Pilgrims

They camped where the water’s flow widened into a span nearly broad enough to elevate its status from creek to river. For the last twenty-five years, Jim and Fran Gleason had returned there like spawning salmon, setting up after the snow had melted and the nights had a tolerable chill.

Their special place was a notch in the shore. A natural fence of white alder gave them privacy, but left enough of an opening so Jim and Fran could watch the creek sparkle and hear its whisper from just about any place they slept. Beneath the gap in the trees—which formed an almost complete arch—was a passage of flat and even ground, accommodating the couple’s advanced years.

Always, when they came back, their refuge seemed unchanged except for the new scattering of flood-carried debris lining the banks, or a fresh dune of silt. As soon as they arrived, Jim would hop out of their truck and begin surveying the condition of their campsite, the way he used to walk the framed rooms of the houses he’d built to check on the skill of his carpenters.

But this late afternoon, it wasn’t the first thing Jim did. Instead, he went straight to the back of the camper and removed Fran’s wheelchair. He wrestled it out while Fran stayed in the cab, dangling her legs from the opened door as if she were a girl on a swing waiting to be pushed.

“What’s going on back there?” she shouted.

He answered only with the clang and thump of the wheelchair hitting the ground like the hard landing of a plane. Fran pushed out a disapproving sigh.

“Don’t break the thing,” she said. “I need it.”

“We’re fine,” said Jim.

He spread the chair into full form and quickly rolled it around to Fran. He wouldn’t dare offer to help her in, but he stood ready to catch his wife if he had to.

“Just take your time,” he said.

“Don’t worry. I will.”

She flopped down and sent a tremor through his arms as he gripped the handles of the wheelchair. He stared at the back of Fran’s head and considered stroking her hair. But it was so wiry and sparse now that he didn’t.

He did a small wheelie and swung her towards the creek and pushed her forward. They could hear the water. A breeze flowed through the opening between the alders. The cool air against Jim’s face gave him new energy after the tiring drive from Sacramento. He’d questioned himself about coming back this season. It might be too hard on Fran, too hard on him. But there, at the water’s edge, he was glad they’d returned.

Fran reached back and touched his hand, as if she’d read his thoughts and was thanking him. Then they heard a vehicle coming and turned back to their camp to see the approaching pickup.

There was some sort of official insignia on its door.

“That’s Fish and Wildlife,” whispered Jim.

