The Loop (25 page)

‘Am I still un-un-under arrest?’

‘I’m thinking about it.’

She came back and sat down at the table, giving him a sly kind of smile. She’d put on a pale blue fleece which made her face look all golden. Her hair was still wet and shone in the lamplight. She picked up her mug of chocolate, cradling it in her hands, then took a thoughtful sip.

‘It depends,’ she said.

‘On what?’

She put the mug down, gathered up one of the maps and placed it squarely in front of him.

‘On you showing me where to catch those wolves.’

15

T
he old bull moose stood with his head lowered, perhaps to get a better view through the dusk of the forest or perhaps to give a better one of his antlers to the nine pairs of yellow eyes that were watching him. The antlers were full-grown by now with a spread of nearly five feet. At the shoulder he was as tall as a horse and probably weighed the best part of eleven hundred pounds. But he was lame and past his prime and both he and the wolves knew it.

They had found him in a bend of the creek, browsing its bank in a thicket of slender aspens which looked like zebra stripes against the dark brown of his flank. He had turned to face them and stood his ground and for the last five minutes predator and prey had waited, weighing their respective chances.

The pups were just big enough now to come hunting with the others, though they normally hung back with their mother or one of the younger adults. The mother was much paler than her mate, the alpha male, and in the twilight looked almost white. The pups and the two younger adults - one male, one female - were various shades of gray between. Occasionally one of the pups fidgeted or whimpered, as if bored with the wait, and one of the alpha pair, mother or father, would chide it with a look and a quiet growl.

The moose was about twenty yards away. Behind him, the creek gleamed like bronze in the dying light. A cloud of freshly hatched flies pirouetted above its surface and a pair of lace-winged moths flitted like pale spirits against the dark of the pines beyond.

Now the alpha male moved. His tail was bushier than the others’ and usually held higher, but he kept it lower now as he went slowly in an arc to the right, keeping the same distance from the moose all the way. Then he stopped and retraced his steps and made a matching arc to the left, hoping to prompt the old bull to make a run.

A moose that stood its ground, even one that was old and lame, was much harder to kill. He could see where his attackers were coming from and aim his defensive blows more accurately. One well-placed kick could crack a wolf’s skull. They had to get him running, when he couldn’t aim so well or see where the next bite was coming from.

But all the old bull moved were his eyes. They followed the wolf’s every step, first one way, then the other. The wolf stopped on the left and lay down. And, on cue, the alpha female now moved forward. She went to the right, slowly, almost sauntering, and farther than the male had gone, so that when she stopped she was down by the edge of the creek and slipping behind the moose and at last he had to move to keep an eye on her.

He stepped backward, turning his head toward her, and at the same time realized he had taken his eye off the alpha male and turned back, taking a couple of small backward steps. And as he moved, the younger female moved too, following her mother through the trees.

The moose shifted uneasily, edging back toward the water, perhaps now wondering if, after all, it might not be better to run.

His first instinct might have been to head into the creek, but when he turned that way he saw the two female wolves had worked their way along the bank below him. Between them and the alpha male there was probably not enough space to escape. The alpha female’s paws were in the water and when the moose looked at her, she casually lowered her head to drink, as if that were all she was there to do.

On some silent signal, the younger adult male and the five pups were moving now, heading toward their father. And in so doing, they opened a wide gap which, as he was no doubt intended to, the moose saw.

Suddenly he erupted. He thundered off through the thicket, his hooves churning the damp, black earth and his antlers clacking against the white stems of the aspens, gashing their bark and setting off a shower of leaves in his wake.

As soon as he moved, the wolves were after him. He was partly lame in his right front leg and he ran with an odd rocking motion. The alpha male must have seen this for it seemed to summon extra energy in him. He was gaining on the moose with every bound. The others were close on his heels, dodging in their different routes through the trees and leaping the rocks and rotting wood that littered the forest floor.

