Keepers

by Brenda Cooper

  “All the people in the city,” she mused.

  “All the people everywhere. Everyone. Even your worst enemy. Even the people who might kill your sister.” His voice was stronger than she’d heard it in weeks. “The fight is for us and every other plant and animal and tree we’ve accidentally managed to leave alive. If we fight among ourselves, we will kill everything and then we will also die.”

  There was such conviction in his voice. Even sick, even almost dead. He had so much—bigness. Sometimes she felt his presence this way, in the things that he talked about easily that were impossible things. Mayor Broadbridge had sounded like that. Bigger than a human. Larger than life.

  She fell silent, glancing again at the image on the wall. “I hear we never used to have storms like that.”

  “We’ve always had storms. But not as often, and almost always smaller. The storms won’t get better for a long time, not for generations. If ever. But we are making progress. We’re slowing the carbon trends, flattening the curves. Taking out fewer species at a time, putting a few back. Helping others. Keeping animals safe from us. The wilding is helping the most.”

  “There are people out there.” She pointed at the screen, but she meant further out. “There are people out there who would stop that. Selfish people.”

  “Only because they don’t know better. What did your textbooks say was the reason we got all the way here?”

  “We fought.”

  “That’s only a little bit of it. We didn’t listen. It’s not that two sides fought, it’s that they spent all their energy fighting each other without listening, and none of their energy forging a future. It’s a human risk. I see signs of it every day.”

  She reached for another piece of paper and started another picture of him, getting his thinning features all down before she said, “Lou and Valeria aren’t exactly alike and they’re working together.”

  “That’s good. But the people in town and Lou are on opposite sides, and are they listening to each other?”

  She shook her head. “No.”

  “You have to fight that in yourself. There are times when you talk instead of listening.”

  She stared at the paper and let the sting of his words roll over her. Were all leaders so blunt?

  “Julianna and I forged the great taking by bulling our way into it and through it. But that was listening to our time.” He gestured toward the smaller screen with her notes on it. “You’re listening to your own time. Change happens fast.” He stopped for a moment, steepling his long fingers and resting his head on his hands while he winced through whatever internal hell his cancer was creating in that moment. “You and Lou. Everyone in your generation. Imke. Adam. It’s not your job to finish what we started. That’s not even possible. The world almost always moves on before you get all the way to a goal. It’s your job to do what needs to be done now.”

  She blinked back unexpected tears. “How do we know what to do?”

  “No one does. You do your best.” His whole body shook a bit, his cheeks sunken; in the artificial lighting, his eyes seemed to recede into his skull. “We’ll help you. Julianna and I have talked about what to do for all of you, what your special gifts and roles might be. But you have to want the things we want to give you.”

  “What is that?”

  “For you? Schooling. After spring, after Lou is safe. If you survive.”

  That made her flinch.

  “We’ll send you to school. A good one. We’ll have a job for you back here, even if we’re gone, something like Imke’s or like what you’re doing for Lou, only for Blessing and Day and LeeAnne and more people we’ll introduce you to. You won’t be the only one. Part of a team. But that’s only if you do well in school and if you want that after school. But we wanted you to know. In case we’re not here to tell you.”

  He wouldn’t be. She felt like he could fall over now, just put his head on the table and not wake up. “Surely Julianna—”

  “Is my age. We don’t know what will happen to her, or when. The rest of this year might be dangerous. Her guards could fail. So many things . . .”

  She swallowed. “I’ll help keep her safe.”

  He smiled indulgently, as if at a child. “Thank you.” He stood up. “I have to go lie down.”

  She stood as well, walking him to the doorway.

  He stopped and looked down at her. His hand on the doorframe started shaking. “I’m sorry we can’t let all of this play out over years. That we’re asking so much, so fast.”

  “I’ll walk you back.”

  “I have a companion.”

  “I’d like to.”

  He smiled, and then grimaced. “Okay. Let him take my weight.”