“Are we in trouble?” said Fran.

~~~

Any fear they’d had left them when they saw a young woman climb out of the truck. Her hair was short and brown and reminded Jim of an Olympic figure-skater whose name he couldn’t remember… Dorothy something. Her face was round and she looked too young to be driving a pickup with insignia on it. She wore jeans and a flannel shirt similar to a tattered one Jim had at home.

“How’s it going?” she said.

Jim and Fran looked at each other as if they were waiting for the other to speak.

“We’re fine,” said Jim. “Is there a problem?”

“Oh, heavens no,” she said.

Closer now, she didn’t look so young. Jim could see deep lines on her face and dark crescents under her eyes.

“We have our fishing licenses,” offered Fran.

The young woman perched her hands on her waist and smiled. “Great,” she said. “But I’m not a warden.”

“So what are you then?” Jim said brusquely. 

He’d gotten more defiant of authority the last few years, more defiant about everything. Recently, he’d even called in to a talk-radio show to complain about taxes, something he’d never done before. He knew Fran wouldn’t have approved of his complaining, and so he’d taken the portable phone out into the garage and tried to disguise his voice.

“I’m a biologist,” said the young woman.

“Oh, how interesting,” said Fran.

“I’m here looking for signs of a wolf that’s wandered down from Oregon,” said the woman.

“Wolves in California?” asked Jim. “Since when?”

“Since about fourteen months ago,” she said. “First wolf in the state in almost a hundred years. He’s from a population that was reintroduced into Idaho and then wandered into Oregon.”

Jim and Fran looked at each other again. They both wondered if this was something they should care about.

“Somebody reported seeing what looked like a wolf crossing the road into the campground here a week ago,” said the woman. “It’s radio-collared but the batteries are gone on the GPS transmitter, so I’ve been trying to locate it with some trail cameras and some howling.”

The biologist’s eyes widened as she spoke. Her voice lifted with excitement. Jim thought of the time his son, Derek, had hit his first homerun in Little League. It was the only game Jim had ever missed, and he never forgot how Derek had burst into the house and shouted the news.

The memory encouraged Jim to push Fran’s wheelchair a little closer to the woman and to listen to what she had to say. With this, the biologist leaned forward and offered her hand and Jim shook it and was surprised by the strength of the woman’s grip.

“I’m Amy,” she said, and then she reached down to take Fran’s hand and for a time let Fran’s limp fingers hang in her palm.

“So…” Amy said. She turned and trotted back to her truck. She came back with a piece of paper and gave it to Jim.

He looked at it.

HAVE YOU SEEN THIS ANIMAL? It said.

IF SO, CALL THE WOLF HOTLINE…

It was like a wanted poster in a TV western, but the outlaw was a wolf. The animal seemed frozen in a half gait, its head turned toward the thing taking its picture. It wore a thick collar.

“And here’s my card,” said Amy, giving it to Fran.

Fran held it so close to her face that her eyes crossed. “Well, I’ll have to read it when I have my glasses on,” Fran said.

“Sure,” said Amy.

Jim kept the wolf flyer in one hand and rested his other on Fran’s shoulder. Amy started to her truck, but then stopped and turned back to the couple.

“Have you camped here before?” she asked.

“For twenty-five years,” said Jim. “About half as many years as we’ve been married.”

“Wow,” Amy said. “That’s awesome.”

He’d come to hate that word, awesome. Everything these days was awesome: sandwiches, drinks, dogs, cats, cars, televisions, theme park rides, football teams, diets, shoes... It used to be a word seldom used: things that were awesome were rare. Still he smiled and nodded when Amy said it and he kept smiling as she drove away.

~~~

The actual number was fifty-five, but Jim was careful not to think of their years of marriage as something like a batting average or a bowling score. To him it wasn’t an achievement; it was just something that was meant to be—even now, with things as hard as they were.

He did another small wheelie with Fran’s wheelchair and pushed her toward the creek.

“How are you feeling?” he asked.

“Fine,” said Fran. “But do we need to be concerned about that wolf?”

“No. Maybe if Toby was still with us…”

The dachshund had accompanied them on the camping trip the last twelve years. Often they’d let the dog run freely around their site and delighted in watching him splash his little legs through the shallows of the creek. They’d put Toby down six months ago. A vet came to their house to do it on the back porch, Toby’s favorite place to languish and fantasize about being a guard dog.  Jim was surprised by how well Fran had taken the dog’s passing, perhaps too consumed by her own illness to find the energy to grieve. His wife had come to accept the fate of all living things. She’d even begun to joke about it: “Just bury me under the persimmon tree next to Toby,” she’d said once. Jim pretended to laugh.

Jim pushed Fran’s wheelchair until they reached the water. Then the alarm on his wrist watch sounded.

“Time for your pills,” he said.

“Already?”

“Afraid so.”

He went to get the multi-colored pill box. Each day of the week had its own bright hue; this was a green day. He put the pills in his shirt pocket and returned to Fran at the creek.

She’d managed to roll her chair into the water. The bottom half of her wheels were submerged and she’d taken off her slippers and had stuck her legs into the current. The water swirled around her calves. A little deeper and she might have been swept away.

“You’re out pretty deep there, aren’t you?”

“Not deep enough.”

“Oh stop. Here’s your medication.”

She pinched the first pills and lifted them to her lips. Jim had forgotten water, but before he could turn back to the camper, Fran reached down and lifted some of the creek into the cup of her hand and slurped it in.

“We don’t know how clean that is, honey.”

“It’s clean enough for me,” she said.

He let her remain in the current for a while before he finally pulled her out and pushed her into the dense cool shade next to the fire pit. Then he began his ritual inspection of their campsite. They wouldn’t officially be here until he performed it.

