Once There Were Wolves

by Charlotte McConaghy

  When it’s gone, I remember to breathe. “Oh my god.”

  “An osprey,” he says, smiling.

  “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “Timed just for you, then.”

  “The fish was half its size!”

  “I’ve heard stories of osprey catching hold of fish so large they’re dragged under the water. Their talons lock onto the prey and they can’t let go, or they don’t, and they’re drowned.”

  My smile drops away. Even so, I won’t forget the gift of having seen that. I wish Aggie had been here.

  I turn to scanning the ground for prints, scat, broken foliage. The forest climbs an incline and we follow it up.

  “Do you know where they are?” Duncan asks at one point, sounding out of breath.

  I slow my pace. “No.”

  “What about the collars they wear—aren’t they locators?”

  “Only if I turn to the right frequency at the right time, and anyway I don’t have my gear.” I glance sideways at him. “Wolves are very difficult to find. If you don’t know them, know their territories, you’ve got no hope. I met a group of documentary makers once who spent a decade looking for wolves to film and they only ever saw two glimpses.”

  “Why’s it so hard?”

  “Because wolves are shy. They survive by staying hidden and they’re just about the best survivors there are.”

  “So what—we gotta think like wolves?”

  “Nope, that’s impossible.”

  “Then how the hell are we gonna find them?”

  “Can you keep a secret, Duncan?”

  He smiles ruefully. “Perhaps to my detriment.”

  “You have to promise to only use it for good. Do you promise?”

  “I promise.”

  I return the smile. “You don’t hunt wolves. You hunt their prey.”

  * * *

  We climb up to a high, rocky crag covered in deep bell heather, named for its purple bell-shaped flowers. The herd is in a clearing below us, grazing idly. A stream lies to their side, cutting through the hills. On our rocky plateau I spot some scat and crouch to look at it.

  “Wolf?” he asks, and I nod. “They’ve been up here then. Is it safe here?”

  I shrug, enjoying his unease.

  “Why’s it white?”

  “Probably from eating bones,” I say.

  “Christ.”

  I glance at him over my shoulder. “I won’t let them hurt you.”

  He meets my eyes. “That so?”

  I straighten. “Do I seem like the sort who’d let your bones get eaten by wolves?”

  “That’s what I’m trying to figure out,” Duncan replies.

  We sink onto the edge of the rock, our legs draped down toward the cliff drop. He goes to remove his rain jacket, revealing a brilliant orange jumper, almost neon in hue. Another knitted masterpiece, my favorite so far.

  “Wow. That’s quite a jumper.”

  He smiles.

  “Who’s making these for you?”

  “There’s a knitting group in town.”

  “I’ve heard of this knitting group.”

  “Well, the members have varying skill levels which means my jumpers have varying quality.” He pulls the collar of his raincoat back to reveal the stitching along his shoulder has come loose and gapes open, threads hanging loose.

  I smile. “And you wear it anyway.”

  “Of course.”

  “Better zip back up, it’s bright enough to spook the animals.”

  He does so quickly.

  Fingal lies between us, tongue lolling as he pants, eyes locked on the deer below.

  “Why the wolves then?” Duncan asks. “Why this, as your life?”

  “If we’re talking about conservation, about saving this planet, we have to start with the predators. Because if we can’t save the predators, we’ve got no chance of saving anything else.”

  He doesn’t respond for a moment, and then he says, “Yeah, but why really?”

  “I…” I stop and try to think of the answer. “I have always loved them, without reason. Have always wanted to know their secrets. And then I learned they could save forests…” I glance at Duncan. “Some people need wildness in their life.”

  He nods slowly. “Did you discover their secrets?”

  “Of course not.”

  We both smile.

  “What about you? Why’d you become a cop? Because of what happened with your parents?”

