Part 5
He slept through the rest of that day and all night, and woke early to sunlight flooding the cabin. The storm had left nothing behind but high white drifts and a deep, settled quiet.
For the first time in two years, he didn’t wake to the weight of an empty house. The cabin smelled of wood smoke and of something new he couldn’t quite name. Hope, maybe.
His knees still ached from the climb, but it was the right kind of ache, the kind that comes from work worth doing. He looked to the corner first. On the old wool blanket the pup lay curled in a tight ball, breathing deep and even. It had made it.
Walt fed the stove, set the blackened kettle on, cut the last of the fresh meat into small pieces, added warm broth, and put the bowl on the floor. The smell woke the pup at once. It lifted its head, flicked its torn ear, and trotted over, steadier on its legs than the day before, and ate with loud smacking and a wagging tail.
Walt smiled. It came out crooked, because his face had forgotten how, but he meant every bit of it.
“Eat up, little one. Get your strength back. We’ve got a long winter ahead, and we’re going to see spring together.”
After breakfast he finished putting the place in order. He hung the winter clothes back in the wardrobe and swept the floor. The pup chased the broom, snapped at the dust motes spinning in the sunbeams, and now and then growled softly at a chair or a boot it didn’t trust. The cabin was full of sounds it hadn’t heard in years.
He stood at the window. The forest lay quiet and enormous under clean snow. Somewhere up there, under the crag, the wolf who had given her life for this ball of fur was sleeping under her stones. He made her the promise again, silently.
Near noon he went to the table and picked up the old flip phone. It had gathered a layer of dust; he hadn’t called anyone on his own in months. Two days ago he’d meant to use it for one thing, confirming the van. He wiped the screen with his thumb. His fingers weren’t quite steady. He looked at the little screen for a while, then dialed his son’s number.
The line rang, long and flat. Each ring seemed to last forever. He was about to lose his nerve and hang up when it clicked.
“Hello?” A tired voice, and behind it the noise of Los Angeles traffic and horns.
Walt took a breath. “Hi, Danny.” His voice shook a little.
Silence. Danny wasn’t used to hearing from his father in the middle of a weekday.
“Dad? What happened? It’s not Christmas. Are you sick?”
There was real fear in it.
“No, son. I’m fine. Better than fine.” Walt glanced at the pup, which was busy gnawing the edge of an old leather boot. “I’m calling to tell you I’m not going anywhere. I’m staying home.”
Another silence while Danny took that in.
“But you said it was too hard being alone out there. You said your health wasn’t what it used to be. Last week you were sure.”
“I was wrong, Danny. I thought my life was over. The other night I found out it isn’t. I had a visitor. A very important visitor from the woods, and now I’ve got to look after him every day.”
“A visitor? In that storm? Who’d come all the way out to your place?”
Walt smiled. “It’s a long story, son. Come see me, and I’ll tell you the whole thing. Show you, too. You ought to see it with your own eyes.”
Danny was quiet for several seconds. His father sounded like a different man. The hopelessness had gone out of his voice, and something had come back into it that Danny remembered from a long way off, from a boyhood in the mountains.
“You know, Dad,” he said, and his voice had gone soft. “I’ve got vacation coming up. I was going to go somewhere overseas. Maybe I ought to come home instead. I haven’t seen real snow in forever.”
Walt’s eyes filled again, and this time it was joy.
“I’ll be waiting, Danny. We both will.”
They talked a few minutes more. The call was short, but the wall between them was gone. They had taken a first step toward each other.
Walt set the phone down and felt lighter than he had in years.
The pup trotted over, stood up on its hind legs, and planted its front paws on his knees, looking up at him with open devotion.
“Well, little drifter,” Walt said, rubbing the coarse fur behind its torn ear. “Pretty soon we’re going to have company. We’ll teach him to love these woods as much as we do.”
The pup yipped and ran off to play.
Winter in the mountains had only just begun. In the old ranger’s heart, spring had already come.