First, he looked in the bear box. Empty and clean. Then he whistled softly as he walked the site’s perimeter and scanned the ground, glancing occasionally back at Fran. Before he’d made it half way around, she was asleep; her head slung down like a toddler’s in a stroller. Just before he went to her, he saw what looked like fresh crap from a big dog, close to their truck’s right front tire.

~~~

He wouldn’t tell her about it. For one thing, he didn’t know for sure it was wolf crap, though he was pretty certain it was. Not long ago, he’d gone to the library and found a book about animal scat (a new word for him). He’d suspected either an urban fox or a coyote was digging in Fran’s strawberry patch and chewing on the polypropylene irrigation tubing. Toby had already died, so the little dog couldn’t have left the crap unless he’d risen from his grave under the persimmon tree. Jim had thumbed through the pages of the scat book until he came to the canid section: domestic dog, coyote, fox, wolf. The wild predators had remnants of prey in their crap, like bone fragments and hair, but not the domestic dog. Jim figured the animal in Fran’s strawberries was most likely a gray fox, and if memory served, the pile by the front tire of the camper matched the book’s description of a wolf deposit.

He left the canid dropping alone and reported back to Fran that the site was in order, and then he cooked supper and they ate at the picnic table. Just before dark, Jim made a small fire in the fire pit. He used some scrap lumber from the seemingly infinite pile he’d accrued from all the homes he’d built over the years. He poured himself a scotch and water. Every night before bed he allowed himself a measured amount of alcohol. Fran didn’t object. She watched him sip the liquor as if she was grateful for the calm and endurance it seemed to bring to him.

“She seemed sweet, didn’t she?” Fran said.

Jim tipped his glass against his lips and held it there. The fire began to illuminate their faces. “You mean the little wolf lady?”

“Yes. Amy.”

“Well, yes. She was very nice. But I still can’t believe a wolf is in California.”

“I think she knows what she’s talking about, Jim. She’s a biologist.”

“I didn’t mean it that way.”

He took one sip, and then another. Fran waited until the scotch had passed down to his stomach and he was staring at the flames, and then she said: “Have I lived a good life, Jim?”

He looked at her. “What? Of course you have.”

“Have I lived enough?”

“What? No, you haven’t lived enough. We’re coming back here until I can’t drive anymore.”

She studied the fire as if her reflection was in it.

“Want to fish tomorrow?” Jim said.

“No. I’ve caught enough fish in my time.”

He stared at her now. The firelight danced in little chaotic orbits across her forehead. Of all the ominous things she’d said over the last six months, this worried him the most. Other than their ritual camping trip, and the bowling league they’d been in for twenty-seven seasons, fishing had bound them. It was how they met, at Lake Almanor, not far away. They could see Mount Lassen from a certain spot on the lake, just as they could see it now if they travelled up-stream to a clearing only a short distance away. On the day they met, she’d fished the shore across from him. They’d held their eyes on each other until he’d asked her what kind of bait she was using. She’d spoken with such calm authority and grace, “…gold spoon with some of my red nail polish on it…” And she’d looked up and smiled an inviting smile. “It was all over when I saw that smile of yours,” he’d told her many times over the years, and lately more than ever.

He looked at the dancing firelight and not at her eyes as he remembered these things.

“No, you haven’t caught enough fish,” he said. “There’s a wild rainbow with your name on it in that creek.”

“A fish named Fran?” she said.

They laughed. A magical, fulfilling sound.

“So I think we should go to bed now, honey,” he said.

“Is that lift working right?”

“Perfectly,” he said.

He rose and pushed her to the back door of the camper, then unlatched the platform near the bottom of the lift’s vertical frame. Jim had purchased the device at an RV center in Sacramento but installed it himself. The first few times it hadn’t worked properly and Fran hadn’t forgotten.

But now the thing swung out smoothly and he rolled her onto it. Then he took hold of the cord with the control button and he pressed it triumphantly and she rose to the height of the camper’s floor and Jim pushed her in. He put the lift away and followed her inside. They would sleep together in the bed Jim had enlarged by rearranging cabinets. Only someone with his carpentry skills could have done it.

He helped her out of her chair and she stretched out on the bed and he held her hand for a while.

“I’m going outside,” he said. “I’ll be back soon.”

She nodded but didn’t speak.

Jim got a flashlight from the truck’s glovebox and checked for his phone in one pocket and the wolf flyer in the other. Then he went to the creek and walked upstream, spreading the light near his feet as he looked at his phone, hoping for at least a single bar. At a place where the creek narrowed and tumbled into a constricted flow of rapids, he sat on a rock and made his call.

“Hello. You’ve reached the wolf hotline. After this recorded message, please leave your name and number and any information you might have about a wolf sighting. Thank you.”

It was Amy’s voice.

“Yes. Hello. This is Jim Gleason. I’m up here at the Robber’s Creek campground in Lassen Forest. We met you today, Amy. My wife’s in a wheelchair, if you remember. Well, so, I think you should come out and take a look at some crap I found—well, you know, scat. It might belong to that wolf of yours.”

