“Damn them,” she swore, her voice catching on the curse. “Damn them.”
She’d been too late. Howie or one of the other men must have put out poisoned meat even before she’d confronted them in the store. The poison they would have used was invariably fatal. Yet the wolf must have traveled some distance from Howie’s land, and he was still, miraculously, alive.
He had come to her as if he knew she wanted to save him.
Sickness rose in her, and she reached out to stroke the wolfs coat, offering the only comfort she could. The animal accepted her touch without so much as a shiver of fear.
“I’m sorry,” Alex whispered. “I’m sorry.”
His eyes opened and fixed on hers. He whined again, flattened his ears, and raked his great paws in the snow. With supreme courage, he heaved himself onto his hindquarters.
As if in a dream, Alex moved to help him. She didn’t stop to question why she should risk her life for a dying, desperate animal that might turn on her at any moment. She didn’t wonder at the wolf’s incomprehensible purpose. His urgency worked its way through her, compelled her to lend her strength to his.
She could hardly lift his great weight, but the wolf somehow found his feet and began to walk, half-supported against her. Staggering, lurching, he retraced the trail Alex had broken through the snow.
Toward her home. Toward the cabin and its clearing that he had marked with his massive tracks.
Alex had heard tales of dying wolves that found their way to human habitation in their final hours, as if in that darkest moment they recognized a distant kinship man had rejected.
But Alex hadn’t forgotten. “Yes. Come with me,” she murmured. “I’ll take care of you. You won’t be alone.”
* * *
He let her guide him, lead him, his heart nearly bursting with his battle for each step. Snow sucked at his paws, and he stumbled, muzzle plunging into icy cold. He licked the moisture from his nose and lurched forward again, urged on by her hands and voice.
And her words. Words his other self remembered. “I’ll help you. Don’t go, don’t be afraid.” So she had said once. And now: “You won’t be alone.”
Even as his vision dimmed they reached the open place that surrounded her den, pausing just behind the last stand of trees. His instincts screamed to send him away on legs that no longer supported him, to leave this man-place behind and find some quiet refuge to die. But his other self had claimed too much of him now, as she had.
And there was a command within him—not her, not his other self. Come back, it told him. You must always come back.
He began to drag himself forward again. Her gentle touch propelled him up to the entrance of her den. His muzzle touched the dead wood as it opened before him.
Human scent—her scent—poured over him, enveloping him utterly. His other self knew that scent as welcome. He tried to lift his head and failed.
“Shadow,” she said. “Only a little farther.” When she set her body against his, he found a last measure of strength to help her, tottered into the sun-warmth of her den. He had no will left to fear the fire to which she led him. The ground was warm against the fur of his aching belly. He lay down, closing his eyes, giving himself to the soothing caress of her hand on his fur and the soft repetition of his name.
“Shadow. Shadow. Shadow…”
The pain began to fade. Somewhere his other self waited, rested, gained strength. He would sleep, and when the time came…
Come back. Remember.
* * *
Alex shifted the pile of wood in her arms and awkwardly grabbed the doorknob, wedging the door open with her foot. Behind her the night woods were still and silent; on the other side of the door was another kind of silence. She dreaded facing its inevitability.
The wolf might be dead by now, or in a coma. She hadn’t wanted to leave him for even a moment, but her stove was burning low, and it was very late. Once she’d been outside in the peaceful darkness, she’d almost been afraid to return.