Songs of Love and Death: All-Original Tales of Star-crossed Love

“’Till Death We Do Part” says the familiar vow—but what about after that? Once your lover is gone, might your love be strong enough to draw them back? And would you want it to?

Lisa Tuttle made her first fiction sale in 1972 to the Clarion II anthology, after having attended the Clarion workshop, and by 1974 had won the John W. Campbell Award for best new writer of the year. She has gone on to become one of the most respected writers of her generation, winning the Nebula Award in 1981 for her story “The Bone Flute”—which, in a still controversial move, she refused to accept—and the Arthur C. Clarke Award in 1993 for her novel Lost Futures. Her other books include a novel in collaboration with George R. R. Martin, Windhaven; the solo novels Familiar Spirit, Gabriel, The Pillow Friend, The Mysteries, and The Silver Bough; as well as several books for children; the nonfiction works Heroines and Encyclopaedia of Feminism; and, as editor, Skin of the Soul. Her copious short work has been collected in A Nest of Nightmares, Spaceship Built of Stone and Other Stories, Memories of the Body: Tales of Desire and Transformation, Ghosts and Other Lovers, and My Pathology. Born in Texas, she moved to Great Britain in 1980, and now lives with her family in Scotland.

His Wolf

The wolf was standing on the grass behind the library. It wasn’t one of those big, powerful, northern timber wolves you see in the movies, but the much smaller, leaner, actually kind of scrawny-looking gray wolf that was long ago native to Texas.

At least, I’d thought they were extinct… but then I remembered stories the students told about panthers, bears, and other dangerous animals that had survived in patches of woodland they called the Big Thicket, and the hairs on the back of my neck prickled. I just knew this was a wild animal, nobody’s pet.

And yet I wasn’t afraid. Instinct might have made my heart beat faster and charged my muscles, but I didn’t want to flee or fight: I was purely thrilled by this strange meeting, feeling as if I’d been allowed to walk into a different world.

I took a step.

“Lobo! Here!” A man’s voice rang out, sharp as a whip crack, and the animal turned away. My heart dropped, and then I was annoyed. Of course somebody owned this animal. Some stupid, posturing fool.

Hitching my heavy book bag up my shoulder, I folded my arms across my chest and checked him out.

I’ve heard it said that people resemble their pets, and there was something a little lupine about him—maybe it was his lean, rangy body, or the way he stood, as if ready to take off running, or leap to the attack. He wore a plain gray T-shirt, shorts, and running shoes, but nothing else about him looked either casual or modern. His dark face had a keen, hungry edge, emphasized by the narrow blade of his nose. His age I guessed to be near my own, in that shadow line between youth and age. He certainly wasn’t a student, and I didn’t recognize him as a member of the faculty or the support staff. I’d never seen him before, and he didn’t look like he belonged. He was as out of place here as the wolf.

Speaking quietly, he said, “He won’t hurt you.”

“Do I look scared?” I snapped. “And what do you mean by calling a Mexican wolf ‘Lobo’? Doesn’t he deserve his own name?”

He smiled without showing his teeth. “What makes you think he’s a Mexican wolf?”

“Because there haven’t been wolves in Texas for a long time—unless they wandered across the border.”

“We’re a long way from the border here, ma’am.”

Of course we were. And the wolf hadn’t exactly walked here by himself. I realized that I was still clinging to my fantasy of a wild creature, and embarrassment made me lash out.

“Yes, of course, you could have bought him anywhere—Houston, New Orleans? These hybrids are popular because some people think they’re too special to just buy a dog. Gotta take a walk on the wild side. What’d they tell you, he’s ninety-eight percent purebred canis lupus? So you call him ‘wolf,’ like that’ll make it true.”

“I didn’t buy him. I don’t know what anybody says he is, and I don’t care. Why shouldn’t I call him Lobo?”

“It’s… insulting. Imagine if people called you hombre.”

The tight smile again. “They call me wolf-man.”