He left his number and put the phone away and walked back to the camper. Once he nearly fell. He stopped to piss. When he looked up at the stars, a few drops splattered his boots.

When he climbed into the camper Fran lifted herself onto an elbow. She was a silhouette. 

“Where’d you go?”

“Just looking at the stars. Had to pee.”

“Must have been an epic one.”

“It was.”

“So hold me.”

“If you hold me back.”

“Always.”

At dawn he stood alone near the water’s edge and drank coffee. Before dark, under the light of a camp lantern, he’d rigged up their fishing gear, and now the rods leaned against the picnic table.

He watched the water flow to the deep and wide spot where, every year for the last twenty-five, he and Fran would cast their lines. “I know you’re out there, Fran,” he said, addressing the rainbow trout instead of his wife. “Sacrifice yourself.”

Every couple of minutes he left the creek and approached the camper to see if Fran was stirring. Always, she’d cough when she first awoke, and she’d blow her nose and make a sound he’d kidded her about over the years. “I always start the coffee in the morning when I hear your foghorn,” he’d say.

He was turning away from the creek and starting toward the camper again when he heard a vehicle approach. Soon he saw Amy’s little round face behind the wheel of her truck. She waved and smiled like a kid on a carousel as she rolled down her window.

“Hey Jim,” she said. “Got your message.”

“That was fast.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t really sleep much.”

“So, listen. Can we keep this just between us?”

“Keep what between us?”

“The wolf crap, if that’s what it is—I mean, if my wife asks about it.”

“Well, sure, I suppose, but…”

Just then he heard Fran’s violent coughing.

“I’ll be right back,” he said.

He hurried to the camper. Fran sat up and held a Kleenex to her mouth. Jim put his arm around her and pulled her against him until the coughing ceased. He turned and saw Amy standing outside.

“Can I help?” she said.

Before he could speak Fran turned to her.

“I’m fine,” she said.

Then for a time nothing was said. Amy slipped away from the door and returned to her truck. From the camper’s window, Jim could see her leaning against the tailgate.

“Stay still for a few minutes and then I’ll make us some breakfast,” Jim said.

“Why? Where are you off to?”

“I’m just going to talk to Amy for a bit.”

“So what is she doing here?” said Fran. “Did you see that wolf?”

“No,” he said. “I didn’t see it.”

He stepped out of the camper and walked swiftly to the biologist.

“I’m so sorry,” said Amy. “She’s very sick isn’t she?”

“She is,” said Jim.

He didn’t want to explain the rest. He was tired of describing it to family and friends. Just what didn’t people understand about terminal lung cancer?

“So,” said Amy. “You’ve got some scat for me?”

He smiled. Her energy was just what he needed.

“Over here,” he said.

She followed him to the spot near the right front tire. He turned to survey the camper’s windows to make sure Fran wasn’t looking out. Then he pointed to the ground and Amy squatted with hands on her knees to look closely at the scat.

“That’s him,” she said. “Awesome.”

She stood and circled the feces, keeping her eyes on the ground. Then she bent down again and pointed to a set of tracks. She explained to Jim how she could distinguish the tracks from those of a coyote or domestic dog: a wolf’s is twice as big, outer toes tend to splay, all four claws are visible, bigger inner toes…

“So how fresh is all this?” said Jim.

“No more than a couple days, I think,” said Amy.

She stood and put her hand on his shoulder. “Look,” she said. “I think you should just tell your wife there’s nothing to be afraid of. Wolves are wilderness animals. They don’t want anything to do with humans. That’s what I love about them.”

She released his shoulder and he folded his arms across his chest and looked out at the creek.

“So, hey,” she said. “Can I get you to take a picture for me?”

“I suppose, but of what?”

She trotted to her truck and returned with a professional-looking camera.

“You sure I can figure that thing out?”

“It’s easier to use than it looks,” she said.

“Hope so.”

She gave him a crash course on the camera, then bent down near the scat and tracks. Jim took several pictures. He liked doing it.

Amy took more photos. For a time the two stood next to what Jim had found as if they were holding up a winning lottery ticket.

“Nice job,” Amy said.

The praise felt strange to him. Nice job was something he’d said to the carpenters or dry wallers or plumbers who’d worked for him over the years.

“Well, I almost stepped in it,” he said.

Amy walked toward the back of the camper. He followed and stood next to her as she looked in at Fran.

“Are you all right in there?” she asked.

“Yes,” said Fran. “So why are you here?”

Amy waited to answer, as if she’d been asked about the meaning of her existence.

“I was on my way to check some trail cameras and just thought I’d stop by to say hello,” she said.

“But it’s so early,” said Fran. “Don’t you sleep?”

“Not really.”

“Why don’t you have dinner with us tonight?” said Fran.

“Really? Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure.”

“All right. I’ll do that.”

“Good.”

Jim walked with Amy to her pickup and watched her climb in. She seemed so dainty behind the wheel, so fragile.

“So this is a big deal to you, isn’t it,” he said. “That wolf, I mean.”

“Yes, it is,” she said.

“Why?”

“I don’t know. It’s just a really good thing, isn’t it? A wolf in California again after a hundred years or so?”

He said nothing. He watched her drive off. Then he returned to the wolf scat and stared at it as if it would explode like a landmine if stepped on.

“Jim?” he heard Fran call out from the camper. “Are we ever having breakfast this morning?”

“On my way,” he said.

