“At least, he would have barked and I would have known something was going on,” Hiram’s father said. He stood at the fence just outside the back door and looked out across the pasture. “Damn wolf.”
“Zöe could have been killed, too,” Carla said.
Hiram’s father didn’t respond. Hiram had been walking about the pasture. The sheep ran from him every time he drew near, still anxious, still bleating crazily. He was on the other side of the fence.
“Dad, I don’t think it was wolves,” Hiram said.
“And why do you say that?”
“A wolf wouldn’t have killed so many animals.”
“Wolves, then.”
“Wolves don’t kill like that. They would kill only the lambs and eat them; they wouldn’t leave most of them lying all over the place. I think it was dogs. I think somebody’s dogs got loose and went wild.”
“You know as well as I do that there’s a wolf around. You saw him with your own eyes up on the mountain.”
“I think it’s dogs.” Hiram looked down at Carla and then at the border collie who was scratching her ear with a hind foot. “And I think they would have killed ol’ ugly right there if she had been out.”
“Zöe’s not ugly,” Carla said and she knelt to hug the animal around the neck.
Hiram’s father was not much taken with the theory. He just muttered something about getting his rifle.
The following day, a fine rain fell and most of the mountain seemed unusually quiet. Hiram sat astride his horse, Jack, a twelve-year-old gelding who behaved as if he were three. He held his father’s Weatherby rifle across his lap while he watched his father, who had dismounted and was poking through a pile of animal scat with a stick.
“Looks like dog,” Hiram said.
Hiram’s father nodded and climbed back into his saddle. “I don’t know. Got hair in it.”
They rode on up the mountain and Hiram recalled all the stories the Indians told about the wolf and its power and he wanted to believe that the animals were a part of the place, wanted to believe that he was a part of the place. His father and mother always laughed at him when he talked about such things, called him “youthful.” Hiram didn’t know any Indians but he had read a lot about them, especially the Plains Indians, and although he knew that his sources might be questionable, he still wanted to believe them.
“Dad,” Hiram said as they topped a ridge. “Can’t we just scare the wolf away?”
Hiram’s father laughed. “You mean like reason with him?”
“What about getting one of those tranquilizer guns and relocating him?”
Hiram’s father shook his head. “Where would we get one of them guns? Besides, we can’t afford it. Nah. Anyway, a wolf ain’t nothing but a big, evil dog.”
• • •
The caked blood was still flowing slowly from the cuts across the backs of the palomino’s hind feet. Hiram let go of the leg and stood away, perspiration dripping from his face. The woman holding the horse’s halter stroked his nose and settled him down, making soothing sounds, the kind of sounds one reserves for animals. The horse had gotten tangled in some barbed wire.
“I could just shoot myself,” the woman said.
Hiram shrugged. “Accidents happen to animals, too.”
“It’s my fault though.”
“The wounds aren’t too bad,” Hiram said, coughing into a fist. “The worst part is across his fetlocks. I’m going to give him a shot of antibiotics and leave an iodine solution with you. Just dab it on twice a day. Might sting him a little.”
“He’s such a big baby,” the woman said.
“Yeah, I know. It’s because he’s a male.” Hiram reached into his bag for the antibiotic and syringe. “You can’t blame yourself,” he said. “What good does that do?” He filled the syringe, stood, and quickly stuck the horse’s flank, pressing the plunger in. He saw the woman flinch. “Better him than you.” Hiram had known Marjorie Stoval since she and her husband moved down from Colorado Springs six years before. He was used to seeing mainly her during his calls. The last few times Mr. Stoval had been conspicuously absent; the toy sports car that never seemed to go anywhere was now gone. He looked past the horse at the rolling pasture and the steep foothills behind it, ochre and red in the heat of early summer.
“You’ve got a sweet place here,” Hiram said.
Marjorie nodded, stroked the blond horse’s neck, pulling his mane with each pass. She seemed lost in thought. She was an attractive, young-looking woman, but Hiram believed from previous conversations that she was about forty-five, although there was not much gray in the dark hair she wore pulled back.
“Well, I guess I’m done.” Hiram closed his bag and picked it up, yawned, and as he did, realized that it was a tick of his that surfaced when he was nervous.
“Tired?” Marjorie asked.
“I guess.” As they walked back toward Hiram’s truck, he said, “Other than the scratches, Cletus looks pretty good.”
“My husband left me,” Marjorie Stoval said abruptly.
Hiram swallowed and looked beyond his truck at the two-story log house. “Yeah, well, I suppose these things happen.”
“He moved in with a young woman over in Eagle Nest. They live in a trailer. Can you imagine that?”
Hiram shook his head. At the truck he put his bag in the bed, pushed forward against the cab wall, cleared his throat, and turned to the woman. “My wife and I are pretty decent company. Why don’t we call you and arrange a dinner over at our place?”
Marjorie paused as if considering whether the offer was some kind of mercy dinner, then said, “That sounds nice,” in a noncommittal way as she smoothed the hair back from her face.
Carolyn was painting a metal chair set on spread-out newspapers on the front porch. Hiram stopped and looked at her. He reached forward and wet his finger with the blue paint streaked across her forehead.
“I’m glad this stuff is water-based,” she said, setting the brush across the open can and standing up straight. She stretched her back and smiled at him.
Hiram smiled back, remembering a time when they would have kissed, a time when he would be gone most of the day and would miss her badly and she would miss him, too. They used to talk a few times during his work day, but not now. Now, he simply came home, Carolyn smiled at him, and he smiled back.
“Anything interesting today?” she asked as she stepped back to scrutinize her work. “I don’t know if I really like this blue. What do you think?”
“Blue is blue.” Hiram stepped past his wife and into the house, putting his bag on the table just inside the door and walked into the den where he fell into the overstuffed chair in front of the woodstove. He glanced at the coffee table where there was a stack of journals he had been meaning to read, needed to read.
Carolyn came in and sat on the sofa. She was sighing and still stretching her back.
“Is your back all right?” Hiram asked.
“It’s just stiff from squatting.”
“Would you like me to rub it for you?” he asked, but he didn’t really want to do it. He would have liked a back rub, but the offer was not forthcoming from Carolyn. He leaned his head back, briefly studied the ceiling, then closed his eyes.
“Maybe later,” she said, her voice sounding far away. “I found a lump on Zack’s belly this afternoon.” Her voice was closer now. Zack was a one-hundred-twenty-pound mutt Hiram had brought home from the shelter about five years ago. “It’s kinda big.”
“Where on his belly?”
“Just above his tallywhacker,” Carolyn said.