Wolf Winter Pickup truck on the icy road, tires skidding on the new frost, headlights bumping through the shrouded forest. Me riding shotgun, my father’s Winchester .45 across my lap. The radio tuned to the country station, low and staticky, the distant twang of banjos. The truck slows, grinds off the highway, tires crunching on snowy gravel. The trees flash by, trunks high and thin like the toothpicks my older brother sticks between his teeth after dinner at Joe’s Roadhouse, imitating my father. The headlights swing right, towards the dark hulk of the cabin, windows glowing like lanterns against the snow. I think I see snarling shapes fly past in the shadow-choked woods. My father pulls up next to the garage, kills the engine. Teddy whines in the backseat, claws at the window. Dad swats him on the furry rump, sends him skittering out into the icy night air. I cry Dad, no! and grab for Teddy’s collar, but I miss and my fingers end up brushing his warm coat as he rockets off into the trees. There are animals out there! I don’t say wolves because Dad will tell me that I’m being stupid. Everyone knows that there aren’t any wolves left around here. Will comes out of the house then, flannel and Carhartt, smelling like pine and the cheap cigarettes he smokes behind the house when he thinks my father can’t see him. Mags, our shaggy brown bitch, tags at his heels, tail wagging low and servile. Will runs an absent hand across the crown of her head, asks Dad, what took so long? Some jackass ran his car off the road, me and Clay were pullin’ it back. A blue minivan beached like a whale on the high white snowbank, kids in parkas huddling at its flank. Snow flurries in the yellow beam of the truck headlights. Clay LaRoux, a bear of a man with hands the size of snowplows, dragging a pair of chains that leave deep canyons through the snow. Dad talking to the driver in the slow, easy way that men do, clapping his shoulder. The roar of the truck’s engine, snow spinning up
Pillars of Salt 37