~~~

Fran’s appetite continued to surprise her doctors. She ate as well as she ever had, and Jim had to learn to cook.

He kept it simple, but she loved his hearty, dense meals. That morning he set the picnic table with platters of scrambled eggs, bacon, English muffins, and slices of cantaloupe.

Lately, he delighted in watching Fran eat. It was life, holding on. It was the power of food. Basic, unpretentious food. Sometimes it seemed more medicinal than the chemo, and no doubt better than all the shameless flimflams and charlatan-peddled supplements he’d bought over the last year: the red berry from the swamps of Tunisia, the dried algae from ponds in alpine France, and the rest of what was nothing but pure bullshit.

“So, honey,” he said. “I need to tell you something.”

She looked up at him and smiled. Some flour from her English muffin clung to her chin. “You’re having an affair with a high school cheerleader,” she said.

“Stop.”

“All right. So I’m all ears.”

He looked at those ears. They were so prominent now that she had such little hair. Behind one of them was a mole shaped like a horseshoe. He’d never seen it before last year.

“That wolf’s been through here. Amy came to look at some scat…”

“Scat?”

“Poop.”

“And they call it scat?”

“That’s right. Scat. S…C…A…T. Scat. She identified some tracks, too. She thinks the wolf came through here a couple days ago.”

Fran sat back in her wheelchair and looked at Jim as if he’d just told her a joke she didn’t get.

“And you didn’t want to tell me about it before? It’s all right,” she continued. “You meant well. Besides, seeing a wolf in the wild is on my bucket list.”

“It is?”

“No.”

She turned to stare at the creek. Jim looked at her hands. He’d done this often lately. Those hands hadn’t really changed over the years. Somehow even her illness had left them unaltered. Like Jim’s own hands, Fran’s had been the main tools of her trade. She’d been a seamstress with a small shop downtown for thirty years: “Fran’s Handmade Dresses.” So anachronistic was her occupation, the Sacramento Bee once did an article on her. They took a picture of her standing in front of her shop, posing proudly in one of her own dresses.  After the piece ran in the paper her business took off and she’d had to hire an assistant. One year she made as much money sewing dresses as Jim did building houses.

He followed her gaze to the water. He knew she was thinking deeply about something, something perhaps she’d been keeping from him.

