Up ahead now, she could see the row of mailboxes. She hadn’t checked hers for three days. Earlier, heading into town, she had feared finding it empty might spoil her mood and decided to stop instead on the way home. She was drunk enough now to take it.
As she got nearer she could see something white lying in the road and, a moment later, realized what it was. She stopped the pickup so that the headlights were on it and got out.
It was her mailbox. The metal stake had been twisted to the ground and the box itself flattened. It looked as if someone had smashed it with something and then for good measure driven over it. The other mailboxes were unscathed.
Helen stood, half lit by the headlights, frowning down at the wreckage and swaying slightly, though more sober with each second. The car’s engine spluttered and stalled and for the first time she heard the moan of the wind. It had shifted and was coming cold from the north.
Somewhere in the forest a coyote began to yip then broke off, as if rebuked. She peered along the gray gravel to where her shadow reached the blacker black of the night. For an instant, she thought she saw a flicker of something pale there. But then it was gone.
She turned and walked back toward the pickup. And as she did so, the letter jigged again, only this time unseen. Then it flipped and scuttled away in the wind.
19
Dan Prior was not a religious man. At his most indulgent, he considered faith an obstacle to understanding, an excuse for not sorting out the here and the now. More practically, if something needed fixing, it just seemed smarter to try and fix it yourself than leave it to someone you’d never met and who might not show up in any case.
There were two exceptional occasions however when Dan resorted to prayer. The first was any Saturday night when his daughter was out later than they had agreed and hadn’t phoned (which happened so routinely nowadays, God would soon have him down as a new recruit). The second was whenever he went flying. It seemed only logical. At several thousand feet, room for self-help was limited and if there did happen to be Someone up there, you were at least well placed for a hearing.
Today, however, as he tried to hold the Cessna steady in the bruising north wind, Dan didn’t pray for his and Helen’s safety. Looking down at the higher reaches of the Hope Valley, he could see that word of Abe Harding’s alleged losses to the wolves had indeed spread. All along the mountain front, herds were being gathered from their summer allotments. So instead, in a worrying and psalmic extension of normal practice, Dan asked the Lord that all the ranchers he saw down there, on their horses tiny as ticks, would find their cattle had safely grazed.
He watched the plane’s shadow pass over the last of them, then looked ahead again to where the mountains curved away north like a fossilized spine, its vertebrae sprinkled with a first fall of snow. The wind had scoured all residue of summer haze from the sky. It was that kind of limpid, limitless blue that made you feel you could fly to the moon and back if you only had the fuel.
Dan kept his poetry to himself, knowing that in her present state, it would be lost on Helen. She was hunched in the seat beside him, scanning the radio frequencies and hiding her hangover with sunglasses and a faded Minnesota Timberwolves cap. Her face was a grayer shade of green every time he glanced at her.
She had arrived at the airfield in Helena with a large black coffee that she’d stopped for on the way and warned him at once that she was in no mood for jokes. She was in such a fragile state that when they’d picked up the first signal, a couple of miles south-west of Hope, she winced and reached for the volume control.
The signal belonged to the young male and, scanning on, Helen had soon found the mother’s. Both were strongest as the plane crossed Wrong Creek, which was good news, because it meant they were away from the cattle. They seemed to be on the north side of the canyon, probably resting up somewhere, about a mile farther up from where Helen had trapped the male. But in the three passes they had so far made, they hadn’t been able to spot them.
Apart from a few small meadows, the canyon was thick with trees and though the wind was stripping the aspens of their bright yellow leaves, the green of the pine and fir was impenetrable. Even away from the trees, there were a thousand rocky nooks where a wolf might lie hidden.
They reached the end of the canyon again and Dan climbed toward the sun and banked into another turn. At once the wind caught them and the plane lurched and bumped like a car in a pothole, making Dan grateful he hadn’t had breakfast.
‘God almighty, Prior!’
‘Sorry.’
