Chapter 25

At the Boathouse, Ti helps the men out of their frozen clothes. He seems to linger over the Smoker, whispering angrily until I approach. I had things under control, then he came along and screwed everything up. “I would have let you drown,” he says. Though he addresses the chattering men, I know his words are aimed at me. “But I didn’t want the police coming up here. Disturbing things.”

As much as I really think they should have been left to freeze, Ti does have a point, what with our Alpha mate just having delivered and in no shape to make the trek to the High Pines. I chuff a little but then pull myself up with my front paws on the tiny counter and nudge the red switch hidden by the pineapple-themed curtains above the sink.

After a little cough, the generator starts up, and before long, hot air fills the Boathouse, along with the smell of burned dust.

Ti stops pulling at the pants of the frantically shivering Anderson and stares at me.

“There’s heat?”

I cock my head to the side. If he’s still talking to me when I can talk back, I’ll explain what it means to heat a place that isn’t winterized.

“Every morning, there’s ice on the inside of the windows. On the inside.”

When he’s done, Ti leans back in the chair, his gun on his thigh and one hand on my ruff and waits until the men have warmed up. I sneeze, because the Boathouse now stinks of human and Gore-Tex and will have to be fumigated.

Finally, the Smoker stops shaking and shoots a bleary look toward Ti.

“This is posted property,” Ti says. “Don’t come here again.”

“Thaz my land,” Anderson says, waves his hand vaguely toward the junkyard. “And I have an…an…” He looks toward the Smoker.

“Easement of necessity,” says the Smoker to Ti. “Gives the owner of that plot—” He stops and begins hacking; we all wait for him to finish. “Gives ‘im the right to traverse this land so he can get to the public road.”

“There’s an access road. Stick to it.”

“Fuck you, asshole,” chatters Anderson. “I don’t know where you come from, but my family’s been on this land for generations. I know it like the back of my fucking hand, and next time, I’ll be here on my own, and you won’t even know it until you feel my fucking muzzle at your fucking back. You’re just a man with a gun, but I am a fucking hunter.”

The adjectival richness of his speech stuns me. Humans really do talk so much and say so little.

Ti’s nose flares. He opens his mouth just slightly, his tongue held to the roof, creating an echo chamber of scent.

“This evening, you had a steak, iceberg lettuce with blue cheese dressing, an IPA, and a tequila. You sat with your nephew and another man who is not here. Your nephew had a hamburger. The other man had chili. You shared onion rings. Two…no, three days ago, you screwed the wife of the man who had the chili. She has two small children. You are sterile and have irritable bowel syndrome.”

The Junkyard Man’s face slackens, and he slumps back, his mouth slightly open, but for the first time, he has nothing to say.

“You only think you’re a hunter, because you’ve never met a real one.” Ti turns to me. “Silver, I think it’s time for these men to go.”

I stretch out my front legs and then my back and wait near the door.

“Silver?” the Smoker croaks. “Well, Silver.” He lifts his hand, and holding two fingers out like the barrel of a gun, he sights me. “Eat lead.”

Before he’s even finished with his pantomimed recoil, a hollow crack hits his face, and he lands halfway across the room with a dull thud and a muffled scream.

“Gear up,” Ti says, throwing their partly dried clothes and boots in front of each man. “I’m walking you to the road.”

“Uncle Al?” Trey says. “I’m not sure your friend here can walk.”

“He broke his jaw, not his legs,” Ti says, his gun to the Smoker’s ear. “He can walk just fine.”

The man flinches when the safety comes off.

“Uh, mister?” Trey says. “Only the shirt’s mine.”

“Wear it or don’t,” Ti says, pulling up the hood of his anorak and strapping the three rifles across his back. “We’re leaving now.”

The men work quickly to pull on clothes, except for the Smoker, who can’t get the shirt on over his broken jaw and pulls on a coat that must belong to Trey, because it’s too small and exposes a stripe of pale, hollowed-out chest above his pale, distended belly.

When Ti flicks the red switch, the soft wheeze stops. He opens the door, letting in icy air.

“On the inside of the windows,” he mutters again.

