But I check now. I look at the pings from those dates and though there is no location on the night of Stuart’s death, there are two on either side that are close enough to allow her to have reached him in the blind spot between.
* * *
At home I prepare. Red and his hunters will be doing the same, when they hear. The stroke that lit the match. All the evidence they need, now that two people have been mauled to death. They will mount a hunt for the wolves, every one of them. But this isn’t the only reason I’m moving. Or the truest one. The truest reason is that I lay still once before. I let a terrible thing happen and I didn’t put it right. I wasn’t strong enough. So I fill a pack with supplies. Food and water and matches and pairs of socks and extra gloves. A sub-zero sleeping roll. A box of bullets. I put on as many layers as possible, though I don’t need as many as I might once have, with a little oven in my belly to keep me warm. Snow boots, a hat, gloves.
Aggie appears in her pajamas as I am heading out. I see her sign from the corner of my eye.
Where are you going?
At the door I look at her.
“To kill a wolf.”
28
Before the court cases began, before, even, the investigation had got under way, Gus remained free to do what he pleased, and he had decided he wasn’t going to give up on seeing his wife in the hospital. So I waited until his next failed attempt to get past security, and I followed him home. From my car I watched him go inside, saw his silhouette in their bedroom window. From the kitchen I took a knife. My hands were so moist I could barely grip it. My mouth too dry to swallow. I wasn’t sure I could go back into the bedroom, but the moment passed and I did. I moved quickly. I had not killed things before by choice but this was different. For this creature I had no pity and I had no fear of killing myself in the process.
He was on the bed. Eyes closed. The police would arrive later that night, wanting to arrest him, but for now he lay unbound and unpunished.
I was on top of him and under me and the blade was to his throat and to mine.
Gus opened his eyes.
He was afraid, I saw it so clearly. It felt good. He’d made me into something that enjoyed his fear. I pressed the knife until it broke the skin; it stung and a droplet of blood slid down my neck.
“Inti,” he said.
“Don’t speak.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t.” It came out as a snarl, a growl from the base of my stomach and out through my teeth.
I was going to kill him.
He could see it, and he started to cry.
It was appalling. “Don’t,” I said again. I pressed the knife harder, cutting a clean line across his throat and it hurt, it really did hurt, and it tricked me with its pain, it made my whole throat close up in panic.
“She’ll never have children, did you know that? She hasn’t spoken since and maybe she’ll never say another word again. You did worse than kill her. You tortured her, you debased her, and you left her alive to remember it.”
And finally, the question to which I could not fathom the answer, the question I would spend sleepless nights asking.
“Why?”
But he didn’t answer me, would never answer because maybe he didn’t know why, maybe that was the true horror of it, that there would never be an explanation to make sense of this. He stopped crying and I saw him detach into that cold inner world of his, and I knew this for his coping method, one he had imparted to his wife. I wished I could kill him more than once.
But as I went to slice open his throat, my hand didn’t move.
And I knew with perfect clarity that I couldn’t do it. Even now, I wasn’t brave enough. I wasn’t my sister, who spent her life smashing books of poetry into the noses of cruel boys for me, to protect me, and pulling triggers so that I wouldn’t have to.
“Did you ever love her?” I asked.
He didn’t answer and I was glad because the question stopped meaning anything to me. It didn’t matter either way.
It’s all just meat. All just fuckin’ meat.
“We’re never going to see you again,” I told him. “Because if I ever see your face, even for a second, I am going to kill you. Do you understand?”
He nodded once.
I lowered the knife.
* * *
I need a horse. Ten is in the mountains, beyond where the roads end. None of our mounts are rested, none but Gall. As I saddle her and secure my pack and rifle I realize I am nervous. I haven’t ridden her since the day we met, on the ice. The day she broke her leg and her spirit, and I am all too aware of the fact that it was not me who tamed her enough to be ridden since. But Aggie has been riding her and with each day Gall has become calmer and more confident. I don’t want to endanger little one but I think that if Duncan was right about trust then animals must surely respond in the same way. Maybe this horse needs me to have faith in her. Or maybe I am about to be thrown.
I think of how she let me lower her onto the ice and drape myself upon her, how she rose to her feet and climbed that steep riverbank despite her injury, and my hands go to her nose as they’ve done a thousand times, I feel her tremble with eagerness beneath my palm, I feel my palm against the warm, throbbing beat of the pulse in her neck and mine, and know we share a need to plunge free.
I mount. She doesn’t snort or stamp, giving me no indication she’s uneasy. I use my thighs to reduce the jostling motion, nudge her forward and fit my movements to hers. There is a fluidity between us for which I thank my dad, for all those years on horseback and for his understanding of the love that could pass between a rider and her mount. And then we are away, dissolving into moonlit forest.
