Fly by Night (32 page)

Silence for a moment.

“You okay?”

“Yeah.” She took a quick inventory. “You?”

“Yeah.”

She looked over at him; he seemed just as stunned. Amelia peeked in her coat.

“Them?”

“Think so,” she said. Both pups looked up. “That was one big dog.”

“Uhh … don't think it was a dog,” Bryce said, rolling his shoulders to try and release the tension.

Her breath had fogged up the inside window. She wiped it off with her sleeve. “Think it was the mom?”

“Don't know,” he said, wiping off the windshield with his hand as they both looked toward the trees.

The Jeep had landed in the opposite lane, facing downhill, driver's side wedged into a snowbank that butted up against a large tree trunk.

She unhooked the seat belt and pushed open her door; it made crunching sounds. Getting out, Amelia held the pups in her coat and began to assess the situation but then slipped and fell, banging her knee so hard she could have cried. Bryce climbed over the passenger seat to help but fell in the road too.

“Oh man,” he said and crawled toward her, pulling her out of the road.

She grabbed the door frame and rose to her feet. The pups began licking her face. Then something caught her attention off to the side in the woods. Standing by the tree was the animal, half a face peering at them from behind a tree.

“Bryce,” she whispered and motioned with her chin. Afraid to move, to make noise, afraid it would run off.

She could see the one eye, the fur ruff of his neck, tufts defined like a collar, the colors of gray, black, reddish brown, and ivory.

One golden-brown eye watched her. The eye shifted to Bryce once he saw the animal too. The wolf shifted his eyes from Amelia to Bryce as if trying to make up his mind about them. Both pups sniffed, watching from out of her coat. Neither moved. She held her breath. They stood for several moments until the wolf turned and ran off as if called. Her eyes memorized his profile, not wanting to forget the outline of his head.

The entire driver's side of Jeep was embedded in a wall of snow as if it had become part of it. The wheels were buried up to the top of the front end.

Bryce tried to rock it. It wouldn't budge.

“Well, shit,” Bryce said as they both climbed back in. “Maybe get the heater working,” he said. But the engine wouldn't turn over.

Her arm grasped both pups. At least she hadn't fallen on top of them. The outline of the animal's head was emblazoned in her mind. When she blinked she could see its head and eye as it watched her with curiosity. She churned with the idea that the animal might be their mother.

“Maybe we should go put them back,” she said. “Maybe it was their mother looking for them.”

“Listen to me.” Bryce turned and slid his hands on either side of her face, holding it to get her attention almost nose to nose, his eyes set on hers. “There were no tracks; these guys are on the verge of death, I'm not letting you take them back.” He let go.

She looked toward the woods and then closed her eyes, seeing the brush of its tail as it had run off.

“Let's focus on getting out of here,” he said and tried to start the engine again.

At least they were off the road. Hopefully no one would come sliding down the hill and crash into them.

After a few more tries the engine slowly wound down with the inevitable groan of a dying battery. Bryce quit.

“This is useless; I'm just draining the battery.” He rested his head on the steering wheel.

Amelia watched his form, draped against the wheel. He looked exhausted but not from lack of sleep. There was an air of defeat about him, like he would cry; she'd never seen him like this.

She looked at the dash. Her phone had two bars. As a scientist and mariner, she knew when to call mayday. They knew how to wait as the bilge pump worked, searching horizons for the Coast Guard or for the foreign equivalent, or else abandon ship into the Zodiacs and if all else fails, scuba up and swim for the closest land. They'd done it all before. This was one of those moments. Her toes ached, her knee throbbed.

“Fuck TJ.” She dialed 911.

 

27

“Hi, Joyce.” TJ put the Bayfield 911 dispatcher on speaker so that Charlotte could hear. “Helluva storm, eh?”

Charlotte looked over from where she sat reading. Their five dogs surrounded her chair while Barney the crow was roosting up on one of the ceiling beams, letting out an occasional “caw” as the situation warranted.

