Hear the Wolves

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Introduction

  Part I: The Storm

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Part II: The Woods

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Part III: The Wolves

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Not long ago, our forest ranger, Teddy Wade, declared that there were three pups to every one adult wolf bordering our small township of Rusic, Alaska. Nearly twice the pups we see each spring. He said it was the residents’ respect for wildlife that led to the wolves’ rising population. We should have known then, when that piece of news was shared neighbor-to-neighbor over black coffee and fried eggs, that we weren’t long for this frostbitten world.

  The circle of life isn’t a circle at all. It’s a straight line, with hunters on one end, and prey on the other. With my father’s rifle in my hands, there’s no question where I fall.

  I butt the gun against my right shoulder, and squeeze my left eye shut. Snowshoe hares scurry along the newly plowed field, seeking some semblance of the home they lost.

  It’s the snow. It’s unpredictable this time of year. Early October, so our land is merely dotted in white, as if a giant tipped a salt shaker, sprinkled some into the palm of his hand, and tossed it over his shoulder onto Rusic, Alaska, for superstition’s sake.

  The rabbits are a grayish-brown during the summer months, but turn white during winter. The change camouflages them during a time when predators are ravenous and desperate. When the snow is sparse though, it has the opposite effect. Like chalk strokes on a blackboard, the rabbits can be seen from my bedroom window with ease. And through the scope of this .22 magnum rifle, they’re as visible as the sun.

  My father looms at the opposite end of the field, and every step he takes causes a flurry of fur in my direction. You can’t hunt snowshoes like you can cottontails. They hear you coming, and they flee. If you want a belly full of rabbit stew, you have to sneak up on them, or drive them into the open.

  I line up my shot, zero in on a rabbit that’s larger than the rest. Take a deep breath and hold it. The blast rings through the dusk. I don’t miss the shot. I rarely do. Maybe it’s because I’m the daughter of a huntsman and butcher. But I think it’s more than that. I can’t cook well like my sister, and even Mr. Foster, our sole teacher in Rusic, admits I’m better at killing than I am arithmetic or writing longhand.

  It’s my father’s likeness that steadies my hand while hunting. But it’s my mother who reminds me there’s an art to everything we do. Whispering in my ear that the rabbit’s death gives life. This rabbit means dinner for my family. And his brothers and sisters mean Dad will have something to sell outside our house. He’ll string skinned hares and red squirrels and Old World quail from the porch, and the people of Rusic will trade for them. Or, if we’re lucky, offer actual cash.

  “Sloan, did you hear me?” my father asks.

  He sounds as if he’s speaking from beneath the river thirty miles east, but when I turn, I find he’s a mere step away. I tug on my left ear and stand, take the snowshoe from him. The rabbit’s body is warm between my hands, even through insulated gloves. I thread a line through its back leg and add it to the others, avoiding the animal’s unseeing gaze.

  “I can’t imagine we’d need more than this,” I say. “It’s double what we brought last year.”

  My father doesn’t respond. His brown eyes study the horizon as he scratches at his heavy beard. He shifts his weight, and I notice his opposite hand twitching nervously at his side. But that can’t be right. My father wouldn’t understand the meaning of the word nervous if someone bathed him in honey and dropped him in black-bear territory.

  I narrow my eyes and inspect the color that glows from my father’s skin. Green. A serious, dark green like pine needles clinging stubbornly to winter branches. His color is a solid, steady shade. Not warm, but reliable. And that’s what matters most.

  He doesn’t really glow. I know that. But assigning people a color helps to sort them. Helps to know what to expect of ’em. It takes me a little figuring to decide what color to give someone, but once it’s done, it’s done. The colors never change.

  “Let’s get back to the house,” he responds gruffly. “I’ve got packing left to do.”

  I should tell him now that I don’t want to go to Vernon. I’m not near old enough to vote to keep our townships separate anyway. And last year my sister, Maren, complained the entire time about my clinging to her, and that only reminded me of the year before, when I didn’t need to cling to anyone. When I was as free as a sparrow, and as brave as the wind.

  Of course if we stuck around, I might run into Pilot. I’d rather remove my own molars than be caught alone with that boy. Pilot turned fourteen this year, and last year his mom started letting him stay behind. I’m surprised she still goes herself, to be honest. Can’t believe she’d risk running into that vile ex-husband of hers when he’s at his worst.

  I stay quiet and follow behind my father, rabbits slung over my shoulder, our boots crunching over patches of snow where the bush once stretched. Now the soil is upended and restless, though it should be used to change by now.

  Rusic can be divided into three parts: the woods, the town, and the field. The field is only four winters old, cleared when some people in town decided to try their hand at felling trees for money like the residents of Vernon do. After they downed the trees though, they realized they’d never get them all downriver.

  The trees were gone, but the bush remained. Rabbits loved the shrubbery—dense with willow and alder and devil’s club—and wolves despised it. And so, in the end, those axmen accomplished two things: They pushed the wolves farther into the woods, away from human eyes, and they created an ideal environment for the hares.

