built up the fire, to crawl all the way down there with him. Get into his arms. I’d grab him by the ears and kiss him on the eyes.
The hunter watched the fire, the flames cutting and sawing, each log a burning bridge. Three years he had waited for this. Three years he had dreamed this girl by his fire. But somehow it had ended up different from what he had imagined; he had thought it would be like a hunt—like waiting hours beside a wallow with his rifle barrel on his pack to see the huge antlered head of a bull elk loom up against the sky, to hear the whole herd behind him inhale, then scatter down the hill. If you had your opening you shot and walked the animal down and that was it. All the uncertainty was over. But this felt different, as if he had no choices to make, no control over any bullet he might let fly or hold back. It was exactly as if he was still three years younger, stopped outside the Central Christian Church and driven against a low window by the wind or some other, greater force.
Stay with me, he whispered to her, to the fire. Stay the winter.
Bruce Maples stood beside him jabbing the ice in his drink with his straw.
I’m in athletics, Bruce offered. I run the athletic department here.
You mentioned that.
Did I? I don’t remember. I used to coach track. Hurdles.
Hurdles, the hunter repeated.
You bet.
The hunter studied him. What was Bruce Maples doing here? What strange curiosities and fears drove him, drove any of these people filing now through the front door, dressed in their dark suits and black gowns? He watched the thin, stricken man, President O’Brien, as he stood in the corner of the parlor. Every few minutes a couple of guests made their way to him and took O’Brien’s hands in their own.
You probably know, the hunter told Maples, that wolves are hurdlers. Sometimes the people who track them will come to a snag and the prints will disappear. As if the entire pack just leaped into a tree and vanished. Eventually they’ll find the tracks again, thirty or forty feet away. People used to think it was magic—flying wolves. But all they did was jump. One great coordinated leap.
Bruce was looking around the room. Huh, he said. I wouldn’t know about that.
She stayed. The first time they made love, she shouted so loudly that coyotes climbed onto the roof and howled down the chimney. Her rolled off her, sweating. The coyotes coughed and chuckled all night, like children chattering in the yard, and he had nightmares. Last night you had three dreams and you dreamed you were a wolf each time, she whispered. You were mad with hunger and running under the moon.
Had he dreamed that? He couldn’t remember. Maybe he talked in his sleep.
In December it never got warmer than fifteen below. The river froze—something he’d never seen. Christmas Eve he drove all the way to Helena to buy her figure skates. In the morning they wrapped themselves head to toe in furs and went out to skate the river. She held him by the hips and they glided through the blue dawn, skating hard up the frozen coils and shoals, beneath theleafless alders and cottonwoods, only the bare tips of creek willow showing above the snow. Ahead of them vast white stretches of river faded on into darkness. An owl hunkered on a branch and watched them with its huge eyes. Merry Christmas, Owl! she shouted into the cold. It spread its huge wings, dropped from the branch and disappeared into the forest.
In a wind-polished bend they came upon a dead heron, frozen by its ankles into the ice. It had tried to hack itself out, hammering with its beak first at the ice entombing its feet and then at its own thin and scaly legs. When it finally died, it died upright, wings folded back, beak parted in some final, desperate cry, legs rooted like twin reeds in the ice.
She fell to her knees and knelt before the bird. Its eye was frozen and cloudy. It’s dead, the hunter said, gently. Come on. You’ll freeze too.
No, she said. She
The hunter watched the fire, the flames cutting and sawing, each log a burning bridge. Three years he had waited for this. Three years he had dreamed this girl by his fire. But somehow it had ended up different from what he had imagined; he had thought it would be like a hunt—like waiting hours beside a wallow with his rifle barrel on his pack to see the huge antlered head of a bull elk loom up against the sky, to hear the whole herd behind him inhale, then scatter down the hill. If you had your opening you shot and walked the animal down and that was it. All the uncertainty was over. But this felt different, as if he had no choices to make, no control over any bullet he might let fly or hold back. It was exactly as if he was still three years younger, stopped outside the Central Christian Church and driven against a low window by the wind or some other, greater force.
Stay with me, he whispered to her, to the fire. Stay the winter.
Bruce Maples stood beside him jabbing the ice in his drink with his straw.
I’m in athletics, Bruce offered. I run the athletic department here.
You mentioned that.
Did I? I don’t remember. I used to coach track. Hurdles.
Hurdles, the hunter repeated.
You bet.
The hunter studied him. What was Bruce Maples doing here? What strange curiosities and fears drove him, drove any of these people filing now through the front door, dressed in their dark suits and black gowns? He watched the thin, stricken man, President O’Brien, as he stood in the corner of the parlor. Every few minutes a couple of guests made their way to him and took O’Brien’s hands in their own.
You probably know, the hunter told Maples, that wolves are hurdlers. Sometimes the people who track them will come to a snag and the prints will disappear. As if the entire pack just leaped into a tree and vanished. Eventually they’ll find the tracks again, thirty or forty feet away. People used to think it was magic—flying wolves. But all they did was jump. One great coordinated leap.
Bruce was looking around the room. Huh, he said. I wouldn’t know about that.
She stayed. The first time they made love, she shouted so loudly that coyotes climbed onto the roof and howled down the chimney. Her rolled off her, sweating. The coyotes coughed and chuckled all night, like children chattering in the yard, and he had nightmares. Last night you had three dreams and you dreamed you were a wolf each time, she whispered. You were mad with hunger and running under the moon.
Had he dreamed that? He couldn’t remember. Maybe he talked in his sleep.
In December it never got warmer than fifteen below. The river froze—something he’d never seen. Christmas Eve he drove all the way to Helena to buy her figure skates. In the morning they wrapped themselves head to toe in furs and went out to skate the river. She held him by the hips and they glided through the blue dawn, skating hard up the frozen coils and shoals, beneath theleafless alders and cottonwoods, only the bare tips of creek willow showing above the snow. Ahead of them vast white stretches of river faded on into darkness. An owl hunkered on a branch and watched them with its huge eyes. Merry Christmas, Owl! she shouted into the cold. It spread its huge wings, dropped from the branch and disappeared into the forest.
In a wind-polished bend they came upon a dead heron, frozen by its ankles into the ice. It had tried to hack itself out, hammering with its beak first at the ice entombing its feet and then at its own thin and scaly legs. When it finally died, it died upright, wings folded back, beak parted in some final, desperate cry, legs rooted like twin reeds in the ice.
She fell to her knees and knelt before the bird. Its eye was frozen and cloudy. It’s dead, the hunter said, gently. Come on. You’ll freeze too.
No, she said. She
Similar Books
