Theft (21 page)

But even the slightest graze by a truck like the one she was driving could do it. And now, the wolf was here, seemingly lifeless, and it had been her doing. There had been no other car on the road between now and then, and the animal she was looking at had not been lying there motionless very long. She had helped her father rehabilitate these wolves when she was younger. She had left the reservation when she was younger because she'd heard bad rumors of her father betraying these wolves, and it was something she couldn't stand. Now, she may have helped kill off one of the few remaining in the wild.

This new thing she was feeling was more addicting than most anything she had tried before—and she'd had her share of so-called addictions (though she preferred to call them
tools
). But this was more addicting than anything, this new exhilaration of doing the right thing. There was no room for fear or self-blame and pity anymore, not in this situation. And it was liberating. Her own weaknesses didn't matter. She had to go back. She had to knock on Raymond's door, tell him she was the one who'd woken him in the middle of the night. And she had to tell him she was the one who had hit this wolf. The rumors she'd heard didn't matter now. If there was anything to be done about this injured wolf, he would know.

She walked back, turned the key in the ignition, and ignored the gentle rumble of the truck. She headed back toward Raymond's.

B
RIGHT MORNING, THE KIND that made Raymond want to put on his oldest cowboy boots, ones with the hole in the right toe
and the heels worn down so far they made his too-skinny legs bend outward like a hunting bow strung taut. The wear of those heels pitched his posture back a little like he was always walking uphill, kept him moving slow and steady, the way he liked. He could smell the crisp desert sky before he even opened the front door and stepped out, red dirt welcoming him to the day, sandstone rocks looming like gods on the horizon, no hand-built Stonehenge here, the whole landscape carved by weather, nothing holier, something he prayed to daily without saying a goddamn word. The crooked heels of his boots sunk into the sandy earth, and he walked out to the road. He'd never seen a semi truck on this scrawny strip of tar before, was surprised the width of the road even held the rig. Red sand crawled up from the soft shoulder so far you could only see a few feet of black asphalt underneath it.
What the hell?
he thought. What the hell was that hulking thing doing parked outside his place, and why did it take off just as soon as he came out to greet it? That unfriendly scoundrel was sure as hell not a skin.

He shook his head. Strange things happening on this land. Strange spirits rising up, or maybe it was some friendly State land manager making sure Raymond was behaving himself and not bringing in what they called “foreign wildlife.” Or maybe it was some other law official making sure he was not protecting existing wildlife that was not supposed to be protected, according to their bullshit rules of what got saved and what got shot. Raymond himself had been known to shoot over the heads of the shitfools who brought packs of greyhounds out to the desert just outside the Navajo border, to hunt coyotes for sport, for instance. The shitfools set their dogs loose, and when the hunt was over, they took the coyote carcasses home for trophies and left their own injured hounds out in the heat of the desert to die. This is how he'd ended up with six of them pointy-nosed racing dogs, and the truth was, he did not shoot
that
far over the shitfools' heads.

“It's not your business to keep those coyote hunters off that land,” the officials had told him. And he'd told them that land
was not a
business
at all, that was their first mistake, and he would kindly show them exactly
how
he'd aimed his gun very close to the fuckers' heads if they wanted to test his patience much longer. But sending a semi out to check on him was a new trick, stupid even for them, nothing stealth or sly about a semi rumbling by your door at midnight.

He scratched his head, then slicked down what was left of the grey-black strands on his scalp. He hooked one arm back inside the house, reaching for his cowboy hat, closed the door, and then headed out. His hat touched the ceiling of his Chevy mini-truck as he drove, a feeling he'd come to like, the height and bulk of himself hunched in that little cab. He was a ship in a bottle, he joked; no one could figure out how he got in that mini-Chevy or how he could get himself out. The local radio station played a mix of traditional Indian music and singing, some political talk, grassroots activists rallying the community, American country music, gospel, rap, reggae, Jesus-talk from preachers, and drumming, the same mix that had been jumbled around inside his head since he was born; it made him smile. Commercial-free, his station was, but all the same the sponsors came on in between just to inform the listeners that the coffee was good and the breakfast burritos were cheaper than usual at Maria's burrito wagon this morning. He appreciated that kind of information.

