Killing a Cold One (21 page)

33

Wednesday, November 26

KETCHKAN LAKE, BARAGA COUNTY

Double D's source notwithstanding, the weekend storm clogged the mountains, making it difficult to get where they wanted to be. Service was still brooding about Lupo but decided he was wrong. The man didn't know anything, so why waste time and money chasing him to Bumfuck, Canada.
To hell with him.

Limpy rode with Service, and Krelle rode with Cale Pilkington in his truck. The four of them hiked in heavy silence in light falling snow, their boots and walking sticks leaving grooves to mark their passing. Service took Allerdyce's pack for him and sent the old poacher ahead into the valley to find and mark the remains, while he led Pilkington and Krelle on to the north to set up their camp, Pilkington huffing the whole time and sweating profusely, but keeping up and not complaining. Krelle looked as fresh and untrammeled as she had that morning; it was clear she was a field veteran, and in good shape.

Service carried the seventeen-pound six-person REI-brand tent in a special case, belted to the outside of his operations ruck. At the campsite he quickly unpacked the tent and sent Pilkington to fetch firewood. Krelle assembled the tent-frame poles and helped him fit the poles into the geodesic shelter, steadying it with steel spikes. Tent up, fly in place, and snugged to the tent to shed snow, they put their inflatable ground pads and packs inside and hung a few items from hang-loops built into the tent's fabric seams. Krelle went to help Pilkington gather and stack more firewood and cover it with a small tarp.

Allerdyce trudged up from the valley when Service was alone and muttered, “Lotta snow; bloody t'ings're down deep.”

Krelle came back before Service could respond, and, fearful of launching her into more of her annoying rhyme-drivel, he tried to keep the subject specific rather than conjectural. “The tooth we sent—real or not?” he asked her.

“Real? Define real. Yes, I guess, but I must admit there is some stress, that when I let it, makes me into a terrible mess. Not to hedge, but by that I mean something about the tooth puts me on edge.”

“I found it in the dead moose. I sent the photos,” Service said. “That's all I know.”

“No DNA yet,” she said, “but I suspect it will come back as gray wolf. Mostly.”

“Mostly?”

Krelle sighed deeply. “Size says dire, shape says gray, but the gray and dire are genetic canyons apart—that is, not part of the same line of genetic descent. The dire wolf line died out and went nowhere. All wolves today come from a previous wolf line or predecessor genetic stock. Dires were only in the Americas, and grays were concurrent, crossbreeds possible, but not probable.”

“Dires only in the Americas?” Service asked.

“Its genetic common ancestor crossed over the Bering bridges and migrated south into more temperate zones, and then mutated into the dire wolf. It would seem that whatever the antecedent species was, it did not migrate south in Asia, and thus they died out. The dire is strictly a temperate zone creature.”

“Crossbreeding with grays?” Service asked.

Pilkington answered, “Not that we know of. We have coy dogs and wolf dogs, and coy wolves, but dogs, coyotes, and wolves are more or less in the same genetic silo. Dire wolves aren't.”

“But we can't rule it out,” Krelle said. “While not probable, many things are theoretically possible in genetics. The problem is that we have never had a valid dire wolf DNA sample, not one, though we've found thousands of skeletons and remains. We've got the advantage of accelerator mass spectrometry now—AMS—which allows us to carbon-date very small samples.”

“Are we wasting our time out here?” Service ventured.

Krelle said, “Don't assume that. Show me the sites, and let's think and talk about tit and tat, and this and that.”

“A solo dire wolf couldn't survive alone,” said Pilkington.

“That's certainly one hypothesis,” Krelle said. “
If
this is a genuine modern relation of a dire. But it also could be in the genotype of Alaskan gray wolves, which died out about ten thousand years back, plus or minus, about the same time dires disappeared, and frankly, the interbreeding of disappearing Alaskans with modern new wolf breeds makes some sense genetically.”

“Were there dire wolves in Canada?” Service asked.

“Never been found there, or, for that matter, here in Michigan or the upper Midwest. The consensus is that they were warmer-climate animals. Specimens closest to here have come from Missouri, Indiana, and Ohio. Some from Kentucky, too, and east and west along that line, all the way from the Atlantic to the Pacific Oceans.”