Upstream, the bank of the creek was clearer and the old bull headed that way, hoping perhaps to run where his antlers wouldn’t hinder him and where with luck he could gain access to the water. But as he emerged from the thicket, the alpha male made a great lunge and fastened his teeth onto the left of his rump.

The moose struck out with his hind feet but the wolf swung clear of them without loosening his grip and the fraction of speed the moose lost by kicking gave the alpha female her chance. Her teeth flashed and found purchase in the bull’s right flank and as he tried to kick at her he stumbled. He quickly found his footing again and plowed on up the clearing with the two wolves locked to his flesh and swinging from him like stoles.

He had gone more than half a mile, through another thicket and out again onto a rocky meadow, when the younger adults got involved. Before, they had seemed content to leave the attack to their parents, but now they started slashing at the bull’s other flank. The pups loped along behind, the bolder among them plainly tempted to join in, the others hanging back, preferring to watch and learn.

Up ahead, their father lost his hold and the moose thrashed out and caught him a thudding blow on the shoulder with a hind hoof, sending him cartwheeling into the undergrowth in a cloud of dust. But the wolf was on his feet again at once and, seeing the moose veer toward the creek, raced at an angle to cut him off. Within a few seconds he was alongside and he twisted his body around and at the same time launched himself up beneath the moose’s neck and closed his teeth on the long flap of tufted skin that dangled there.

The bull swiped at him with his antlers but the wolf was too quick. The whole pack seemed to sense that however mighty this animal once had been, age had dulled and weakened him and tonight was his time to die.

And as if to show the moose he knew this and how reckless he was thus prepared to be, the alpha male let go and came within an inch of being trampled by the heavy front hooves, but instead bounced like an acrobat off the ground to get a better bite. His teeth sank deep into the moose’s throat.

The old bull had run more than a mile and was bleeding heavily at both ends, the blood spattering the faces of the young adults as they slashed at his flanks and his rump. Yet on and on he ran.

He swerved sharply now toward the creek and half ran, half fell down a steep bank of willow scrub to the water, dragging his baggage of wolves with him and setting off an avalanche of mud and rocks.

The water near the bank was barely a foot deep and as the moose hit the bed of the creek his lame leg buckled and he went down on his knees, ducking the alpha male beneath him. He quickly found his feet again and when his neck came clear of the water, the alpha male was still fastened there, blood and water sluicing down his fur.

The pups had reached the top of the bank and they stopped there to watch. The old bull turned his head, perhaps to see what had happened to the others when he fell and, seeing her chance, the young female leapt at his face and hooked her teeth to his nose. The moose lifted his head, thrashing her from side to side like wet laundry, but she didn’t let go.

All his efforts focused now on the teeth that were sunk into the black, fleshy splay of his nose. He started to stagger blindly toward the far bank, forgetting for awhile about shedding or kicking at the other wolves that were locked on to him.

The mother and the other young adult seemed to sense it and hacked with added vigor at his flanks and his rump then ducked their heads under him to rip at his belly, while the alpha male at his throat tore another gaping hole.

And finally, just as he reached the other bank, the clamor of pain and loss of blood were too much for the old moose and his hind legs collapsed and down he went.

He kicked and struggled for another ten minutes and once during that time managed to get briefly to his feet and haul his bloody cargo of wolf onto the gravel.

But there he fell again and for the last time.

And the pups who had been watching from the near bank took it as a cue and cautiously made their way down into the water and waded across to join the feast.

And only when the old bull had stopped twitching and the rising moon glinted its reflection in the sightless black of his eye, only then did the alpha male loosen his grip. And he sat up and raised his blood-soaked muzzle to the sky and howled.

And one by one, all his family joined in and lifted their heads and howled with him, both those who had killed and those who had witnessed.

Where once there had been life, now was death. And out of death, thus, was life sustained. And in that bloody compact, both the living and the dead were joined in a loop as ancient and immutable as the moon that arced above them.

16

T
he allotments that the Calders and their neighbors leased for summer grazing lay along the shoulders of the mountains like patches stitched by some sedulous giant into the darker green of the forest. Among them, along the creeks and coulees now, seams of yellow, lime and gold were starting to show, as the nights gave a first brush of frost to the willow and chokecherry.

