Page 31 of Dark Roads
Jonny and I had planned for me to take one of Cooper’s puppies, so the cabin was stocked with dog food, bones, and a few things that belonged to Jonny’s family’s dog. The first time I tossed a ball to Wolf, he watched it bounce past, then looked at me.
Fetching balls? What kind of dog do you think I am?
Treats were a different story. No matter how wild my aim, he could catch them straight out of the air. He’d leap, twist his body, and land perfectly like a cat. I got the feeling he hadn’t had much affection. Neck massages and belly rubs were acceptable, but he didn’t like to be held, and if I tried tokiss him, he would turn his head, or put a paw in the middle of my chest.
At night he slept on the floor of the cabin, while I lay on the bed with the lantern and read Dad’s survival books. He’d taught me everything in those pages himself, but it was different now that I was on my own. I studied the pictures of track marks, the difference between a black bear’s paws and a grizzly’s, what to do in an attack. Every once in a while Wolf would raise his head, stare at the door, and let out a warning growl. Then he’d look at me to make sure I was paying attention. I’d reach for the handgun and wait, heart thudding. Was it a grizzly? When Wolf felt the danger had passed, he’d drop his head back onto his front legs. He never got to his feet or barked. Not once. After a few days, I began to wonder if he was just testing me.
Even in summer, the nights were cool in the mountains, and I invited Wolf to sleep with me on the cot. He ignored me and stayed on the floor, but in the early morning hours I’d feel the air mattress shift as he settled at the bottom near my feet. When we woke, we’d sneak outside for our morning business. After our first night at the cabin, I put a collar on him and attached a leash, but he wouldn’t move. He planted his butt and when I tried to tug him, he rolled onto his side.
Finally, grudgingly, he let me coax him outside with treats and peed on a tree—refusing to make eye contact. Then, in a fit of stubbornness, he tossed his head while pulling backward, and the collar slipped off. He didn’t bolt. He didn’t walk two steps. He sat and looked at me. Point made. He never wore a leash again, but I tied one of my bandannas around his neck and he seemed okay with that. Or at least he didn’t groan at me, which I’d learned was his unhappy noise.
He talked. A lot. He had different sounds for when he wanted out, when he heard something, when he wanted food, when he disagreed with me, and when he was annoyed at me for tryingto cuddle. They ranged from a whine to a yip to grunts and groans and huffs.
In the mornings, he’d mark all the trees around the cabin, while I watched the woods nervously, the Smith & Wesson in my hand, rifle slung over my shoulder. When Wolf was satisfied that he’d completed his task, we’d head back inside and we’d have breakfast together. Kibble for him, cereal and powdered milk for me. Even though Wolf was skinny and hungry, he’d take a mouthful of kibble, drop it onto the floor, sniff each piece, then gently eat them.
I waited until dark to cook anything on the propane stove so that smoke didn’t reveal my location, but I had to leave the door gapped for ventilation, and I was freaked that the smell would invite a few animals over for dinner too. More often than not, I just ate cold meals.
Wolf and I had hours each day, so I tested him with simple commands—sit, stay, come, wait. It only took him a couple of tries and I wondered if someone had already trained him. I worried that somewhere he had a real owner. As soon as he mastered one thing, he would stop doing it, and look at me.What else?I began teaching him hand signals, then tricks like touching a spot on the wall with his paw, or jumping from the chair to the bed, and picking up different items and bringing them back. He’d bark at me when I stopped playing.
After the first week, Wolf and I began to explore the area once the sun had gone down, but I still didn’t venture far. I didn’t want to use the dirt bike yet. I had no idea what was happening back in town and if there was a chance that they could be searching the woods.
At dawn, when the birds were beginning to sing, Wolf and I crept down to the river. Our feet and paws soft on the ground. He seemed to sense my fear, because he never bounded throughthe woods or sprinted ahead. If I stopped, he stopped. And ifhestopped, I stopped.
We stayed on the rocky shore, where we wouldn’t leave prints, and fished the deep, quiet pools. I cleaned my catch at the river like Dad taught me, left the head and guts behind so that animals wouldn’t follow us back to the cabin. When Dad hunted, he always thanked the land, using a First Nations prayer. Some of the guides didn’t like how the First Nations could hunt in different seasons and fish the river with nets, but Dad was never like that. I couldn’t remember the words he’d used, so I made up my own, clutching my elk necklace, face lifted to the sky.
