Part 6
Ash did not follow the pack that morning. He came down from the window, drank from his bowl, and settled beside June as though nothing had been decided. Jack left the bolt withdrawn anyway.
By March, the visits to the porch had become trips beyond it. The wolf would cross the clearing, pause at the trees, and disappear along a route Jack couldn’t see. At first he returned within an hour, carrying burrs and unfamiliar smells in his coat.
June inspected every inch of him. She worked from the torn ear to his feet, stopping whenever he tried to move away. Ash endured it, then dropped beside her and slept with the abandon of an animal that had spent its strength somewhere else.
Jack found himself organizing his rounds around those returns. He would finish a nearer task before the far one, come back for a tool he could have done without, stand a minute too long with his hand on the porch rail. The clock inside had never been particularly loud until he started listening for the latch beneath it.
Ash stayed away half a day. Then he stayed until dark. One morning he returned before dawn, tired enough to lie down without eating, and Jack sat beside the stove until the slow movement of his ribs reassured him.
“Where were you?” he asked.
The wolf opened an eye, then closed it. There would be no account of the night, no route Jack could mark on his map. He checked the paws he could see and let him sleep.
June waited by the door when he was gone. Sometimes she took up a position at the window; sometimes she lay with her nose near the gap as she had in November. Jack would set a bowl beside her and pretend not to notice how quickly she abandoned it when anything sounded outside.
He could have fastened the bolt again. The thought came to him on an evening when Ash stood listening to a howl beyond the ridge. Jack saw himself turning the small brass catch, putting an end to one night’s worry. Then he imagined doing it the next night and the night after that, while the animal beside him continued to grow.
He sat on the floor where Ash could reach him. June came over and lowered herself against the chair, watching Jack’s hand move through the dark fur at the wolf’s neck.
“I’m not going to shut you in.”
He said it slowly, to hear whether he could. Ash turned toward him, and Jack rubbed the place behind the torn ear. The youngster leaned into his fingers with the same pressure he had used after learning to walk across the kitchen.
“You’ve got food out there. You’ve found it. Maybe you’ll find somebody to run with.”
He stopped. He could not promise a pack would accept him, and he could not make the woods into a harmless place by describing them kindly. What he knew was the force with which Ash watched the dark and the way June’s vigilance was wearing at her.
Jack rested his forehead briefly against the wolf’s coat. Then he stood and checked that the bolt was free. June moved closer to Ash, licking along his muzzle until he lay down and put his head across her back.
Around three in the morning, the latch lifted.
Jack was awake before the door touched the wall. He sat up, pulled on his pants, and went to the window without reaching for the lamp. Ash stood on the porch; June waited in the doorway behind him.
The wolf looked toward the trees for a long time. June made a soft sound, and he turned his head. She stayed where she was while he walked down the steps.
Halfway across the clearing, he stopped. He looked back at the house, his face pale in the thin moonlight, then turned and ran. Jack watched the space between two spruce after there was nothing left to see.
When he opened the door wider, June did not move. He sat beside her on the cold boards and put an arm around her shoulders. Her howl began low, rose only a little, and continued until she had to stop for breath.
Jack held her through the next one. He had no useful words for her, and the few he tried sounded too loud. Eventually he drew the porch blanket around them and stayed until the eastern edge of the clearing began to show.
Inside, he put down breakfast. June passed it and went to the bedding beside the stove. She pressed her nose into the fold where Ash’s neck had rested and lay there while Jack filled the kettle.
He let the water boil dry enough to hiss against the bottom before he noticed. After moving it, he stood at the counter with both hands braced against the wood. June hadn’t lifted her head.
He knew that posture from August. The sight of it sent him across the room faster than the kettle had. He sat beside her bed, put the bowl within reach, and waited while she turned her face away.
“Stay here with me,” he said.
He meant more than the floor or the cabin, but he couldn’t find a way to say it without sounding as though he were asking her to do something she had no strength for. He lay on his side next to her, keeping one hand on her shoulder. After a while she leaned her weight against it.
The day’s round went undone. He heard the radio call his station and left it unanswered, listening instead to June’s breathing and the occasional slide of snow from the roof. Toward afternoon he brought fresh water close enough that she could reach it without leaving the blanket.
At dusk she got up and walked to the door. Jack rose stiffly and joined her. They watched the clearing until the last distinction between snow and trees faded.
“He may stay out tonight,” Jack told her. He could manage that much without letting his voice fail.
June sat down. Jack drew a chair over rather than ask her to leave, and after a while her shoulder settled against his boot. When the latch rattled in the wind, they both looked up.
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