TWENTY-THREE
When I started crying too hard to see the road clearly, I parked the car. I'd gotten myself two miles outside of town, to the foot of Old Scolder Mountain. I supposed I'd wanted to walk all along, but hadn't realized it till I'd started driving. It's funny: In the city if you need to walk to clear your mind you just head out your door, and if you need to walk on grass you just turn toward one of the parks. In the country, there is lots more land but it's all No Trespassing.
I was wearing a down jacket that I'd found in the car over my sweater and long black skirt, but my soft leather shoes weren't really made for serious hiking. That didn't bother me half as much, however, as the headache, which had begun as a faint pressure at my temples and was turning into something stronger.
I started walking anyway. I passed two orange markers before I realized I had picked a circular route, not the one that led up the mountain: I backtracked and started the ascent between two brilliant red and gold maples. The rest of the trees were half bare. After five minutes I began to breathe harder. A young man with a beard and a golden retriever smiled as we passed each other, he on the way down. I glanced at my watch: four o'clock. I hadn't realized it was so late, but I figured I had at least two hours of daylight left, enough time to get to the top and back, if I pushed myself.
I walked until I stopped thinking of everything except where to put my feet: on that rock, over that root, between those loose stones. The air had that clean, sharp autumnal feeling of imminence, and my head cleared. Now and again birds chirruped and stopped, chirruped and stopped; some insect made a musical, squeaking sound. I could smell the dust of pine needles and the tickle of cold running water sending up foam, which isn't really a smell, but feels like one. A breeze cooled the sweat drying on my neck and back, and I lifted my hair out of the way and fell into the rhythm of walking upward. It wasn't until I saw the house that I realized I'd lost the trail somewhere along the way.
It was one of those ominously rusted trailer homes, planted in the middle of a weedy lawn. How it had gotten there was beyond me—there was no road wide enough for its wheels. I looked harder, and saw that the trailer was an antique—maybe 1950s, maybe earlier. So it had probably been brought up here de cades ago. But someone was definitely living here now: There was a carved jack-o'-lantern beside the plastic doe in the front yard, and a rake lying in a pile of leaves amid a veritable sculpture garden of half-rusted cars, trucks, and washing machines. I glanced back at the No Trespassing sign and wondered whether to simply turn around and try to find the trail, or to ask for help. Just above the trees, the sky was turning a darker shade of blue. I glanced at my watch—four forty-five—and then I heard the low growl of warning.
Shit. I turned and saw just the kind of dog you don't want to see when you're all alone on somebody else's land—a great hundred-pound malamute mix, with some rottweiler or mastiff thrown in to account for the gold eyes, slick coat, and enormous jaws.
“Good dog,” I said, but the animal continued growling and circling me, hackles raised. They say a barking dog never bites, but of course, I thought grimly, dogs don't make much noise when they've got their fangs wrapped around your thigh.
I could feel the frightened flutter of my heart—show no fear—and the dog could probably smell it. So I stayed very still and hoped someone would show up soon. Until the second and third dogs showed up, slightly smaller and smoother-coated than the first, and began barking.
“Hello? Hello the house! Anybody home?” As if anyone could hear me over the din the animals were making. As the sky turned a notch darker, a fourth dog came running out, cringing and barking near the shadow of a wheelbarrow. It took me a moment to recognize Pia. Jesus, all these dogs looked like goddamn wolves.
“Pia? Pia? Easy, girl, remember me?” She cocked her ears, and whimpered. There were terrible raw patches of skin on her chest and legs. Oh, Jesus, what was Jackie doing here, building her very own wolf pack? What a very lovely white trash hobby if you couldn't afford an alarm system, and how ironic that I'd been the one to get Pia back to her. I'd learned my lesson: Next time, the wolf goes, and no special favors. If there was going to be a next time.
The other dogs had formed a circle around me, and seemed to be building up to some kind of frenzy. Catching the enraged eye of one, I cast my gaze down and kept it there. Submissive and nonthreatening, that's me. Oh, Jackie, where the hell are you? I tried to imagine her face when she found me, bleeding to death on her doorstep. Guess she'll stop worrying about whether or not Red's interested. And Hunter won't even have to get a divorce. No. Down, thoughts. Bad thoughts.
The fifth dog was the first I was sure was not a wolf-dog hybrid. It was a wolf-coyote hybrid. I could tell from the enormous leap that took him from somewhere up on a rise to right in front of me, a leap that a deer might have made, but not a dog. He had big coyote ears and a flat red-gray coyote coat, but his big muzzle said wolf, as in Grandma, what big teeth you've got. Even though he was slightly smaller than the malamute, and a lot leaner, he was clearly the more dominant. None of that domestic tail wagging and barking nonsense for this guy. He took one look at me, hunkered down, and tensed every muscle in his body. Deep, dark, stinking shit. I knew I was panting, and couldn't help it. And then I made the mistake of looking up, just to see when my throat was going to get ripped out, and caught the Alpha Male's eye.
Right as he winked.