Читаем Back of Beyond полностью

Toothbrush. Glasses. I got up at 2:30 to make sure I packed underwear. I had a nightmare I didn’t bring underwear and I had to borrow a f**king thong from Danielle.

She lowered the phone to her lap with the screen facing away from her sister and looked through the window. There were no buildings, no roads, no power lines. To the south was a vast river valley with tall grass that rippled in the cold morning breeze. A ribbon of river that looked like sheet metal serpentined through the valley floor. To the north the terrain seemed to swell and rise to meet tendrils of pine trees, and above them a dark wall of forest.

“Oh my God,” her dad said as the car slowed suddenly. “Look, girls: wolves.”

Gracie snapped her phone shut and hurled herself forward. All her life she’d wanted to see a wolf.

Her dad pulled over to the side of the two-lane blacktop and rolled down his window. The small of pine, sage, and cool fresh air wafted in. He pointed toward the river.

“See them, at that bend? Near those big rocks the sun is starting to hit?”

Gracie threw her arms over the front seat and squinted where her father was pointing. Far below, she saw movement.

“They look like dots,” she said. “Two little dots.”

“They’re wolves,” her dad said. “Aren’t they magnificent?”

Magnificent dots, she thought. She wished she could see them closer or figure out what they were doing to make them seem magnificent to her father, who tended toward hyperbole.

“Here,” her father said, handing her a pair of binoculars that still had the price tag on them. “You focus using that little wheel in the middle.”

While Gracie tried to manipulate the binoculars and frantically rolled the wheel all the way to the left and then to the right and finally realized she was bringing the hood ornament into sharp relief, she heard her dad say to Danielle, “Don’t you want to see these fantastic animals, Danny?”

“Maybe in a minute,” Danielle said, still texting.

“They may be gone in a minute,” he said, trying to disguise the disappointment in his voice.

Gracie finally figured out where to point, and started bringing the animals into focus.

“Dad, it’s not like we won’t have a chance to see wolves,” Danielle said, not looking up from her phone. “Aren’t we going to be in the middle of nowhere for five friggin’ days? We’ll be sleeping with wolves. Like that movie.”

Gracie mumbled, “Dancing with wolves, not sleeping with them,” as she brought the animals into sharp detail.

“Whatever,” Danielle said sharply.

“I think there’s a difference,” Gracie whispered, and not too loudly, wishing she’d never said anything at all. To confirm her thought, Danielle drove a sharp fingernail into her ribs that made her jump and lose the animals. She recovered and refocused.

Then she sighed, sat back, and handed the binoculars to her father. “Those are coyotes, not wolves.”

“Oh, come on,” he said, taking the glasses back.

She waited. She could tell he wanted to turn them into wolves.

Finally, he said, “I’ll be damned. I thought they were wolves.” He was disappointed they were coyotes and seemed disappointed in Gracie for pointing it out.

Gracie said, “Dad, I read those books you sent us. You know, The Wildlife of Yellowstone, Yellowstone Flora and Fauna, Death in Yellowstone, The Geysers of Yellowstone. I read them. I studied them,” she said, hoping for a grunt of appreciation. “You know,” she said, “so Danny wouldn’t have to.”

That got a smile out of him.

“You suck,” Danielle mumbled. “Some of us have lives.”

“You read those books?” her dad asked, nodding.

“Some of them more than once,” Gracie confessed, and wished she hadn’t. She sounded so … without a life. But the fact was she was captivated with the books about a place on earth that could hold so many fascinating things that weren’t made or constructed by man. It had never occurred to her before she read those books that there was an amazing natural location not designed or driven by people. It made her think about how small she was. How small everybody was.

“Don’t drive off, Dad,” Danielle said.

“Do you want to take a look, then?” her dad asked eagerly, handing the binoculars over his shoulder so Danielle could grab them.

“Naw. I’ve got a good signal here,” she said, deadpan.

“It’s gonna get worse,” Gracie said. “In fact, we’ll lose it for good in a minute.”

Danielle looked up, horrified. “Shut up,” she said to Gracie. There was terror in her eyes. Then: “Dad, tell me that’s not true.”