The two of them had just settled in to warm by the fire after having been out hours searching for a den of orphaned foxes reported by a cross-country skier but had found nothing. Though foxes mated from March on, they'd been skeptical of the sighting but had nonetheless investigated the report.

The worst of the storm was on its way. Estimates ranged from three to four feet and Charlotte had prepared a pot of whitefish stew that was now simmering. Her hands still smelled after slicing onions; for as many times as she'd washed them, she still caught a whiff after each page turn.

“Uh,” Joyce the dispatcher went on, “got a vehicle stuck up by your mom's place, TJ, wedged in against that pine at the bottom of the hill.”

He chuckled, thinking of the tree. “Crash landed there plenty of times myself.” The two-hundred-year-old white pine had scarring on its trunk from the number of motorists who'd encountered it during similar road conditions.

“Reason I'm calling is that this individual might be a relative—”

His stomach tightened.
It couldn't be her.
He felt Charlotte turn in her chair.

“—one Amelia Drakos?”

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Charlotte stand up with an air of aggravation.

“Now that's not a name you hear every day,” the dispatcher joked.

“Guess not.” He'd regretted putting the phone on speaker. After Amelia's first message, he'd silenced his cell phone thinking that with the impending storm anyone with a lick of common sense would have turned back.

The dispatcher went on. “About to call for a wrecker, TJ, but everyone's swamped.”

“I see.” He bristled, gauging Charlotte's reaction.

“It's an hour wait, maybe more,” the woman said. “Thought you could get there faster. Her car won't start, no heater, road's too icy to walk. Gettin' kinda dangerous out there, TJ, know what I mean?”

He heard Charlotte's footsteps by the coatrack in the foyer, rustling sounds of her parka and winter gear.

“Uh—probably so.” He visualized how quickly the hill iced up.

“Says she's been calling you for the better part of the morning.”

The rustle of Charlotte's winter parka stopped.

He winced.

“Landline's probably down,” he said and heard Charlotte's intentional step into the kitchen to lift the receiver. She slammed it back in the holder.

“Plenty of outages,” the dispatcher confirmed.

“Cell's been spotty too,” he said. “Surprising you could reach me.”

“Oh, save it,” he heard Charlotte mumble in a tone that rendered him indefensible. Sounds by the coatrack as she zipped her boots, bent over, rummaging to find mittens.

“Said something about finding pups at your ma's—”

Then he heard silence and looked, watching as Charlotte slowly straightened.

“There's a male party with her.”

“We're leaving now, Joyce.” He turned toward sounds of the inside garage door shutting.

As TJ climbed into the truck in the garage, Charlotte was already seated with a soft-sided cooler of supplies in her lap.

He asked, “Wonder if they're hers.”

“I'm not talking to you,” she said as they drove to his mother's place in silence.

*   *   *

“God, finally,” Amelia said under her breath as TJ's number flashed on her screen.

“Hi.” She tried to not sound irritated or like a kid talking to the high school principal.

“Dispatcher called,” he said. “Sounds like you're in a bit of a jam there, Amelia.” There was a certain irony in his tone as if happy and annoyed at the same time.

She didn't answer.

“You all okay?” he asked.

There was a hint of a chuckle and Amelia imagined him saying,
Yeah well, tough luck, kid.

“So far.”

“We're on our way.”

She glanced at Bryce. His head had plopped back in relief on the headrest.

“Sure.”
Asshole.

“Joyce the dispatcher said you have dogs?”

“Why?”

“Just curious.”

“Two. Pups. Found 'em under your mother's deck.”

“Oh.” TJ's voice dropped. The first note of sincerity she'd heard.

“Something wrong?” she asked.

He didn't speak for a moment, and then Amelia heard him murmuring.

“Be there in twenty minutes.”

“How far—” He'd ended the call. “Jerk wad,” she muttered and tossed the phone back on the dash. Bryce looked over in surprise.

*   *   *

“That's gotta be them,” Bryce said as they watched headlights through the snowy windshield from a vehicle that turned at the bottom of the street.

