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Ridley, following her blasphemies, came through the tangle of downed trees with more grace than she had managed. Behind him was Robin and, beside her, Bob. That was what had held them up. A
She thought to warn them, to say: “It’s bad” or “Pretty grim scene” or “Take the women and kids back to the house,” but instead she just waited till Robin and Ridley noticed the digging, the arm. Then, like a tour guide from hell, she pointed out the various pieces.
Bob waded in and started brushing snow away from the arm. “Leave it,” A
“Wolves killed her,” Bob said. He started in with the brushing again, and it bothered her that he was uncovering the arm.
The arm, for chrissake. It was cut off. It was hamburger. Anybody who wasn’t Bob would have brushed the snow from Katherine’s face.
“Wolves may have torn her apart,” A
He looked up at her desperate or dangerous or scared. A
He was digging up her arm. Her fucking arm. A
“Another front is coming in,” Ridley said. “We’re going to lose the light in an hour or so.”
Another dark and stormy night. A
Robin took up photographic duties. The constant flash became a freakish punctuation to the finds, the pieces of what had once been a young woman.
A young woman murdered by her first love, the wolf; when the snow was swept from the body, it became clear she had been killed by a wolf or wolves. Her throat was torn out, her head co
“Odd,” A
“Wog,” Ridley said.
“It was a pack of wolves,” Bob said, his voice as plummy and certain as if he were reporting the six o’clock news.
“If it was wolves – natural wolves, pure wolves – it’s the first time in recorded history it’s happened in America,” Ridley said. “What’s your take on this, Menechi
Ridley asked as if it were a real question, as if he cared about Bob’s answer.
“Homeland Security can shut down your little pissant operation anytime,” Bob replied with the same big tucked-in smile he bestowed on everything, and A
“Not if this is a wolf kill,” she said. “Led by a wog or not, every wildlife biologist in the world will be lobbying to keep the study going. Scientists can’t stand an anomaly.”
“Doggone it, where is Adam?” Ridley demanded. Apropos of nothing that A
Bit by bit, as it was recorded by the camera, they brought together what was left of Katherine Huff.
As they had at the necropsy, they worked as a team. This time Robin and A
“Wolves don’t do this,” Ridley said when the body parts were uncovered and accounted for. “They just don’t. We were talking about this the other day. There’s upward of two thousand wolves in Mi
A
“You can see where she crawled, trying to get away.” A
“Wolves don’t behave this way,” Ridley said doggedly.
“See where the bark is shredded on the downed trunk? She must have tried to crawl beneath it, and the wolves tore at it till they got her out. The marks are too big for anything else.”
“They don’t do this,” Ridley said but he sounded more confused than convinced. “They just don’t.”
A
“It’ll be dark before we get back,” Ridley said and stood. “Bob! Make yourself useful.” To A
A foot of new snow could hide a lot of sins. There was no point in searching any areas that hadn’t been disturbed by scavengers. The clearing where the body was found was not so much a clearing as a flat space where the trees had opted not to fall for one reason or another. It was scarcely six feet on a side. Beyond that, they were again in the giant’s game of pick-up-sticks.
A
“Robin,” A
“Backpack? She must have gone back to the bunkhouse before she ran off. That changes things. To what, I haven’t a clue.”
The pack, what was left of it, was of dark blue canvas, a relic from before high tech went into the backcountry. The anachronism was jarring. Katherine was a state-of-the-art woman. The wolves had attacked the pack with a fury that struck A
Radios came to life; Adam calling from the base radio in the bunkhouse. “My batteries went dead,” came through a storm of static. “Where is everybody?”
Ridley was the one who answered. He told him briefly of the body. “You may as well stay where you are,” he said. “There’s not much you can do now.” Ridley’s tone made it clear that there had been a good deal he could have done earlier if he hadn’t been AWOL.
“Ten-four,” Adam said. The Park Service had gone to plain speech years before, but people clung to the codes.
Handing Robin her flashlight, A
“Jonah said Katherine pocketed vials of wolf blood before she left the carpenter’s shop,” A
The biotech’s face was puckering the way a small child’s will as it readies for tears. Her eyes had dilated more than the coming dusk could account for.