I’d heard that name before, from snatches of overheard student conversation, but didn’t know its significance, so I shrugged. “Maybe, but you have your own name. Doesn’t Lobo deserve as much?”

The wolf gave a small groan, and I saw that he was quivering as if longing to break free.

The man laughed, a short bark, and gave me a measuring look. “What’ve you got in that bag, barbecue?”

I frowned. “Books. Why?”

“I’m trying to figure what’s the big attraction.”

“Maybe he senses that I care. Why don’t you let him come?”

For a second, I thought that he would refuse, but he snapped, “Go free.”

Immediately, the wolf sprang at me. I kept still, not from fear, but simply careful, as I would be with any strange dog, not to alarm him with any sudden moves. And he was equally careful, sniffing at me gently, almost daintily, before moving closer, inviting me to stroke his head.

“He’s very friendly,” I said.

“No he’s not.” At my look, he went on. “I don’t mean he’s aggressive—he’d never attack a human being, and only fights dogs if he’s forced to defend himself. But he’s always kept his distance, from everyone—everyone but me.”

Lobo had relaxed. Now he was leaning into me as I scratched behind his ears; he was loving it. I laughed. “You’re kidding. Look at this big baby! He’s starving for attention.”

“He gets plenty. I know you think I’m some kind of stupid bad-ass hick, but I do look after him.”

The real hurt in his words took me aback. “Of course! It’s obvious you care about each other.” As I spoke, I looked up, straight into the man’s eyes. They were brown, mostly dark, but flecked with a lighter color: the flashing gold of the wolf’s eye, and I was suddenly breathless in the unexpected intimacy of his gaze. I didn’t even know his name. Gathering my wits, remembering my manners, I put out my hand. “How do you do? I’m Katherine Hills.”

The barest flicker of hesitation, then he gripped my hand. “Cody. Cody Vela. Listen, I can’t hang around. I—Lobo’s waiting for his afternoon run.”

The wolf’s ears pricked.

“Oh, well, sure. It was nice meeting you,” I said, feeling flat.

“Want to come along?”

My heart leaped like a crazy thing, but I grimaced and gestured at my long cotton skirt and sandals. “I’m hardly dressed for running, even supposing I could keep up with you two.”

“Come along for the ride. I’m going into the Thicket. Ever been there? No? Really?” He sounded astonished. “Then you have to.”

I rarely acted on impulse, and hadn’t gone off with anyone “for the ride” since I was fifteen, but I agreed, and followed after the lean, dark man and the lightly stepping wolf as if it were a perfectly natural thing to do.

His car, a big, black, new-looking SUV, was parked a short distance away, on the street. It wasn’t a spot convenient to anywhere, hidden away behind the blank, limestone back wall of the library, and since the visitor parking lot was never crowded on a weekday afternoon, I wondered what had brought him here.

“Do you work on campus?” I asked as I buckled up.

“What do you mean?”

“Are you employed by the college?”

He laughed sharply. “Oh, definitely not!”

“Related to one of the students?”

Shaking his head, he started the engine and pulled away from the curb. “Are you saying you’ve never heard of the wolf-man?”

“I only moved here in August. So I haven’t had time to learn about all the local characters, or go into the woods.”

“Tsk-tsk. What have you been doing with your time?”

“Planning my classes, teaching…”

“What department?”

“English.”

“You like books.”

There was an understatement! Literature was the great passion of my life. I murmured a restrained agreement, and gazed out the window as we left the quiet, shady college grounds, expecting he’d change the subject.

“What’s your favorite book?”

“Oh, I couldn’t possibly name just one.”

“Favorite author?”

That was easier. “Virginia Woolf.”

“Of course.” He turned his head, and I met his gaze quickly, nervously, before he returned to watching where he was going, smiling to himself.

“What do you mean, ‘of course’?”

“I knew you reminded me of somebody. That long, graceful neck, beautiful, deep eyes, full lips…”

I felt a warm flush of pleasure at his admiring words.