In some years all might by now be blanketed in snow. But summer this year was like a party guest with no home to go to and even the flocks of migrating birds, the only apology for cloud in a constant cobalt sky, seemed hesitant, as if tempted too to linger for a last drink.

Buck Calder sat resting his horse on a bare bluff that leaned out from the forest above his allotment. The horse was a Missouri Fox Trotter, a handsome, deep-chested gray, who held himself every bit as proudly as his owner. In the early morning sun, squinting out at the plains from under the brim of his hat, it occurred to Buck, as it often did, that the two of them cut quite a picture. The kind of thing that would have had old Charlie Russell reaching for his paintbrush.

He looked down over the trees at the double curve of tracks he and Clyde had made in the dew of the pasture and those the cattle had made as they moved away. Beyond, hazed by the low sun, the valley stretched away toward Hope. Along the river a curl of mist shrouded the knees of the cottonwoods. Their leaves too were yellow now and the grass around them cured pale as an old elk hide.

Buck loved the fall. The fences were all fixed and the irrigation work all done and everything was on hold for awhile. It gave a man a moment or two to breathe and take stock before the mid-October frenzy of selling and shipping the calves. In a few days they would be gathering the herd and bringing them down where he preferred them to be, on land that belonged to him rather than the government.

Not that the land he leased was bad. Far from it. Buck’s was the biggest and lushest allotment there was. And the rent wasn’t bad either. In fact, at under two dollars per cow-calf unit a month, it was cheaper than feeding a cat. But the Forest Service always made you feel they were doing you a favor, letting you use it. They were always laying down the law about some new thing or other and, in so doing, only helped deepen the resentment Buck and other ranchers already felt.

It was the principle that Buck objected to. As a state legislator, and before that as a county commissioner, it had been his favorite topic. Many a time he’d banged the table and ranted at the scandal of the federal government owning so much of the West, land he and his forebears and many more like them had watered with their own sweat and blood. It was they who, against all odds, had civilized the wilderness, planted it with decent grass and grown the fillet steaks those goddamn pen-pushers ate - without so much as a thank you - in their fancy Washington DC restaurants.

Most ranchers he knew felt the same way and for awhile Buck had believed it might be possible to get some kind of campaign going to change things. But it didn’t take him long to figure it wouldn’t work.

That same independent grit which ranchers needed to survive out here also made them the most difficult critters on earth to organize. You could get them to agree, sign petitions, even now and then get them riled enough to come to a meeting. But deep down they were all resigned to the fact that ranching was, and always would be, a kind of cruel joke, devised by God to teach man the meaning of pessimism. Adversity was just part of the deal and the measure of a man was how he faced up to it on his own. And anyhow, when all was said and done, everyone knew that for all Buck’s spleen and speechifying, the government would go on acting in the same old high and mighty way and do as it damn well pleased.

Recently though, things had gotten much worse. The federal agencies were forever coming up with new restrictions, cutting down the number of cows you could graze on your allotment, even telling you what you had to do with your
own
land. They came and tested the water in your creeks and told you it was dirty and you had to put fences up so your cows couldn’t get a drink. Then they’d come and tell you some rare varmint, some goddamn ferret or owl or something, was nesting on your property and would you mind not ranching it for a few years.

Every damn thing a stockman did nowadays wasn’t just his business but the whole world’s. If you wanted to blow your nose or take a piss, you had to get the government’s permission and they wouldn’t give it until they’d consulted the so-called
environmental
groups. And then these goddamn bunny-huggers and Patagonia Patsies, who all lived in the city and knew less than jack-shit about anything, would have their say and the agency goons, who were all just like that themselves anyway, would take it as gospel and come up with some new harebrained scheme for making life more of a misery for ranchers. You could suffocate in all the paperwork they threw at you. There were regulations and limits for this, that and everything, plus a whole bunch of fines if you broke them. It made a man sick.