That morning, he'd taken the day off to keep his promise to Willa. He had it planned. He would head down south to the land, track the wolves, and see what they'd been up to since he'd last tracked them. He thought of stopping by the store to make sure Simon was feeling okay about working there alone on such short notice. But on second thought, he knew Simon would be okay. He'd told Simon all along that the only thing most tourists who visited wanted was to have a look at a real Indian so they could go back home and speak of Indians and “Indian spirituality” in an enlightened and accepting way. “Don't worry about it, Simon. Just ring the customers up and give them change,” he'd said, when he called in sick for the day.

Simon had complained, but it didn't matter. Raymond was not heading into the store today. He had made a promise to Willa, and he was keeping it. And right now he had a narrow open road stretched out before him, and some cold brews sitting in the Coleman cooler waiting for him in the back of the truck, and there was nothing like an extra-hot autumn day in the high desert, the last days of summer perched on the promise of winter—
nothing
like a day like that to make a man feel like he just might live forever.

He took off his hat, used a paisley blue bandana to swab the sweat from his crown, put the hat back on, and hunched his shoulders, both arms draped over the steering wheel. A few minutes later, though, he straightened his posture and squinted. A heat wave already turned the morning air fuzzy in his sight, and it blurred the semi truck moving toward him, made it seem almost like it was crossing the middle line, coming right at him. He swerved a little, swearing at the crazy sonofabitch, looking back over his shoulder and trying to make sense of it all. But he kept on driving.

It was not far after that when he saw a set of black skid marks on the road. Skid marks weren't rare in these parts. Enough Indians raced these streets at night to engrave the entire stretch with streaks of rubber crisscrossing like braids. But these weren't the tread marks of bald-tires on low-riding Impalas, or the skittering imprints of decades-old trucks that had seen better days. These treads were thick and heavy, doubled up like the footprint of at least a twelve- maybe a sixteen-wheeler. This was the goddamn spore of his crazy late-night visitor, and according to the sign it left behind, it had been traveling the other direction. Now that same sonofabitch had turned around and was making his way back toward Raymond's house.

That was it. Raymond swung his truck around in a quick U-ey. Far as he could see, that crazy fuck was just two steps away from being escorted off the reservation in a proper manner. It was curiosity more than anger that had snagged him, but either way, that driver was not getting away without a formal introduction to Raymond, so to speak. But as he made the turn, his tire caught
on the sandy shoulder, and he spun out just long enough to catch sight of something indistinct, but out of place, just up the small, sandy hill. He stopped, looked closer. He knew right away he was letting that driver get out of sight. And it irked him. But he'd seen something out of place, and to a tracker, something out of place was an irresistible mystery that had to be solved. He stepped out of his truck.

Heat seared through his thin cotton T-shirt, prickling his back. He felt the morning sun scorching his neck and arms already. He opened his canteen, poured ice water onto his bandana, and wrapped it around his neck. His leg muscles thickened as he climbed the short but sandy incline into the sage and cactus.

What he saw next thumped him like lightning, made any thought of that driver leave his mind and left his chest hesitant about breathing, unsure the next breath was his right.

He saw sign first, just sign: small tufts of grey fur clumped together at the base, the memory of skin still holding that hair together, coarse at the tip, downy soft underneath, dozens of clumps caught on the tips of sage and cactus plants, fluttering across the desert like butterflies might in more hospitable land. This was the distinct fur of a Mexican wolf. He crouched lower, but kept walking steadily forward.

Then he saw the heap of her curled up next to a tall spire. “No…” His voice a harsh whisper. “Holy Jesus, please, no,” higher now, strained into disbelief. He walked closer, then knelt by the wolf's side, the empty morning quiet enough that he thought he imagined the sound of her breathing, a soft in-and-out, like the sigh of the land itself.

