Thicker Than Water
Chapter 2
Will trotted slowly along the trail, looking for spoor and trying not to hurry. It would be too dark to see anything before long, and any tracks would be easy to miss. He glanced at the sky and adjusted the rifle strap on his shoulder. Sunset was still about an hour away, but darkness came more quickly in the woods’ interior. The coyote he was tracking might have holed up in its den already; he’d been hoping to verify it had been the one that attacked Mrs. Rutherford’s dog this morning. He’d planned to find it, tranquilize it, and track it to verify it had been the culprit. The old lady had stormed into his office, demanding that he shoot each and every coyote between here and the Michigan border.
Preposterous—killing an animal for following its instinct, doing what nature had designed it to do, was ridiculous. Coyotes were canines, hunters—what they were intended to be. Nature had not designed canines to be bred into defenseless little long- haired dust mops, like Mrs. Rutherford’s Lhasa Apso. He doubted that the coyote had even known her pet was a dog. He’d probably figured it was some kind of squirrel or rodent—its natural prey. It had pounced on the little dog during a walk, but before it could get away, Mrs. Rutherford had charged, screaming her head off, causing the coyote to drop the dog and take off. Will smiled to himself; he would have run, too. The little dog had been bitten and needed some stitches, but it would be fine. Maybe now she’d keep it on a leash instead of letting it snuffle around in the woods on its own. The forest wasn’t as serene as it looked. A lot of people didn’t know that. It wasn’t a playground. He’d been working in the woods, in its depths, long enough to know what it could do.
Will continued trotting along, glancing at the sides and banked edges of the trail. He’d picked up some tracks about a half-mile back, but they’d disappeared from the path, and he hadn’t been able to pick them up since. Coyotes liked to lurk in cover, taking their prey in surprise attacks. Will had been hoping to find traces of it on the trail edge, but he was starting to think it had gone deeper into the woods or returned to its den. It was cold and getting colder. Will decided to go ahead another quarter-mile or so, and then start again tomorrow. The light had faded into a rich lavender haze that was settling slowly over the snowy woodland. He glanced into the forest; visibility was maybe one-tenth of a mile. There was a full moon tonight, so it wouldn’t be black dark in the woods—but still, he’d better start back.
He stopped, took a moment to catch his breath, and glanced around him. When his breathing slowed, he listened. Absolute dead silence. He smiled underneath his ski mask. The woods were generally a very quiet place. You could hear the wind in the branches or the birds in the summer; it was active, alive, but still quiet. Winter, however, was different. Life remained here, hunkered down, conserving heat and energy, waiting, so it was silent—dead silent. You could almost hear your blood flow and your eyes water. He loved it; some people—most—didn’t. It spooked them, the absolute absence of sound; they equated it with danger, as if the forest was something that lay coiled up like a cat, waiting for them—the fat tourists—and ready to pounce. Not to Will. The land itself was benign, beautiful. He loved the silence, its purity—no clutter, no confusion, no turmoil. Not like back in “civilization.” God, how he hated that word—that world.
Will shuffled around on his snowshoes and started on his way back. He was just about a hundred yards from the southern edge of Mirror Lake, about three miles from his work cabin. Technically, his office was in town, but he went there as seldom as possible. Dealing with people irritated him. Always. It wasn’t just the jerks or the know-it-alls or the bullies. It was everyone. They all bothered him and always had. Dithering, chattering, selfish, greedy creatures—there was nothing nearly as annoying as them in the natural world. Not rats or cockroaches or even mosquitoes. At least there was a purpose to a mosquito’s irritating behavior—it was only trying to eat. People’s motives were a tangle to him. An indecipherable puzzle.
Well, I can make it back in forty-five minutes if I keep a steady pace. Once he got back he could start planning out tomorrow’s strategies. He had to build tagging time into his schedule before he was supposed to meet with Chief Dodge, the district warden, at eleven, at the DNR office in town. The chief had contacted him yesterday, saying it was imperative that they meet. Mrs. Rutherford had probably already complained to him about the attack. And then, in the afternoon, he wanted to check on the fox family. The skulk. What a perfect name for a group of foxes. That was genius. He knew the origins of those collective nouns went back to the Middle Ages; the names themselves reflected aspects of the animals. A prickle of porcupines. Or otters. A group of them was known as a romp. A romp of otters. How perfect was that?
Will stopped suddenly as he spied a shape off the trail to his right—a more concentrated darkness in the distance, maybe sixty or seventy yards away. Big. Not a bear. Taller than that. Bears were down and out this time of year, anyway. You might see one out on a warmer day in the winter, but it would have to be crazy to be out of its den in this kind of cold. He peered into the dusk, the bluish glow now smothering the light. The shadow moved slowly, away from him. It might be a deer, but it seemed awfully big for a white-tail, even a buck. A moose? Unusual, but not impossible. He’d have to come back tomorrow and track it. Whatever it is, he thought, continuing to move, it won’t be that hard to find. He would seek it out. That was his job, and this was his land, his woods, his domain. If someone had wandered in, he would find him, watch him, and then welcome him into his sanctuary—his home.