THE WOLF
The wolf stood in the shadows of one of the ghost towns. All the windows of the buildings were gone, but there was no broken glass. The glass had become part of the desert. The wolf had lost much of his fur and more than one tooth. The skin of his belly was loose. He had tried everything except nothing, so he stayed at the ghost town through a night and then another. And here came the third night — the gray-pink of evening. The wolf had inhabited this old settlement.
It didn’t matter if the wolf was wise to weather, if his senses were keen, if his instincts brought him safety or threat. His story was lingering, weighting the air, not blowing as it should to far-off places. The desert smelled like the inside of a bottle and sounded like nothing. The wolf craved a sign, a call to act. He wanted to taste something new. He wanted to know where he was going before he moved away from the ghost town.
He came out of the shadows, his paws ruined and his heart in a constant weak spasm, and watched a buzzard soar, its course uncertain. The wolf wanted the bird to lead him somewhere. He watched the buzzard as the darkness took over. He watched the buzzard until he saw that its course was not indeterminate, that the creature was flying in vast circles that had begun to tighten.
THE GAS STATION OWNER
He didn’t know whether he was resting or quitting. He knew he should be looking for food and water, but when he surveyed the nothingness in every direction he could not get himself moving. His stomach had stopped growling. He held his arm up above his head to make sure he could, then let it fall limp. The sun could no longer burn him. He and the sun had been locked in a petty disagreement since the day he departed Lofte, and they’d grown bored with each other. It was around noon, around what would have been lunchtime if he’d been sitting in the station on his stool in front of the window. The gas station owner wondered how the station was doing, and for a reason he couldn’t pin down he began to laugh. He couldn’t picture the girls he’d hired to run the place, the girls who’d been waitresses and in time would become librarians. He remembered them as pretty, almost preposterously so, but he couldn’t picture them. He thought of enchiladas with green chiles and it was useless, like thinking of a billion dollars. He couldn’t smell the sauce or feel warm tortillas in his mouth. This wasn’t a hunger he knew anything about. It wasn’t in his stomach but in his head and limbs.
The sky grew dim as the lunch hour passed, and the gas station owner was relieved when he saw flashes of lightning in the distance. He waited and waited for rain — it must’ve been a full hour — but if there was weather it wasn’t going to hit him. The lightning stayed in the distance, too far off for its thunder to be heard. It was too much for his eyes, but he watched it anyway, a last show for him, a message he need not return.
He emptied his pockets. In one was the stumpy pencil and tattered scorecard the gas station owner had managed not to lose. Some of his marks were faded and some were trying to hide in discolored creases. The gas station owner flattened the paper on his thigh, which was just a bone now, and made a mark for today, the lightning day, the quitting day. He counted the marks without rushing and came up with thirty-six. He rested, head in his hands, eyes aching, then counted again and got thirty-seven. He thought he had one more attempt in him. He pressed his fingernail against each mark. Thirty-five. From his other pocket he emptied a handful of lizard bones, now not much more than sand. He drew the broken little bones to his nose but they only smelled like his pants, only smelled like him. The gas station owner dug a small hole with the cup of his hand and dropped in the bones and covered them over.
He wasn’t going to count the marks on his scorecard again because his eyes were worn out, and he also wasn’t going to count them because he wasn’t going to reach forty anyway so what did it matter and on top of that he didn’t count the marks again because he was allowing himself to admit what had been nagging him half the time he’d been out here: his venture, mission, his test of himself, had from the start been artificial. Great tests, you couldn’t assign them to yourself. If the universe didn’t want to test you, you wouldn’t be tested. You didn’t get to decide for yourself how much time you had and what supplies you could bring and you didn’t even get to choose your adversary. There was nothing heroic in this challenge. The gas station owner was not nobly and obliviously obsessed. He was more aware of simple concerns than ever, and those concerns were growing by the moment.