“In other words, chances are this is not some descendant of the dire wolf,” Service said.

“Certainly not based on established evidence and accepted theory, but I prefer to let new evidence take us where it will. I also prefer not to be in a hurry to discount new information solely because it lies outside accepted norms. If not a dire, it could just as well be something equally new and heretofore unsuspected. You guys know you probably have two species of wolf in the state?”

Service said, “Just
Canis lupus.
”

Pilkington coughed and said, “Actually, there's a fair possibility that we have
Canis lupus
and
Canis lycaon,
the so-called Eastern Canadian wolf.”

“They're here,” Krelle said. “Pro-wolf groups are already trying to factor this into their campaign to keep gray wolves from being delisted under the Endangered Species Act. The recognition of a new species could muck things up for those who have to manage wolf populations. It sure wouldn't help.”

“And if there's a third, heretofore unknown, species to go with those two?”

“A potential regulatory miasma,” Krelle said. “But look at this another way: If there's two here, why not three?”

The men stared at her until Allerdyce broke the silence. “Youses want go look at bones while light's still good?”

Walking into the valley, Krelle stayed on Service's shoulder and whispered, “When you talk, I sometimes hear what I take to be an implied sneer, as if you think I'm wiggy or insincere.”

The rhyming had returned. “No, ma'am,” he said, and pointed at a boulder. “Take a seat.”

She opened a thermos of coffee and listened as he gave an account of the recent killings and the state of the human remains. The color drained from her face with each new fact.

“Do you have photographs?” she asked.

“In my pack,” he said. He took it off and handed an envelope to her.

She went through the photographs slowly, several times. “Wolves or even near-wolves don't do this,” she pronounced. “The artuation in the moose photos is suggestively canid, but in the environment, one predator may start, and follow-on predation waves tend to scatter remains about. As for those poor people, I have never seen anything like that, never imagined anything like that, and I never want to
see
anything like it again. Why the heck are you involved in this?”

Grady Service told her about the dogman and the governor's order. Krelle closed her eyes and held her hands over her knees. “That's insane, panic, cheap political stunt, or all of the above.”

Service agreed and kept quiet.

Krelle said, “I want to see where the remains were, even if they're gone now, and then I'd like to sweep north and look around some more.”

Allerdyce showed them where the bones were, and then led them north into corrugated and eccentric country between High Lake and the headwaters of the West Branch of the Sturgeon River. Pilkington had not come along. He begged off, went back to camp, got his gear, and headed out. Krelle would ride out with Service and Allerdyce tomorrow.

They were in an open boulder area, fresh snow falling, when Service's eye caught movement ahead. He had just decided it was time to go back to camp and eat, and something had moved. A wraith, something low, dark, and heavy. Krelle was to his immediate right, Allerdyce ahead of both of them, the stiffening wind into all of their faces.

“Limpy,” Service said softly.

The old man looked back. Service held forefingers to the sides of his head like ears or horns, held a hand behind him, parallel to the ground, a wolf tail out, unlike a coyote tail down. Then he put forked fingers to his eyes.

Allerdyce raised his eyebrows, questioning without language if he should move forward, but Service held out his hand, palm out, and lowered it slowly. Allerdyce, understanding the command, sank slowly out of sight. Service touched Krelle's arm and they joined Allerdyce on the ground. Krelle lay close to him in silence and eventually said tentatively and almost inaudibly, “Pair of boulders, eleven o'clock, twenty-five yards.”

Service turned to look her in the eye.

“I saw it, too,” she whispered.

“Saw what?”

“Ochre-gray, brindle maybe, tail out—a wolf without doubt, but a wide, wide body.”

“Species?”

“The legs were short, the stature squat, trunk bigger even than the largest grays we know of.”

“Dire?” Service ventured.