  To her surprise, his robotic companion, Evan, picked him up and carried him down the hall. She had the sense it went more slowly than it might have if she weren’t there. They were quiet, but it felt like having company, and like Jake got as much from her simply being there as she got from his being there.

  Namina trailed behind.

  As they parted at the doors to Jake’s suite, Evan turned toward her, and she could see that Jake had fallen asleep in his arms.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Alondra scampered up a hill in front of Lou, heading toward a stand of ponderosa pine and Douglas fir trees. Even though she was shorter than Lou, her legs were at least as long. She bounced from rock to root to rock, avoiding the mud left over from the storm. It seemed as if the wild places loved her, and poured power and grace into her.

  Lou glanced back down the hill to check on Mouse, who stood in a small corral with no tack other than a halter. She and Alondra had ridden double to the corral, which was by itself next to a burned-out foundation with a scarred stone chimney. They had watered the horse in a lake on the way up, and Mouse looked perfectly happy munching on grass. They were already far enough above her that she looked like a toy horse.

  Alondra reached the trees. Lou redoubled her efforts, panting by the time she caught the slender preteen. “You look like a forest nymph or something,” Lou told her. “And you move like one, too.”

  Alondra didn’t slow down.

  “Stop for a second so I can catch my breath?”

  Alondra laughed, a high friendly laugh. “Keep going. It’s flat for a bit and where I’m taking you isn’t far. Really.”

  Lou gave an exaggerated sigh, and Alondra giggled. Twenty minutes later, the girl stopped under a copse of trees surrounded with vine maples that still clutched a last few brilliant scarlet leaves, even after the last storm. The sky was clear and blue and the air cold enough to demand a coat and warm gloves.

  Alondra led her to two rocks that made good seats. As soon as they settled, she pointed at a steep hillside full of tumbled rocks opposite them. “There’s a den there.”

  Lou squinted at the hill, searching the tumbles of rocks and dead wood, the small bushes and trees that clung to the slope. “I don’t see it.” She reached into her pack and brought out a set of silver binoculars about the size of her fist. She scanned the area where she thought Alondra was pointing, but the hillside looked utterly unremarkable. No wolves, no cave mouth, nothing that looked like a den.

  Lou handed her the glasses.

  Alondra peered through them. “These are great.”

  “Find me three wolves and I’ll buy you a pair.”

  Alondra smiled broadly. She directed Lou’s attention toward a twisted tree and a rock shaped like a rabbit before passing the binoculars back. Eventually, Lou figured out where the girl wanted her to look. It wasn’t exactly a cave mouth, just a dark spot between rocks with a ledge around it and some low flat bushes. A few thin game trails led to it, but then the entire hill seemed full of game trails.

  “I don’t see any of the pack there now,” Alondra said.

  “It’s fall. Do they den here in winter?”

  “No. But they shouldn’t have left yet, unless the storm drove them away. But it’s warm again.”

  Lou st
ared at the vapor trails of her own breath. “This is warm?”

  “You’ll see.” Alondra handed the glasses back to Lou and started unpacking lunch. Astrid had sent fresh carrots and flatbread and late-season blueberries and flasks of water.

  “How do you know so much?” Lou asked her.

  “I’ve come up to help Felipe a few times. He found them years ago, and he watches over them.”

  “Has he ever come up here and not been able to find them?”

  “Of course.”

  Lou bit down on a sweet carrot. “Does he always come here to look for them?”

  Alondra drew her brows together and thought before she said, “Every time he’s brought me, we came here.”

  Lou held her questions. Alondra adored Felipe. She fought back the dismay that wanted to settle onto her features. Had Valeria known they wouldn’t find wolves on their ride either? Were they testing her? Or did they just not trust her?

  Either way, it bothered her. She turned to Alondra. “So we just wait?”

  “That’s all there is to do.”

  “We can wait two hours,” Lou declared, conscious that she was responsible for the girl.

