“Of course I cool it first,” she said.
When the snows were a white vastness that grants even our simple, human eyes something akin to real night vision, I thought I saw the horned wolf pacing around Mr. Green’s campsite. I suspect it allowed me to see it, though I cannot guess its purpose. There were no tracks the next morning.
Some of my colleagues have asked if I will turn toward a special emphasis on studying the horned wolf, a new and largely unknown cryptid, no doubt an important strand in the web of global cryptoecology. It is certainly a rich avenue of inquiry.
The answer is no.
That line of study strikes me as simultaneously impolite and rather unlikely to yield much new data. I have roved above and below these mountains for more than a century and had never heard so much as a rumor of the horned wolf prior to Mr. Green’s arrival. There are many worthy aspects of nature that simply will not humor methodical observation. I have made peace with this.
However, I often tell the askers that I am considering such a study, if only to fend off other researchers for now. Not that the wolf needs my protection. If it does not want to be found, I have complete faith that it will be so.
How humbling is nature? How many lives could you spend studying a single tree and still feel yourself a neophyte in the school of its character? What a gift it is to know that the ship of our curiosity will never run aground in the seas of Earth’s mysteries.
V. Blackwood: Journal 516, PG 165
There are many dates that loom large in my mind. Scores of births and deaths. Scores of victories and defeats. Things as trivial as the first time I saw a movie—June 22nd, 1922. Things as distasteful as the first time I was shot—December 13th, 1754.
I was beginning to think most of the dates on the calendar had become significant for one or more noteworthy memories, but October 3rd was not one of them until last year.
A year ago to the day of this writing.
It is a cliché, but it is hard to believe he has been gone a year.
I thank time for numbing pain. I curse time for numbing pain. In all my years of life, I have not decided if the human brain is meant to manufacture contradiction or if contradiction is merely the by-product from other vital processes. The results are the same.
Tonight, I have invited Ms. Dancer to the cabin to share cheese on toast with me in remembrance of the lost. I will drink wine. I will indulge in maudlin frivolity. I will not write about it here.
I have business to attend to before this evening.
There is always more to do and somehow we must honor the parts of us that deserve to mourn the past while also honoring our drive to build a worthy future. Somewhere between those opposing weather fronts is the storm of my present thoughts.
I must return to work.
Today is for the future.
Tonight is for the past.
The present takes care of itself.
Green stumbled back into realityand fell nose-first into October loam.
He clutched one of Dancer’s tin cups to his belly and it knocked the wind from him as he hit the ground. The cup bent beneath his bulk.
This time, he had chosen to put his cheek on the asphalt as the bus rushed to meet him. He did it with open eyes. The fear of entering the rift still vibrated in his limbs.
Stepping through the hole, Green held firm to two intentions. They lingered on like woodsmoke in his beard.
Close the hole. Let the fawn find home and peace.
Already, his recollection of his time on the outside doorstep faded to static, unable to hold together as a narrative and take root in a real, living brain.
His mind papered over the vanishing memory, tying his present to the moment he carried the outsider from the world. He lay still,feeling the absence of the fawn in his arms like a warm cup of coffee on a cold morning.
He understood that he had made the journey home. That was enough.
Is this home?
The ground was cold, but already he was warmer than a moment before.
