The Fire Wolf's Mate

on my throat befor

f my county jacket and pushed it off my shoulders. It landed somew

hway, east past the fairgrounds, not the river road, never the river r

lid on a pot. His palms slid under my shirt, rough at the heels from years of gripping an ax

aid, though I di

ow down. You have been running since five thi

ike a campfi

we m

gh that I could pretend I was someone else, someone who did not have a radio on the kitchen counter hi

and I watched his reflection behind mine, sandy hair falling over his brow, the amber of his eyes catching the

time, and his hand came up to my fa

in my

hink, and the dispatcher's voice had reached some part

n, Canyon Creek Road is closing. Re

cab smelled of old coffee and the pine air freshener Nell had hung from the mirror three years ago. My strawbe

Where are we on

o. It's moving north. You have got maybe forty minutes

r fifty two in the morning, though the sky above the

forecast they did not like. The Hendersons had told me on Tuesday that their grandfather had built their cabin and no fire was going to tak

into the mic, and pulled

here the land fell off toward the creek. The smoke had settled into those gaps like water. Sometimes I could see the fire itself, a red-orange shiver in the tree

d the phone at the clinic where my sister worked. I knew every road in this valley. I knew which bridges washed out in spring and which driveways

nd got out. The air was hot already. It wa

"It's Rhea, from the county

width, and Irene Henderson's face appeared in th

about this,

That is two miles from your back porch, Irene. I am not askin

t leave t

take the horses down to the fairgrounds, and I wi

y hips and counted slowly to ten, and behind me the sky

one hand and a small brass birdcage in the other, and behind her Ray

, and took the bag.

er in Missoula. I tol

a lot of thin

himself because he did not trust the county to do it right, and I followed them down to the fairgrounds and watched t

that had been left too long on a windowsill. By seven the w

it does to a town, and I know that the word "running" does not mean what people think it means. It does not mean the fire is

a's voice came through, and she di

eed to get o

more cabins on

the switchback. Bryan say

king the same diner counter, and in twenty two years she had neve

I said. "Two c

eady talking about selling it. The second cabin was empty and had been for years, and I stood in its overg

he inside. Metal warping. Once a propane tank went and I felt

s above the switchback where the fire was coming down the slope, and I stood there

have a possible child in the trees

name twice. I dropped the radio into

nd went. I had my bandana over my mouth. My eyes were streaming. The ground was hot through the soles of my boo

e child ag

saw t

s gray, the gray of ash before the wind takes it, and it was large, larger than any wolf has a

king. The wol

same feeling in my chest, a kind of recognition that I never let myself examine. This was different. This was a wolf st

did not stop until it was close enough that I could see the child's face. A boy, may

s head and set the

the smoke or the wolf or the child, and I gathered him up against my

from?" I said, to

color of a low sun, and its ears were up, and I had the sudde

out of here. The fire i

as not moving fast enough, it took two steps

it was not coming from the trees or from the fire or from the radio I had left in the truck. It was coming

gone, and the smoke came down over the clearing, and I was on my hands and knees in the ash

one and the trailer of a county truck appearing out of the smoke, and someone's hands pulling the boy out of my arms, and someone else's han

from everyone and around the side of the truck, where the fire was visible above the trees and no

ut of the Bitterroot Valley with my sister's blood on my shirt and a hole in my memory and a promise I had made to myself, and

a'

trap of a fire shelter bag across his chest. The smoke had painted his jaw dark. He was thirty feet away and I could

see the amber of his eyes, and those eyes were not l

s quiet and careful, and it b

is eyebrows that had not been there, and there was a mark on his forearm that I h

, and his jaw was tight, and I wa

the scent on the ridge was a memo

ut flat and strange. "W

lance, at my hands. "That boy. There was a report of a

s no wolf

een his eyebr

own that scent since I was twenty four years old.

the fifteen years between us, and I did not look at the radio. I looked at Dane, and h

bit him on the wrist before it carried him out. Rhea, the boy is one of m

d the burn on the boy's small wrist, and the way the wolf had se

e boy. The wolf had marked him. And I knew that whatever had been asleep in me was awake now,