‘I see your flying hasn’t improved.’
‘I see your hangover hasn’t.’
He went lower this time, flying above the southern rim of the canyon and tilting the plane so Helen could get a better view. The signals from the starboard antenna grew stronger and stronger and suddenly Helen called out and pointed.
‘There she is.’
‘The alpha?’
‘Unless there’s another pale one. And there are the others - four, no, five others.’
Dan leaned across but couldn’t make them out. ‘Where?’ ‘See that shelf of rock above the aspens?’
Helen had the binoculars on them now. ‘No, that’s her, she’s got a collar. And there’s the young male we collared. Hey, isn’t that great?’
‘You say the Calder boy thinks there are nine in all?’
‘Four adults, five pups.’
‘Any sign of the alpha male down there?’
‘No. They’re all too gray and too small. Looks like four pups and the two we collared.’
Helen got out her camera and Dan circled again so she could take some pictures on a long lens. The wolves were lounging in the sun and seemed none too bothered about the plane until the third pass when the mother roused them and led them off into the trees.
They flew the canyon and the surrounding area for awhile longer, hoping to see the other three, but there was no sign of them. On the way back to the airfield, Helen made notes of what they had seen, logging the time and the map reference. She was looking a little less green.
‘Feeling better?’ Dan asked, when she’d finished.
‘Yeah. Sorry for being such a grouch.’
Dan just smiled. Neither of them spoke for the rest of the trip. He wondered if something other than the hangover was bothering her. She seemed a little sad and distracted.
They landed and drove in their two cars back to the office. It was the first time Helen had been there since the day she arrived and Donna greeted her like a long-lost friend, congratulating her on catching the wolves. Dan suggested to Helen that they take the film she’d shot to the one-hour photo store and get something to eat while it was being processed.
They walked down the hill to the photo store then on a few blocks to a little coffee shop that did good turkey sandwiches and milkshakes. While they ate they talked about what they’d seen in the canyon.
‘I’d feel a whole lot happier if the alpha male had been up there with them,’ Dan said.
‘Maybe he was and we just couldn’t see him.’
‘Maybe. My guess is he likes to be lower down, near all those tasty young steers.’
‘Come on, Dan. You don’t believe Abe Harding’s calves were killed by wolves, do you?’
‘Who can say?’
‘We’re not talking about the world’s greatest rancher here. I bet he loses that many every summer. Probably doesn’t even know how many he had up there in the first place.’
‘Well, if these wolves are killing cattle, you know we’re going to have to take them out.’
‘What?’
‘Don’t look so surprised. Helen, we’re working to a set of rules here, not making it up as we go along. Wolves who kill livestock jeopardize the whole recovery program.’
‘What do you mean take than out? Relocate them?’
‘In the old days maybe, not now. There’s nowhere to put them. No, I mean lethal control.’
‘Shoot them.’
‘Yeah.’
Helen shook her head and looked away.
‘Helen, wake up. It’s the real world. Read the Control Plan.’
They finished their sandwiches in silence.
They collected the photos and looked through them as they walked back up the hill to the office. There were some good ones. Helen said she wouldn’t come inside. She’d left Buzz in the cabin and needed to check the traplines. In a vain attempt to lighten things up, Dan said maybe she would find she’d caught the other three, the ones they hadn’t seen from the plane. She didn’t even smile.
He walked her to her pickup. He’d been looking forward to seeing her again but it had all gone wrong. He felt bad about what he’d said just now. He’d been harsh with her and it was probably because he felt rejected by her. Foolishly, with her coming to Montana, he’d hoped something might happen between them. It wasn’t going to and he’d better get used to the idea.
Helen climbed into the pickup and he stood by the open door while she started the engine.
‘This thing going okay?’
‘It sucks.’
‘I’ll try to find you something better.’
‘It’ll do.’
‘And you? Are you okay?’
