Sam stood on the bank of the pond, staring into the water. On the other side, a family of loons searched for food among the reeds. A beaver swam toward its lodge carrying a branch. The young loons, some of them paddling in the water, some on the backs of the parents, seemed, to Sam, to be content: a feeling that was far from him at that moment.
He reached down and scratched Wolf’s ear. The animal was watching the birds and the rodent.
“You leave them be,” Sam said. “You got no cause to be hunting them. I feed you well enough.”
Wolf looked up and whined, shifting his weight from paw to paw, as if to say, “Yeah, but the wolf part of me wants to hunt.”
Wolf turned his head away from the pond. Sam followed his gaze. He heard a noise. Garrett was approaching from the direction of the thicke