We lead the shivering men toward the access road, surrounded by scores of silent, invisible wolves. I smelled them earlier and heard them scenting the air, watching and waiting.

They pass like the shudder of dry sycamore leaves in the quiet left by the cowering of everything else in our land.

I fall into step beside Ti. We have no trouble negotiating the darkness, but the three men stumble under the dark cover of the woods and the unreliable light of the moon. We can tell when the Smoker stumbles because of the strangled scream.

Ti must’ve found keys in one of the men’s pockets, and after placing the three rifles on the ground, he climbs into their vehicle. I hop up, my front paws on the wheel well so I can watch. Twisting to the back, he lifts a camouflage tarp and throws it to the ground near the discarded rifles. He pulls four more rifles from the gun rack and, checking each quickly, tosses them out too. I eye the men, see if they’re going to try anything stupid. Trey is too scared. The Smoker’s in shock, both hands holding his face. Only Anderson makes a halfhearted shivering lurch that I cut short with a quick bark.

Not that I’m worried: there is a wall of enormous, furious wolves standing feet from the great and oblivious hunter.

Once Ti finishes feeling around the back, he sits in the driver’s seat. He checks around the glove compartment and the visor, and then feeling the passenger seat, he works his finger into the side seam. The rip of Velcro sets my teeth on edge, but a second later, he pulls out a very large, very mean-looking handgun.

“You got a concealed-weapon permit for the Beretta?” he calls to Anderson.

“Fuck you.”

“Didn’t think so.” Ti points the Beretta at Anderson. “Get in and get out.”

The road is long and very rough, and the Smoker’s stifled screeches echo in the quiet until miles later, the trio reaches the paved road.

Tara howls the all clear. The pups join the adults, and the silence becomes a fraction less quiet.

Tiberius sits on the tarp with the pile of guns and methodically opens each action. Before long, he has built a hillock of ejected cartridges and shells.

A pup dashes out from the woods, his nose close to the ground until he comes near the pile. He clambers into Ti’s lap to get a closer look at a gunstock, but a sharp bark from the blackness calls for him to return. He jumps from the summit of Ti’s knee and scuttles away from the guns and back into the protection of the dark wood.

Once he has disassembled all of them, Ti wraps them in the camouflage tarp and tosses them over his back. His eyes blaze into the shadows.

“These will be in John’s office.”

There is no reply, except for the gradual winking out of the luminous eyes as one by one, the Pack turns to go in a shiver of leaves.

Growling, I slap my muzzle against Ti’s leg and stalk toward Home Pond.

“Just don’t say it.”

I look pointedly at the moon. Like I’m going to say anything.

“I know. So I got it back. You don’t want guns because you don’t want to be dependent on something you can’t use during the Iron Moon. But I’m not you and I can use a gun and I’m at least good enough with one to protect the Pack from hunters. Isn’t that what you want?”

I growl. What I want is for you to stop fighting what you are and be wild with us. Yes, we’re vulnerable when we change. And maybe Ti could stand guard over our Iron Moon. But our first Alpha was adamant that when we were wild, we embrace that wildness. That we be self-reliant. Those who guard you in your weakness, she said, will always end up exploiting it.

Ti goes to John’s office. I go to the front lawn. The pups are bundled in a roiling pile in the middle, surrounded by a warm carpet of whatever adults aren’t out hunting.

Tomorrow, I will hunt, but for tonight, my gut is clenched, and I can’t imagine eating anything. Except always bear heart; I could definitely eat bear heart. I turn round and round, carving a little nest for myself in the snow. I’m starting to drift off when John appears. Even as a wolf, he looks thinner and older.

I jump back up to greet him, and he rubs his muzzle next to mine, and I am instantly comforted by his scent. Then from the woods, a huge, black wolf lopes toward us, and John…John lays his muzzle against Ti, marking him too. I tense slightly, watching Ti, worried that he won’t understand, but he stands stock-still, his eyes on mine, until John is done.

Then he curls next to my snow nest. I fluff my tail over my nose. When Ti does it, he sticks his tail in his eye. He blinks furiously.

Still kind of a crappy wolf.