‘Me? Oh, I’m fine.’ She saw he wasn’t convinced and softened a little and smiled. ‘Really. I’m okay. Thanks for asking.’
‘No problem.’
He noticed something beyond her on the passenger seat. ‘What’s that?’
‘My ex-mailbox. I have to go get a new one.’
She told him what had happened.
‘That’s not good, Helen. Any idea who did it?’
She shrugged. ‘Nope.’
Dan frowned at it for a moment, in silence.
‘Listen, you take care up there, okay? Promise you’ll call me if something like that happens again. Anytime.’
‘Dan, it was probably just an accident. Some drunken ranch hand on his way home or something.’
‘Promise you’ll call.’
‘I promise. Dad.’
‘Angels on your mailbox.’
She smiled. At least he’d gotten her to smile.
She swung the door shut and blew him a little kiss as she drove off. He stood there watching until the old pickup pulled into the traffic and disappeared down the hill. Then he turned and went up to the office.
He could tell from Donna’s face, as soon as he walked in, that something had happened.
‘I’ve had the press on the phone,’ she said. ‘And that TV reporter. She said some ranchers out in Hope are spitting blood. Say they’ve lost a whole load of calves to the wolves.’
‘How many?’
‘So far, forty-three.’
‘What! Did they say which ranchers?’
‘Yeah. And one of them’s Buck Calder.’
20
The meeting wasn’t due to start for another half-hour, but already there was a steady procession of trucks coming into town. It was getting dark and most had their headlights on. Some pulled up outside Nelly’s Diner but the more popular destination was The Last Resort, which didn’t bode well for the meeting. A mud-spattered pickup was stopping there now and Helen watched two men in hats and cowboy boots get out and head into the bar. One of them said something and the other laughed, turning his coat collar up against the wind. It was starting to rain.
She was spying from the window of Ruth Michaels’ gift shop, sipping her third double espresso, which was a bad idea because she was nervous enough as it was. All she really wanted was a cigarette. Ruth had put some soothing music on, but it only served to heighten Helen’s foreboding of the storm to come.
Stuck to the glass of the door was one of the yellow posters that were all over town.
WOLF KILLS!
PUBLIC MEETING
HOPE COMMUNITY HALL
THURSDAY 7PM
It was two days since Buck Calder and his neighbors had gathered their herds and feelings were still running high. Helen had spent almost every waking moment trying to restore calm. She’d visited every rancher who claimed to have lost calves - and gotten short shrift from all of them.
Dan had hoped these one-on-one visits would help avoid a public meeting that could get hijacked by a few trouble-makers. But Buck Calder had bounced them into it. He’d announced the meeting two nights ago on TV, saying ‘those federal government fellas who let all these wolves loose in the first place’ might care to come along and explain themselves to the people who paid their wages.
The TV people were already down at the hall, setting up their lights. Dan had groaned when he saw them because it was the same woman reporter who had drooled over Buck Calder when the dog got killed. That aside, Dan - and Bill Rimmer - seemed remarkably cool. They were both sitting at the little bar at the back of the shop, chatting with Ruth as though they didn’t have a care in the world.
As she walked back to join them, Rimmer gave her a grin.
‘Helen, you know the one about the horse who walks into a bar and the barman says—’
‘“Hey, why the long face?” Yeah, I know that one. You’re saying I look like a horse?’
‘No, just like you’re going to a funeral.’
‘Yeah, right. My own.’
‘Come on, Helen,’ Dan said. ‘It’ll be fine.’
‘Thanks, Prior. I might find that a little more reassuring if you hadn’t told me what happened last time they had a wolf meeting here.’
‘That was before my time,’ Ruth said. ‘What did happen?’
‘Oh, just guys with guns and buckets of blood being poured over cars,’ Helen said. ‘Nothing much.’
‘That was years ago,’ Dan said.
‘Yeah, before they had wolves. Ruth, do you mind if I have a cigarette?’ She saw Dan’s surprise. ‘So I smoke, okay?’