Thank you for the river. Thank you for this great mountain. Thank you for this bounty.
Wolf would wait until I was finished, then he liked to sit close beside me and stare at the ripples where my line disappeared into the flat surface. One morning he shoved his head under the water in the shallows and came out with a crayfish clamped in his teeth. After that, he’d nudge the back of my knees with his nose all the way down to the river, soft little bumps.
We saw deer a few times, their graceful necks lowering for sips of water. My rifle was always by my side, but I couldn’t shoot one. I’d have to live on fish. Wolf tensed beside me and lifted his paw as though he were going to break into a sprint. I held his bandanna and told him no, deer were strictly off-limits. He pouted, but he never tried again. He did hunt rabbits and grouse, sometimes coming back while still licking blood from his muzzle. We didn’t talk about it.
For the first time since my dad had died, I felt the darkness begin to recede. I woke up faster, my feet hitting the ground with desire for the day, to dosomething.To be outthere. The scents of the forest, the feel of a fishing rod, the swoosh ofthe line whipping through the air as I cast, the slice of the lure entering the water. The trails called to me. The meadows and secret creeks lined with dark ferns and hollowed-out trees. Every breath of fresh air started to make the sharp pieces inside me soften. I hadn’t realized how trapped I’d felt in town, the noises, the people, everyone’s obsession with social media. I didn’t care about clothes or hair or makeup. I hated politics and grown-up things. None of that mattered. I belongedhere. I wasn’t lonely, not yet, but I missed Jonny and Amber. I missed Cash waking me up in the morning, his giggle.
In case something happened to me, I kept a notebook in my backpack at all times. In it, I wrote down everything Vaughn had done. When I was finished with that, I filled pages with sketches of summer flowers—buttercups, fireweed, fairy bell. And birds I saw. Whiskey jacks, chickadees, bald eagles, ravens with their gurgling croaks. I tried to identify each call, practicing them while Wolf watched, his head cocking from side to side. I created some whistles for him and combined them with the hand signals he’d already learned.
I drew maps in my journal, of low trails that might belong to bears, meadows where I found bushes thick with gooseberries, blackberries, saskatoon berries, and vines dotted with tiny plump wild strawberries. Huckleberry bushes growing out of moss-covered tree stumps. Wolf liked to pull berries off the lower branches with his teeth, so delicately that he never burst a single one.
A couple of times I found bear scat with fresh berries in it, or Wolf would start to pace and circle around me, making a huff, huff, whine sound, and I would hurry back to the cabin.
Sometimes I pretended I was writing to Amber. I daydreamed that one day I’d show her the cabin. We’d picnic in the meadows, swim in the river together. She would love it. I thought about taking the dirt bike closer to the lake, where I could texther from the burner phone, but it was too soon. Vaughn would still be looking for me. Sometimes I even imagined I heard the drone of a helicopter in the distance. I thought of him with binoculars, scanning the forest, and me ducking and weaving through the trees. An animal running for its life.
Wolf watched the trail intently as the noise of Jonny’s bike got closer. His ears flicked back and forth. He turned and stared up into my eyes.
“Good boy. Wait.”
Jonny’s dirt bike pulled into the clearing. The red-and-white paint was sharp against the green woods, and a welcome sight. I stayed among the trees, crouched low until he took off his helmet and whistled our call, a soft trilling tune. I whistled back. A relieved smile spread across his face—tanned, but he looked thinner, his cheekbones cut sharper.
“No one followed me,” he called, running his hands through his hair and shaking it free from where it had stuck to his forehead. I stepped out from the bushes, Wolf at my heels, his nose bumping against my calf. Jonny turned in my direction, and his eyes widened. “Whoa.”
“What’s wrong?”
“You look so different with your hair. It’s totally badass. No one would recognize you.” He gave me a thumbs-up, then looked at Wolf sitting at my feet. “I thought you were getting a puppy.” He got off the bike and crouched, patting his leg. Wolf didn’t move.
“This one picked me. I named him Wolf.” I looked down. Wolf studied my eyes. When he was satisfied that I was relaxed, he trotted over, sniffed Jonny’s hand, and let him pat him before exploring the woods nearby.
Jonny got to his feet and grabbed me for a hug. We stoodlike that for a while. He felt warm, solid, familiar. When he let go, he said, “You all right?”
“I’m fine. Are you okay? What is everyone saying?”
