She swallowed. “I did, when I was checking one of my camera traps. I hurried back to the lodge and called the paramedics, but when we went back, he was gone.”
“That’s what I heard. Did SAR turn up anything today?”
“Nothing. It was really discouraging. I can’t imagine where he went. The sheriff thinks a bear dragged him off.”
Ben was silent for a minute. “Yeah, he would think that.” His tone let her know that she wasn’t the only one who’d had unpleasant interactions with Makepeace. “Are they going up again?”
“Yes, they’re going out tomorrow. I don’t think I was any help out there today.”
“I’m sure you were very helpful. Hopefully they’ll turn something up tomorrow. And how about you? That must have been pretty frightening.”
She twisted the cord around her finger absently. “He was really bad off. I think he might have fallen. He had a lot of blunt injuries.”
“That’s terrible. Is there anything I can do?”
His concern was a welcome balm. “I don’t think so. But there’s other good and bad news.”
“Oh?”
“Wolverines are definitely here. Unfortunately, someone set up a live trap and caught one. It had two subadults with it. I let it out and followed for a time, but someone had already dismantled the trap when I got back.”
“Damn poachers. We thought they were still using the preserve. But at least that’s great news that wolverines are there.”
“I agree.”
“So how are you settling in there otherwise?”
She thought of the unfriendly reception she’d gotten in town, how rare a kind word had been since she’d gotten there. Wondering if Ben had experienced anything like her run-in with the pickup, she asked, “Can I ask . . . just how hated is the land trust out here?”
“What do you mean?”
“The day after you left, someone ran me off the road. The sheriff wasn’t interested in following up.”
“That’s terrible! Are you okay?”
“I was rattled at the time. It just feels like I’m not welcome here.”
Ben sighed. “I’m so sorry about that. Dalton, the biologist who was there before you, said something similar. The locals really gave him a hard time.”
“Is that the real reason he left?”
“I don’t think so. He was having a good time out there—when he was in the field, anyway. But he emailed me to say he’d had a family emergency and had to fly to London to see his mother. He was really sorry to leave.” He hesitated. “You’re not thinking of leaving, are you?”
She smiled. “No. It would take a hell of a lot more than this to pry me away. This is a dream post for me.”
He laughed softly. “I’m glad to hear it. And I’m sorry that you’re having a hard time out there.”
“Thanks, Ben. It’s really nice of you to check on me.”
“Of course.”
“Are you headed out to any other preserves, or are you stuck in Washington for a while?”
He sighed. “Stuck here, I’m afraid. We’re in the process of acquiring some more land, though. Four thousand acres, even.”
“That’s fantastic! Where is it?”
“Arkansas. We think there might be an endangered bat species using the parcel.”
“Good luck!”
“Thanks,” he said, then fell silent. She had the feeling he wanted to say something else, but he didn’t. Then he cleared his throat and said, “Take care, Alex. I hope that old place isn’t too spooky for you.”
“The ghosts are pretty nice, actually.”
“Good to hear.”
“Good night, Ben.”
“Good night, Alex.” He hung up, and she replaced the receiver, feeling a little bit better.
Then she realized Brad had come out of the kitchen and had been standing just out of sight in the hallway. “Who was that?” he said, approaching the front desk.
“Ben Hathaway. He’s the regional coordinator for the land trust. He was just checking on me because he heard about that missing guy.”
“You sure told him a lot more about it than you told me.”
She felt herself go rigid, dreading another fight in the works. “It’s their land. I just thought he’d want to know.”
“I’m supposed to be the person you talk to about everything,” Brad said coldly.
“You didn’t ask. And you were so mad that I was going out there this morning, I didn’t want to bring it up.”
“You certainly didn’t have that problem with him. A regional coordinator, huh? He probably loves all this stuff, too.”
“All this stuff?” Alex asked.
“Being out in the sticks. Helping wildlife no one’s ever heard of, like that bird in Massachusetts.”
Alex didn’t want to fight, and she could tell that Brad was quickly descending into one of his moods. She said nonchalantly, “Yeah, I think he really does enjoy it, though he says he’s often stuck in Washington, DC. Say, that smells amazing in there.”
He stood there a moment longer, not saying anything, his jaw set. Then slowly it softened. “I think the food’s turning out really well. It’s almost ready.”
She moved back to the table and he disappeared through the swinging doors. A few minutes later, he emerged with a steaming bowl of pasta and freshly baked garlic bread. He served her first, filling her bowl with salad and adding a slice of the hot bread.
They began to eat in silence. The bread was incredible, soft and deliciously buttery. He served them both some pasta, and she eagerly tore into it, starved from the day’s hiking.
“This whole thing with the injured man has been really weird,” Alex told him, wanting to make conversation.
“How so?”
“I saw him before, on an image from one of my remote cameras. He wasn’t hurt nearly as much then as he was yesterday. But he didn’t have any shoes on, and he must have walked miles on his bare feet. And even stranger, he left a note on my truck when I first got here, warning me away.”