‘Go ahead,’ Ruth said.
They spent the next fifteen minutes rehearsing what Helen was going to say. She’d tried to get Dan to front the meeting, but he insisted it was her show. The audience wasn’t going to be wholly hostile. According to the radio news, a militant environmentalist group called Wolves of the Earth (or WOE, as they preferred) was planning to show up as well.
In case things got out of hand, Dan had taken precautions. Hope had a resident deputy sheriff, a young man called Craig Rawlinson, whom Helen had met a couple of times. There was no mistaking him for a wolf lover. He was the son of a rancher and married to the daughter of another who was among those claiming to have lost calves. So Dan had asked for extra police to stand discreetly by, along with a couple of plainclothes special agents from the Fish and Wildlife Service who were already at work over in The Last Resort, keeping an eye on potential rabble-rousers. He’d also set up a sign outside the community hall that said, PUBLIC MEETING. NO ALCOHOL. NO SIGNS. NO WEAPONS. Someone had already added NO WOLVES.
There were voices now, outside in the street, as people made their way down toward the hall. Helen’s nerves were jangling with caffeine and nicotine. Dan stood up and paid for the coffees.
‘Well, I guess we’d better be getting down there.’
He put an arm around Helen’s shoulders.
‘I want you to know, anyone pulls a gun, I’m right behind you.’
‘Thanks, Dan. I’ll remember to duck.’
An hour later, Dan’s joke about guns seemed even less amusing.
Helen had been on her feet for about twenty minutes, trying to make a speech that should have taken ten. The heckling was starting to get to her.
The place was packed. There was seating for about a hundred, but easily as many again were standing at the back, which was where most of the heckling was coming from. Beyond the dazzle of the TV lights, Helen could see the hall doors had been left open and there were even people standing outside in the rain. Despite this ventilation, the heat was already unbearable because all the hall radiators were on and no one seemed able to turn them off. As tempers and temperature rose, many had shed their coats or were fanning
themselves with the leaflets that had been handed to them when they arrived.
Helen was standing at one end of a long trestle table that had been placed on the rostrum at the front of the hall. Dan and Bill Rimmer sat huddled beside her like war criminals. At the other end, leaning back in his chair and regally surveying the crowd, sat Buck Calder. He was in his element.
Beneath the brim of his hat, there was the gleam of sweat. There were damp patches under the arms of his otherwise spotless pink shirt. He seemed literally aglow. His opening speech had been masterful. For the benefit of those few who hadn’t heard it a dozen times, he began by recounting how his baby grandson had been snatched from the jaws of certain death. Then, like a suave prosecuting attorney, he went on to catalog the terrible losses he and his neighbors had since sustained. The only surprise was that it was he who first got heckled.
It had started toward the end of his speech and came from a small group of latecomers at the back that Helen hadn’t noticed till then. If she had, she would have known whose side they were on from the number of beards and Patagonia jackets among them. They had to be the WOE people. There were about half a dozen of them and at first Helen had felt heartened by their presence - until she saw how their heckling only served to inflame others.
Calder had handled the hecklers well. One of them, a woman with steel-rimmed glasses and a blue fleece just like Helen’s, had called out:
‘Wolves have more right to be here than your cows! I say, get rid of the cows!’
There was a rumble of anger and Buck stood calmly smiling while it faded, then said: ‘I see we’ve got some of those city folk here tonight.’ The audience roared their approval.
He’d kept the gag going when the time came to introduce Helen.
‘Miss Ross comes from the windy city of Chicago, if I remember rightly?’
Helen had smiled grimly. ‘Yes. For my sins, I do.’
‘Well, sweetheart, feel free to repent those sins here tonight.’
Taking their cue from the pro-wolf people who’d started it, another group at the back had been heckling her ever since. Among the loudest were Helen’s favorite loggers and Wes and Ethan Harding. Abe Harding, thank goodness, didn’t seem to be there.