“This is where I want you to put me,” she said.

“What do mean?”

“My ashes. I want you to put them in the creek out there.”

“Let’s not talk about that.”

“Why not?”

“Are you sure that’s what you want?”

“Yes.”

“All right then.”

“So what are you going to make for dinner for Amy?” Fran said.

“I don’t know. Something easy. Chili and cornbread maybe.”

“She’s sweet, isn’t she?”

“Yes, very sweet, and smart. But she looks tired all the time. I think she’s obsessed with that wolf.”

“She’s young.”

“Even young people need moderation, and rest,” Jim said.

“Do you think Derek would like her?”

“Doubt it.”

“Why?”

“She’s too liberal.”

“How do you know she’s liberal?”

“She’s an environmentalist.”

“Because she’s studying a wandering wolf?”

“Well, Derek’s way too old for her anyway.”

“I suppose.”

Jim got up and lifted both fishing rods from the edge of the picnic table. He held the rods at his side and faced Fran like a medieval knight ready to fight for his queen.

She took her rod and draped it over her lap. Jim pushed her along the edge of the creek to the deep, swirling eddy they’d considered their private fishing hole. After only a couple casts, Fran grew tired and watched Jim fish until she fell asleep with her head slung onto her chest. Then Jim pulled his line out of the water and sat on the moist ground next to her. He thought about what she’d said about her ashes and looked upstream for a place in the creek where he could carry out her wishes.

~~~

They both slept longer than they wanted. Fran woke first. She poked Jim in the shoulder with the tip of her fishing rod. He sprang up; he’d been flat on his back. For as long as they’d been married, he’d mumbled incoherently when awakened like this. He did that now:

“Do we need another shopping cart?”

Fran liked to tease him. She’d let whatever dream he was having play out some.

“Yes. We need more grocery bags too,” she said.

“Okay. Where’s Toby?”

“Inside the shopping cart.”

“What?”

He began to awaken. Slowly he swung his head back and forth as if to sweep away remnants of his dream. Then he rubbed his eyes and looked at her.

“You’re messing with me again, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” she said. “I need all the fun I can get these days.”

She smiled at him. He was glad he’d been able to entertain her. His watch alarm went off.

“Pill time,” he said.

“Oh, joy.”

He went to all fours and wrenched himself off the ground. “Damn. My legs are so stiff. They feel like two pipes.”

He leaned both fishing rods against an alder, took hold of Fran’s wheelchair, and began to push her back to the camper. He stopped when he saw Amy drive up.

She rolled down her window and waved at him and moved her mouth slowly and widely to lip-sync her message:

“GOT HIM.”

Jim lifted his hand and pointed to Fran and then gave Amy a thumbs-up to let her know it was now safe to tell Fran about the wolf scat.

With this Amy sprang from the truck and trotted toward them.

“I’ve got him on a trail camera,” she said. “Have a look.”

She escorted them to her truck and she reached in to slide a laptop to the edge of the seat. Jim pushed Fran’s wheelchair as close as he could. He and Fran craned their necks toward the screen as Amy clicked and typed until images appeared.

“That’s not a wolf,” said Fran, seeing the first image.

“No,” said Amy. “That’s a bobcat. But wait, have a look at this.”

It was there. Slate gray, twice as a big as a coyote. A sprawling head with glowing eyes.

“What’s that on his neck?” said Fran.

“That’s the radio collar they put on him.”

The three stared in silence at the animal on the screen.

“He’s unbelievable,” said Amy. “He just keeps moving on, siring litters, spreading his genes, single-handedly rebuilding a population. A true pioneer.”

Jim looked at Fran. He saw his wife’s eyes narrow on the creature.

“Want your glasses, honey?” said Jim.

“That’d be nice,” said Fran. “I’d like to see what I’m looking at.”

He hurried to the camper and found the glasses on the bed, then turned sharply back when he heard Fran coughing. He stumbled out of the camper onto the ground and rose wobblingly to his feet.

Her coughing was worse this time. Of all the terrible manifestations of her illness, this was the worst for him. It had become so violent, convulsive. Each time he felt helpless to stop the wretched push of breath from deep within her, the hacking, the gasping for precious air. It made him want to turn away or close his eyes, but he wouldn’t. There were times when he felt she might die right in front of him.

When he reached her, Amy had put away the laptop and draped her arm over Fran’s shoulders.

“Easy, honey,” he said. “Easy.”

Amy stepped back and let Jim comfort his wife. It was a bad spell, but it ended while Amy paced nervously nearby. Finally, he pushed Fran to the camper. Amy followed alongside and then held Fran’s hand as Jim engaged the wheelchair lift.

“Maybe I shouldn’t come for dinner tonight,” Amy said.

“No,” said Fran, her voice rising like one of Jim’s incoherent dream-rants. “You’re coming,” she said.

