Mae Porter caught Daniel at the office door and turned his paperwork over. On the back she had written the weather update in the large, square letters she used when she wanted something read twice.
“That front’s moving faster than they thought. Don’t try to beat it home.”
Daniel took off one glove to read the sheet. Outside, his pickup was already disappearing beneath another dusting of snow, and the yard lights shone through the exhaust of the waiting locomotive. The northern Montana branch to Kettle Junction would take most of the morning; beyond Millhaven, there were long stretches where the tracks were the only cleared way through the woods.
“We’ll take our time.” He handed the paperwork back for her signature. “Any trouble through Cedar Cut?”
“Nothing reported. Keep listening.”
He knew the cut’s winter visitors: elk standing shoulder-deep beside the embankment, a moose that refused to hurry, wolves that vanished before he could get a second look. Caleb always wanted the wolf stories. His son was seven and believed his father’s job consisted mostly of seeing things other people missed.
Daniel tucked the sheet into his coat, beside his grandfather’s pocket watch. He was thirty-two, with nearly ten years in the engineer’s seat and three generations of railroad Whitcombs behind him. He still carried the watch, though the cab had a perfectly good clock.
Ray Nolan was checking the work car coupled directly behind the locomotive. It was one of sixteen cars going east that morning, a battered workshop traveling with machinery and lumber for a track crew. Its enclosed compartment had a heater, blanket rolls, and a broad equipment ramp folded against the wall. Daniel helped Ray secure the ramp before they finished their checks.
“Heater’s earning its keep,” Ray said. “Coffee won’t be cold for a change.”
At fifty-five, Ray knew where the branch held ice long after the sun reached it. Daniel trusted his conductor’s eye as much as any bulletin Mae handed him. They climbed aboard together, and the train began to draw its long weight out of the yard.
An hour later, Ray came back into the cab after checking the work car, carrying two thermoses. He passed one across without taking his eyes off the curve ahead. Daniel let the heat work through his glove before opening it.
“Tessa hear from that last school?” he asked.
“Still waiting. Two acceptances sitting on the kitchen table, and she checks the mail like nobody wants her.”
“Which one’s she hoping for?”
“The farthest away, naturally.” Ray settled into his seat. “Don’t laugh. Your turn’s coming.”
Daniel smiled, thinking of the model engines that filled Caleb’s bedroom at his mother’s place. The divorce had been three years ago; most of Daniel’s stories now had to fit between Saturday pickup and Sunday evening. Caleb had already extracted a promise about riding in the cab when he turned ten, if the railroad approved it. To him, ten was almost impossibly far away.
They followed the river into a narrowing fold of hills. Snow covered the banks, but the railheads remained visible, two dark lines running beneath the white burden on the fir branches. Before the approach to Cedar Cut, Daniel brought the train down to the slow speed the branch required there.
Ray stopped unscrewing his thermos.
“Daniel. Track ahead.”
He saw them where the cut straightened, roughly a quarter mile away. At first the gray shapes seemed to be crossing. Then one turned its head toward the locomotive, and Daniel realized the others were facing him too.
He shut off power and began braking immediately. Ray reached for the binoculars mounted beside his seat, coffee forgotten between his boots.
“Wolves. Eight—no, there’s another behind that big one.”
Daniel called Mae, giving their location and the obstruction. She acknowledged him, told him to try the horn, and held other traffic clear of their section. He answered while keeping his eyes on the rails.
Daniel sounded the horn. He expected the familiar scatter into the timber, the last tail slipping between the trunks. Instead, the nearest wolf lowered its ears, planted its feet, and stayed.
The brake application worked back through the cars. Daniel felt the train gathering against its own weight and watched the shrinking length of track between the cab and the animals. They were already moving slowly, but the locomotive kept taking ground.
“Anything beyond them?”
“Can’t see. They’re right across it.” Ray lowered the binoculars. “I’ve never had a pack do this.”
One wolf shifted sideways. The others made small adjustments around it, bodies crossing and uncovering each other; they weren’t a drilled line, but they filled the narrow opening. None ran.
Daniel put the brakes into emergency.
The train tugged hard through the couplings. Ray caught his thermos before it rolled, and Daniel held his position, listening to the machinery beneath him while the big wolf grew steadily clearer. There was a pale gray mask across its face, rising unevenly above the left eye.
The locomotive stopped about fifty yards short of the pack.
For several seconds neither man spoke. The cab was still warm, the engine running steadily, yet Daniel could hear each breath he took. Outside, a wolf shook snow from its coat and looked down at something he couldn’t see.
Ray set the thermos upright. “They might be sick.”
“All nine?”
“I don’t know. That’s the point.”
They confirmed their position with Mae and secured the train. Daniel kept watching the animals while Ray completed the checks. The big wolf faced the locomotive again; behind it, two others stood angled toward the same low patch between the rails.
“I’m going down to the steps,” Daniel said.
Ray looked at him. “Stay beside the engine.”
Daniel pulled his gloves tight. He wasn’t sure what he expected to learn from the ground, only that there was something in the arrangement he couldn’t understand from his seat. He asked Ray to keep the radio open, took the binoculars, and climbed down.
From beside the ladder, the wolves looked larger. Snow worked into the gap above his collar, and the locomotive’s handrail felt solid against his palm. He kept one hand there while the masked wolf watched him.
“What have you got?” he said under his breath.
The wolf turned its head. Another moved toward the trees, then a third stepped off the near rail, leaving a narrow gap through the pack. Daniel steadied himself beside the ladder and raised the binoculars.
There was tawny fur on the snow beyond them. A long tail lay across a tie, its dark tip motionless, and an ear flattened as the animal turned its face toward the locomotive. A mountain lion was lying between the rails.
Daniel followed the line of her body to a dark metal shape around a hind leg. A short chain ran from it beneath the rail and back into a closed steel link.
Someone had fastened her to the track.
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