“That is weird,” Brad said around a mouthful of pasta. “But I’m not surprised about the warning thing.”
“What do you mean?”
He swallowed and gestured with his fork. “The locals here! When I went into town, everyone stared at me. I had to wait at the counter in the café for fifteen minutes before someone helped me. They asked what I was doing up there and if I was with you. Never felt so unwelcome in my life.”
“Wow. Some of them definitely don’t want the land trust here. And one of the camera traps I built was completely destroyed.”
“You mean by vandals?”
She nodded. “Maybe. The camera was gone. But the weird thing is that the wood was splintered instead of cut or simply dismantled.” She took another bite, pushing away thoughts of the ruined trap and instead concentrating on how gorgeous it was out there. “Despite the unwelcoming atmosphere, it feels really good to be out here, Brad, to be helping with this wolverine effort.”
The conversation fell into an uncomfortable silence. She recognized this quiet. In recent years, Brad wanted to hear about her work less and less, even when she was working close by, as she had in Boston. She wanted to share these studies with him, at least her passion for wildlife conservation. But the discussions usually ended in silence or a fight. After another minute of quiet, with Brad chewing his pasta and staring around the room, she decided to give him a chance. Maybe he’d talk about it with her now.
“We’re not exactly sure how many wolverines are even in the Lower 48,” she told him. “They’re so elusive that they’re difficult to study.”
He looked at his food and made a hmmmm sound.
“But we do know that they den in very snowy sites, and with the earth warming, the snowpack is being reduced. It’s like the polar bear—their habitat is shrinking because of climate change, and we have to take some preventative measures if the wolverine population is going to survive.”
“And whe
n you’re done?”
She sighed, her appetite vanishing. She’d hoped he would talk to her about it, try to understand. But instead he just wanted to know how it affected their relationship. She missed the way they used to talk and didn’t know how to make him understand. He took her interest in wildlife personally, as if she were choosing it over him. She didn’t know how to make him understand that she loved him, but she couldn’t give up this important cause. And she didn’t see why they were mutually exclusive anyway. But the longer they’d been together, the more Brad had adopted an all-or-nothing attitude.
During her last study on the northern parula, he seemed like he was merely tolerating her career, like he was trying to ride it out, hoping she’d take some other direction in life. And now with this zoo offer, she knew that had been exactly the case.
“When I’m done, I have to go where the work is,” she told him.
“You have a job waiting for you in Boston.”
“I really appreciate that you set that up, Brad, but it’s not what I want to do. I want to conserve species in their native habitats.”
He dropped his fork, clattering it on the china, and shoved his plate away. “Yeah, I’ve heard that before.” He met her gaze then, his eyes angry and accusatory. Alex braced herself. “If you really loved me, you’d come back. You’d make it work in Boston.”
Anger flared inside her, but she kept it in check. “Why does it have to be me who gives up my dream? My cause? There was a time when you wanted to do good in the world, too. You used to understand.”
“But then I grew up, Alex. You really think you can make a difference out there?” he asked her, his voice snide.
“I have to try. If you don’t like my going into the field without you, you could start your own practice, like you had originally planned. You could come with me some of the time, preparing your cases on the road.”
He crossed his arms. “I have a great position with this Boston firm, Alex. You know that.”
“It certainly pays well, but is it really what you want to do?”
He leaned forward, his eyes narrowed. “It is.”
She touched his hand. “I can’t take that job in Boston, Brad. I’m so sorry.”
Yanking his hand away, he stood up. “I can’t believe I came all the way out here to talk to you. You have this crazy idea that you can go off and change the world, and that you have to be in the middle of nowhere to do it. You can’t change the world single-handedly. It’s not up to you alone to save these species.”
She stood up, too. “I have to try.”
He crossed his arms, staring angrily at her. “You’re throwing us away on a hopeless cause.”
She tried to see her way through the argument. “Look, Brad, I’m not in the middle of nowhere all the time. We could have a home base together.”
He shook his head. “That’s not enough for me. I want you home all the time. I want you to help me with my career. I want you by my side, helping me climb higher.”
Alex felt at a loss. “I want to be there for you, but where does my work fit in?”
He glared at her. “You tell me. If you took that zoo job, you’d be home all the time.”
The thought of it made Alex feel like her world was closing in on her, a suffocating sack coming down over her head. She looked down at the meal he’d cooked, thought of the effort he’d made to be conciliatory at the start of the evening. It was a routine they’d repeated too often lately. He’d be sweet and generous, then pitch an idea to her that was counter to her dreams. If she conceded, all was well. But if she spoke her mind, stood up for what she believed, then he took it personally and it devolved into a terrible fight.
He walked away from the table, then turned to look back at her. “I guess I’m the only one who’s committed to making this work.”
She tried to keep her voice steady. “That’s not true.”
“I flew all the way out here. You didn’t even talk about this position with me before you left. You just took it.”
“We weren’t even together anymore.”
“We were just taking a break.”
