Part 5
“No,” Nell said. She looked at Mabel, who had begun inspecting a wrinkle in the towel. “That was a rotten thing to say. I’m sorry.”
Hazel put the spoon in a cup beside the door. She did not tell Nell it was all right, and Nell stood still instead of explaining what she had meant.
“Grandpa bought stronger wire,” Hazel said at last. “It’s in the barn. He can’t get down on that knee long enough to do the bottom properly.”
“Could my dad help?”
“Would he?”
Daniel was waiting in his pickup with the window down. Nell walked over and asked him, giving him the whole question, including the part about Ellis already having the wire. He said he would help if Ellis wanted him there.
Ellis came to the yard after Hazel fetched him. He listened with his hands braced against his hips, looking from Daniel to the girls and back. Nell expected an argument about the wolf, but he asked how many posts Daniel thought they would need.
They went to look. The old poultry enclosure had places where the wire pulled loose from the frame, gaps Nell had not noticed because she had never been asked to look for them. Daniel knelt at a corner and tested the wood with his screwdriver.
“This one’s gone soft. New wire won’t fix that.”
“I have cedar posts behind the shed,” Ellis said.
“I’ll see what can be used. Rachel offered someone who knows these enclosures. Might be worth having them look before we start.”
Ellis stared at the puncture Daniel’s screwdriver had left. “They can look at the coop.” He lifted his head. “That isn’t an answer about the north lane.”
“I understand.”
Saturday morning, Nell came back with gloves over her healing palms. A fencing worker from the conservation group met them there, checked the materials, and helped Daniel plan the repairs. Hazel moved the remaining birds into the temporary enclosure she and Ellis had made inside an unused shed.
Nell’s job was to sort fasteners into buckets and carry what people asked for. It was slow work and sometimes boring, and the edges of her dressings made the gloves bunch. Nobody called her brave for doing it.
When she tried to hold a gate frame while Daniel adjusted a hinge, her sore palm gave way. He caught the frame before it dropped, then asked her to move the bucket closer instead. She wanted to say she could manage; she moved the bucket.
Hazel showed her which birds crowded a doorway and which had to be coaxed. By afternoon, Nell could pick Mabel out without looking for the missing feathers. She knew the hen would stand near Hazel’s left boot and reach for the braid if it slipped out of her sweatshirt.
Ellis carried water to the workers and cut the pieces he could manage standing at his bench. Once, Daniel handed him a pencil without looking up, exactly when he needed it. Ellis paused with it against the wood, glanced at Daniel, then marked his cut.
Rachel stopped by late in the day. She checked the completed enclosure with the fencing worker, then waited while Hazel tested the new latches. Nell wanted her to ask about the lane immediately, but Rachel let the older girl finish.
Ellis stood beside the gate with a coil of discarded wire at his feet. “You can’t tell me she’ll never come back on this land.”
“No,” Rachel said. “I can’t.”
“And you don’t know whether she’s what got the birds.”
“We don’t have enough to identify what did. This work helps protect them from more than one kind of animal.”
He bent to pick up the wire, stopped when his knee wouldn’t let him, and stood again. Daniel lifted the coil and put it on the trailer.
“The people checking that trap,” Ellis said. “This doesn’t change anything with them?”
“It’s a separate matter. I’ve passed on the information both of you gave us.”
Ellis watched Hazel carry Mabel into the repaired enclosure. Nell held the outer gate while the older girl closed the inner one; only after Hazel checked it did Nell step away. The white hen settled against Hazel’s shoe as if the new space required a few more minutes of consideration.
“You can inspect the north lane tomorrow,” Ellis said. “If it’s safe for your truck, you can use it to return her. Small crew. I don’t want people coming out here afterward looking for wolves.”
Rachel agreed to keep the location out of her team’s public material. Ellis took the north gate key from his ring and handed it directly to her.
On Sunday afternoon, the veterinarian cleared the wolf to return to the wild. Rachel told Kate that the injury had responded to treatment: the animal was eating, using the foot, and moving well enough for release. She would still be monitored closely after she went back; keeping her longer also had costs, with pups waiting and a wild animal confined around people.
The lane had passed inspection. They would go before sunrise Monday, with the wolf in a transport crate and the family permitted to watch from their closed pickup. Rachel explained the conditions to Nell herself, including the instruction not to call to the animal.
That night Nell put the red leash in her backpack. She took it out once, laid it on her bed, then packed it again. She could not explain why she needed it, and for once nobody asked her to.
Daniel knocked on her bedroom door before dawn. He waited for her answer, then opened it partway.
“They’re ready to go,” he said. “Still want to come?”
She was already dressed. He could see that from the doorway, but she was glad he had asked.
At the farm gate, Ellis waited in his tractor. He drove ahead across the firm lane while the wildlife truck followed, then stopped where the old raised track reached public land. The Mercer pickup remained well back until Jonah waved Kate into the place Rachel had chosen for them.
Nell sat in the back seat, where she could see through the side window. Her backpack lay against her feet. Daniel turned to check that she had a clear view, then faced forward again.
The team positioned the transport crate at ground level with its opening toward cover. Beyond it stood black gum trees, their trunks dark from the recent rain, and a stretch of thick growth that hid the rest of the track. Nell could not see the den. Rachel had told her they would not be going near it.
Jonah withdrew behind the truck. Rachel lifted a hand to make sure everyone was settled, then opened the crate from a distance.
For a long time, the wolf stayed inside. Nell could see a patch of fur move in the darkness, then stop. There was no invitation anyone could give that would help.
At last a muzzle appeared. The wolf tested the air, drew back, and came forward again until its shoulders filled the opening. Without mud, the coat was brown and gray with a reddish wash along the face and legs. The replacement collar showed bright orange against it.
She stepped down and paused with the injured foot held clear. Nell leaned toward the glass. Then the wolf put the foot on the ground and took another step, using it cautiously beneath her weight.
She turned toward the pickup.
Nell could see both eyes. For a second she felt the pull of the line again, the wolf’s weight hanging from Benny’s leash. She wanted the animal to take one step closer, to hear her voice without the engine noise.
Her fingers rested beside the window switch. The name Fern formed behind her lips, ready to be said for the first time.
In the front seat, Daniel turned partway around. He saw her hand and her face. He did not reach back to move her fingers or tell her what she had already promised Rachel.
Nell drew her hand into her lap.
The wolf looked past the pickup toward the open field, then back toward the trees. Nell sat with her mouth closed while the seconds in which she could call grew fewer.
An ear turned. The wolf pivoted toward cover and walked away, favoring the foot at first. At the edge of the brush she lengthened her stride, slipped between two trunks, and was gone before Nell had found a place to look next…
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