hands on my head and close my eyes.
“What’s wrong?” Duncan asks.
“I fucked up. I shouldn’t have sedated her. If I’d known she’d had the pups already I wouldn’t have. I’d have known to leave them be.”
“What difference does it make?”
“You don’t sedate an animal unless you absolutely have to. It’s dangerous to them.”
Duncan shrugs. “You thought you had to. Let it go.”
My hands fall to my sides. Tough but true.
We wait some time for Evan, Niels, and Amelia to arrive with the transport crate. “Change of plan,” I tell them. “She’s had the pups. I’m leaving them here.”
“Then why’s she sedated?” Evan asks at the same time as Niels says, “That’s unwise. We should bring them all in and feed her in the pen as she suckles.”
“And then the pups are raised in a cage instead of the wild,” I say, shaking my head. “That’s not what we’re trying to do here. Amelia, I need you to give her a shot of penicillin and anything else she needs and watch her vitals until she starts to rouse. Do not let that wolf die.”
“Got it,” Amelia says and Evan starts helping her descend into the ravine. More human scent to stain the area. Regrettable, but I’m sure now that Six is braver than most—she came back for her pups despite knowing a human had been here. And at least now we can make sure she and her pups are as healthy as possible before leaving today, and this won’t have been a complete waste.
I pull Niels aside for a private word. “You messed with my head this morning, and I made a rushed decision. It’s my fault, I know that, but please, let me do my job.”
He is hard to read, always, but he nods and doesn’t argue further.
“What will she eat?” Duncan asks me. “I can’t leave here without knowing she won’t go straight to the nearest farm.”
A kind of dread fills me. Excitement for something long forgotten. I know what I have to do, the payment for my decision to leave her here, but how will I end this hunt without my sister?
“I’ll find her something to eat,” I say.
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve got more tranq darts. And a knife.”
“Do you have a hunting license?”
“Yes,” I lie.
“Oh hell,” he mutters. “I’m gonna pretend I believe you and hope to god you know what you’re doing.”
I help him into his saddle, then swing onto my own horse. The big gelding snorts and dances a little and for a moment I think he might rear, but I tighten my knees and keep a firm hold of him, calming him with a hand to his neck. He can smell the wolves, and the storm, too.
We leave the others to mind the wolves and set off, just as the sky ruptures, letting loose a downpour. The gelding’s hooves slip in the mud. Duncan by his own admission is no hunter but he does know the general grazing spots of the herds because it behooves him to know where the hunters gather, so we explore the closest. I am secretly relieved he is coming with me; I’m not sure I could do this on my own. The clearing is empty of deer, but I circle the tracks, looking for scat and noting how fresh it is. When I think I know which direction the herd has moved, we follow it east.
“How’d you learn to track?” Duncan asks.
“My dad.”
“In Canada?”
I nod.
“I’ve always wanted to go to Canada. Good forests.”
“You like trees?”
“I like timber.”
My face creases in disappointment.
“Timber’s beautiful,” he says defensively.
“Sure, carcass chic.”
He laughs. “God help me. You ever cut into the trunk of a tree and opened it up, and seen what’s inside?”
I nod. I’ve never cut one myself, but I’ve seen.
“The patterns are like sound waves, and none of them alike. Hundreds of years old, sometimes, and no one has ever laid eyes on them before. You’re the first person to see the tree’s heart.”
“But then you’ve killed it,” I murmur, defeated.
Duncan shakes his head. “You can cut a tree to help it grow. You can cut it so it grows back stronger.”
We follow the tracks of the herd to a small escarpment. At its base lies a grassy clearing, beyond that a hillside scattered with pines. Taking shelter among them is a herd of red deer. Duncan points further along to where there’s an incline we can descend, and we take it, slipping and sliding.
The rain makes it harder for the deer to smell our approach. It makes them more likely to hold still. We circle behind them and dismount. I put two darts in my pocket and one in the chamber.
“This was fast,” I tell him softly. “We were lucky. It can take days.”
I feel him watching me, taking the measure of me.
“When wolves do this,” I say, “they do it slowly. They’re patient. They spend days following a herd and watching its deer. They pick the weaker animals. The slower ones. They watch those in particular, and they learn their traits, their personalities. They will know a deer so well by the time they attack that they can predict what will happen. They won’t waste energy. They’ll wait until they know without doubt that they can kill.”
Duncan doesn’t speak. He is so close behind me I can feel his warmth. I remember how it feels to be good at this. To be as wolf-like as I’m ever going to be. As animal. And yet I have never been able to pull the trigger. I have always needed my sister for that part.
We crouch behind trees and shrubs, staying low, and now we are too close for words, but I have my deer in sight, a smaller male sitting slightly apart. I take aim. If I miss and spook them, they’ll run and we’ll have to start again, and they’ll be skittish, knowing they’re being hunted. So I’d best not miss.
This time the dart is soundless. All I hear when my eyelids fall shut is the rain. I vanish inside it, dissolve
beneath it. My body is gone and I can no longer be touched.
When I open my eyes Duncan is above, swimming. The rain cocoons us.
“You fainted,” he says.
I didn’t faint. I was too slow; I was shot by a dart.
A rivulet of water runs down the center of his nose and off the tip of it, straight onto my lips.
I follow the rivulet from my lips to his nose. I lick the drops from him. From his mouth. He clutches at me, takes my mouth with his. We kiss as though consuming each other. Trembling. My body was gone and now it becomes me. It’s all I am, this need.
And memory.
Stop, I said.
“Stop,” I say.
Duncan retreats. The distance between our bodies a forest.
I sit up, feeling as dazed as he looks. I don’t want this. I came here to be away from the rest of the world, to be safe from it.
“The deer,” I say.
“You got it.”
Under the curtain of rain lies a shape. My feet lead me to it and I think, not for the first time, that I’m glad I must endure a little of what I inflict. This poor creature. I remove the dart from its hindquarters. Take the knife from my pack.
Can I? Will I?
I have so much pity, so much love for this soft warm breathing animal, I can’t imagine how I could physically harm it, I can’t imagine how I could survive that, but there isn’t really a choice, is there? I’m for the wolves, and the wolves need to eat.
“Let me,” Duncan says, sensing my distress.
“I can do it.” They’re my wolves, this is my burden.
And still. I pass him the knife and turn away.
* * *
We lay the lifeless body not far from sleeping Number Six, whose vitals I am assured are still strong. There is a chance she won’t want this, the carcass being rich with our smell, but I am hoping her survival instinct kicks in, the practicality of motherhood. The pups raise their heads and peer out at us.
The little white runt is most curious. She ventures out of the den to sniff at the dead creature, still warm. And she looks straight at me as though I am the explanation for its sudden appearance, and in fact she’s right, I am.
Once There Were Wolves Page 9
