ETERNAL DEVOTION
Some walks are longer than others.
The old wolf licked the dirt, sniffed, then settled into his rich and rocky pillow.
Mother is dead and she has no immediate family. We take care of our own in these parts even if they never ask for help. This ancient woman is one of us, so we pool our money, buy a good pine box, and bury her at the foot of the forever forest, also pine, where she was happiest—she would disappear into the soaring cathedral for days on end. And she never talked about it.
We knew he would make his way to her after we completed our mortal tribute. You could feel his eyes. There was no need to have him raise a ruckus at the cemetery gate. We would not win that argument, and he had lost enough.
For four days the wolf did not move. Hunters saw him. Birdwatchers, too. I stopped my truck and peered through binoculars. We talked about it over coffee at Mona’s Diner, the hardware store, and in front of the post office. There was a picture in the Gazette. I thought about both of them every night before nodding off.
On day five, Old Sheepears—anyone who remembers how he got that nickname is long dead—hurried into Mona’s and said he has vanished, and so has she.
A bunch of us begin trekking to the south of town. Tripling up in pick-ups, cabs jammed, we are a serpentine line of Fords and Chevy’s, mostly, and the jostling beds are full, too. Some hang off footboards.
It had snowed overnight, and we see a rounded depression in the white blanket and four fat paws heading west, deeper into the forest. We also see two bare feet walking side by side with the wolf. The dirt is not disturbed but it smells disturbed. We all breathed it in and anyone who denies it is a liar.
The aroma of eternal devotion still lingers on most days.
Find me at Mona’s. We can walk up together.
And breathe them.