“I think so,” Kit said. “But I’m not a medical professional.”

“I don’t have a concussion.”

“You don’t seem to.”

“You talk to your feet?”

He paused. “What?” Then he laughed. “Oh, yeah, I mentioned that to you. Righty is quite a chatterbox, quite bossy and obstinate. Lefty, on the other hand, is quiet and meditative, a peacemaker. What can I say? I’m going crazy out here.”

She snorted. “I love it.” Then she added, “I wouldn’t mind if you stayed the night. To keep an eye on me.”

He let out a gust of air. “Well…I dunno, lady.” He smiled. His voice was encouraging when he said, “You stole a dog from a bad guy. You’re squatting here and you’ve been breaking into homes. You changed your license plate, I see. You might be a little crazy. But I need to tell you, you’re now harboring or helping a wanted fugitive who is a target of a federal investigation. You’re in new territory here, Kat. That’s why I should go. There is a warrant issued for my arrest. I’m telling you this so you can choose.”

“I choose you stay.”

“Kat, listen. There are three ways outta this. Are you listening? If ever someone questions you. There’s something called a justification defense, in which you can claim you felt the government was not justified in going after me. The other thing you can say is that you felt threatened by me, or that you had a lack of knowledge. Okay? So pick one of those three. If ever you need to.”

“Got it,” she said. “I’ll pick the last one. I don’t know nothin’. Yes. Lack of knowledge, that seems like the one.” She took his hand and looked up into his eyes. “Kit, just tell me. Overall, what do you want for the planet? What’s the goal here?”

He paused. Made a wistful hum. “I guess it comes down to one word. Wilder. I want things to be a bit wilder, so that the wild things can live. Like, ninety percent of the weight on the planet is made up of humans and their stuff and the animals that feed them. There’s hardly room left for anything else! That’s wrong! We need things wilder. That is my mission. That is my word.”

“The planet to be wilder,” she said.

“And people’s hearts.”

“And our time on earth.”

“Exactly.”

“Wilder,” she repeated. “Truer.” She felt satisfied. “I need to sleep now.” She could barely form words. “You have my promise. You have my friendship. I swear it on all good explorers’ graves. But do stay with me tonight. Next to me. Then you can stay or leave, I get it. But I need to not be alone at this particular moment in time.”

CHAPTER 11

Head, knee, butt.

Joints, muscles, nerves.

Plinks, zings, chimes.

Pain came in so many flavors of lousy. But then there was this: She woke to her face pressed against Kit’s arm, her own arm thrown over his chest. Companionship for the skin was the phrase that drifted across her mind as she drifted back to sleep. She woke the second time to desire. The old ancient human glory surpassed even pain, which seemed unbelievable, but there it was, thrumming. Survival of the soul trumps all. That was the phrase that floated in her brain when she opened her eyes to find his weathered-rock-colored green eyes looking back with a fond and concerned expression. Before her reasonable brain could step in and ruin everything, she leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek, and then when he didn’t pull back, kissed him on the lips, and when she pulled back, he leaned into her and kissed her. A soft brush of a kiss, but with just enough pressure to signal that lust existed alongside fondness. Then they smiled at each other and then she fell asleep. The third time she woke, she was alone. Coffee was next to her in a thermos and underneath it, a note.

K, I need to leave for good. But it’s to protect people and it’s done with regret. Wish we were both less alone. And I’ve had some lovely daydreams about you. But, onward, before it gets messy, because what else? That’s what you said in your sleep last night. “Because what else?” This planet is all we got—remind people of that. For the wild, K.

She felt the vacuum of sadness drop through her body. But better to feel it, to let the disappointment sting, and then to remember the kiss, surely the gentlest, softest kiss she’d ever received.

From bed, she looked out the window and watched the wind whip the dirt around, and then she got up, dressed, checked the bandage, threw on a winter cap to keep the bandage in place but also to conceal it, put Lady in the car, and drove without thinking much to the Cave Valley Cabins. One problem at a time, she thought. Just. Go. But it was a softer, calmer directive than it had been in times past.

She pulled up to the office and was walking toward it when she saw a kid dart by with blond curly hair poking under a red cap. “Lulu,” she found herself saying. “You’re still here!”

