The Tenderness of Wolves (51 page)

He smiles back at her, remembering how she took off her shawl to staunch his wound at the rugby match, the day they first met, all those years ago. His blood on her shawl, binding them.

The life whirrs before him like a riffled deck of cards in the hands of a dealer, each picture glowing and complete in every detail. He can see himself when old, and Maria, also old, still full of energy. Arguing, writing, reading between the lines, having the last word.

Having no regrets.

It doesn’t look like a bad life.

Maria Knox will never know the life she might have had, but Donald knows it. He knows, and he is glad.

Mrs Ross is looking down at him, her face in a mist, dazzling and moist, beautiful. She is very near and very far away. She seems to be asking him something, but for some reason he can’t hear her any more.

But everything is clear.

And so Donald doesn’t say Maria’s name, or anything else at all.

The worst thing of all was taking Alec to see the body of his father. He insisted we bring it back to Hanover House, as we will Donald, and bury them there. Stewart we decided to bury in the shallow grave he dug himself. That seems fair enough.

Half Man was badly wounded by Parker’s bullet, but when we went back to the cabin, he had gone. His trail led off north, and Parker followed it for a while, then came back. He was shot in the neck and probably wouldn’t last long. To the north of the lake there is nothing except snow and ice.

‘Let the wolves take care of him,’ is what he said.

We wrapped Donald and Nepapanees in furs–Alec found a deerskin for his father, which seemed important to him. Donald we wrapped in fox and marten; soft and warm. Parker made a bundle of the most valuable furs and loaded it onto the sled. Jammet had a son: they are for him, and for Elizabeth and her family. As for the rest, I suppose Parker will come back for them some day. I do not ask. He does not say.

We did all this by noon of that day.

And now we are walking back to Hanover House. The dogs pull the sled with the bodies on it. Alec walks beside it. Parker drives the dogs, and I walk behind him. We are following our own outward trail, and that of our pursuers,
printed deep into the snow. I find that I have learnt, without realising it, to identify tracks. Every so often I see a print that I know is mine, and I step on it, to rub it out. This country is scored with such marks; slender traces of human desire. But these trails, like this bitter path, are fragile, winterworn, and when the snow falls again, or when it thaws in spring, all trace of our passing will vanish.

Even so, three of these tracks have outlasted the men who made them.

I find, when it occurs to me to look, that I have lost the bone tablet. It was still in my pocket when I left Hanover House, but now it has gone. I tell Parker this, and he shrugs. He says, if it is important, it will be found again. And in a way–although I feel sorry for poor Mr Sturrock, who seemed to hanker for it–I am glad not to have something that other people want so much. No good seems to come of such things.

I have been thinking of course, and dreaming when I sleep, of Parker. And this much I know: he thinks of me. But we are a conundrum to which there is no answer. After so much horror, we cannot go on–if I am honest, never could have.

And yet, whenever we stop, I cannot take my eyes from his face. The prospect of leaving him is like the prospect of losing my eyesight. I think of all the things he has been to me: stranger, fugitive, guide.

Love. Lodestone. My true north. I turn always to him.

He will take me back to Himmelvanger and then go on–back to wherever he came from. I do not know if he is married, I suppose he is. I never asked, and will not now. I know almost nothing about him. And he–he does not even know my first name.

Some things could make you laugh, if you felt like
laughing. A while after I think this, Parker turns to me. Alec is several paces ahead.

‘Mrs Ross?’

I smile at him. As I have said, I cannot help myself. He smiles back in that way he has: a knife in my heart that I would not remove for all the world.

‘You have never told me your name.’

It is lucky the wind is so cold, as it freezes the tears before they fall. I shake my head, and smile. ‘You have used it often enough.’

He looks at me then, so hard that, for once, I drop my gaze first. His eyes do have a light in them after all.

I force my mind to turn to Francis, and Dove River. Angus. The pieces I have to put back together.

I force myself to feel the Sickness of Long Thinking.

And then Parker turns back to the dogs and the sled, and keeps walking, and so do I.

For what else can any of us do?