Songs of Love & Death

barbecue?”

I frowned. “Books. Why?”

“I’m trying to figure what’s the big attraction.”

“Maybe he senses that I care. Why don’t you let him come?”

For a second, I thought that he would refuse, but he snapped, “Go free.”

Immediately, the wolf sprang at me. I kept still, not from fear, but simply careful, as I would be with any strange dog, not to alarm him with any sudden moves. And he was equally careful, sniffing at me gently, almost daintily, before moving closer, inviting me to stroke his head.

“He’s very friendly,” I said.

“No he’s not.” At my look, he went on. “I don’t mean he’s aggressive—he’d never attack a human being, and only fights dogs if he’s forced to defend himself. But he’s always kept his distance, from everyone—everyone but me.”

Lobo had relaxed. Now he was leaning into me as I scratched behind his ears; he was loving it. I laughed. “You’re kidding. Look at this big baby! He’s starving for attention.”

“He gets plenty. I know you think I’m some kind of stupid bad-ass hick, but I do look after him.”

The real hurt in his words took me aback. “Of course! It’s obvious you care about each other.” As I spoke, I looked up, straight into the man’s eyes. They were brown, mostly dark, but flecked with a lighter color: the flashing gold of the wolf’s eye, and I was suddenly breathless in the unexpected intimacy of his gaze. I didn’t even know his name. Gathering my wits, remembering my manners, I put out my hand. “How do you do? I’m Katherine Hills.”

The barest flicker of hesitation, then he gripped my hand. “Cody. Cody Vela. Listen, I can’t hang around. I— Lobo’s waiting for his afternoon run.”

The wolf’s ears pricked.

“Oh, well, sure. It was nice meeting you,” I said, feeling flat.

“Want to come along?”

My heart leaped like a crazy thing, but I grimaced and gestured at my long cotton skirt and sandals. “I’m hardly dressed for running, even supposing I could keep up with you two.”

“Come along for the ride. I’m going into the Thicket. Ever been there? No? Really?” He sounded astonished. “Then you have to.”

I rarely acted on impulse, and hadn’t gone off with anyone “for the ride” since I was fifteen, but I agreed, and followed after the lean, dark man and the lightly stepping wolf as if it were a perfectly natural thing to do.

His car, a big, black, new-looking SUV, was parked a short distance away, on the street. It wasn’t a spot convenient to anywhere, hidden away behind the blank, limestone back wall of the library, and since the visitor parking lot was never crowded on a weekday afternoon, I wondered what had brought him here.

“Do you work on campus?” I asked as I buckled up.

“What do you mean?”

“Are you employed by the college?”

He laughed sharply. “Oh, definitely not!”

“Related to one of the students?”

Shaking his head, he started the engine and pulled away from the curb. “Are you saying you’ve never heard of the wolf-man?”

“I only moved here in August. So I haven’t had time to learn about all the local characters, or go into the woods.”

“Tsk-tsk. What have you been doing with your time?”

“Planning my classes, teaching…”

“What department?”

“English.”

“You like books.”

There was an understatement! Literature was the great passion of my life. I murmured a restrained agreement, and gazed out the window as we left the quiet, shady college grounds, expecting he’d change the subject.

“What’s your favorite book?”

“Oh, I couldn’t possibly name just one.”

“Favorite author?”

That was easier. “Virginia Woolf.”

“Of course.” He turned his head, and I met his gaze quickly, nervously, before he returned to watching where he was going, smiling to himself.

“What do you mean, ‘of course’?”

“I knew you reminded me of somebody. That long, graceful neck, beautiful, deep eyes, full lips…”

I felt a warm flush of pleasure at his admiring words.

“People must have told you that before? Don’t they call you the Woolf-woman?” He grinned. “That should be your nickname on campus, around the English department, at least.”

“I don’t have a nickname. Not that I’ve ever heard.” Nobody here was interested enough to give me a special name, but I wasn’t going to tell him that. That he knew something about Virginia Woolf intrigued me. “So who’s your favorite author?”

“Dostoyevsky. Although I like Stephen King a lot. And James Lee Burke. There, I’ve surprised you. You probably thought I dropped out of high school—well, I did, but that doesn’t mean I don’t read. I like reading. Good books, that is.”

We passed the city limits sign, and he picked up speed.

“City limits”—it struck me as a sick joke to apply the name of city to a town with a population that only brushed six thousand when college was in session. Almost every day I asked myself what I was doing here.

“So what brought you to this neck of the woods?”

“I needed a job; the college needed an English teacher. It was all kind of last-minute; we’d both been let down.” I didn’t feel like going into detail.

“You’re not from the South.”

“Chicago.”

“Wow. I’ve never been there. It must be different.” He went on to ask questions that were easy for me to answer without touching on anything too personal. As I talked about weather and food and Oprah, he took the highway heading south, driving past the turn-off to the poky little trailer I called home. A few minutes later, he turned east, onto a road I’d never taken because it didn’t go anywhere except deeper into the woods and swamps of rural east Texas.

“Do you drive out to run in the country every day?”

“Pretty much. Sometimes we stick closer to home, but I prefer places where we won’t meet anybody. He needs at least two good runs a day. It’s not natural for a wolf to be stuck inside a house or a car all day, even if I have to be.”

“You take him with you?”

“We go everywhere together,” he said. “Wolves are pack animals. That thing people say about a lone wolf, it’s just wrong. Maybe, if I had some others, and a big enough yard… but I won’t make him live like a prisoner.”

I’d had a dog when I was a kid, but not since. One thing I’d had in mind when I moved to Texas was to rent a place with a fenced yard and a landlord who wasn’t opposed to pets, and it was the detail that my new home had previously been used as a “hunting cabin” and included a sizable kennels, that made me agree to a year’s lease, sight unseen. But when I saw the kennels—the concrete floor, the high chain-link fence—they looked like Guantanamo.

“You got a problem with that?” He challenged my silence.

“Not at all. I’d love to have a dog, but I couldn’t leave it alone five days a week. I guess it’s even more important, if you’re going to buy a wolf—”

“I didn’t buy him.”