  “Three?” Alondra asked. “I haven’t seen the new pups.”

  Lou smiled in spite of herself, just the sound of the word drawing up happiness. “Pups?”

  “Felipe told me there are three of them. There were, anyway. Pups don’t always make it.”

  “So how old were you the first time you came up here?”

  “Eight.”

  She was eleven now. Did she have any idea how lucky she was to be raised out here instead of in the city? When Lou was eleven she’d never even seen a wolf. She’d printed pictures and taped them up on her bedroom wall and stared at them until she fell asleep. She’d dreamed of seeing trees and vistas and feeling the bite of real wind and rain. She’d studied everything she could about Wilders and the NGOs that funded them, and written about them in her school papers.

  Here she was, shivering in biting cold the dome never let into Seacouver. She and her companion were the only humans for miles. This life had been a dream, and now she lived it.

  How long had it been since she thought of her younger self? “Hey, Alondra?”

  The girl looked at her, brushing a strand of dark hair away from her face. “Yes?”

  “What do you want to be when you grow up?”

  The girl stared across at the den, which still showed no activity. “I don’t think about it much. I guess I want to be like Felipe or like you and care about things out here.”

  “Good girl,” Lou said.

  “I don’t want to be in a war, or even a fight though.” She made a face, and shivered.

  Lou felt a sudden fear for Alondra, a visceral feeling with no reason about it. “I don’t either. And I hope you never are.” She took a deep breath. “But I have been.” She thought of all the weapons in town. Blessing and Day had learned little more when they’d gotten back to town, although they had been able to get good pictures of the people in the caravan and sent them to Coryn.

  Alondra tucked her legs up close to her, her eyes focused of the far hillside and the den.

  They sat together in silence for some time. The girl was uncannily good at being quiet and stayed still against the cold while Lou rubbed at her arms from time to time.

  A doe and her nearly grown fawn wandered slowly in front of them, coming so close Lou held her breath to keep from spooking them.

  After they left, Lou whispered, “How many wolves live here?”

  “I think there are eight now. The alpha pair, Akita and Ghost. The three pups. Three solo wolves. Maybe it’s different now, though. Felipe has been saying that one of the males might run off this year. That’s Cazador. He’ll be three now, and not strong enough to tackle the alpha. Akita is only six, and so Akita might not get old fast enough for Cazador to be alpha, and he wants to be.”

  “Felipe told me Akita is old.”

  She smiled. “Not too old to fight.”

  “You know a lot,” Lou said, settling back and getting as comfortable as she could in the cold.

  Two hours passed. Soon it would be time to give up and leave, however little Lou wanted to. She stood, shaking her arms to get the blood to run tingling back to her frozen fingers.

  Alondra tugged on her pants leg. “Stop moving.”

  Lou stopped with one arm in front of her, then lowered it slowly. She glanced toward the den.

  Nothing.

  Alondra wasn’t looking that way. She was looking behind Lou, totally still, her eyes wide.

  Lou turned her head, slowly.

  Right behind them, a pair of yellow eyes stared at them both. They were so compelling they were truly the first thing Lou noticed, and the ruff of white and gray fur and the pointed ears and long nose that surrounded the eyes, then the large paws and the casual stance, the wolf’s weight on only three feet.

  The wolf stood no more than fifteen feet from them, watching them almost straight on. It could have easily stayed deeper in the vine maples.

  She had seen dead wolves this close, had touched them. She had seen live wolves, but not so close. She’d seen them running, even seen a hunt once when two wolves drove a deer into three more wolves and took it down quickly. A thing of efficient beauty, that hunt.

  This, though. It was different to merely be regarded by such a wild thing. The power of the animal seemed to combine with an unexpected gentleness. The fur around its muzzle was more gray than white. It had one brown sock. A scar marred one cheek, a wide swatch of hairless skin that must be cold in winter.

  “Rumpus,” Alondra breathed.

  It turned its great head toward the girl.

