The Loop Read Free

gummy grin, and she cried out and reached down and snatched him up. She did it with such sudden violence that the child began to cry and she held him to her so hard that he cried even louder. She turned, pressing her back to the wall, and looked down from the porch.
    The wolf was standing with his head lowered over the Labrador. Kathy could see right away that the dog was dead. His hind legs gave a final twitch, just like they did in his dreams when he slept in front of the fire. His throat had been torn out and his belly gaped like a gutted fish. The bleached grass under him rivered red. Kathy screamed again and the wolf started, as if he’d forgotten she was there. He stared right at her and she could see the glisten of blood on his face.
    ‘Get out of here! Go on! Get out!’
    She looked around for something to throw at him but there was no need. The wolf was already running off and within moments he was ducking under the fence and loping up among the cattle who had all quit their grazing to watch the spectacle below. At the top of the meadow he stopped and looked back to where Kathy still stood over the dead dog, clutching her baby and crying. Then he turned and vanished into the shadow of the forest.

2
    T he offices of the US Fish and Wildlife Service Wolf Recovery team were on the third floor of a plain red-brick building in a quiet part of Helena. There was no sign outside that told you this and if there had been it probably wouldn’t have lasted long. There were people around here who didn’t much like any federal agency, least of all one whose sole purpose was to protect a creature they considered the most loathsome God ever came up with. Dan Prior and his team knew from experience that when it came to wolves it was best to keep the profile low.
    In the outer office stood a glass case from which a stuffed wolf looked, more or less benignly, on their labors. The plaque on the side of the case said its occupant was Canis Lupus Irremotus, Northern Rocky Mountain Wolf . But, for a reason no one in the office could now recall, the wolf was more informally known as Fred.
    Dan had gotten into the habit of talking to Fred, particularly on those long nights when everyone else had gone home, leaving him to unpick yet another political tangle in which Fred’s more animated brethren had snagged him. On such occasions Dan would often come up with other, more vibrant names for his silent companion.
    Tonight was definitely not going to be one of those nights. In fact Dan, for the first time in living memory, was leaving early. He had a date. And because he’d made the mistake of mentioning it, everyone in the office had been teasing him about it all week. As he came out of his office, stuffing some papers into his bag, they all chanted in rehearsed unison, ‘Have a nice time, Dan!’
    ‘Thank you very much indeed,’ he said, through clenched teeth. Everyone laughed. ‘Will someone tell me, what’s so goddamn fascinating about my private life?’
    Donna, his assistant, grinned at him. She was a big, gutsy woman in her late thirties, who ran the office with a calm good humor that even in the most frenzied moments never seemed to desert her. She shrugged.
    ‘I guess it’s just that you never had one till now.’
    ‘You’re all fired.’
    He gave them a dismissive wave, told Fred to wipe that grin off his face and was just reaching for the doorknob when the phone rang.
    ‘I’m gone,’ he mouthed to Donna and out he went.
    He pushed the elevator button and waited while the cables clunked and whirred behind the stainless-steel doors. There was a ping and the doors opened.
    ‘Dan!’
    He waited with his finger on the button, keeping the doors open, while Donna hurried down the corridor toward him.
    ‘You know that new private life of yours?’
    ‘You know, Donna? I was just thinking of giving you a raise.’
    ‘I’m sorry, but I thought you’d want to know. That was a rancher called Clyde Hicks from Hope. He says a