It took what felt like an eternity for the wolf to approach, the silent afternoon lightning still flashing steadily from miles away. The gas station owner sat with his knuckles to his lips, taking comfort in the salt. He watched the wolf from when he could’ve been a coyote and then through the middle distance when he took on his color and eventually the wolf’s snout and heavy paws were right there. Burrs were grown into the wolf’s fur. His eyes were yellow marbles and his ribs looked like the rotting hull of a boat. His tongue hung from his tight-closed mouth, his snout crusted white. The wolf growled without effort or meaning. The animal was desperate and so it recognized desperation. This was the least silly creature the gas station owner had ever seen.
The wolf had stopped twenty paces from the gas station owner. The wolf knew something had to happen and was waiting. He and the gas station owner could not pass each other, could not go their own ways. Their journeys had brought them to a common spot, and both were spent.
The gas station owner kept his eyes on the wolf but he rummaged behind him into his pack and found the pistol. He had two rounds left. He shifted himself onto one knee and lifted the gun shakily, aiming as best he could. His hand, empty, was heavy to him, and the gun felt like a sack of wet sand. The wolf’s eyes failed to flash at the weapon.
The gas station owner jerked his finger and the gun jumped and sounded its report. He missed low, a cloud of dust blooming from underneath the wolf. The wolf wasn’t looking at the gun anymore, but straight into the gas station owner’s eyes. He’d shot plenty of elk, but he never had to look them in the eyes. The gas station owner put his finger to the trigger again and half-pressed, not enough to fire the gun. He held the trigger static, a hair shy of the firing point, the barrel leveled at the mangy beast before him. He thought he could hit the wolf this time, his aim corrected from the miss. The wolf’s growling was even, no threat in it. The gas station owner’s brain was telling his hand to fire the gun but nothing was happening. His arm began to quake under the pistol’s weight so he braced his gun arm against his leg. He had no idea if he was trying to provide for himself or defend himself. He breathed in sharply and then went ahead and lowered the gun. He looked at the weapon, gray under a gray sky. It had one bullet in it and that bullet would not be used. It wouldn’t be used on this wolf or on the gas station owner. It would stay safe in the spinner.
The gas station owner sidled over on his knees and lifted the rock he’d used as a pillow the night before. He rested the pistol underneath it, hiding the gun from view. No human would ever find it. It would remain where it was until the whole world was finally punished. Still on his knees, he edged toward the wolf, closing in on him. The gas station owner stopped at a few paces and held his hand out, his shoulder again quaking. He tried to soften his eyes, to let the wolf know that the fighting was over, that the gun was extinct. He was dizzy now with the effort of this peace offering, with the weight of his hand even without the gun, even in the lightest air in the world, and when the animal took a step toward him it startled him. The gas station owner felt energy, fear. The wolf closed the distance and the gas station owner gave no ground when his hand was hotly sniffed. The wolf seemed more intelligent than the gas station owner. The wolf had known from the start that an understanding was inevitable. He sniffed the gas station owner’s fingers greedily. The wolf was long-legged and long-necked and was reaching downward to get the scent he wanted, and the gas station owner resisted reaching out his other hand and petting the wolf on his bony head. He kept his hand raised to the animal, his arm no longer heavy. The wolf started licking the gas station owner then, wetting down the flesh of his hand and then the topside of his wrist, like a bumbling collie, and then the wolf pressed its dry muzzle against the gas station owner’s forearm and the gas station owner pushed back to keep his balance. The wolf balked, snorting, and the gas station owner felt the wolf’s teeth against his scorched forearm, saw that the wolf’s saliva was flowing openly, springing from some hidden source in the wolf’s desiccated body and slicking the filthy fur of his front. The lightning was still striking, an empty county away. The moment was changing and the gas station owner, trapped inside it, had no power to escape, no power to change course now after this much wandering, after arriving at this impasse. At the taste of the gas station owner’s blood the wolf’s tongue became animated and something changed in his eyes. The wolf seemed to remember that he was not afraid of anything. Night would not come at the end of this day. Forty days never mattered, but this did.