Life turns to nothing fast in the desert. Heaps of muscle wither tight around skeletons overnight, skin ripped and shredded to striations of red muscle by scavengers, picked to the bone by the beaks of corvids, the teeth of coyotes. The wolf hadn't gone that far yet. But he feared he was witnessing the beginnings of it: her return to the earth. He looked at her, then took a chance and rested his hand on her side.

Usually, he was one of those guys who believes hope is the greatest form of pessimism. To him hope was just the sad inability to see
and appreciate what's right in front of your face in the moment and move forward positively from there. But goddamn if he wasn't filled with hope when he touched her, and goddamn if his hand, resting on her chest, was not rising up and sinking down in a rhythm that felt like breathing. Stressed breathing. Fast breathing. But still, this wolf was taking in air. This wolf was alive. Respectful as he was of the damage that a wolf could do to him if she decided to wake now, he crawled closer to her, looking for signs of how and where she'd been hurt. He saw the scrawniness of the back leg that had been injured long ago, her identifying mark. He let himself recognize her now. “Ciela,” he said, the name tumbling from his mouth, gentle as touch.

He walked back to his truck, turned the engine, and drove that rickety thing onto the sand, up the short hillside as far as the vehicle would travel, several feet from where Ciela lay. Humming a prayer as he got out, he grabbed a heavy tarp from the bed of the truck.

By the time he returned to her, Ciela was still dazed, still motionless. Still, as he approached, she let out a low siren growl, a haunting whine, sensing his presence. Yes. This wolf was alive. And this wolf was pissed. Now, if he touched her, she would attack, a reflex of survival. He knew that, and he knew the attack would be weakened by her condition. But still. Years back, he'd have had tools in his truck, something that could calm Ciela long enough to get her to a safer place. But he'd been stopped by cops too many times, frisked and relieved of his “wildlife importation tools.” He couldn't afford to replace them time and again, and now he had nothing. Except an injured wolf and the need to get her to safety. He ran through the years of training he'd received from Andy and the folks at WWA back when they were on speaking terms. He had taught them a few things he knew about handling wildlife, and they had taught him what they knew, too. Handling a wolf under the best of circumstances was risky. But the best of circumstances rarely existed in the wild. Ideally, this type of situation required tranquilizers and a team of people. But he was fighting time and struggling with the fact that Ciela already had a death note on her
head. For Halvorson and the WWA, this injury could be just the reason to let nature take its course with her—one less wolf and no one to blame. He knew what he was up against, knew the risks, and made the decision anyway.

He walked around toward Ciela's hind flanks. Mexican wolves are smaller than their Yellowstone cousins, and Ciela was slight, even for a female—just over sixty pounds. Raymond weighed in at two-hundred-plus, and right about now he felt every one of those pounds quaking from fear. No matter. The task had to be done. In a slow but certain motion, he lowered the heavy tarp over her body, and when she turned her head to attack, as he knew she would, he leaned his weight in and held steady. He lowered his body firmly but calmly over hers, tightening the tarp over her eyes, muzzle, and head. His breath stuttering with fear, he shimmied his arms underneath her body, felt the sand scraping the skin on the backs of his hands and forearms, and he lifted and loaded Ciela into the bed of his pickup. He prayed two things simultaneously, each one cancelling the other out: He prayed Ciela would come out of her stunned daze and rise up out of the bed of his truck and become a shadow disappearing into the desert again. And he prayed she would stay right where she was, too, that she'd let him take her home, examine her, see if there was some way he could prolong her chances of survival. He knew from his falconing days that a wild hawk that spent even a short part of its life in the human world would usually live twice as long as a hawk that had never been caught and released again. Unnatural as it seemed, sometimes human intervention
did
help. He wanted to give Ciela that chance. She was injured now, and he wanted to go against nature this time, to reverse what had happened. He wanted to give her the chance to heal.