Yes.
But there is a strange heaviness in her, like the beginning of flu. Not sadness exactly. She is not sad about losing Binny. Nor regretful about the nature of their relationship — things couldn’t have been different. Nothing would have changed the dynamic, no more than the elliptical orbit of planets can be altered by human hand. She had the only version of her mother she could have had; Binny had the only daughter. In some ways they were motherless, daughterless. It feels more like an existential malaise of some kind. Sorrow for time, for its auspices, its signification. She feels, for the first time in her life, weary, and old. But that isn’t really it, either. She doesn’t know what’s wrong.
I think that’ll hold, Kyle says.
Great.
Ready to head back?
Yes.
Sure you’re OK?
I’m fine. Tired. Think I need some sun.
She stands, tries to shake it off. They begin back through the great, dank arboretum.
The following day Kyle makes an appointment to visit the executives of the tribal council — a courtesy call. The arrangement is not under threat. Hikers will be steered away where possible and the territorial section of land will remain undeveloped. The Nez Perce have sponsored the project since its inception, before hunting bans and their reversals. It is a relatively small affair for the elders to consider — the Reservation’s campaigns and lawsuits are wide and more complicated than species, involving ideologies, citizens versus sovereign nations, and Supreme Court interpretation. The Chief Joseph pack is safe, if only on host land. Meanwhile, photographs have been posted on an Idaho hunting site, of a wolf in a steel foot trap. Not one of theirs, but disheartening nevertheless. The circumference of pink, limped-over snow is sickening. They study the shot. Kyle shakes his head.
Ah, buddy, he says.
Rachel cannot help feeling depressed. Just for a moment she wonders about putting her head against his shoulder. Would it be such a terrible thing? It would, she knows. She feels unusually low, vulnerable. She wishes the bug in her system would just materialise and lay her out fully. The memory of that night is like a fever; it is passing, but there are vivid flashes. His grip across her neck. The rawness. She attempts a joke, about whose turn it is to refill the office coffee pot — who is the wife? He does not respond to the banter as he ordinarily would, but fixes her with a look, patient, undefended. And it is this that convinces her there is something more, something very real underneath the silence. The unspeakable is always louder than declaration.
True panic comes only days later, while looking in the bathroom cupboard at the unused tampon box. How many weeks have passed? There was a little bit of blood maybe; she has sore breasts. She picks up her keys and walks out to the truck in her T-shirt, her trainers unlaced, impervious to the chill, zombie-like. She drives to town, to the all-night pharmacy, does not even wait to get home before opening the packet and doing the test, but squats at the side of the road like a destitute. Positive.
She drives back to the Reservation, pulls off the road, sits in the pick-up, and stares ahead.
Now every rule is broken. Her programming is that of the serialist, she knows it, and that’s fine. Romance fails because it is never supposed to work, past the act itself, the momentum of lust. She was raised by an expert. Binny was practically Roman in her operations: arriving in the village, taking the spoils, then razing everything to the ground. Through the walls of the post office cottage Rachel could sometimes hear the sound of male weeping, a sound exotic and horrendous. And her mother’s vexed responses. Buck up, man, there was never anything to it. Go back home to her. How desperately they tried to convince her of love.
The next day she calls her doctor’s office, then calls her insurance company, but there is no additional rider to her policy; she is not covered, and there is no life endangerment. She’ll have to find a doctor and pay for it herself, after state-directed counselling and a wait period. She is furious with herself. A baby! It seems impossible. It is the worst possible scenario, the worst of all failures. Not even a stranger, but her best friend, her colleague, whom she must face every day. In the storm of it all, she does not consider that for years they have been together, companions, lovers of sorts, mutually obsessed with the family under their care — with their feeding, their nurture, their scat, the routes along which they travel — as if parents already.
*
It is mid-February when she calls the estate office and asks to speak to Thomas Pennington. Honor Clark puts her through. The line is bad, the sound of an engine, he is in transit, on board a plane perhaps. If the position is still open, she will take it.
Yes, yes, he says. Wonderful, Rachel, I’m so glad you are joining us. Honor will get a press release together immediately.
As if she is some kind of celebrity. She does not ask about salary, or for any contractual details. She writes a formal letter of resignation, though to whom can it be sent? She is project manager; the Chief Joseph Trust is a cooperative entity. Kyle will run the project solo, until a replacement can be found at a later date. Almost ten years of her life; it is no small commitment. In the end it’s more difficult to break the news to Kyle than she had expected, but he hears it almost as he would an expected weather forecast.
Yeah, fair enough. That’s about right.
They are sitting on his deck, drinking beer and wearing heavy coats against the cool wet mist. Mist drifts between the trees, conveying the fetid, arable smell of the paper mill downriver. He laughs.
Off to live in a castle. Well, we can’t compete with that.
Hardly. Anyway, I won’t be living at the hall. Just somewhere on the estate, I think.
On the estate!
She does not apologise for leaving, or offer any explanation, and he does not ask her why. He goes to get another beer, uncaps it, holds it to his lips.
I’m going to grill some steak. Want some?
OK.
Over the food, they talk about the same old things. Perhaps he is a little quieter than usual. Later that evening she books a one-way flight. Two weeks, then she will be gone.
News from the northern partners is that the pack has reunited and is coming south. She hopes she’ll see them before she goes. The workers track their progress towards the Reservation. They arrive a few days before Rachel’s flight. The yearlings have all survived. There’s the glinting of eyes on the night camera, the writhe and scramble of black bodies near the earth walls. The breeding pair, Tungsten and Moll, are sleeping close together. He is attentive, licking her muzzle. Good signs for a new litter. The centre prepares for spring visitors and Rachel packs up her cabin. There’s not much to box. Meanwhile, some breathtaking aerial footage is sent down from Canada, which Oran uploads onto the website. The pack is on the frozen edge of a lake, waiting in formation for a cornered grizzly bear and its cub to come out of the water. Tungsten and Moll flank, their tails lowered, inching forward, the others are lined up like guards, like a firing squad. The bear cub flails around and its mother roars at the hunters, but they do not retreat. The pilot circles back over the scene, saying, Holy shit, Andy, are you getting this; and the co-pilot, filming, replies, Yeah, is that even possible? Within twenty-four hours it has 20,000 viewings.
Rachel watches the clip again and again in the office. Over the years she has learnt never to be complacent, that they are capable of extreme feats, but the manoeuvre is astonishing: their audacity, their strategy. The aircraft circles twice more, then pulls up and continues on its course. Whether the kill was made, she will never know. But, watching the footage, the decision to leave Chief Joseph suddenly feels easier. They are matchless predators; they exist supremely, she is irrelevant to them.