The Wolf Border(14)

It’s amazing the levels of human kindness that suffice, Rachel thinks. This will be the moment she will take away and think of as success, of a kind. Looking down over the black coast and frozen wastes of Labrador, with a plastic wine glass in her hand and the in-flight film sounding tinny inside the headphones, she will remember this laughter and think, yes, that was her mother, revealed. The gamey woman smelling of urine and sweat, cackling in the chair, was Binny. Fuck the doctor and the orderly and all the other doom-mongers. There was still brightness in her eyes.





THE RESERVATION


The airport is a brown stone building, compact and utilitarian, with one desk serving Horizon Airways, a hire-car pick-up kiosk, gift shop, and a small coffee counter. The sign above the arrivals gate reads Welcome to Nez Perce Idaho. Kyle is waiting for her on the other side of the plastic cordon, one of a few dozen people standing in front of the squeaking conveyor belt waiting to greet travellers or collect luggage. Denim, snakeskin, expensive suits and briefcases, braided hair: the usual commuters and residents mill around, regional traders and ranchers, the exceptionally rich. Kyle is tall, taller than anyone else, his hair tied back above his neck, hatless. He waits, hands in his pockets, not especially watching out for her, nonchalant almost. His presence is alarming. She was expecting to get a connection to Kamiah, then call for a lift. Left Paw, she thinks, bad news. She walks over and drops her bag next to him.

What are you doing here?

His hands remain tucked inside his jeans.

Going to Bermuda. What do you think I’m doing, Rachel. Good flight?

At first all she can think to do is drill him with questions. Did they pick up a signal and do a focused follow? Did they find his body? Inside or outside the Reservation? Kyle raises his eyebrows, and regards her for a moment. Then he reaches down to take her bag.

That’s a piss-poor greeting, crazy lady. Thought they were all about manners in England.

Yeah, well, what are you doing?

I’m giving you a ride. I was in town.

They shot him, didn’t they?

Christ! I was just in town. I had some business.

Business?

Business. Whoa.

He places a hand on her shoulder for a moment, as if calming a frisking horse, then swings her bag over his shoulder. He turns and walks towards the exit. She follows.

We’ve had nothing on Paw, he says. But the others are good. Got an air report yesterday. They’re about a hundred miles from the border. Doesn’t look like they’ve gone back to any carcasses. They’re in the western corridor. They might run into the Cascade pack but it should be OK.

She is still tense, primed for bad news, though it would have been delivered by now. Kyle is guileless; he does not hedge. If he says he had business in town, then he had business in town. She walks by his side. He is long-legged but slow-moving, a stroller, a saunterer, not prone to hurry. Without boots, she barely reaches his shoulder. Strange that after only a week away someone so familiar could look new to the eye. After the pale English northerners and the care-home residents, he seems gigantic, very American.

You shaved, she says.

I shaved.

Got a date?

Nope.

Wait up a minute.

They stop at the coffee counter. Rachel orders a tall black and a cinnamon twist. She searches through her pockets and her wallet for dollar bills.

Want one?

Nope. That stuff’ll kill you. They didn’t feed you on the plane?

Since when did you get all health-conscious?

He puts a hand to his belly.

Since I hit forty.

Oh shit. I missed your birthday.

I wasn’t so present myself. Went to The Barn. Tequila.

Rachel smiles. She can picture the scene. For a big man Kyle is unable to hold much liquor – the end usually comes suddenly, they must carry him out, put him in the truck and take the keys out, lay him on his side. After negotiating Binny and Thomas Pennington, it’s a relief to be around someone she knows and likes, someone relatively uncomplicated, and she can feel the knots slackening. But Kyle is not without occlusion. In the hothouse environment of the centre, with its poorly kept secrets, gossip, and cabin fever, he is a favourite topic. To the volunteers he is the real deal, half Lapwai Indian, of which he seems neither proud nor indifferent: he has limited interest in the tribal councils, though he is the centre’s representative, and few opinions on other local affairs, petitions for removal of the Nazi camps, suits against polluters. In the summer he sails. In the winter he skiis. When kids visiting the centre ask him if he’s related to Chief Joseph, he gets them to stand on a chair and recite the No More, Forever speech, then tells them it was invented by an army officer. There are occasional girlfriends. Rachel knows it often seems like he and she are a couple – they speak the familiar language of work, ethograms, predation rate, biomass; they co-host barbecues, alternate decks to drink beer on. Oran frequently acts jealous. But they remain, simply, friends.

The terminal doors slide open. A gust of austere air breaches the fug of the airport. They walk out into the keen, glinting light, new snow. A Pacific winter sun, low on the horizon. The sky is luxuriously blue; it’s the hour before dusk. The brown hills of the valley are white-capped and it’s a good five degrees colder than when Rachel left for England.

Need to pick up anything in town? Kyle asks.

I don’t think so. Is the road open?