* * *
Dawn peeks over the horizon as we arrive at the edge of the Glenshee Pack’s den territory. The night has been cold and long, our passage frustratingly slow when a car trip would have taken a couple of hours at most, but I had no vehicle with which to bring Gall and without her I could not have gone on from here. The sun turns the white ground sparkling and its warmth fills my muscles with energy. I doubt Ten is still here but I will check regardless. From the hide I watch the pups enjoy the morning light, and my chest aches to see them playing so joyously. I feel their teeth graze my skin, their tongues lick my face, their paws batting me to the snow. I can feel their pelts pressed to me, their warmth, their strength, their certainty mine. To be so at home in your body. To be at ease, and powerful. A shiver of desire moves through me and I am almost there, I think I can feel it, their power, the togetherness of them, the family. Little one kicks, her foot stronger than I could have imagined, and I think she feels it too.
I have to leave here. The pull to stay is strong, the feel of them too visceral. I feel wolf; I am forgetting myself.
There is no sign of Ten, so I must go north toward the mountain where she was last spotted. Her pattern has been to travel out from the center of the park to make her kills and then head back to its center. Maybe she feels freer there, where there are no roads or houses or people. Maybe she is smarter than we know, and she understands that this is where she is safest, where we cannot reach her.
Gall and I ride a long time, following valleys and ridges through bleak windy hills. Our altitude climbs and drops and climbs again. We are searching the mountain range and there is no cover as we go up the edge of one, down the edge of another, no respite against the freezing sleet or biting gales. The hours lead us into night once more, those witching hours I dread. We stop to eat and drink at regular intervals, and to rest. The breaks in the monotony of the ride help hold back the shadows. But in the dark I have no chance of seeing tracks or scat, or remains of prey, so when we come to a stretch of ground without snow I build a fire, then lower Gall to the ground and sleep against her body to keep all three of us warm.
I think of Duncan and my anger fuels me. And I am angry at Ten but this is foolishness and in the end I know it’s myself I am most furious with. For not dealing with her sooner. For not se
eing these attacks as a sign of the darkness to come. We took her from her home and dumped her in a foreign land and we expected her to adapt but I think that was too much to ask. Maybe she is as angry as I am.
Morning breaks on the second day and within it I find the tracks of a handful of what I think are fallow deer.
My dad’s words in my ear. There is no hunting a wolf. They are cleverer than we are. So instead you hunt its prey.
Sometimes, and only because I have looked at so many over the years, I think I can detect the very faint paw prints of a wolf inside the tracks of the deer. Here lives the difference between a wolf and a dog, or indeed a wolf and most other animals. The elegance and efficiency of specifically seeking compacted snow—snow that other animals have done the hard work of compacting—is a clever way to reduce the energy she must use. But I am on her trail now.
After some time we follow the deer tracks along the length of an icy river to the edge of a huge frozen loch. It glitters blue-white in the sun. The tracks part around the edge of the loch.
And on its other side, just like that, stands a wolf.
She watches me. A smudge of tawny brown. I can imagine she is daring me. Then she walks, casually, out of sight.
No matter how much I need to reach her, I’m not stupid enough to take a horse over a frozen lake with no idea how thick the ice is. I nudge Gall and we start around the loch, still at a walk. I won’t be goaded into a trot or a run; my certainty will simmer long and slow. I don’t need to rush. I have her now. With patience, I will kill her.
I pick up Number Ten’s tracks. They are clean and stark in the snow. We follow them easily toward the base of the mountain. She must be aware of my scent. Must know I’m coming after her. But I can see she isn’t running, she walks calmly as we do. Something ancient is stirred within me as we step on and on. I draw the rifle from the saddle and load it with a bullet, but keep the safety on and the muzzle pointed skyward. Gall’s steps become mine, the rhythmic movements of her body thrumming through the pulse in my veins.
The creature ahead lets out a howl.
The language of the most territorial creature on Earth, warning me to back off or continue at my own peril.
She howls again and again and it begins to shift from a warning to a taunt.
Gall’s ears flatten but she walks on calmly. My fury has none of the same calm. The wolf is provoking it into something frenzied. There is violence in me, in my hands, which vibrate with the need to exert some kind of control, some defiance, and if it is revenge for the things that have been taken from me then fine, I will have that too. I am done with falling prey. I will be predator, at last. I will forget the walls and the self-protection and I will become the thing I hunt and feel it all.
* * *
Snow begins to fall; soon the tracks will be covered. It doesn’t matter. There’s a clearing ahead and she’s on the other side of it. I can hardly see her through the blizzard that is beginning, but she’s there, motionless and watching. I swing off the horse, who is restless now that the wolf is so near. I can’t risk her throwing me.
I face Number Ten as I did once, but that was in a cage and this is very far from that cage. She didn’t back down from me then. This time I have the rifle to my eyeline, aimed at her chest. This time I’m ready, waiting for her to attack. She took something beloved from the world. From me. Once I wasn’t strong enough to make things right but I am now, I will be.
I turn off the safety.
She doesn’t ready herself to attack. She just watches me.
My hand on the trigger stalls.
The tidal wave passes through.
She’s not a person, who understands right and wrong. You can’t be angry with an animal, can’t hate it, get revenge upon it. That doesn’t make sense. She didn’t kill because she was cruel. She killed because there are instincts in her body telling her to do so, to protect against threats, to survive, sustain herself, live on.
