The Loop by Nicholas Evans Read Free Book Online Page A

field again, like the good old days in Minnesota, where the phone and the fax couldn’t get you. But it was out of the question. He had too much to do and no one except Donna to off-load it on. Bill Rimmer had generously volunteered to help with any trapping, but in truth he was more overworked than anyone.
    Wolf recovery had long been a political football but lately all the goals seemed to have been scored by those politicians who opposed it. As the wolf population grew, so did the controversy surrounding it. The more incidents like this there were, the harder it became to argue for more tax dollars and manpower to handle them. Dan had seen his budgets cut to the bone. Now even the bones were going. Sometimes, in an emergency, he managed to shuffle someone from another job for a month or two or borrow a research student or one of the volunteers they used down in Yellowstone.
    The trouble was, this was more than just a trap-and-collar job. Hope could easily turn out to be the most severe test yet for the whole recovery program.
    With the town’s deep hatred of the wolf and the fact that the media were already making a meal of it, whoever Dan sent in wouldn’t simply have to be good at trapping and tracking wolves. He, or she, would have to be a skilled communicator, sensitive to local feelings yet strong enough to stand up to bullies like Buck Calder. Biologists with such an array of talent were hard to find.
    The Cessna reached the end of another eastward run and Dan turned it once more and, as it tilted, looked down to see the town of Hope laid out like a surveyor’s model. An eighteen-wheeler cattle truck that looked small enough to pluck with your fingers was pulling out of the gas station. The bends of the river flashed like chrome between the cottonwoods.
    Dan glanced down at the fuel gauge. There was just enough juice for one more pass, then they’d call it a day.
    This time he flew directly over the Calder ranch where a few cattle stood out like black ants on the sunbleached grass. A car was winding its way through the hills toward the Hicks place. Another damn reporter, no doubt.
    Once they reached the forest, he flew lower, as low as he dared, the tree and canyon tops skidding away crazily beneath the plane’s shadow. Then, just as he was lifting the nose for the final climb, he caught a glimpse of something up ahead, a pale gray form slipping out of sight over a rocky ridge. His heart leapt and he looked at Rimmer and knew he’d seen it too.
    Neither one of them spoke and the ten seconds it took to reach the place seemed much longer. Dan swung the plane out to one side and dipped the inside wing as they crested the ridge and they both peered down its far side where the animal had gone.
    ‘I got him,’ Rimmer said.
    ‘Where?’
    ‘Just going into the trees by that long slab of rock.’ He paused. ‘It’s a coyote. Real big fella though.’ He turned to Dan and gave him a consoling grin. Dan shrugged.
    ‘Time we were headed home.’
    ‘Yep. Looks like a job for the trap man.’
    Dan put the Cessna into a final turn and the sun dazzled briefly through the windshield. Then he leveled the wings and set course for Helena.
    And somewhere below, in a wild place that was still a young man’s secret, the wolves heard the drone of the plane’s engine fade and die.

5
    H elen Ross hated New York. And she hated it even more when it was ninety-four degrees and the air was so humid you felt like a clam being baked in traffic fumes.
    On her rare visits here, she always resolved to approach the place like a biologist, to observe the behavior of the curious species who trod its sidewalks and try to deduce why some actually seemed to enjoy its relentless glare and blare. But she always failed miserably. And after a customary moment of childish exhilaration upon arrival she would feel her face rearrange itself into a defensive cynical scowl.
    The scowl was firmly in place right now. And sitting at the cramped table on