Part 8
Jack lowered the cloth over his hand and gathered the pup from his boot. This time the little body felt warm all the way through. He placed him beside the other three, leaving his hand still until Ash had looked into the carrier herself.
The trip to the field station took most of the morning. Reed stayed ahead on the road while Evelyn traveled with the animals in the heated transport vehicle. Jack sat where the receiving crew had told him to sit, resisting the urge to uncover the pups every time the vehicle slowed.
At the station he carried their bedding into the quiet treatment area and watched Evelyn speak with the team taking over. Mae and Father Paul had come behind them in another vehicle; they waited outside while the transfer was completed. When there was nothing left Jack could usefully do, he went back to the parking area with the empty carrying cloth folded under his arm.
Release took several more weeks. Ash’s shoulder needed time, the smallest pup continued to tire easily, and the team wanted all four strong enough to remain with her. Updates came through Evelyn. Jack asked about their progress, then learned to stop asking whether he could visit.
They were limiting contact with people. He understood the reason and still found himself looking at the empty space beside his stove.
By the day the team cleared them for release, the road was wet and the remaining snow lay in shaded pockets beneath the trees. Jack went with Evelyn and Reed to the forest edge. Mae brought Nathan’s notebook in her bag, though she never opened it; Father Paul stood beside her near the vehicles.
Ash emerged first. The fur over her shoulder was uneven, but she put weight on the leg without the careful pause Jack remembered. She tested the air, turned toward the trees, then looked back as the pups stirred in their carriers.
Jack took one step toward her and stopped. He had imagined this moment so often that the actual place felt wrong: mud on the road, insects gathering above the hood, a dull ache in his knee. There was no sign by which he could know she would be safe beyond the trees.
The field worker waited beside the open carriers. Evelyn touched Jack’s sleeve and moved back with the others, giving him room without telling him what the wolf meant to do. Ash stood close enough that he could see the small notch in her ear.
He lowered himself onto his good knee. The last patch of snow at the roadside soaked through his jeans as he took off his glove and rested his open hand on the ground. He kept it there without reaching for her.
Ash came nearer. She smelled his fingers, then touched the inside of his wrist with her nose. The contact was brief and cool, and Jack gave a small, startled laugh.
“All right,” he said. “Go on.”
She turned toward the carriers. The three stronger pups scrambled out and crowded behind her, longer-legged now and impatient with the unfamiliar ground. The smallest hesitated at the lip, sat down, and tried again.
Jack’s hand moved before he stopped it. He waited while the pup found his balance, took several uneven steps, and bumped his nose against Jack’s boot. Then the little animal turned after his mother, stepping over a twig with exaggerated care.
Ash gathered the four around her and entered the trees. At the edge she glanced back, ears moving toward a sound Jack could not hear. Then the undergrowth closed behind them.
He stayed on one knee until Evelyn came beside him. She offered her arm, and he took it because his leg had stiffened, accepting the help without making a joke about it. They walked back to the vehicles with mud on their shoes and the empty carriers behind them.
The first camera photograph reached Jack while he was making tea beneath his wife’s picture. He had finally turned it upright and hung it where the window would not reflect in the glass. On his phone, Ash stood in a clearing with all four pups. The smallest, his dark ear mark still visible, was trying to drag a branch almost longer than he was.
Jack laughed loudly enough to surprise himself. He had the photograph printed and took it to the chapel, passing Reed at the abandoned station on the way. The trooper was putting up warning signs where the cages had been dismantled. The cooperative had lost access to the sites under investigation, and officials were examining its other photography trips, but the case remained open.
Mae pinned the picture beside the service schedule and a reminder to close the gate. The chapel door stood open for anyone caught in bad weather, with dry socks near the entrance and a box of tea beside the kettle. A notebook lay open for prayer requests: people at sea or in the hospital, sometimes only a name. Jack stayed for a cup with two men he remembered avoiding each other, then walked home to finish the board he had been carving.
The letters were rough where the grain resisted the knife: COME IN FOR SHELTER. GO FREE. He fixed it above the door, straightened the second nail, and went inside when the kettle boiled. Evelyn was stopping after her last call, as she often did now; she kept her own house, and he had learned to set out two cups without asking what either of them intended it to mean.
There were still nights when the cable struck the mast and Jack woke with his hand clenched. He put his feet on the floor, named the sounds he could hear, and waited until the room became familiar. Sometimes he stood on the porch with his tea, looking toward the light Mae left burning at the chapel.
By the time Reed brought the second photograph, the four young wolves were nearly their mother’s size. They crossed a pale slope behind her. Evelyn pinned it beside his wife’s picture while Jack complained that the kitchen was running out of wall; later he adjusted the pin so both hung straight.
The following winter’s first snow was settling on the porch when Mae arrived with a pie. She handed it to him before he could ask why she had walked up in that weather.
“We’re out of split wood at the chapel,” she said. “The big pieces are still behind the shed.”
Jack put the pie on the counter, took his axe from the entry, and pulled the door shut behind him. Evelyn was getting out of her car when she saw him following Mae down the path. Her laugh reached him over the sound of the sea, and he lifted the axe handle in acknowledgment, carrying it low as he went.