Everything leaves me in a rush so that all that remains is a great and profound sorrow.
I pull the trigger.
Because whether I feel it or not, whether I love her or not, she has attacked two people. Because if she isn’t put down they all will be. Because this is my job, an awful part of it. But not because she deserves punishment or because I want revenge.
My eyes are closed. I will be less when I open them again.
I stand very still, coming to terms with all the ways I could have avoided this. It is devastatingly clear to me now what I should have done from the start: I should have included the farmers in this process, worked with them instead of treating them as the enemy. They might have shown me animosity but the stakes were so high, I should have risen above it, led the way toward cooperation, toward the sharing of this planet. No one can meet your trust if you don’t offer it.
Ten is still breathing. I cross the clearing to her. The bullet went through her neck; I can feel it in mine, sharp and radiating.
I sink to the ground and place my hand on her forehead, stroking her soft fur. “I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I’m so sorry.” Her eyes look up at me and I open myself to her completely, lay myself bare for her to see, and she does, and dies.
All creatures know love.
I stroke her for a long time.
* * *
It’s the cold, in the end, that makes me move. It is not because I want to leave her. I don’t, not ever. I have brought a canvas to wrap her in. Once she’s protected by this I lower Gall onto her knees so I can pull Ten’s body onto her back. I am distantly astonished Gall is willing to carry this load, but she was always brave. The wolf isn’t as heavy as she looks, a fine creature, lean in form. She seems almost delicate now that her ferocity is gone, stolen. Not for the first time I hate my job, the humanness of it. I would leave her out here to feed the other animals, to feed the earth, if I didn’t need to show Red and the hunters proof of her death, if my job didn’t require me to study her remains.
I swing up onto Gall’s back once more, settling myself just in front of the wolf so I can feel her fading warmth against the base of my spine. And then comes the cramp.
I’ve had cramping before. This is … louder.
Little one is squeezing me from within. There is pressure and discomfort and then it’s gone. I start riding for home with a thought in the back of my mind and a louder thought that no, it’s too early for that. I couldn’t possibly be so unlucky.
Unless it’s my fault. The movement of my body, the swelling of my soul. Calling something forth before its time.
Not now, little one, I tell her. Just hold on.
But the cramps continue, growing in intensity and frequency until I can’t lie to myself anymore, this is happening. The only question is whether or not I’ll make it home in time. It’s meant to take many hours, isn’t it? Days sometimes?
It is a shorter journey home than it was to get here. We have been circling closer and now I can cut straight back through Abernethy Forest, to my house and then beyond it the town, the hospital in which Duncan lies. This is the last stretch but it is still a long one. The forest reaches ahead and yet I am immensely grateful to be within its shelter.
The trees whisper.
Keep on.
A little further now.
The pressure becomes too much and I have to get off the horse. I have to move. I pant and swear and walk in circles. It is bewilderingly uncomfortable, so uncomfortable it seems impossible my body can maintain this feeling but it does, and I stop having reasonable thoughts, start trying to make bargains with the sky and the roots, can’t work out what the hell I should do or how to make this stop but I definitely, definitely need it to stop.
I can tell Gall is nervous but I don’t have the capacity to worry about it, until I let out a long, low moan, the moan of a cow, and she jerks in alarm at the sound and then she’s off, trotting away and leaving me here and I certainly have the capacity to worry about it now.
So I walk. In between contractions,
for as long as I can until the next one hits. My skin is so raw that even my clothes hurt, and I’d give anything to take them off but I’m lucid enough to know that would be very stupid. I have to start thinking about this baby. I’ve been so stubborn. I am a coward. I’ve put her in harm’s way because I was terrified of how I might love her and how I would be swallowed by her, and I couldn’t allow being so disastrously vulnerable and so I made her vulnerable instead and that is unforgivable.
I speak to her as I walk through the snow. I say all the things I might have said over the last eight months if only I’d been brave enough. I will her to live and then that seems foolish because it is her will to live that seizes my body every few minutes, her strength despite my efforts to ignore her. As I lower myself onto all fours in the snow I know I must be as calm as I’m able, must reach for strength that will be worthy of hers.
I’m not sure how much time has passed before I need to take off my pants. I’m struggling not to push, I don’t know how to push and yet I can’t not, I have to. I’ve never been more frightened. Never calmer.
I take off my boots and pants and underwear, leaving my socks, and I make a bed on the ground with my coat. The trees above and around. They sway. I am home here, and so glad. It is right that I’m here after all. It was always going to be here.
The pain starts to take over and swell up from within me, exploding in a mighty roar that startles the birds from the trees. She is tearing through me and everything is clenched so tightly I forget to breathe and there are spots in front of my eyes and I think the human body is a failure of evolution because it was not meant to withstand this, our shape is wrong, our capacity is wrong, and yet women do this every day and they survive and so that’s what I’ll do, I will do this and survive because afterward I will need to get the baby to safety.
Once There Were Wolves Page 25
