“That’s why I’m calling you. Shadow carried the shaft of the arrow inside him for days, until Holman removed it. I’m hoping there are fingerprints. Other than that, I don’t have much more to go on.”
“Was he found near Pennacook?”
“Further north. He showed up at a homestead on Number Six Mountain, next to Tumbledown. But my gut tells me he climbed here from below, from the Sandy River Valley. Intervale probably, but maybe he came from as far away as Phillips or Avon. I’m hoping you and Maple can backtrack his blood spoor for me.”
The line gathered static.
“Mike, you know I would if I could. But I’m not even in Maine. I’m down in Rhode Island.”
She had no relatives there, as best I knew. “On business?”
“Visiting a friend. You don’t know him.”
Kathy had been widowed before we’d met and unattached for years. She hadn’t mentioned having met a man, let alone having begun a romantic relationship. I had gotten used to thinking of my friend as asexual.
“Can you recommend a local tracker?”
She paused again. “I could, but he’ll just tell you the same thing.”
“Which is what?”
“You’re not going to be able to track Shadow to the place where he was shot. K9 handlers like to play up how amazing our dogs are. But most of the time, when we find a missing person or whatever, there’s a lot of luck involved. Even my dear, departed Pluto, if I’d brought him up there, would have veered off course the second he crossed the scent path of a coyote. It might be different if you were running a track on a bear or a bobcat. I know it’s hard to hear, Mike, but what you want is beyond the capabilities of any K9 I’ve ever encountered.”
Frustration burned the back of my throat. “I guess it’s Plan B then. I’ll talk to Ronette Landry. See if I can get the names of the local crossbowmen. Find out which ones use Spider-Bite X2s.”
“Whoever shot Shadow will only claim he mistook your wolf for a coyote.”
“I’ve got to try, Kathy.”
“I know you do, Mike. But for whose sake? Shadow’s or yours?”
“Why does it matter?”
“It’s something to ask yourself, is all I’m saying.”
“I need to know what happened to the she-wolf, whether she was shot as well. If she’s still alive…”
“What are you going to do?”
I understood what she was getting at: Was I honestly going to search the entire mountain chain for a single wild wolf? It hadn’t been that long ago that a thru-hiker wandered off the Appalachian Trail near here, got lost, and died of exposure, thirst, and starvation. It had taken searchers two full years to find her corpse less than a third of a mile from the trail.
“If I locate the person who shot Shadow, I’ll at least know if she’s dead, too.”
“I understand. Be well, Grasshopper. I’ll be praying for the big guy.”
More ravens appeared, flying in from the northwest, headed toward Weld. I wanted to believe the sight of these intelligent birds was an omen. Everywhere the two species coexisted, ravens and wolves had a symbiotic relationship. Ravens on the wing scout for carrion the canines can scavenge. In return the birds rely on the fangs of the wolves to tear open carcasses their own bills cannot penetrate.
Stacey and I had once attended a powwow on Indian Island in the Penobscot River. The gathering was meant to be a celebration of Wabanaki culture, but like most such events, the mood was one of cultural confusion. Food trucks served up Navajo fry bread and vendors sold Ojibwa dream catchers to a crowd that consisted mostly of white men and women who toured the grounds as if it were just another carnival.
But for all our arrogance, we had both succumbed to the role of cultural tourist. Stacey bought a beautiful little ash basket shaped and colored like a strawberry. It had, at least, been made by an actual Passamaquoddy artisan from eastern Maine. My souvenir, purchased in my near drunkenness, was a slate-gray T-shirt bearing the aphorism WHERE THE RAVEN FLIES, THE WOLF FOLLOWS. Only after I had gotten home did I discover the Made in China tag inside.
I heard a truck downshifting up the hill.
It had to be Mary’s apprentice, Zane. She’d said he would be arriving soon.
I began to hopscotch on the patches of snow in a path toward the dooryard. I arrived around the corner of the house in time to see a Toyota pickup spinning around the driveway in a circle. It let out a sudden farting burst of exhaust and disappeared down the hill in a cloud of noxious fumes.
Gary Pulsifer had opened the door of his patrol truck, preparing to give chase.
“Why’s he running?” I called.
“I have no idea. Should I go after him?”
I started forward through the slushy mud. “I’ll go with you.”
The road up had seemed slow and steep; the road down seemed precipitous. The switchbacks came one after the other, and around each corner loomed a tree thick enough to flatten the most rugged of vehicles. Pulsifer reached to turn on his pursuit lights, but I stopped his hand.
“I am afraid he’s going to panic and go off the road.”
“Too late for that.”
Just past the storm-blasted field of deadfalls Pulsifer pumped the brakes, but still slid across a patch of ice until the studs kicked in and caught us.
We jumped out and looked down a hillside of snags and fallen timber. The plummeting path the Tacoma had taken showed itself in broken logs and flattened baby pines. The exhaust pipe was still smoking, but there was no sign of movement from the wrecked pickup, thirty feet below.
16
My first thought was that the poor bastard must be dead. Then I saw an arm emerge from the driver’s window, and a moment later a bearded young man began crawling from the wreckage. His face was covered with blood as if with war paint. But he seemed to be moving
