Part 3
Tom followed him off the trail, testing the slope before putting his weight down. Loose stone shifted under the snow. He had to catch a low branch to keep from sliding, and the motion sent a sharp ache through his shoulder. Above him, the pup stopped beside a boulder and waited.
“Give me a minute.”
He reached the sheltered side of a pine and rested against it. The thermos took both hands to open. He poured a little hot water into its cup, added the tea bag, and drank while it was still weak. With the cup emptied and rinsed, he cooled some plain water and held it for the youngster. The pup drank, then lifted his head toward the rock face.
Tom watched him listen. He heard the hiss of snow in the needles and, farther downhill, a branch creaking under its load. Nothing else reached him. But the pup had gone still in a way he hadn’t been since the cabin, with even the injured ear lifted as far as it would go.
The youngster moved first. He climbed across the stones to a ledge where the rock projected over the slope. Tom put the thermos away and followed more slowly. He knew there were shallow shelters along this ridge, places where the stone had broken away beneath harder shelves. The opening ahead of him was no wider than a shed door, its lower edge half buried in drifted snow.
The pup disappeared inside.
Tom stopped short of the overhang. The wind slackened so abruptly that he could hear snow sliding from his coat. Then he caught the smell of blood. He brought the shotgun off his shoulder and kept its muzzle low while he moved the flashlight across the entrance.
A wolf lay against the back wall. Her head was turned toward the pup, who was already pressing beneath her jaw. He licked at her mouth, then at the blood-stiffened fur along her side, before pushing his nose against her cheek. She lifted her muzzle a fraction, touched him, and let it fall.
Tom could see enough of her left side to know why she hadn’t followed him. Blood had stiffened the fur behind her shoulder. The leg lay at an angle that made him look away from it and check her breathing instead. Her chest rose unevenly, with a small pause at the top of each breath. On the stone beneath her, a dark patch spread into the grit.
He had seen what a bear could do to an animal it caught at close range. The broad tears along her side, the crushed shoulder—nothing about them suggested a bullet or a fight with another wolf. Bears could still be out in early November. He looked once behind him, into the snow beyond the shelf, before returning his attention to her.
The little wolf had barely an injury beyond the ear and his worn paws. He crouched against the unhurt side of his mother, trying to find a place where she would respond. Tom could imagine her turning into the bear instead of running, keeping its attention long enough for this youngster to get clear. Whatever ground she’d gained afterward had brought her only this far.
He shifted his boot. Gravel scraped, and her head came up.
The mother bared her teeth. She gathered her forelegs beneath her and tried to lift herself between Tom and the pup. The damaged shoulder failed. She fell back with a grunt, but the growl continued, low enough that he felt it as much as heard it.
Tom stayed where he was. “Okay. I see you.”
He lowered the gun and set it safely beside the entrance, within reach but out of his hands. Then he put the flashlight on a flat stone, angled so the beam struck the wall above her. The reflected light was weaker. It also let him see without shining directly into her eyes.
He took off his cap. Meltwater ran from his hair into his collar. With his hands resting on his knees, he waited until her growl stopped, though the lips remained drawn back. The pup worked his way around her and came a step toward Tom, then turned back to nudge her again.
There was no triumph in having been brought here. Tom had bandages, warm water, a blanket. The nearest road was below the cabin, and he had spent much of the night covering ground he used to walk without thinking. He couldn’t carry an adult wolf down that slope, and he couldn’t lift her without worsening what had already happened.
He opened the first-aid tin anyway.
The roll of gauze caught under a packet of dressings. His fingers were stiff enough that he had to take off one glove to free it. He placed the clean things on his spread blanket, away from the blood, and watched the mother’s face while he moved. She followed his hands. Each time the pup stirred, her eyes went back to him.
Tom had sat through nights measuring Ellen’s breathing that way. On the worst one, he had kept smoothing a crease in her sheet because there was nothing else his hands could do. He could remember the crease perfectly. The rest of that room came back in pieces he didn’t want here.
He shifted closer, slowly enough to stop when her lip tightened. “Let me look. Just look.”
The mother gave a faint warning, then put her head down. Tom leaned to reach the flashlight. He needed to see where a dressing might help without touching the injured shoulder. The beam passed along her chest, across the foreleg folded beneath it, and stopped at a band of bare skin above the right paw.
He moved the light back.
The old scar went almost around the leg. Fur grew unevenly along its edges, leaving a pale ring with a deeper notch on the inside. He had seen plenty of trapping injuries. This one had healed under a bandage he had helped change, in a room that had still held Ellen’s voice.
“Oh,” Tom said. He lowered the gauze onto his knee. “It’s you.”
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