The truck slid uphill sideways, looking as if about to plow right into them until it veered over to park nose to nose near the Jeep and set on emergency flashers.

The two of them had just begun shivering. Their breath frosting up the inside windows like lace doilies and Amelia kept scraping them clear. Thin flakes of ice curled off like coconut shavings.

“It's creepy,” she'd kept saying as she reached to scrape.

“Just leave it,” Bryce said.

“No,” she'd insisted, “it feels like being in a coffin if we can't see out the windows.”

“First stages of delusional hypothermia,” he muttered.

“Oh shut up,” she said.

“Second stage—irritability.”

She gave him the finger.

As soon as the emergency flashers started, she recognized the outline of TJ's frame as he walked toward them. Back in the truck Amelia spotted a woman sitting in the passenger seat up at full alert, watching.

Amelia rolled down her window. Ice crunched in the tracks.

TJ bent over, hands in his pockets, looking into her eyes, their noses a few inches apart.

“I left you messages,” she said before he spoke and realized this was not the time.

TJ looked over at Bryce, reached in, and tossed something to him. “Here,” he said.

Bryce caught them and nodded.

“Bryce Youngs,” she introduced. “Friend and co-investigator.”

“Glad you're both okay,” he said. Bryce nodded. They had a rapport that she didn't share.

“Can I see the pups?”

Amelia unzipped her coat.

The braver of the two poked out its head and looked at TJ.

It made him smile in a sad way.

The other remained nestled on Amelia.

TJ sighed. It was laced with a finality that touched her.

“Yeah,” TJ said. It was a sad admission.

“Are they wolf pups?”

“Wrong time of year.”

“Should I have left them?” She turned and looked up toward the summit, aching with the urgency of return.

He didn't answer.

“We saw a—” she began to say but stopped, realizing he wasn't interested.

TJ turned to signal someone in his truck.

Then he opened the Jeep's passenger's side door and offered Amelia his arm.

“Hold on.” She took his arm and stepped out, holding the pups in place with the other hand.

“Charlotte's in the truck. She's got food for them.”

TJ steadied her as she teetered along the icy road. A gust of wind almost knocked her down; the scent of pine trees was strong, their needles clicked in striations of green as the wind rattled through their boughs.

“How come you're not falling?” she asked.

“Magic Indian feet,” he said in his ironic tone.

“Bullshit,” Amelia said. His chuckle made her soften.

The truck door opened. A tall, thin woman with glasses and closely cropped dark hair stepped out, pulling both sides of an unzipped parka together. Amelia felt the woman studying her in the same way as she'd just memorized the figure of the animal in the woods.

“Hi, Amelia,” she said and reached for her hand. “I'm Charlotte, your sister-in-law.”

Amelia's eyes widened. “Oh,” she said and grasped the woman's hand, holding on to the pups under her coat with the other. “No one's ever said that to me before.” She blinked back unexpected tears. “Thank you, thank you for saying it.” Suddenly aware of how important that was, though surprised that it was. “I-I…”

“Well, it's true,” Charlotte said in a matter-of-fact way. “That's what we are.” The woman grasped Amelia's forearms and squeezed.

“Thank you.” They exchanged glances and Amelia's throat ached.

“Well, come on in,” Charlotte said, in a teasing way. “It's too goddamned cold out here.”

Amelia climbed into the backseat of the truck's cab. Despite the lighthearted exchange there was something very somber about her and TJ.

As Amelia scooted over, Charlotte climbed in next to her.

“What's your friend's name?”

“Bryce.” Amelia nodded and unzipped her coat. “I'm worried about these little guys.”

“Can I see?” Charlotte reached toward her coat.

Amelia sensed something bad or that she'd done something that she wasn't supposed to.

She opened her coat. Charlotte reached for the braver of the two pups.

“Oh.” The woman's voice dropped off. “Oh yeah,” Charlotte said in a soft voice, her head lowering as she looked over the pup. “Oh yeah.” Her voice quieted to a hush. “They're Lacey's.”

Amelia looked at her. The pup began shrieking.