Chapter 10 Reid
The atmosphere was heavy, a storm on the horizon as we ran over our land. We fanned out, four broad-chested shapes, Calder, Eli, Buck, and me, running flank to flank, paws silent on the sodden ground.
By the time we crested the ridge, the whole sky let go at once, a storm far worse than any of us had anticipated or we wouldn’t have started a run or gotten so far from the house.
Hail bounced off the limestone, thunder cracked in sheets, and the whole world was lit in strobes, then black, then strobes again.
My coat was soaked through, heavy with water, but it didn't slow me down.
We took the ridgeline, doubled the fenceline, ran until the adrenaline spun itself out, and the ache in my lungs said it was time to turn.
We finally slowed, Calder looking around and sniffing.
I turned in a slow circle. We’d gotten our directions crossed in this weather.
We were on Coleman land. Not good, especially in our fur.
There in the mess, half-shielded by the bluff and camo-tarp, I spotted crates under a half-fallen feed shed.
I shifted back, stood in the pouring rain, and pulled back the tarp to the music of the thunder.
The first crate was stenciled with letters, BERGARA.
The second, MILSPEC. I didn’t need to open them, but I did, prying the cold latch.
Rifles, black and long, high-grade and not for hunting.
The next was full of ammo, bandoliers in tight rows, each round so polished it caught the lightning.
Buck whistled. “That’s a lot of firepower.”
Eli glared down at the crates. “Who’s it for?”
Calder’s face was unreadable, but his eyes, even in his skin, were pure wolf. “Not us. Not ranch work, not hunting. This is for killing people.”
Buck picked up a round, rolled it in his palm, then set it down. “You think the Colemans know?”
I looked at the footprints around the lean-to, boots, three or four different sizes, some of them fresh, some going back weeks. “They know. Or at least, someone does. This certainly isn’t our doing. It’s theirs. ”
Eli said, “We gotta call someone, right? The sheriff, or—”
Buck laughed, a dry sound even in the downpour. "The sheriff is Coleman. Or might as well be." He said it the way a person says the sky is blue. Just a fact. Same sky it's always been.
I said, “We’ll sit on it. We watch. Nothing else.”
Calder nodded, once. “We don’t cross the line again either. That’s not who we are. The last thing we need is the Colemans figuring out our little secret.”
We headed back immediately, shifting back and taking off for home at top speed. Back at the ranch, we shook the rain off in silence. I swapped my soaked jacket for a dry one, and sat out on my cabin’s small porch to watch the rain.
It started up again, steady on the metal roof, pooling in the yard. I leaned against the porch rail, watched the water run off the eaves, and tried to line up my thoughts.
Gray appeared in the doorway of the bunkhouse, then ran for my porch, getting soaked in the process.
He looked normal, but not. Something about his posture, the way he kept his hands in his pockets. He said, “Can I talk to you?”
“’Course,” I said.
He didn’t bother with small talk. “I got an offer in Alaska. Six months, maybe a year. They want a specialist who can handle wolf packs, maybe some grizzly, too. Cousin of mine runs the operation.”
“You thinking of going?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Not sure. I haven’t mentioned it to Calder yet. Figured I’d see what you thought.”
I wanted to say he couldn’t, that the whole thing would fall apart, that nothing worked here unless Gray was part of it. But that wasn’t true, and it wasn’t fair. He was good at the work, but he was better at surviving. If anyone could make it out there, it was him.
“You should do it,” I said. “If you want. It sounds like its right up your alley.”
He studied the ground. “You ever think of leaving?”
“When I was younger. Not anymore.”
He was quiet for a minute, then said, “Thanks.”
“You’ll always have a home here,” I said. “I know Calder will say the same.”
He went back to the bunkhouse, leaving me with the rain and the night and all the things that don’t get said.
I sat out on the porch a long time. The rain dropped off, the air thick and electric with the promise of another round by morning.
The trees swayed in the wind and as I thought about the crates, about the cold fact of what we’d found, about the years of neighborly detente that had let it fester right under our noses.
But mostly, I thought about her. Jennie Cardin.
I didn’t know what it meant, the way the wolf in me had tracked her since the first day, the way it circled her scent, mapped her every footstep, remembered every word.
I’d been calling it just attraction, but it felt like a lot more than that.
There was nothing in the old stories about this.
Wolf bonds were supposed to be clean, simple, inevitable.
A wolf found their mate, and that was it.
But she wasn’t a wolf, and she wasn’t anything I understood, and there was nobody alive I could ask.