She stopped before the shadows became too large, and smoothed out an area of snow between two large boulders. Because she wanted to save her matches, she used her fire starter instead. She cut boughs from nearby junipers to create a mattress, as well as to provide her with some insulation cover. She had divided what little meat she had left into approximately four-ounce servings. But a four-ounce serving of meat was probably no more than 150 calories. Though she’d been trying to survive on as close to a thousand calories a day as possible, to ration her supplies, she’d have to cut back more. She cooked two servings of meat that night and drank a liter of water. She would consume another serving of the elk before heading out the following morning. That would leave her with only a little more than a pound. Maybe she would be able to strike a rabbit. There should be plenty in the area now that she was off the ledge and had a greater area to cover. And maybe she would find a road or a truck within the next few days.
Shortly after she finished eating, as she lay back against her pack and warmed her feet beside the fire, the coyotes came out. She first heard a couple of yips, then a long howl, and shortly after, all kinds of high-pitched yelps and barks. She untied the fleece from around her head so that she could hear them better. She knew she was in the middle of the coyotes’ courting season, and possibly still in their territorial season as well, when the pups from the previous year’s litters went out on their own to find new territories and begin their own family packs. But this night, the eerie chorus, more like a maniacal laughter, sounded like that of several bands, and though she knew these jackals, or brush wolves, as they were often called, were rarely a threat to humans, and even then only in more urban areas where prey was scarce, a handful of coyotes could sound like hundreds, especially as they gathered in the evenings to hunt, and the changes in their pitch and yelps could send a chilling uneasiness over one’s skin. She thought of an evening early in the fall when she’d set out with her bow and her tag for a mule deer. She had been sitting behind the deadfall of an enormous spruce, using it as a blind, when she heard the first yip and saw a young coyote trotting down the trail. Then she heard the long, high-pitched howl of the alpha. Within minutes, an entire chorus started up, and a large family of maybe eight or nine coyotes had gathered. She had never before witnessed such a sight. The pups were yipping and barking and playing, wrestling each other and turning somersaults. Within twenty minutes, the chorus was over, and each member of the pack had disappeared back into the woods.
She thought upon the families, and how after they mated, many would remain monogamous for several years. She thought of wolves, and eagles, and black vultures, and prairie moles as well, and she wondered why she couldn’t have the good, decent flow of life that these animals had, as if it just wasn’t in the cards for her. And yet she wanted to be like the eagles and the albatross that mated for life. She had been like the alcoholic who promises herself she won’t take another drink, who wants to come clean, and then picks up cheap beer at the convenience store on a Sunday morning or a Wednesday afternoon. How much easier it would have been to tell Farrell she had a drinking problem. How much easier it would have been to ask for his help then.
Was she wrong in allowing herself the hope of seeing him again? She had been gone for over seven weeks. What might he have discovered during that time? Who of the men whom she’d encountered or been involved with may have come forward? She had been the one who managed the bills. Would Farrell have looked at old phone records or accessed her email? She had always deleted text messages and calls, but she wondered how many new messages and calls there had been.
And with the cold and fatigue and hunger and the night hours came her greatest fear. What if Farrell wouldn’t take her back? There had been the time years before when she’d called Farrell from Anchorage, when he could barely understand her over the phone because she was crying and she wasn’t sure Saddle was going to make it, and she needed money, she needed a way to get home. He told her he would wire her the money, he would pay Saddle’s bill, but when she got home, they would need to talk.
She’d driven eight hours from McCarthy. She’d left behind her books and the cookstove and what few belongings, including clothes, she’d brought with her. Saddle lay beside her on the bench seat of her truck, and though he was breathing, he wouldn’t wake up.
When she got to Anchorage, she drove to a twenty-four-hour animal hospital she’d located from a phone book. She scooped Saddle into her arms, entered through the two glass doors, and begged someone to help her. Saddle was still unconscious. His pulse was weak. A technician led Amy Raye to an examining room. X-rays were taken; fluids were given. Saddle was bleeding internally and had a fair amount of swelling on the brain. Emergency surgery was needed. It would be expensive, and he still might not make it.
The vet was a woman in her fifties, with black hair and dark freckles and a kind face. Amy Raye did not have a credit card. She did not have enough money with her.