Part 2
A week passed. The wolf, whom Greg had quietly started calling Gray, slowly adapted to the rhythms of the cabin. He stopped baring his teeth when Greg approached with food, accepting the raw venison without the sharp, defensive snaps of the first few days. But the animal’s hind legs remained dead weight.
“Looks like you’re not going anywhere for a while,” Greg muttered one morning, setting a fresh bowl of water on the floorboards.
He eventually moved Gray to the enclosed mudroom at the back of the cabin. It was colder out there, but it gave the massive animal more space to drag himself around, and it stopped the three hounds from pacing nervous circles in the living room. Greg found himself talking to the wolf while he worked on his gear. At first, he felt foolish explaining weather patterns and trapping lines to a wild predator, but the isolation of the backcountry played tricks on a man. And Gray seemed to listen, tracking Greg’s movements with intelligent, unblinking amber eyes.
One evening, the sweep of headlights flashed across the frosted windows.
A vehicle on the ridge this late in the evening was a rare event. The hounds erupted into a frenzy of barking. Greg stepped out onto the porch, pulling his jacket tight against the bitter wind. A county sheriff’s cruiser idled in the snowpack. Deputy Carter stepped out, a heavy-set man whose face was permanently windburned from decades of patrolling the mountain roads.
“Carter,” Greg said, leaning against the porch rail.
“Got any coffee left, Greg?” Carter asked, heavy boots crunching up the icy steps.
Inside, Greg poured two mugs of black coffee from the French press. He didn’t offer food; he didn’t have much to offer anyway. Carter wrapped his thick fingers around the ceramic mug, letting the steam warm his face. He didn’t make eye contact immediately, choosing instead to study a row of steel traps hanging near the door.
“Talk in town is you’re boarding a stray,” Carter said softly.
Greg’s jaw tightened. “Found him in the river down by the narrows. Hind legs are shot. He was freezing to death.”
“He’s a timber wolf, Greg. Not a stray lab.” Carter took a slow sip of his coffee. “He’s not a pet. You can’t just keep him.”
“He can’t walk. What was I supposed to do, let him drown?”
Carter sighed, leaning heavily against the counter. “Two calves got torn up at the Henderson ranch last week. Folks are getting nervous. They’re saying a pack moved down from the northern ridge.”
“He’s been dragging his back half across my mudroom floor for a week,” Greg said, his voice flat. “He didn’t touch Henderson’s livestock.”
“I know that,” Carter replied. “But Game Warden Bragg doesn’t.”
Greg fell silent. Warden Bragg had held a grudge against Greg for years. The man was convinced Greg was running illegal trap lines and taking elk out of season, though he had never been able to prove a thing.
“Bragg has friends at the regional office,” Carter warned, lowering his voice. “If he catches wind you’re harboring a wolf, he’ll come out here with a warrant and a rifle. State wildlife code is pretty clear on nuisance predators. It’s a shoot-on-sight policy, Greg. Specially if they think it’s been near livestock.”
Greg stared down into his dark coffee. The deputy was right. A wolf in this county was a liability with a bounty on its head.
“You going to tell him?” Greg asked quietly.
Carter looked at him for a long moment, shaking his head. “I didn’t see a damn thing tonight. But you better figure this out, Greg. If Bragg shows up, I can’t protect you.”
After Carter left, Greg sat by the woodstove for a long time. The fire popped and hissed. What was the endgame here? He couldn’t keep a wild animal permanently, but releasing a crippled wolf into the snowpack was a death sentence. And if Bragg found out, the fines alone could cost Greg the cabin.
A few days later, Alex arrived.
He stepped out of a county transit van at the bottom of the unplowed driveway, hauling a bright blue North Face duffel bag. He was taller than Greg remembered, all sharp elbows and knees, with Sarah’s dark hair and Greg’s pale gray eyes.
“Dad!” Alex yelled, trudging up the driveway through the knee-deep snow.
Greg hurried down to meet him, pulling the boy into a tight hug. Alex smelled like clean city laundry detergent and nervous sweat.
“Glad you made it up, Al,” Greg said, clapping a heavy hand on his son’s shoulder. “Thought the transit driver might turn back when the pavement ended.”
“He almost did,” Alex laughed, his breath pluming in the freezing air. “Said there was a bear warning on the radio.”
“In February?” Greg scoffed, taking the heavy duffel. “Bears are asleep. Driver just didn’t want to chain his tires.”
They walked up the steps and Greg pushed the heavy oak door open. Alex stepped inside, unzipping his heavy coat, and then froze.
Curled into a massive, heavily muscled ball of gray fur near the woodstove, was the wolf. At the sound of the door, Gray lifted his huge head. His ears swiveled forward, and his nostrils flared, taking in the unfamiliar scent.
Alex dropped his backpack. It hit the floorboards with a dull thud. “Dad…”
“It’s alright,” Greg said, stepping smoothly between his son and the predator. “I call him Gray. Pulled him out of the ice a while back.”
“A real wolf?” Alex’s voice barely rose above a whisper. He couldn’t take his eyes off the animal.
“Don’t get too close,” Greg warned, his tone shifting into something sharper. “He’s wild, and he doesn’t like strangers.”
But the expected snarl never came. Instead, Gray watched the boy intently, head tilted slightly to the side. After a long, tense moment, the wolf’s thick tail thumped once, softly, against the floorboards.
Greg raised an eyebrow. “Well, I’ll be damned. Took him nearly a week to stop snapping at me.”
That evening, the cabin felt warmer than it had in years. Greg tended to the fire while Alex sat cross-legged on the braided rug, a safe distance from the wolf, listening to his father talk about the snowpack and the upcoming spring thaw. But the boy’s attention kept drifting back to Gray.
“Can he walk at all?” Alex asked, nodding toward the animal’s awkward posture.
“Not yet,” Greg said, tossing another split log into the stove. “Nerves might be shot from the cold. Or his spine’s bruised.”
Alex hesitated, chewing on the inside of his cheek. “When Mom’s dog tweaked his hip last summer, the vet gave us exercises to do. Stretching the muscles to get the blood flowing. Do you think a massage would help him?”
Greg stopped wiping down the kitchen counter, turning around slowly. “Al, that is a wild apex predator. You put your hands on him and he panics, he will take your fingers off before I can even cross the room.”
“He won’t,” Alex said.
Before Greg could stop him, the boy shifted closer to the wolf.
“Alex, stop,” Greg ordered, his voice tight with real fear.
But Alex reached out. His small hand hovered over the wolf’s paralyzed thigh. Gray’s amber eyes tracked the movement perfectly. The wolf let out a low, vibrating sound—not an aggressive growl, but a heavy rumble deep in his chest. Then, he rested his heavy chin back onto his front paws and exhaled a long breath.
Slowly, Alex pressed his thumbs into the thick, coarse fur, finding the dense muscle of the wolf’s hind leg. He began to work the stiff joints in slow, rhythmic circles. The wolf didn’t flinch.
Greg leaned back against the counter, his heart hammering against his ribs. He watched in silence as his city-raised son confidently kneaded the muscles of a killer.
“He likes you better than me,” Greg noted quietly, the tension finally leaving his shoulders.
Alex looked up, a small, proud smile breaking across his face. “I think he knows I’m trying to help.”
Gray let out another soft rumble, the sound vibrating through the quiet cabin, heavy with a strange, fragile trust.