~~~

By early evening, the day had cooled to a perfect temperature. A soft breeze cut through the alders and made a sound much like the murmur of the creek. Jim built an early fire in the pit. The three sat close to the flames and each other after eating Jim’s chili and cornbread.

Amy, elbows propped on her knees, talked incessantly about the wolf and nothing else. When she paused to throw another piece of wood on the fire, Jim changed the subject.

“Are you married?” he said. “Or do you have a boyfriend?”

“You don’t have to answer that,” said Fran, lawyerly.

“No,” said Amy. “I mean, that’s fine.”

“So?” pressed Jim.

She looked at him and smiled to let him know she was tougher than his inquiries.

“Not anymore,” she said.

“So you’re divorced?” Jim asked.

“Jim!” said Fran.

“No,” Amy said. “I’ve never been married. I’m talking about boyfriends. I’m done with men for a while.”

“You prefer wolves now?”

“Yes.”

“Well, don’t give up,” said Fran. “Maybe you’ll get lucky, like me.”

Jim felt both women’s eyes upon him. He did a little wiggle in his chair and cleared his throat.

“So,” said Amy. “I need to do some howling. I know he’s here, but having a howl answered would be icing on the cake.”

“You mean you do it yourself?” said Jim. “You don’t use a tape recorder or anything?”

“No way,” she said. 

She stood. Jim wondered how something like a wolf howl could come from such a diminutive female creature. Then Amy put her hands on her waist and reared her head and let out a howl so much like a wolf’s that Jim and Fran looked at each other as if the ghost of a dead relative had just appeared in front of them.

She howled once more, sat down, and gave Jim a “so take that” look.

“Want to learn?” she said.

“You should, Jimmy,” said Fran. She called him Jimmy only during times like these.

Jim wiggled in his chair again.

“Why the hell should I learn to do a wolf howl?” he said.

“So you can call for him when I’m not here,” said Amy.

“We’re leaving in a few days,” he said.

“So?” said Amy. “I think he’s close by, and if you get an answer, you can call me on the hotline. Just find a high spot to do it from. It’s best to howl at dawn and dusk, but nighttime is all right, too.”

“Go ahead, Jimmy,” said Fran.

He turned to the creek. In the last twelve hours his beloved wife had told him where she wanted her ashes dispersed. Now she was asking him to learn to howl like a wolf, right there in front of her and a young woman who looked like Dorothy Hamill (he remembered). There was, he sensed, something enchantingly connected in the two things. Somehow one reconciled the other.

He stood and looked at the fire and put his hands on his hips just as Amy had done.

“Am I standing right?” said Jim.

Amy laughed. She couldn’t help it.

“Yep,” Amy said. “Go for it.”

He cleared his throat and let loose with the howl. He did it well, even on the first try. This was confirmed by the shock and amazement on Amy’s face.

“Oh my God. That was perfect,” she said. “I can’t believe it.”

