“Everything went okay?”Jem asked.
“Fine,” Tean said.“We found tracks along a stream.They like to follow travel corridors like that.Then it was just a lot of patience and some luck.”
“Everything went great,” Randy Harding said.“I can’t wait to see that son of a bitch’s face when I show him these pictures.”
And laughing to himself, Randy went inside to find Jennifer.
“That must have been fun,” Jem said.
“He did all right,” Tean said.“Stayed back when he was supposed to.I think it was as much about the chance to say he went on a wolf hunt as the fact that he gets to rub it in Neff’s face.”
“Dr.Leon?”The woman’s name was Cameron Hammond, and she’d driven here in one of the Sprinter vans from Colorado.A long drive, but one that the staff of the wolf sanctuary was more than happy to make in exchange for a generous donation from the Hardings.“We’ve got the crate secured.”
Tean glanced at Jem.“Do you want to see him?”
It took a moment before Jem realized the question was for him.He nodded.
The lights were on in the back of the van.The crate was ventilated, with openings big enough for Jem to see through.
The wolf was bigger than Jem had expected.Even lying on his side in the crate, he seemed enormous—so much bigger than Scipio.His fur was gray, but so many shades of it, with brown and black mixed in.The texture wasn’t what Jem had expected either.Rougher.Denser.For a disorienting moment, he wanted to run his hands through it, and he thought he knew how it would feel: coarse, stiff, but then sliding between his fingers.
It had happened before, but not in a while.The weight on his chest.The way his skin tightened.That sense of every hair on his body standing on end while lightning ran along them.The sense of…presence.Like in his clumsy human way, he had stumbled by accident into a bigger world, and for a moment, he understood how small he was.It was frightening, yes.Butnot, at the same time.Because he was part of this, too.Part of this world he sometimes forgot about, this world he didn’t pretend to understand.A small part, yes.But connected.He wanted, in that moment, to touch the wolf.To feel his warmth, the padding of muscle, the hard lines of bones.Like me.And not.Jem’s heart was pounding in his chest.
“He’s breathing,” Jem whispered.
Tean nodded.“He’s okay.The drugs wear off on their own.”
Something—a cord—protruded from the wolf’s mouth and ran toward the front of the van.“What’s that?”
“A pulse oximeter.It measures the oxygen in his blood to make sure he’s okay.”
“When he wakes up,” Jem said, “he’s going to be somewhere new.He won’t know where he is.”
“They’ll take good care of him.They’ll give him time to adjust.Make sure he’s healthy.”
Jem touched the crate because he couldn’t touch the wolf.The pebbled plastic felt too rough under his hand.“Why was he out there in the first place?”
“A lot of young male wolves leave to find mates and start their own packs.”Something in Tean’s voice changed.“Sometimes, they get lost.”
“And need a little help.”
“Sometimes.”
Jem caught himself biting the collar of his T-shirt.He let it drop.He wiped his mouth.He was surprised that his fingertips felt hot when they brushed his lips.“Good.I’m glad you could help him.”
“Me too.”
“And I’m glad that asshole didn’t shoot him.”
Tean’s laugh carried so much in it, and he said thickly, “Me too.”
Jem straightened.He put his arm around Tean.And then he rested his hand on his chest.Underneath the heavy coat, underneath the thermal shirt, Tean’s heart beat steadily.The red streak in the sky was fading.The wind moved the pines and raised goose bumps on the back of Jem’s neck.One of the men from the sanctuary was scuffing his boot on the gravel, trying to knock loose some mud.
But for a moment, even with all that noise, the world was quiet except for the drumbeat of Tean’s heart.And the pounding behind Jem’s ribs.And what he thought, if he strained, he could hear beating in the wolf’s chest.The same heart, Jem thought.The same hurts.The same hopes.The same dreams.The same flesh.The same blood.The same bones.