“I tried to call you,” she told him again. They were repeating the same argument they’d had so early in the morning, which was another aspect of their relationship lately. Things didn’t get resolved. They didn’t compromise. Either she agreed to what he wanted or they went around and around.
“So you say.” He started up the stairs. “You’re passing up a great opportunity, Alex. This field assignment isn’t even steady work. What are you going to do when it’s done?”
“I’m not sure. But this study is important.”
“Apparently more important than me,” he said, climbing to the landing.
“It’s not like that.”
“It’s exactly like that.” He disappeared into the bedroom, and she could hear him throwing things into his suitcase, storming around in the bathroom to pack his toiletries. When he emerged a few minutes later, he slammed the bedroom door behind him and carried his suitcase downstairs. “Last chance,” he said.
“I’m so sorry, Brad.”
“Doesn’t seem like it.” He pushed past her. He pulled the door wide and it banged against the wall. Then he walked out into the night, the door slowly sweeping closed behind him. She heard his car start up and then his tires screech away down the drive.
She stood there, feeling numb. Then slowly relief started to steal over her. She knew in her soul she was right to stay here. She didn’t want to choose between being with Brad and her wildlife work. Didn’t see why she had to. But even if she didn’t know what work she’d find next, she couldn’t give this up.
Finally she got ready for bed, feeling sad and a bit despondent. She lay down, her whole body aching. Her time in Boston had taken its toll. Not enough hiking. She’d climbed up and down so many mountains in the last week that all of her muscles were stiff and tired. Her mind swirled, thinking of Brad, of the man on the mountain, of the destroyed trap. To quiet her thoughts, she picked up the mystery novel she’d been reading and settled into its pages. She’d read only a few when a thump downstairs made her lower the book. She listened, hearing another thump.
Then she remembered she’d never gotten the spare key back from Brad. She could hear him down there, moving restlessly around the lobby.
She sat up, slipping her feet into her boots. When she opened the door to her room, she found that the hotel below was still in darkness. She flipped on the switch, hearing Brad moving across the lobby back toward the kitchen. She came down the stairs, rounding the corner at the landing, finding the lobby empty.
She moved down the rest of the stairs and turned on a lamp near one of the couches. The swinging doors to the kitchen were still moving.
A pan crashed down and something came rushing back through the doors, banging them open. The sleek form, startled by the pot, tore across the lobby, alarmed to see Alex and nearly careening into her. It wasn’t Brad.
It was a mountain lion.
Fourteen
Alex stood her ground, trying to look bigger than she was. The cougar’s eyes met hers and it growled, lashing a paw out at her. She noticed then how unhealthy it was, starving, skin stretched tight over sharp bones, the eyes watery, mucousy crust around its nose. She took a step back and it prowled toward her. She shouted, raising her arms, trying all the things a person was supposed to do to deter a mountain lion attack. But this mountain lion was clearly sick and emaciated, and that meant it was dangerously unpredictable.
Its eyes locked on her and it went back on its haunches, preparing to spring. She took off to the side, trying to get the couch between her and the cougar. It pivoted, watching her go, and stalked around the other side of the sofa. Ears slicked back on its skull, it hissed.
How did it even get in? She remembered Brad saying that the window in the kitchen had been unlocked. She’d put a heavy cinder block in front of it and had meant to get a new lock when she was in Bitterroot.
She had to get either herself or the cat out of the lodge. She thought of where her keys were, then realized with chagrin that they were upstairs in her room, in the pocket of her jeans.
Her mind raced. Should she get a weapon? She’d have to make it to the kitchen. Her mind flew to the contents of the cabinets and the old firecrackers she’d seen up there. If she could somehow herd the cat toward the front door with them, startle it into taking flight . . .
The cougar padded around the side of the couch, and Alex walked backward, moving toward the kitchen. She picked up a lamp from a table, yanking the cord out of the wall. Raising it above her head, she tried to look huge and menacing, but knew she just looked like a person in her pj’s holding a lamp.
The cougar continued to creep forward, and Alex felt the swinging doors to the kitchen at her back. She pushed through them, then, when she was briefly out of the cat’s sight, turned and raced to the cabinets. She wrenched open the door to the first cabinet, not quite remembering behind which of the long line of doors the fireworks were. As she opened the third cabinet door, the kitchen entrance swung open. The mountain lion stole into the room, pinpointing her location. The fourth cabinet held the firecrackers. She drew down the package, realizing she didn’t have matches. She had to get to the stove.
She glanced toward the window with the broken lock, seeing that the cinder block had been shoved aside, pushed across the counter. The cougar must have been desperate, too sick to effectively hunt, and drawn by the smell of cooked food.
Stepping backward, she rounded the corner of the long center island where food was prepared, trying to keep it between her and the cougar. She saw now that it walked with a limp. Its front right paw was injured, a nasty wound there looking raw and infected.
She reached the stove, then felt around for the drawer handle next to it. Her hands closed on cold metal and she opened it, not taking her eyes off the cat. It was almost at the end of the center island. She fumbled around for the matches; then her fingers connected with the small cardboard box.
A Solitude of Wolverines Page 15