Zeke is standing ten feet away.
“Oh my God!” I exclaim, sinking against the door as relief bowls me over. “How did you get out?” I demand to know, my voice thick with accusation.
He answers with a loud bleat, marching toward me, his hooves leaving little round tracks in the snow.
“No. What are you … Shoo!”
He ignores my wild waving hand, moving in to nip at the bell on my right wrist. I wrench it away and step back. He follows, making another attempt, flashing his gnarly brown teeth, the smell of his fur making my nose curl.
As much as I’d love to go inside and leave him out here until Jonah comes home to deal with him, there’s a chance he’ll wander off and get himself eaten. A vision of Jonah flying home to find a goat carcass lying on the runway hits me, and I know what I must do. “Ugh … come on.” I follow Jonah’s boot prints from earlier around to the back of the house, checking over my shoulder several times to confirm that Zeke is following. The snow is deep, and by the time I reach the unlatched door to the pen—set some distance from our house—my ankles are chilled with snow and the hairs on the back of my neck have risen again with that eerie sense I’m being watched. I give a furtive scan around the trees but see no movement.
“Relax, Calla,” I say out loud as I pull open the gate—the only part of the enclosure that isn’t electrified—hoping my voice carries. Little good it does for my nerves.
Raccoon chatter answers a moment before Bandit’s tiny black-and-gray triangular face pokes out from the door leading into the chicken coop. He’s taken to his new home and companion more readily than we expected, though it’ll be interesting to see if he’s as willing to be penned up come the warmer
weather.
“You let him out, didn’t you?” I accuse Bandit, luring Zeke back in, avoiding the piles of goat poop littering the trodden snow. I push the gate shut behind him, taking a few minutes to figure out how to fasten the latch. If I didn’t know better, I wouldn’t believe that Bandit could have managed it.
With the goat safe within his cage, I pause, taking a moment to study the two faces staring back at me. I shake my head. “Is this my life now? Spending my days talking to a raccoon and a goat?”
Zeke bleats and kicks at the fence, rattling the entire structure.
I hurry inside, my gaze on the surrounding forest the entire way.
* * *
Jonah plows through the door, bringing a wave of blustering cold with him. Temperatures have dropped with the impending storm. “Hey, babe.”
My eyes dart to the clock, though I already know the exact time, down to the minute. 7:04 p.m. Two hours from when he was supposed to arrive. Just one hour before sunset.
“Hi,” I push through gritted teeth. When I heard the plane coming in thirty minutes ago, relief coursed through every fiber of my body. Now, I’ve also had a half hour to stew in my anger.
He tosses his coat onto the hook and kicks off his boots. “Somethin’ smells good.”
“Soup.”
“Is that the mix you bought the other day?”
I hesitate, weighing civility over my irritation. I’ve learned that Jonah despises canned soup, so when I saw the packaged mix—spices and dry ingredients, with instructions to add meat and vegetables, as if from scratch—I threw three into the cart. “Yes,” I answer crisply.
“Nice. I was thinkin’ about that. Sounds like we’re gonna get snowed in starting late tonight. I’ve gotta bring in a bunch of wood for us.” He empties his pockets onto the desk—a wad of cash that I assume is from the run today, a fuel receipt, the satellite phone, and his iPhone. He leans in to kiss me.
I give him my cheek.
It might be the first time I’ve ever done that.
Finally, he seems to get the message. “Is something wrong?”
“Seriously?” I meet his blue eyes, his furrowed brow. Is he that oblivious? “You were supposed to be home at five.”
“I got hung up talkin’ to Bo Sterling and ended up givin’ him a ride to Talkeetna. It was on the way.”
“And you didn’t think to call me?”
“I did call you. When I landed in Unalakleet. Remember? I stayed on the line with you for almost ten minutes while you walked home?”
“Jonah! I was two seconds away from calling the state troopers and reporting you missing!” My voice cracks.