The Wolf Border(45)
Why does there have to be a fence on this side of the lake, anyway?
If it was open both ends, they’d swim across, she explains. We’d lose them.
They could swim across? All the way?
Yes.
Her brother turns and gazes back over the water. The rim of the lake is darkly tinted. There are patches of yellow and white light drifting like aurorae across the surface.
It wasn’t like this when we were growing up, was it? he says. It felt less – owned.
It was probably just more affordable then, less fashionable.
True. We looked into getting a house up here a few years ago, but there’s no way.
He looks over at her.
Sorry I never came to the States to see you, Rachel.
It doesn’t matter.
It does matter. Stupid to have gone years without being friends at least.
There’s upset in the margins of his voice again. She should tell him not to worry about what can’t be changed. The past damages, the old wounds. The trick is not to limp; one has to forget one was ever limping, like Ra, whose leg has healed. One day he could simply run again, without affliction. She puts a hand on Lawrence’s arm.
Quid pro quo. I’ve never been to Leeds.
He grins. They continue along the fence. Either side of the wire is an abundance of tall grass, insects ferrying between the stalks, and butterflies. The landscape is beginning to thicken and become fragrant; the heather blossoming, and the gorse bushes exploding with heady yellow petals.
You must have missed all this while you were away, he says. I know I do.
Yeah. It was a good place to be a kid. You end up wanting to be outdoors all the time, wherever you are. I sometimes slept out in John Stacy’s barn. And in the lime kiln. If I’d had a row with Binny.
Her moorland solitude. She still cannot really imagine herself as a mother, and does not regard her own upbringing as idyllic – far from it – but there is something reassuring or important about knowing the baby will grow up in the territory where she grew up. And then she thinks of Kyle, and the Reservation, and she feels the inching of guilt.
Well, I’m glad you’re back, Lawrence says. Gives me a good excuse to come up here.
She nods but does not answer. The fence rolls on across the shallow gables of grassland, through stone pavements and cleared woods, to the near horizon. Seen at this angle, it looks as if it runs indefinitely, the illusion of holding, like the Viking stone walls up the steep mountains of Cumbria.
Hey, her brother says, and stops walking. I just figured out why you do what you do, Rachel. All that sleeping outside. You were exposed.
In the screened hide, she scans the pen, locates them, and hands Lawrence a pair of binoculars.
Behind the big tree trunk. Just left of it.
He takes the glasses and adjusts the focus, moves them away from his face, and then brings them back to the bridge of his nose. He is unaccustomed, she can tell.
Can’t see anything except ferns and bushes, he says.
It might help to scan quadrants, she suggests. Think of a grid.
Right.
He continues to search. She wonders if this is the first time he will have seen one. Even with all the zoos and parks of the modern age, most people do not come into contact. Setterah Keep had closed by the time Lawrence was old enough to be taken, the animals donated to other centres or destroyed. She suddenly hopes it is the case – she would like to be the one to show him. He adjusts the focus again. They are well camouflaged, but he’ll find one, if he’s patient. Or they’ll move and make it easier. She remembers again the mystic at the 500 Nations powwow, asking her for some kind of spiritual response to her first sighting, her blunt dismissal. After, Kyle had told her he’d gone through the weyekin ritual at the age of twelve – about the fasting and fireless nights, the alteration of mind, and the idea that attributes of the gained spirit would be lent to a person for life. It was unclear whether he subscribed or not. If Lawrence enjoys seeing them, if he is moved or simply appreciative, that will be enough for her.
He peers through the glasses. He tells her he can see an ear, twitching in the thistles and fronds; he thinks it’s an ear. They are lying down, almost hidden in the tangle of undergrowth.
Bingo.
Rachel holds her own binoculars steady. They are in the shade, close to each other, keeping cool. A cloud of gnats hovers above them, and their ears flick now and then. After a few minutes, Ra stands and shakes off, expelling the dirt and flies, his ears flapping. He gazes at the hide.
Wow! Incredible! He’s looking right at me. Am I talking too loud?
No. You could say nothing, he’d still know where you are. They’re getting too used to us, which is a bit of a problem.
Ra sniffs the air, his long nose tipped up, the black, leathered nostrils flaring. He yawns and drops back down to the warm dusty earth, in plain view, as if doing them a favour by exposing his great lean body. He has given up scouting for exits and digging. The hot weather is making him doggish, as are the fresh carcasses being dumped at various places in the enclosure each week. Now he slumps to the side, rolling in the grass and exposing his underbelly. They will have to start implementing some scare tactics, prevent the pair from becoming too used to hotel life and human stewards.
They spend half an hour at the wolfery, watching. Lawrence is fascinated, asks when they might mate. The following winter, after release, she tells him. On the way out, they bump into Huib and Sylvia. It feels odd, introducing a member of her family to colleagues; she has never done so before. She stumbles and says half-brother, which is an unnecessary distinction, but no one seems to notice. They chat pleasantly for a moment on the wooded path, in dappled sunlight. It amazes her, the ease with which everyone can get along, as if it is the most natural thing in the world; perhaps it is. Sylvia mentions law school, and Lawrence wishes her luck.