“How about a kombucha? Indigo and I make it ourselves.”
“I think I should stick with H20.”
“No worries.”
He pumped two stoneware mugs full of well water and sat down across from me at the table.
“Something’s been bothering me, Zane. I could beat around the bush, but I’m going to come out and say it. I can’t understand why you lied to me about seeing the wolf.”
I saw his Adam’s apple bob beneath the fringed beard. “I don’t think I lied.”
“First you told me you saw it in your headlights in the road. Then you said you saw it in the back field. Which was it?”
“Both.”
“You saw it twice.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you say so?”
“I guess because I was feeling guilty.”
I rested my forearms on the table, wondering if this was the start of a confession. “Why would you feel guilty?”
“Because I saw it was injured, and I didn’t tell anyone except Mary. And so it was suffering for days on my account. You keep calling it a wolf, but I could tell, from the way it looked at me, that it was a dog. In my head I had this idea that it had escaped from the person who owned him. Someone cruel like…”
“Gorman Peaslee?”
When Zane nodded his head, he put everything into it. “We always had dogs when I was a kid. I loved them so much. But then I read Peter Singer and realized pets are animal slaves. I refuse to confine living creatures in cages. It’s an ethical thing, you know?”
If this were a college dorm room, I might have argued that dogs and cats have done an effective job training humans to feed and shelter them. In many houses I’d visited it was unclear who the real master was.
“I’m going to share something with you, Zane. You were right about the injured wolf dog. He’s a hybrid—mostly wolf, genetically speaking—but he grew up in a human’s house. He slept on couches and beds and ate dog food for years before he escaped into the forest. His name is Shadow.”
“I knew it! Sometimes you can sense things.”
“I need to ask you another tough question, and I need you to be honest with me. You knew that Shadow attacked and killed the Stoll family’s donkey before he showed up at Mary’s place. How come you didn’t mention that yesterday?”
“I thought I did.”
“Nope.”
“Are you sure I didn’t?”
“Positive.”
He batted the mug around the tabletop with his filthy hands, even spilling some water. “I guess, maybe, I didn’t think it was relevant. And I was still kind of shaken up from wrecking my truck. Maybe I was a little high, too.”
“You know who shot Shadow, don’t you?”
He reacted as if I had called his good character into question. “No!”
“Maybe you have a strong suspicion.”
“I said I didn’t.”
“All right. Indigo must have told you that Shadow hasn’t been alone in the mountains. Game cameras have captured him with a large female canine that is almost certainly another wolf—a real one. It might sound like I’m looking to punish someone for shooting Shadow. But what matters most to me right now is finding out what happened to the she-wolf, whether she is alive or dead. Can you help me find her before she’s killed, too?”
He looked at his strong dirty hands cupped around the mug. “Maybe.”
“Have you seen her?”
“No, but Samuel Stoll told me he did.”
“Any chance you might be available to ride over there with me now? I have a feeling he’d be more likely to open up to you than to me.”
“What about Indigo?”
“Leave a note for her. You can blame me for twisting your arm. That should get her off your case.”
“No offense, Warden Bowditch, but you don’t know her. Sometimes I wonder how such a small woman can have such a big temper.”
30
The Amish boy Samuel Stoll was guarding the sheep again. He sat perched on the split-rail fence at the edge of the pasture with a new switch he’d fashioned from a thorny blackberry branch. He wore the same outfit as the day before except that his mother must have made him put on a black coat before he’d ventured out into the gusty afternoon.
“Hey, Samuel,” said Zane through the passenger window.
“Hello, Mr. Wilson.”
“You don’t need to call me that. You and I are buds.”
“My dad says I do.” Then Samuel grew alarmed, as if he’d unintentionally uttered a curse word. “I mean, my datt says I do.”
Even Amish children, I gathered, were not immune to cultural homogenization.
Zane climbed out of the Scout as I turned off the engine. “Warden Bowditch is hoping you can show us where you saw the other wolf.”
From the boy’s reaction it was apparent he hadn’t expected his friend Mr. Wilson to violate their secret. Samuel glanced at the farmhouse as if he expected to see one or both of his parents storming down the lane to punish him for confiding in two outsiders.
“I am not supposed to leave the sheep.”
Zane gestured at the surviving donkey. The animal was watching us with ears up and swiveling. “I think Mose can keep the flock safe for a few minutes. Show Warden Bowditch the bite he gave you on the shoulder.”
Samuel Stoll would not be removing his coat and shirt to show me his tooth marks.
“You said you saw the gray one across the road, right?” Zane said.
“Ja.”
“Did I tell you I was carving a shepherd’s crook for you?”
“Really?”
With someone other than Zane Wilson, I might have assumed that this was a ploy to manipulate the child, but I detected no hint of dishonesty in the farmer’s voice.
The little boy had his mother’s oversize smile. He dropped off the fence and started forward along the gravel road in the direction of Peaslee’s house. After a hundred yards, he hopped over a watery ditch and entered a tunnel in the leafless bushes. Zane followed, and I brought up the rear. Being taller and broader than the others, I had
