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looked across the valley. The smell of sap drifted up from dozens of ruined trees. We sat on the ground among little craters and looked out across the ranch, naming its seeps, bumps, and saddles. As if reciting a prayer, James listed off the common and scientific names of the plants that grew around our boots: yarrow— Achillea millefolium; big sage— Artemisia tridentata; bluebunch wheatgrass —Agropyron spicatum; and lupine— Lupinus argenteus.
    Staring out across the folds and timber of Squaw Creek, we letour thoughts drift to the wolves. Sign of them abounded, though neither of us had yet seen one in the flesh. Holding out a clenched, massive fist for scale, James described a set of tracks he had found on a muddy stream bank just a few hundred yards above our houses. The pugmarks had looked exceptionally fresh, and their location meant that the wolves were traveling the lower pastures of the ranch. Though I was excited about the possibility of seeing the pack, James didn’t like the situation. They were too close for comfort—his kids spent their days playing in the yard.
    “I’ll tell you one thing for sure,” he said. “If that wolf comes around our place, he won’t last long.”

    I never doubted that James or Jeremy would shoot a wolf if the opportunity arose. We talked of the pack often, and of the risks we would run when it came time to drive our herds higher into the mountains. In short order I learned that, to my role models, the killing of a wolf was no occasion for soul-searching. Instead it was a job that, though difficult and dangerous, sometimes had to be done.
    When a person works long enough on a ranch, he comes to suspect that most of the living things that walk or grow on the hills and pastures are either with or against him. Smart cow dogs, calm horses, fertile heifers, and thick stands of wheatgrass are on a rancher’s side. Noxious weeds and stock-killing predators stand decidedly against him.
    James, in particular, had taken this lesson to heart. He told me once that he considered his animals to be part of his family, andfelt an obligation to keep them from harm. That duty extended to the livestock, and as we worked together, I came to comprehend the depth of his loyalty to our herds.
    James and Jeremy understood ranching as the art of protecting one’s chosen creatures in a brutal world. Though sometimes this meant spilling blood, more often it demanded perfect attention and a depth of care—as with new calves and tender, growing shoots—that seemed at odds with their callused hands.
    I must have been counted among the good animals, because James and Jeremy were always generous with me. They lent me essential things, gave good advice, and helped me take root in the Sun Ranch’s hard soil.
    Not long after James arrived on the ranch, I had finally gotten settled in the bunkhouse, a long, low, retrofitted shed that sat like an afterthought behind the other buildings at Wolf Creek. With its wonky floors and pair of rough barn doors that served as one wall of the kitchen, the bunkhouse leaked heat like a sieve. Through the crack between the doors, I could see the single-wide that James and his family called home.
    One evening a ruckus started under the floor when I sat down to dinner. A series of thuds escalated into a screeching match and culminated in an unbearable smell that could mean only skunks. Gasping and coughing, I stumbled out of the kitchen and into the twilight, walked across to James’s trailer, and told him the story.
    “Well,” said James, “I guess you better shoot it.”
    He handed me an old twelve gauge and a couple of shells. I walked to the most likely corner of the bunkhouse and waited. Standing in the dying light, I looked carefully at the shotgun, acheap single-shot covered with little rust pits. I snapped it open and clicked it shut as the night thickened around me. No skunks showed, but I kept the gun for a few days.
    My coats were all made for Seattle, so I