Part 7
For eleven weeks, the collar sent a location each morning. The young wolf crossed the same drainages as the Willow Draw pack, rested where they rested, and traveled when they traveled. Lena warned Nora that proximity was not proof of affection. Nora said she understood, and most days she did.
In January the collar stopped moving. The last signal came from a steep basin beyond the county road. Nora read Lena’s message twice before calling.
“We found the collar,” Lena said. “The breakaway section released early. There was gray hair in it, no blood. Tracks continued out of the basin with the pack.”
“So she’s alive.”
“She was when the collar came off. After that, she gets to keep her own records.”
The old Nora would have driven toward the basin before the call ended. She would have told herself she needed one print, one glimpse, one fact beyond the one she had been given. Instead she stood at the kitchen window and watched snow fill Tom’s empty upper pasture.
“Thank you,” she said, and left the truck keys on their hook.
By March, Nora and Rachel had developed a way of helping each other that still required correction. Rachel sometimes arrived with a list. Nora sometimes completed half of it before admitting the other half made sense. The satellite check-in remained beside the mudroom door, its green light irritating and dependable.
The arrangement was tested when Nora forgot the evening check-in while soaking her knee. Rachel called twice, then used the spare key Nora had finally given her. She found her mother in a bathrobe, furious at being startled and privately ashamed of the fear on Rachel’s face.
“The rule was that you come if I miss two,” Nora said after they had both stopped shouting.
“I came.”
“Yes.” Nora looked at the key still clenched in Rachel’s hand. “You did exactly what we agreed.”
Rachel waited for the part where agreement became trespass. Nora went to the mudroom, pressed the late check-in, and made tea. The next week she taped a waterproof reminder beside the tub herself.
Tom kept his distance after moving his flock to leased ground south of town. Once, after a heavy snow, Nora found her lane plowed before dawn. There was no note. She did not call to thank him, but she left the chain off the lower gate the next time the forecast turned.
Her knee remained unreliable, and two frost-nipped fingers ached whenever she carried anything cold. The water trough still froze, taxes still arrived, and the north steps stayed slick after noon. Some mornings she resented every rail Rachel had installed. On those mornings she used them anyway.
On the first warm Saturday in April, Rachel arrived carrying two thermoses and Cal’s old pipe wrench. Snowmelt had begun backing up at the spring box.
“I can do it,” Nora said when she saw the wrench.
Rachel waited. Nora clipped the locator to her belt and handed Rachel the lighter thermos. “You can do the kneeling.”
They climbed to Willow Draw together. The meadow was flattened gold beneath retreating snow. At the root plate, last fall’s little fire ring had collapsed into the earth. No red wool remained on the branches.
The climb had taken longer than it had in September. Nora stopped twice for her knee without pretending she wanted to admire the view, and Rachel waited without reaching for her arm. Near the creek, a single line of canine tracks crossed the trail and disappeared among the larches. The thaw had softened their edges beyond any useful reading. Nora noted their direction and kept walking.
At the steepest turn, Nora’s boot slipped on a ribbon of old ice. Rachel’s hand rose but stopped short of grabbing her. Nora planted the repaired cane, found her balance, and then held out her elbow. Rachel took it for the next dozen steps and released it when the trail leveled. Neither of them treated the exchange as a victory.
Rachel cleared the drain while Nora steadied the pipe. They argued about the direction of the wrench, discovered Rachel had been right, and finished before the clouds covered the sun. On the way down, Nora stopped where the trap chain had scarred the old log.
A howl rose from the northern ridge.
Another voice joined it, then a third. The sound carried over the draw without coming nearer.
Rachel looked at Nora. “Do you think one of them is her?”
Nora wrapped the red scarf once more around her neck. The gray patch showed above her coat.
“Could be,” she said.
She did not leave the trail to find out. Rachel matched her pace, and they continued toward the house while the voices crossed the darkening timber behind them and faded into distance.