  With their new protected burrows, the rabbits began to breed in earnest.

  And the wolves grew fat when rabbits ventured outside the bush.

  Meanwhile, my sister and I—and everyone else, it seemed—grew more resentful by the day.

  The snowshoes destroyed every vegetable garden we had. And they snuck beneath our house and died, creating a stink on the inside. I thought the rabbits had to go. Everyone thought that. There were too many now.

  So when Pat Thornton razed the bush to try and grow barley, we celebrated. I watched as he and his men finished the work this past summer, the long Alaskan days making the job a swift one. The bush vanished, the rabbits were uprooted from their burrows, and the wolves feasted until they could hardly hide their swollen bellies behind the trees. And since their shelter was gone, there was more rabbit meat for the taking than we knew what to do with.<
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  If someone wanted rabbit without hunting, they could buy it from my family by knocking on the door. That was how it worked in Rusic—visiting porches, knocking on doors. That doesn’t mean we’re a tight-knit community of helping hands.

  It doesn’t mean that at all.

  If it did, it wouldn’t have taken my father so long to get me back home, safe, after I ran away. I wouldn’t have spent five days alone, in the woods, before being discovered.

  The boy who carried me back said he found me unconscious, the left side of my face pressed into the snow. I’m deaf in that ear now, and I’ll always hear the world one-sided. My father was furious. First my mother left. And now this.

  I don’t think he was angry that I lost my hearing.

  I think he was upset that it wasn’t him who found me first.

  Maren is in the kitchen when we arrive, stirring broth over the stove and dropping in hunks of raw biscuit dough. Her blond hair is swept into a bun, bare feet turning blue against the floor.

  I drop the rabbits on the table and sit, begin to pull off my boots. “You need to put some socks on,” I tell Maren. “You’ll lose your toes.”

  She grimaces, the purple color on her skin dancing. Purple as in unpredictable. Not a bad person, just one you can’t quite rely on. A do-it-yourself kind of sister. “What I need is for you to clean those hares.”

  “There’s cleaned meat in the icebox,” I mutter. “I have to pack.”

  Maren frowns at something I said and opens her mouth to respond, but my dad cuts her off with a look. Then his eyes meet mine. “Do as your sister asked.”

  I sigh, shove my foot back into my boot, and snatch the game. Before opening the door, I glance at my father, hating myself for the silent message I’m sending. His shoulders slump as he rises and moves to stand near the window where I can see him.

  “Sloan?” he says before I go outside.

  I take in my father’s soft eyes and callused hands and the red flannel shirt my sister made him. He looks warm. I want him to ask for a hug. The feeling is so strong, and it comes on quick and out of place.

  “You know where we keep the extra ammo?” he asks.

  I point to the couch, to the tin lunch box hidden underneath. “Should I pack it?”

  He shakes his head. “No. Never mind.”

  “Dad?”

  “The rabbits, Sloan.”

  I nod, confused by his question, but I’ve got a job to do that my sister can’t help with. She can’t stomach cleaning the game, and I don’t mind doing it. Someone has to.

  As I’m shutting the door, I can hear my sister and father begin to whisper. I don’t want to know what’s being said. Not really. People tend to talk behind your back when you’ve been carried from the woods, covered in blood and clinging to someone you rarely speak to.

  As I get started skinning the first rabbit, I peek to ensure my father is near the window, and that my imaginary lasso is secure around his middle. He’s there, of course. He knows I can’t go anywhere without him or my sister in eyesight. For the last two years, I’ve refused to be without them. Some people may call that fear. But my mother left me alone in our house. And then my neighbors left me alone in the woods.

  So I don’t call it fear.

  I call it disaster prevention.

  As much as I’m dreading it, at least our trip to Vernon ensures I won’t be alone for a moment. I’ll sip hot cocoa by a fire and stay up way too late eavesdropping on Maren and her friends, and if things go smoothly, we’ll return with enough money to get us through the cold season.

  I’m working on the third hare when the snow begins falling—gently at first, and then in a rush. As the light seeps away, I check again for my father’s green hue. He’s still there. I turn back to the hare, glancing at the field where the snowshoe once lived.

  Only this time, when I look, I see something different—

  A wolf.

  Her gray coat blends beautifully with the soil, though I notice her coloring gently fades as it reaches her stomach. She skips along the ground, chasing a snowshoe as if the two are playing. Between the wolves and my hunting, I wonder how many rabbits will remain come spring. It’s not a worry. Squirrel meat can replace rabbit. Or moose venison, occasionally. Or fish, if we travel to the river.

  The wolf sees me suddenly, standing in the front porch light’s glow. I rise to my feet and watch her watching me. It’s a young wolf. Just shy of two years old. There are more pups and young wolves than I can count these days, on the verge of adulthood and growing quickly. They’re a product of the field, and the extra food it brought them.

  The wolf takes a few quick steps in my direction, and stops. A shiver slides down my spine. Though the wolves have never given us a reason to fear them, I can’t shake how this one is staring. Soon, a larger wolf joins the female, and the two race after the rabbit. The younger wolf is clearly the better hunter, though she’s smaller.

