Read The Wolf Border for Free Online Page B

shereaches the cairn she sits and looks at the view, land graduating towards the unspectacular brown sea, belts of cloud moving in from Ireland and strobing light on the ground between. A stiff breeze tugs at her sleeves and rattles her hood. She calls Kyle. It’s still early in Idaho, but he answers.
    Christ. You sound like you’re in a wind tunnel.
    Sorry. Hang on.
    She turns her head, then moves into the sheltered lee behind the cairn.
    Better.
    They catch up, briefly. There is no news of Left Paw. There have been no sightings, alone, or with the pack, and none of the coordinated aircraft have picked up the signal. The radio collar appears to be dead. She cannot help but be suspicious.
    I just don’t like coincidences, she says.
    Shit happens. Nothing we can do. This is expensive, go back to your mom and spend some time with her.
    Yeah. Is it still snowing?
    Yep.
    Everything else OK?
    We’re good.
    Alright, then.
    She hangs up, pockets her phone and begins down the slope towards the hire car.
    On the way back to Willowbrook she stops off at a pub – The Belted Will, a stacked-slate building with empty hanging baskets outside the front door. She orders supper. She will miss dinner at the home, but she can’t quite face the experience again. The bar is pleasant enough. At the counter a few locals sit on stools; there are one or two passing travellers – late-season walkers, perhaps.A vinegary smell piques the air, combined with hops and cleaning fluid. A coal fire glows orange at one end of the room; she sits at a table nearby. While she waits for the food she takes a stack of printed papers from her bag and reads through – the chapter of a book she is working on. It’s slow-going – too slow; it seems like she is always rewriting as more study results come in. The pub conversation is sporadic, mostly between the landlady and the punters, occasional laughter from the end of the counter, where a young man is standing, watching Rachel on and off. The village in which the pub is located is relatively large, but for Friday evening the venue is too quiet; it will not last long if this is the extent of its patronage, will go the way of so many unfrequented Lakeland ale houses.
    She looks up. The young man is staring at her again. He raises his pint glass and smiles, drinks the remaining beer, leaves a spit of white foam webbed in the bottom of the glass. He is fit under his shirt and jacket, bullish, very blue-eyed. He is wearing a wedding ring. A wife at home then, watching television, drinking wine with her girlfriends, or minding a baby, perhaps. A wife who knows nothing, or maybe chooses not to care. The rules are always the same.
    In America it’s easier: the codes, the expectations, what is and is not on offer. Oran is the easiest choice, and always available, but the hope and petulance afterwards are tiresome. She sees him most days in the office, must navigate tensions. He’s too close, too keen. Sometimes she goes to the casino. The gambling is uninteresting, and she doesn’t bother with it. But there are new faces, and a lone single woman such as her, not wearing a low-cut dress or heavy make-up, is no cause for concern, is not touting for business. The casino bar is busy. She steps through bodies tothe counter and orders a drink, scans the room, as if searching for a friend who is late. Something about the cut of one of them – it is hard to know what exactly, the way he carries himself, his movement, or strength of bones – appeals. The way he acts can be interpreted: confidence, frustration, availability, a man on the border of a relationship, leaving or entering it, feeling entitled either way. She’ll lean past to take a serviette from the dispenser, between him and his friend. Sorry, hun – excuse me. That’s OK . A conversation starts up, designed to facilitate, nothing more. Her occupation is controversial, divisive – she avoids talking