Page 32 of Wind Valley

After answering Roger’s questions, he clicked over to an internet browser. A search for moose behavior didn’t give him anything helpful. As for sightings of animals behaving strangely, there was too much to be helpful. The sheer volume of weird conspiracy theories online made him want to take a shower.

When it came to wolves, humans had been creating legends and stories since the beginning. From the Navajo came myths about skinwalkers who could possess the bodies of animals, including wolves.

Not helpful, he decided. He was pretty darn sure the wolf attack hadn’t been a skinwalker’s doing.

As he kept reading, one Inuit myth in particular caught his attention. Amarok was a giant wolf who hunted his prey alone and would devour human hunters who went out alone at night and hunted recklessly.

Maybe the wolf who’d attacked a stranger on a snowmobile was sending an Amarok-inspired message. Or maybe he was getting way off track here.

The more he read, the more fascinated he became by the role wolves played in Native Alaskan lore. They were both feared and deeply respected, even revered. The first humans watched wolf behavior very carefully, and used it as a model for how to survive. Watching wolves taught them how to cross thin ice, for example, and how to operate as a tight pack-like unit with assigned roles. For some tribes, hunting a wolf was unthinkable, which was very different from the way European countries looked at wolves. In Britain, for instance, wolves were so feared they’d been hunted to extinction in the 18th century.

But none of this explained what they were seeing in the local wolves, moose, etcetera.

With a sigh, he took a few pictures of the pages on wolf legends, not because he thought they explained anything, but because Maura would probably find them interesting.

Maura found so many things interesting. It was one of his favorite things about her. Once she forgot to be wary and keep herself carefully hidden behind a fortress wall, she was someone who really threw herself into things.

Was that why she kept that wall up? Had she thrown herself into something that had backfired on her?

He had to stop thinking about her so much, he told himself. Even if it sometimes seemed that she was softening toward him, even attracted to him, that didn’t mean much. All it meant was that she was getting more comfortable here in Firelight Ridge, and that she saw him as a good friend.

Before wrapping up his time on Kathy’s Wi-Fi, he did a search of “cell service” and “Firelight Ridge.” He found several references on Facebook and a few travel blogs to the fact that there was very little cell service here. But nothing about new cell service coming to town.

Where had that rumor even gotten started?

He logged off, slipped his iPad into its case, and headed for the door. Kathy was lecturing someone about the perils of the electro-magnetic field created by cell towers. Here we go, he thought. She was going all out to prevent the competition from moving in.

Frank Stetson. That was who he should talk to about the source of the cell service rumors. He was the source, wasn’t he? That newsletter had spread the word around town. But where had he gotten the information about the “friendly but anonymous” offer?

He left the store and blinked at the fast and furious flurry of snowflakes that greeted him. Even though it was midday, the snowfall was so thick that he could barely see the road. A surprise snow squall was sweeping through the valley. Where was his truck? It was like searching a snow globe to find it, and when he did, he decided he wasn’t going anywhere in it for a while. It was already covered in several inches of snow. How long had he been wrapped up in his email?

Stepping back into the store, he asked Kathy, “Any word on this storm? How long is it supposed to last?”

“Storm?” She peered past him, out the window. “Ooh, looks bad. The forecast didn’t say storm. It said sun. These squalls come fast. They don’t last long, though. Maybe an hour.”

“Are you saying that based on experience?”

“Yes, experience,” she said, irritated. “I’m not a scientist like some people. But I know what I know.”

“All right, thanks.” He decided to walk the several blocks to The Fang. Maybe a miracle would have happened, and a new woman he hadn’t met yet would be there. In yet another miracle, maybe she’d be someone who made him stop thinking about Maura. It’s because she’s a mystery, he told himself. My brain wants to figure Maura out. It’s nothing more than that.

The snow made the world both brighter and more blinding. He could see why it was so easy to get lost in a blizzard. If he couldn’t feel the hardpack of the road beneath his feet, and see the occasional shadow of a building as he passed by, he would have no idea where he was. He could be anywhere, walking this earth in his own personal storm, with no idea of what was going on outside his field of vision.

Which somehow seemed like a good metaphor for existence in general. Didn’t everyone go through life surrounded by their own personal storm?

What was Maura’s?

And there he was, back to thinking about Maura.

The Fang loomed through the snow off to his left. He recognized it by the darkness of the door, which was painted black, and the fact that there was a light on inside. The hum of a generator penetrated through the soft hissing of the snowflakes.

Had any place ever been quite so important to a tiny community lost in the mountains as The Fang was?

He stumbled the last few yards through the falling snow and felt deep relief when his hand met the door handle. Warmth enveloped him as he pushed it open. The sound of voices greeted him. Humans were meant to be with other humans, he thought. We are not meant to be alone. Even those who chose to live at the farthest reaches of civilization still needed other human beings.

“It’s a yeti!” called someone. Was that Pinky? He blinked snowflakes off his eyelashes, and realized he was completely covered in snow. As if he was a skinwalker who’d chosen to possess a snowman.

He brushed snow off his coat and made his way to the bar. If Pinky was here, Maura probably was too. He caught sight of her on a stool, wearing a pink sweater and a fuzzy pompom hat, talking to Lila. She spun on her stool and looked him over with a grin.

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