Lulu wheeled around and trotted back. “You’re the woman from the parking lot who names things! We’ll be here for a long time. My grandpa is friends with the owner. They fought in a war together a long time ago. Are you staying here?”

“No. I’m staying in a little trailer. But it’s small, and it gets lonely.”

Lulu scratched at her wool cap. “You have some blood or lipstick on your cheek! I wanted a veggie burger for early lunch so Grandpa Dan is making me one. Want to share?”

“Aw, I don’t want to eat your lunch.” She thumbed off the blood and could hear the lack of sincerity in her voice; she was too exhausted to object to much of anything at the moment, and literally, there was nothing she wanted more than a burger, and so added, “Actually, that sounds really fun, can I accept?” and watched Lulu run off, blond curls and red hat bouncing.

A woman a little older than she was, but much brighter and cheerier and full of zest, emerged from the cabin that said Office. She wore a coral fuzzy coat and matching lipstick and had blond-white hair tucked into a knitted hat of various shades of peach. She was holding a big white bag of what was presumably laundry and was humming a song.

“Excuse me?” Ammalie said. “I don’t suppose you want help if it’s just for a few weeks or so? No pay, just in trade for a place to stay? I assume you want something longer term?”

The woman raised her eyebrows and said, “Yes, something longer term.”

“I myself wouldn’t want to hire such short-term work, I agree,” Ammalie plunged ahead. “But I’m traveling through, could use something to do, a bed to sleep on. I’m honest and a hard worker. I don’t want pay. I want a bed.” It all came out in a rush, and in the awkward pause that followed, she started to add something about its being a bad idea and then stopped talking altogether.

The woman looked at her with a tilt of her head and raised an eyebrow at something; perhaps, Ammalie thought, she still had a smear of blood on her cheek. “Sorry, I just…don’t think it would work.”

Ammalie bowed her head. “I understand.”

“Nothing personal.”

“When I was a waitress, we hated hiring short-term people. All that training.”

“You waitressed?”

“Twenty-some years.” Ammalie’s eyes went to the bird feeders, which were being swarmed by birds of all colors and sizes, and found herself musing, “You know, everyone kept expecting me to become some kind of professional, to move on to something else. But don’t you think they were making some assumptions? About what we value? I valued flexibility. And ease. And it was a good gig and I could parent during the days and work nights and it helped my husband launch his career.”

“Oh, I wasn’t criticizing!”

Ammalie smiled. “Sorry. I just feel lately like I have to defend my choice, even to myself. Anyway, I never did actually intend to let so much time slip away. But it did. Slip. That’s why I’m traveling. Living it up.” Ammalie heard her voice trailing off at the end; she felt too tired to complete sentences and the birds were too mesmerizing. It was cold enough that her words created a puff of mist, and she watched it drift away from her and toward the birds at the feeders.

“What else did you do?”

“Mothered.” She touched her greenstone necklace. “Mothered and waitressed and was a wife. It’s not much, is it?”

“Well, actually,” the woman mused, “it kinda is. Or can be. If done well. I’m Rita. Did you do it well?”

Ammalie nodded slowly. “More or less, yes. I did. I tried. I suppose it’s fair to say that my customers, my husband, and my son felt loved, attended to, acknowledged…and sometimes even delighted!” She added this bit with a surprise in her voice, because she was surprised with the truth of it. It had been true. Sure, she wished she’d had a little more…spunk, but really, she had put in a lot. Day by day. Moment by moment. She had given.

Rita bit her lip. “Okay. I’ll write down your license plate and come after you with the law if anything goes askew around here.” She glanced at the car, as if to do just that, and then added, “Oh, but wait, is that a dog I see?”

Ammalie turned around to see Lady in the car, looking out the window at them expectantly. “That’s Lady Shackleton.”

“Ah, no dogs on the grounds, sorry. They scare away the birds. And birds are why people come. Love the name, though. Beats ‘Scout.’ ”

Tears blurred her eyes. Lady was so pure and good. And Ammalie was so tired. And why did things contradict like this? “I understand…totally. That makes complete sense. She’s not my dog, actually. I found her. She had…blood on her head. And…cigarette burns or something on her rump. And no tags. I just took her. I didn’t know what to do…”

Rita was still staring at the dog. “Rex used to have a dog that looked like that.”