  “Aye. But it took me some time to get from that night to the badge. I was ugly inside, all my adolescence. Picking fights. Needing chaos. Thinking it was the rage that was feeding me, but all it was doing was poisoning. I knew if I kept on that path I’d get someone killed. So I made a choice. Peace, at all costs. Kindness. Mine is a drop in the ocean compared to my mam’s, but I try every day.”

  We are quiet a while, and I think about the deceptiveness of that rage he speaks of.

  Duncan makes a gesture to encompass the forested hills. “These trees are directly descended from the Ice Age,” he says. “The first pines in Scotland arrived here around 7000 BC, and these are what remain, an unbroken evolutionary chain.”

  I know, I think. It’s why I’m here.

  “But then you’d know that already, wouldn’t you?” he asks.

  “Was Lainey there when you dropped Stuart home that night, after the pub?”

  Duncan takes a second. “This is why I’m here then?”

  I don’t reply.

  He shakes his head. “I sent Lainey to wait for us at the station. I didn’t want her there if things went sour. When we were done I took Stuart to find her at the station so she could drive him home.”

  Ah. “And did she?”

  Duncan searches my face. “What are you fishing for?”

  “I’m just trying to sort it all out.”

  “I can’t share details of an ongoing—”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  After a long moment he says, “I put him in her car and she took him home.”

  “Then she’s the last person to see him? Shouldn’t that make her suspect number one?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh. What was her story, then?”

  He spreads his hands. “Just that she drove him home and they went to bed and she woke that morning to find him gone. She thought he was just out working but he didn’t come home.”

  Shit. If Lainey’s telling the truth then that changes things. It means I still have no clue how or when or why Stuart got to that patch of forest.

  Of course, she could be lying. And so could Duncan. I guess it’s even possible they came up with the story together.

  “Are you still sleeping with her?” I ask. Of all the questions I have asked that I don’t want an answer to.

  I feel his body tense. “No,” he says. “Not since before you.”

  I find myself wanting to believe him and also not, wanting there to be a good solid reason to mistrust him, instead of this yawning pit of uncertainty.

  “Do you still love her?” I ask, more softly.

  “Inti, what—”

  “You did once, right? When you were younger. There must be some love left if you go to the trouble of having an affair with her, otherwise why not fuck someone single?” I am being crass now, and realize I am angry, too.

  “I care about her,” Duncan says with more maturity than I’ve displayed. “I worry about her. I hate what he was doing to her. I don’t think I’ve loved her in a long time. I stopped being able to, and it’s just as well. She was scared of me after what happened. Everyone was. Death gets under your skin, you carry it with you. People can sense that.”

  * * *

  We are about to give up. A cold wind is keening through the trees around us. The deer have been idle for a while now, chewing away, eating all those little tree shoots and buds of plants before they have a chance to grow. No hope of that clearing returning to forest at this rate. I am just thinking the wolves ought to get off
their butts and do their jobs here when I see something move. At first it seems like nothing. Then a shift in the quality of the light between trees.

  I grab Duncan’s arm, alerting him to be still.

  From within the shadows melts a pale foreleg. Then a snout, black tipped. The points of her ears. A white wolf.

  I direct Duncan’s gaze to her.

  Then move my hand further upstream. To where the brown wolf watches just as calmly from behind the tree line. Downwind, where they won’t be scented.

  “They smell us,” I murmur, “but they’re wounded and hungry. And who knows how long they’ve been watching this herd.”

  “Will they attack?”

  “Maybe. It’s a clever spot.”

  The two wolves we can see—Ash and her new son-in-law Number Twelve—hold very still, watching. Ash’s daughter Number Thirteen will be here somewhere, perhaps streaking silently around to flank the herd. And hiding further back will be the six gangly pups, keen to learn. I brought Duncan here to watch the herd but I can’t quite believe our luck at this spotting. True, the deer are within the Abernethy Pack’s territory, but for all my earlier bravado, I have rarely come across wolves I wasn’t actively tracing via GPS or radio signal.

