Destroyer Angel: An Anna Pigeon Novel (Anna Pigeon Mysteries) by Nevada Barr Page B

cold night air.
    “Fucking wolves!” Anna heard Reg yell. Then came the din of a gun firing wildly as he shot into the trees surrounding the camp.
    Abruptly, the howling ceased.
    It had been howling, not barking, yet Anna knew it was Wily. He’d reached back into his ancestry, leaned his head back, and howled with such heartbreak she wanted to howl with him.
    From much farther away, howls began to haunt the night. Wild wolves answering the sorrowful call of their civilized brother. Reg’s gun hand shook. He reached into the pocket of his hoodie and pulled out another magazine.
    The dude stared at him. Reg didn’t acknowledge the look, but he didn’t begin firing into the dark again either.
    Elizabeth was alive. Even had she been dead or dying, there was nothing more Anna could do. Her eyes were too full of filth even to watch and weep. Using the cries of her friends and the excited gabble of the thugs as cover noise, she crawled into the greater darkness in search of Wily.
    She did not find Wily; Wily found her. He had dragged himself nearly to the camp, and his family. The thumping of his tail on pine needles announced his presence. Anna felt for him. The familiar touch of his fur, and the lack of any warm wet places on his hide, reassured her he’d not been hit by a stray bullet. Cross-legged, she gathered him onto her lap. Wily found her eyes and began licking. “Gross,” she whispered, but she didn’t stop him. His tongue was soft and wet and felt good cleaning what had to be a double handful of cockleburs from beneath her eyelids.
    Jimmy was yelling about having shot a wolf. The wolves—the real wolves—were miles away. Much as she’d love to see a wolf, a half-blind woman and lame dog might look sort of tempting. Regardless of the logic, she wasn’t afraid. Part of her believed wolves, mountain lions, bears—all the creatures of the wilds—would give her a bye. Too much Disney as a girl, she suspected, the creatures of the forest nestling in Snow White’s skirts.
    “You hit shit, dickwad,” Sean said.
    “Let’s go,” Anna whispered in Wily’s ear. Tail feathers brushed over her forearm where it curled around his hindquarters. Eyes still stinging and tearing, Anna worked her way to her feet in stages. With no light to tell up from down, she was afraid she might fall. Enough strange noises and eventually even these thugs would get suspicious a creature other than a windigo or a wolf skulked in these woods. Once sure of her footing, she bent down and lifted up Wily. Wily wasn’t a big dog; still, he weighed close to thirty-five pounds. That was the upper limit Anna allowed herself in a backpack if she was going any distance.
    Clutching the compliant dog, she made her way slowly away from the river deeper into the trees. Every few steps she looked back to see if the glow of the campfire could still be seen. It was the only way she could judge whether she and Wily would be out of sight of the thugs when the sun rose.
    When the orange glow was entirely swallowed, and Wily’s weight had grown onerous, Anna stumbled into the umpteenth dead-and-down tree and declared it home for the night. Sitting on it, she swung her legs over, then slid to the ground. Wily’s weight resting on her thighs, her back against the log, they shared body heat. Fatigue and shock helped Morpheus drag her fast and deep into sleep.
    *   *   *
    Approaching footsteps woke her. Gray diffuse light proclaimed coming sunrise. Their cloak of invisibility was gone for another twelve hours. A growl, more vibration than sound, came from beneath her hand. Wily neither let the growl grow, nor did he bark. Anna should have been surprised, but she wasn’t. By the glare of an LED light, she had seen inside him, and he inside her. They were comrades in arms. Words no longer mattered.
    The steps closed in on the log she and the dog sheltered behind. After hours immobile, on the cold ground, with thirty-five pounds of dog flesh on her legs,