  I watch the hare scurry along the ground, darting side to side in a manic attempt to escape being eaten alive, and I’m not sure why I don’t simply turn away as I normally do. There’s something about this moment that has me frozen. Maybe it’s the fading day. Or that this rabbit doesn’t stand a chance without its burrow. Before, the animals were matched in speed and wits. Many times, perhaps most, the rabbits escaped underground.

  But this rabbit has no chance.

  For a moment, I consider calling out. Saving this rabbit, though I didn’t pay the ones on our porch the same favor. But it’s too late. The male wolf intersects the rabbit’s path, and the female closes her jaws on the hare’s neck and shakes her head vigorously.

  She shoots one last look in my direction before trotting toward the trees, the prize between her teeth. As the young wolf departs, she travels too close to the male, and he nips her shoulder in warning to give him space. The snow falls over their coats as they make their exit.

  Late that night, after I’ve shaken off the uneasiness from watching the hunt, I drift to sleep beside my sister, listening to the night noises outside our bedroom window quiet beneath snowfall. I hear that same hush when I wake in the night, sweating though it must be fifty degrees indoors, even with the generator running.

  I hear that stillness in the morning too, when I realize I’m alone.

  When I realize my father and sister, and the rest of the town, have left me behind.

  Fear explodes in my belly as I tear across the cabin floors, checking absurd places for my father and sister. My fingers and toes grow numb, and my breathing comes faster until the walls of our home bow inward. Though my lungs heave in and out, I’m suffocating.

  “Dad?” I say, voice wobbly.

  Tears sting my eyes as my footsteps grow frantic. “Maren?” I say, as if declaring my sister’s name will force her to appear. “Dad!”

  When I hear a sound that must be them, I race to the front of the house. The knob is cold in my palm as I throw open the door. Icy air slaps me in the face, reddening my cheeks. My brain buzzes as I search the world outside. I see snow falling, snow whirling, snow covering everything in sight, but I do not see Dad.

  I slam the door as a fresh bolt of anxiety shoots through me, my heart pounding against my rib cage. He couldn’t have left me behind. Not after my mother took that honor first. After everyone left me for five days to fend for myself.

  Sloan, you know where we keep the extra ammo?

  I drop my head into my hands and pull in three shaky breaths. My mind replays my sister’s frown, my father saying he had packing left to do, not us.

  So he got tired of my neediness, did he? Decided it was time to cast his broken bird from the nest?

  I grab our radio and hurl it across the room. It crashes against the wall and clatters to the floor. I open my mouth to scream, but a whimper comes out instead. I hate the both of them. Hate them for leaving me. Hate myself for needing their presence.

  It’s only after I bend down to grab the radio that I see the note on top of the kitch
en table. He must have slipped it underneath the radio so the wind from the door wouldn’t take it.

  I lift it up and read—

  Sloan,

  We’ll be back tomorrow. I knew you didn’t want to go, and thought this could be a good chance for you to remember that you’re perfectly capable without your sister or me nearby. This will be good for you. You’re braver than you think.

  The words are perfectly legible in my dad’s handwriting, but I can scarcely read them for the tears in my eyes. He really did it. He really left me.

  I crumple the note and hurl it too, catching sight of a light in the distance when I do. It comes from the chapel’s stained glass panels, the ones created by the reverend himself—a holy man with an artist’s instincts. It’s no wonder that my mother liked the guy.

  I can’t look away from that light, and the blowing snow. For the first time, I cast my eyes to the ground. A new sort of fear rocks me as I cling to the window frame. Too much snow in too little time. And look at the way it falls. Like it has a score to settle with those stupid enough to stay behind.

  I’ve seen many snowstorms, but a blizzard is something else. The worst one I can remember howled through Rusic the day after my mother abandoned us, washing away her sadness, but not my anger.

  My thoughts turn to our generator. Do I have enough fuel if my father and sister can’t make it back to Rusic in two days’ time with winter reserves? No, probably not.

  With a trembling chin, I press my lips into a tight line, determined to fake courage even though there’s no one to see. Then I’m pulling on my thermal underwear, long-sleeved fleece, jeans, snow pants, stocking cap, insulated gloves and jacket, and my boots. Already, my heart rate slows. Darkness still dances at the edges of my eyes, but I can focus on this now—simple, physical needs. Feed the generator. Feed my mouth. One foot before the other.

  When I stand upright, a softened slip of paper in my jacket pocket shifts. I dig out the Special Invitation and reread the words that invite me—Sloan Reilly—to compete in the Junior Art Competition in Anchorage, and say that my samples were accepted and most impressive.

  I don’t know how they got photos of my projects, but that doesn’t stop me from hoping they’ve seen the flowering clematis vine I manipulated to wrap around the rib cage of a steer skeleton. Or the crushed winter leaves I mixed into my mother’s acrylics to paint a spring day, showing half the talent my mom had with a canvas.