  I wonder what Duncan sees when he looks at them. To me they look subtly powerful, endlessly patient, and more beautiful than anything I’ve seen. And just as I am thinking so, some silent language is spoken between them and they explode from their cover. Fluid, strong, undeniable. The deer flee. Most head north, for the mountains. Five hundred head of deer running together, shaking the earth with a mighty rumble I can feel through my body, from my hand into Duncan’s arm, the ground is vibrating with their power, vibrating through us, the world has been shaken by two wolves.

  A splinter group of deer heads for the river. Sometimes it’s good cover; the wolves don’t move as quickly as the deer in water. But today it’s a mistake, because there is Number Thirteen and each of the pups, guarding the far bank so the deer can’t cross. They flounder in the water, panicked.

  Ash and Number Twelve are cutting between the deer, separating out the one they have already chosen. It’s a small doe. They would have been watching her for days. Ash herds her into the water, where she comes up against the rest of her kind, blocking her passage. They are scattering both up and downstream, it’s chaos, and within this maelstrom Ash wades almost casually into the river and closes her mouth and mine on the throat of the doe. “My god,” Duncan breathes. As the deer tries to run Ash simply holds tight, the force of her jaws like an iron clamp, unassailable. She lets herself be carried a few paces until the doe stumbles to a halt, sinking gently into the water. Both animals go very still and stay that way for some time. A game of patience, and something intimate about it. The rest of the herd have escaped, now that the wolf pack has let them. The wolves watch their leader wait out the final breaths from her prey and then drag the beast onto the grass. Ash, Twelve, and Thirteen set to devouring the doe, blood staining their fur. The younger wolves prowl around the outside, darting in for tastes but knowing they’ll get what’s left.

  Warm saliva has filled my mouth; I am ravenous. Nothing for humans is as simple, as certain.

  I blink in the fading light, only now aware that darkness is falling. Soon we won’t be able to see the feasting wolves, nor our way back. I realize I am still holding Duncan’s arm and let it go.

  “We need to leave,” I say.

  He doesn’t answer, and then he says, “That was…” Slowly he shakes his head. In the twilight I think there are tears in his eyes.

  “Yeah,” I say softly. “I know.”

  Something passes between us, a different kind of understanding. There has been desire since the start, but there is something else now. The quiet he makes me feel. The calm.

  But too quickly I realize I was so inside the wolf I didn’t feel what the deer did. No tearing at my flesh, no being eaten. Only the taste of blood. I turn away from Duncan.

  * * *

  It’s a long way back to the cars. I’m worried about Duncan’s leg; his limp is more pronounced and his face has paled. I start to wonder if he will make it back to the cars, start to brainstorm what I will do if he can’t. I could make some sort of stretcher and drag him. I could go for help. But he keeps limping along, one dogged step after another. By the time we reach the cars Duncan is trembling and I am dizzy, convinced I’ve been seeing bodies move around us in the dark.

  “Night,” Duncan says, and I’m relieved this is it. But then he says, “I understand why you don’t. But trust has to be offered before it can be met.”

  I can see the tops of trees swaying slowly in the wind. I wait for the howl of a wolf but she doesn’t lift her voice, not tonight. Busy eating.

  “No such thing as trust in the wilderness,” I say softly. “It’s only people need that word.”

  20

  Five years passed in Alaska. The three of us managed to coexist, for the most part. But I’d noticed a change in my sister. She no longer seemed lit from within, excited by the prospect of waking to a new day. There hadn’t been any new signs invented in a long while; in fact I couldn’t remember the last time she’d used our sign language. She taught language studies at University of Alaska Anchorage, and she went out a lot at night. She and Gus fought all the time, bright savage screaming fights. Neither of them ever left the other; the fighting seemed to make them cleave more fiercely together, though I couldn’t imagine how respect remained, given the nastiness they had no trouble conjuring, or the competition they made of debasing each other. I wanted to end it for them but didn’t know how, knew that only they could do that, and yet I hated my position as bystander and wondered if I would regret not taking action.