  When Alondra addressed it, she spoke in a soft, calm tone. “Hello, Rumpus. It will be fine.”

  As if it had been waiting for her words, the wolf turned and trotted away.

  “Did it know you?” Lou asked softly.

  “I know them all. So they all know me.” Alondra looked past Lou, almost through her. “There. Now.”

  Lou turned. There indeed. Another wolf, large, with darker fur along its back and on the tip of its ears stood on top of the rise. It watched them with an unblinking and unreadable stare.

  Akita. She didn’t even have to ask. He looked like Felipe’s picture. Besides, this wolf had to be the alpha. She has seen two other alpha wolves, and there was something unmistakable about them, an aura of power. A white wolf stepped out from behind him. She had a beautiful pelt, and her body spoke of speed and power. Ghost.

  Below them, two other wolves. One was darker, sienna and brick colors blending with black, and the other was as tall as the one they had just seen, but redder in color and with a slight limp.

  Behind that, a smaller wolf. A pup. She watched carefully but only saw the one.

  All of wolves except Akita disappeared, one by one. Akita lay down on top of the hill and put his head on his paws.

  They sat, listening to the wind ruffle the leaves on the trees above and around them, and to the patter of rodents in the leaf detritus under the bushes. Smaller birds sang while two crows argued with each other, unseen but nearby.

  Lou had the distinct impression that the wolves and the humans were sharing the peace of this moment together.

  She let the moment go on a long time before breaking it with a soft whisper. “Do you recognize all of the wolves?”

  “Akita, Ghost, Rumpus, Rosie the Red, Brown-Back, and a pup. The pup doesn’t have a name.”

  “Do you think we missed a pup?”

  “No. I think we lost two. Ghost—that’s the mom—Ghost would never leave two behind.”

  Lou whispered, “Why did Felipe name her Ghost?”

  “I named her. I was only eight, and she was the whitest pup that year. That’s also what some people called ‘06.”

  Lou knew that story, about an early Yellowstone wolf, but she was surprised Alondra did. “That was a good idea. You gave her a lot to li
ve up to, though.”

  “I did.” Alondra smiled. “She’s that good.”

  “Why did that wolf get so close?”

  “Rumpus? He wanted to smell us. The wind is blowing away from the den and toward us.”

  Lou nodded again. “You really have done this a lot.”

  “Yes. I thought you protected wolves. Shuska told me that one night, by the fire. She told me you were pissed off about a wolf being killed the day you met her.”

  “So was she. But I never had an assignment about wolves in my old job. We were protecting buffalo and eagles. There were wolves around, and we helped other people track them sometimes. We wanted to keep them alive to keep the buffalo healthy. Bison, really.” She realized she was letting her thoughts and words wander. “Mostly I protected wolves by stopping hunters.” She glanced appreciatively at Akita. “I’ve killed people who wanted to kill wolves. I’ve killed people who did kill wolves. I’ve seen many wolves, mostly alive and some dead. But I’ve not had time to just sit and study them like this. Although I know some packs, there is no pack that knows me.”

  “This one does. Rumpus knows what you smell like and Akita knows what you look like.”

  “Good. I want to come back. I want to protect this pack. I hear there’s another one near Stehekin. I want to protect those wolves as well.”

  The crows screeched extra loud above them and then flew off. “What are you protecting them from?” Alondra asked.

  “What killed the pups?”

  Alondra shrugged, for a moment looking as young as she was.

  “Could it have been humans?” Lou persisted.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Where did Rumpus go? I didn’t see him go into the den.”

  “He’s around.”

  Lou stood up.

  Akita stood as well, not making a sound.

  “Do we have to?” Alondra asked.

  “Mouse will need us. And we have to get home before dark.”

  Alondra nodded, although she didn’t take her eyes off of Akita. The slender brown girl with dark hair and eyes and the rangy light-colored wolf seemed to be telling each other something, although Lou couldn’t tell what, and Alondra said nothing.