“Me either,” said Fran.

~~~

For the next three nights Jim climbed a rock in a clearing near the creek and howled. Fran had no other coughing fits and seemed to grow stronger. Each time Jim howled, Fran sat near him in her wheelchair. She’d look up at Jim as he spread his legs and cupped his hands over his mouth and let his voice fly into the clear dawn and dusk.

But he never got a reply from the wolf. The morning they departed the campsite, Jim hiked up the creek where he could get phone reception and called Amy’s hotline.

“Hey, Amy. Jim Gleason here. Just calling to let you know I’ve been howling the last three days and your wolf hasn’t been polite enough to answer my calls. We’re heading back home to Sacramento today. Hope you find what you’re looking for. Don’t give up.”

Just then someone picked up the phone.

“Hey, Jim,” said Amy.

“Well hello,” he said. “So you heard my message?”

“I did. Thanks for all your help.”

“Didn’t do much.”

“Yes, you did. You found the scat.”

“Only because I almost stepped in it.”

Amy laughed. Had he heard her laugh before?

“So, are you heading back up here?” Jim said.

“Tomorrow,” she said. “Need to check my trail cameras.”

“Good.”

“Is it all right if I stay at your campsite?” she said.

“We won’t be here.”

“I know. But that’s your special place, so I thought I’d ask first.”

“You think you might find something sacred hidden in the dirt and the trees?”

“Maybe.”

“Well, all right then. You take care of yourself, young lady.”

“I will.”

“Goodbye.”

“Goodbye.”

~~~

While he was gone, Fran had wheeled herself from the picnic table to the edge of the creek. She was in too deep again.

“There’s a current out there, you know!” he shouted.

She waved him off without looking and mumbled something.

“Is there something you want to say to me?” he said when he reached her and pulled her wheels out of the water.

“Yes,” she said. “Let’s go home.”

“Well, that’s what we’re doing,” he said.

He bent over and kissed her cheek. She reached for him and straightened his face onto her lips. She took hold of his ears and pulled at them until they hurt.

~~~

It was a six-hour drive. They travelled south through Susanville, down Highway 395 to the interstate, and then to their home in an old part of the city.

Jim had built the house himself and they’d lived in it for forty-five years. Derek had been conceived in its bedroom and had known no other home for his whole childhood. It was a small place on a wide street lined with sycamores. Every fall the giant leaves would rain on the sidewalk and transform the concrete and asphalt into a brown, crackling mass. Jim had raked and swept up the leaves for over four decades. But lately he’d hired a neighbor kid to do it.

Now, in June, when the sycamores were sprawling cathedrals of green, driving down the street was like sailing on a flat sea. Jim appreciated the quiet return.

Fran had read a magazine or slept most of the trip. He had to wake her when they pulled into the driveway. Then he wrestled the wheelchair out of the camper and pushed it around to her.

She swiveled and slid into her seat. Jim delighted in how strong and agile she seemed, even after the long journey. He wheeled her up the walkway onto the concrete ramp he and Derek had put in last year. He stopped to pick up the coiled newspaper on the porch steps.

“I’d like to lie down for a while,” said Fran as they entered the cool foyer of the house. The smell of the burnt bacon Jim had made the morning they’d left still lingered.

“You should do that,” said Jim. “I might even join you.”

He helped Fran into bed and returned to the living room to sit on the sofa and open the newspaper. He wasn’t really interested in the news, but he wanted to free his mind of all the traffic and passing road signs that still grated on his nerves.

Right away he saw the little headline at the top of the front page.

“Confirmed Wolf Sighting in Lassen County.”

He turned to the story. There was a picture of Amy, squatting and pointing at wolf tracks. It was the photo he had taken of her.

“Well,” Jim said. “How about that?”

He read the story. Amy was quoted a lot. He loved reading her words. It was like she was right there, sitting next to him.

But he was very tired. Soon the paper sagged and fell to his lap and onto the floor, and he let it remain there. He had a hard time lifting himself off the couch, but made his way into the bedroom. Fran lay on her side. He patted her head. She reached for his hand. “Get in here,” she said.

He stripped down to his underwear and climbed in next to her and pressed his body against her back and folded his knees into the bend of her legs. He could smell remnants of the smoke from the last fire they’d made, and he thought he could hear the flow of Robber’s Creek and the soft rattle of the wind through the alders. Or was he already dreaming?

John Thomson’s novel for young readers, A Small Boat at the Bottom of the Sea was published by Milkweed Editions, and his short fiction has appeared in several literary journals, including Terrain, The Hopper, Broad River Review, Collateral, and others. His story, Out of Good Ground, won Terrain’s Fiction Contest in 2018. He is a retired wildlife and land conservationist and lives with his wife in Northern California, close to their two grown daughters and three grandchildren.

Published April 15 2024