  But this was my place, where it had always been. A silent third party to their intimacy. I told myself Aggie was a force and she knew what she was doing, what she wanted and what she could endure, and it was true—she was very much a force, but what I didn’t know then is that any force can be stopped by enough resistance.

  I started working longer hours, and sleeping at the base. I couldn’t bear the thought of going home to the sound of their raised voices, or to the sight of their lips touching, to the stolen feel of his mouth on mine and the blistering shame that accompanied my desire. I missed my sister terribly and hated Gus for coming between us as nothing else ever had. Maybe a part of me was angry with Aggie, too, for letting him.

  It was a Sunday night when I finally dragged myself back to the house after sleeping at work for a week. An ocean tide of weariness threatened to pull me under, but the voices throbbing from the house let me know I wasn’t about to sleep anytime soon. There was a group of men gathered in my living room, Gus’s gaggle of surgeon mates. They greeted me politely and then turned back to the football game. I found Gus gathering beers from the fridge.

  “Hey.”

  “Hey, kid, give me a hand with these.”

  I dropped my bag and took the armful of cans.

  “I’d give my right nut for a VB,” he said wistfully, looking regretfully at the American beer in his hands.

  “Where’s Aggie?” I asked.

  “Out.” He said this offhandedly as he returned to the living room, but there was tension through his shoulders.

  I followed him, handing out the beers to men who didn’t thank me. “Who’s she out with?”

  “The other teachers.”

  “Okay. I’m going to bed, so can you keep the noise down.”

  “Sure thing, princess, we’re headed out anyway.”

  I went upstairs, sat on my bed, and called Aggie.

  A man’s voice answered. “Hello?”

  “Who’s this?” I asked.

  “Luke.”

  I breathed a sigh of relief because I had heard of Luke, one of Aggie’s colleagues at the university. “Luke, can I talk to Aggie?”

  “She’s indisposed.” I could hear the amusement in his voice and irritation flared.

&nb
sp; “What does that mean?”

  “Means she had too much to drink and she’s currently puking her guts up in my bathroom.”

  “What’s your address, I’ll come get her.”

  “She’s all right here.”

  “No, she’s not. Give me your address.”

  There must have been something in my voice because he told me. I grabbed my keys and pounded down the stairs.

  “Where’s the fire, kid?” Gus called from among the rowdy crew as I darted for the door.

  “I’m getting Aggie.”

  My feet crunched on the gravel outside. It was cold, my breath made clouds. Soon there was another set of boots crunching, another mouth breathing. “You don’t have to come, I’m just picking her up,” I said but he got into my car and we drove in silence through the night streets of Anchorage. I still didn’t know the city well, having spent so little time in it, but Gus directed me to the house.

  As we walked to the front door I said, “Don’t … do anything weird, okay? They’re just mates from work.”

  “Of course,” he replied, and to his credit he definitely did seem relaxed. Luke answered the door and that was when Gus sent a heavy fist into his face, dropping him straight to the ground.

  “Fuck!” I sank to one knee, dizzy, my vision gone. Fuck fuck fuck it hurt. Eyes streaming, face throbbing with heat. When my thoughts returned I counted through the pain, one breath, two breaths, three four five. The pulse in my nose and eyes and skull began to dull. Blinking the spots from my vision, I got to my feet and followed Gus into the house, pausing beside Luke to check he was okay. He was groaning and holding his bleeding nose and as I saw it I instinctively reached to stem the blood gushing from mine, blood that wasn’t there but that I could feel so warm and slippery on my face, between my fingers, in my mouth. “Sorry,” I said. “You okay?”

  “Just get her out of my house,” Luke mumbled.

  I found Gus in the doorway of the bathroom. Aggie was sprawled on the tiles, embracing the base of the toilet, her vomit fresh in the bowl. She was barely conscious and seeing her like this made me woozy. Gus was staring at her with a kind of coldness.