“Off-the-wall hypothesis,” she said. “We know climate change is pushing some species north and killing others who can't adapt. The rate for this is alarming, and not theoretical. We have records. Perhaps there was a remnant zootrope in isolation south of here, and it's migrating north, looking for new territory. Certainly population shifts are being driven by climatic change, and there are more places to hide, more forest now by far than in 1900. Wild habitat is available, especially for migrators who can carefully pick their way.”

Allerdyce suddenly ghosted into their peripheral vision, close to them, whispered hoarsely, “Wolfie,” and pointed.

Service said, “See if you can cut the track. We all saw it.”

“We're not hallucinating,” Krelle told the old poacher, who grinned happily and crawled away.

 

•••

 

Just before dark the old man came back and led them forward, where he lit the snow with a small green penlight. “Fresh,” Allerdyce said. “Real.”

Service heard the air go out of Krelle when she looked down. “Good God almighty,” she said.

Not a single set of tracks, but three different sizes, one the size of the tracks Service and Denninger had found.

Allerdyce chuckled, said, “Dis is fun, sonny.”

Service couldn't tell if the old man was amused or shaken. He knew that he himself was taken aback, and so, too, was Krelle. He could hear her hyperventilating.

“We play hide-seek wit' dese guys, or head ta camp?” Allerdyce asked.

Service measured the largest track at seven inches long by four inches wide, and took photos, but gave no thought to plaster casts. That gear was back in the truck. They had a lot to think about, and he was not the least bit sure where to start. Or how.

A dogman is one thing, but what appears to be breeding wolves of a size never before imagined is another. This is an entirely different deal, with so many ramifications I can't even begin to sort them out.

Service herded his small tribe south toward their camp and tried not to look over his shoulder.

34

Thursday, November 27

KETCHKAN LAKE

They talked little during the night, lost in their own thoughts. Sometime during the hike back to camp Allerdyce killed four pats.
Walking in the woods with that old man is like touring Wal-Mart with a kleptomaniac,
Service thought.
And the old man, presumably, is on his best behavior. Jesus.

Service also knew he was beyond making an issue of minor transgressions.
Hell, I gave a felon a firearm!
The old man was quicksand pulling him deeper, yet it was also inescapable that Allerdyce never seemed to rattle, rarely showed any negative emotions, and, in the woods, had few equals.

They were drinking fresh coffee at first light when Service's cell phone vibrated in his pocket. It was Tuesday calling.
Shit, today's Thanksgiving!
He hadn't even thought about it.

“I'm sorry,” he answered.

She cut him off. “Don't even. I'm here, and I've got everything handled. Pilkington called here this morning, checking on you, and I got worried. I guessed you'd be out of there by now.”

“We got delayed last night.”

“You're okay?” she asked.

“Fine. We should be back late today or tomorrow morning, latest.”

“Professor Lupo called from somewhere in Manitoba. He wants us to come to him. We'll be met at the airport in Winnipeg.”

“When?”

“Quote, ‘Soon as you can get your tails up here,' end quote.”

“What did you tell him?”

“I told him we needed to discuss it. Karylanne and Kalina will look after the kids. Both can stay a week.”

He couldn't believe what he was hearing. “You
want
to do this Manitoba thing?”

“No, but now my intuition is telling me Lupo knows things we need to know, and he's not going to tell us unless we go to him.”

Service sighed. “All right, we'll pack up camp and head in soon-as. Book a flight tonight, whatever it takes to get there. Use the governor's budget line for this.”

“Lupo said we'll be met whenever we get there, and we shouldn't worry about such details, but to bring warm clothes.”

They made a few more plans, and Service hung up. He was afraid going to see Lupo would be a waste of their time.

As they hiked, Allerdyce said, “Girlie wants ta stay oot 'ere, sonny, look more. Ast me ta help.”

The thought of sparks flying between the old man and Krelle made him cringe. Why did educated, presumably classy women feel inexplicably drawn to the old bastard? It defied all logic.

Walking next to Krelle, Service said, “About our companion.”

“A fascinating man. He must've led a remarkable life.”

“He's certainly held law enforcement's attention for a helluva long time.”

“What about him?” Krelle pressed.

“Not all wolves have four legs,” Service said.

Krelle sniggered.

“You've been cautioned,” Grady Service said, and kept walking.