“People must have told you that before? Don’t they call you the Woolf-woman?” He grinned. “That should be your nickname on campus, around the English department, at least.”

“I don’t have a nickname. Not that I’ve ever heard.” Nobody here was interested enough to give me a special name, but I wasn’t going to tell him that. That he knew something about Virginia Woolf intrigued me. “So who’s your favorite author?”

“Dostoyevsky. Although I like Stephen King a lot. And James Lee Burke. There, I’ve surprised you. You probably thought I dropped out of high school—well, I did, but that doesn’t mean I don’t read. I like reading. Good books, that is.”

We passed the city limits sign, and he picked up speed.

“City limits”—it struck me as a sick joke to apply the name of city to a town with a population that only brushed six thousand when college was in session. Almost every day I asked myself what I was doing here.

“So what brought you to this neck of the woods?”

“I needed a job; the college needed an English teacher. It was all kind of last-minute; we’d both been let down.” I didn’t feel like going into detail.

“You’re not from the South.”

“Chicago.”

“Wow. I’ve never been there. It must be different.” He went on to ask questions that were easy for me to answer without touching on anything too personal. As I talked about weather and food and Oprah, he took the highway heading south, driving past the turn-off to the poky little trailer I called home. A few minutes later, he turned east, onto a road I’d never taken because it didn’t go anywhere except deeper into the woods and swamps of rural east Texas.

“Do you drive out to run in the country every day?”

“Pretty much. Sometimes we stick closer to home, but I prefer places where we won’t meet anybody. He needs at least two good runs a day. It’s not natural for a wolf to be stuck inside a house or a car all day, even if I have to be.”

“You take him with you?”

“We go everywhere together,” he said. “Wolves are pack animals. That thing people say about a lone wolf, it’s just wrong. Maybe, if I had some others, and a big enough yard… but I won’t make him live like a prisoner.”

I’d had a dog when I was a kid, but not since. One thing I’d had in mind when I moved to Texas was to rent a place with a fenced yard and a landlord who wasn’t opposed to pets, and it was the detail that my new home had previously been used as a “hunting cabin” and included a sizable kennels, that made me agree to a year’s lease, sight unseen. But when I saw the kennels—the concrete floor, the high chain-link fence—they looked like Guantanamo.

“You got a problem with that?” He challenged my silence.

“Not at all. I’d love to have a dog, but I couldn’t leave it alone five days a week. I guess it’s even more important, if you’re going to buy a wolf—”

“I didn’t buy him.”

I gazed ahead at the empty road, dappled with long shadows, and the dark depths of the forest on either side. “You found him?”

He made a noise that might have been agreement, and I said, “A full-grown wolf? He must have belonged to somebody. Couldn’t you find his owner?”

His face showed nothing, but his hands tightened on the steering wheel. “If I could find the bastard who had him first, I’d kill him. Slowly. I’d make him die in agony, do to him what he wanted to do to my wolf.”

The icy malice in his voice chilled me. “What happened?”

“It was just after I’d gotten back from”—he hesitated—“well, that doesn’t matter. I’d been away, and then I came back. About two years ago. I grew up in these parts, and when I was a kid, I used to go hunting and fishing and camping in the Thicket, but not after I grew up. I hadn’t set foot in the woods for ten years, at least, until that day I suddenly got this urge. I just wanted to get away from everybody and everything, away from civilization, so I drove east, into the woods, and turned off the highway onto one of the old timber routes, and drove until it was too rough and grown over to drive any farther, and then I left the car.

“I kept to the trail, of course. Everybody who grows up in these parts knows how easy it is to get lost if you don’t. There are stories about people getting lost for days within a couple miles of the road, that’s how thick and tangled it is. You can be in the middle of a swamp before you know it, with that kind of mud that sucks you down.

“I knew how it was. I’m not stupid. But after I’d been walking for about an hour, I started feeling that this old road wasn’t going to take me where I had to go. Had to go. I didn’t know why, or where it was, but I felt more and more that there was some point to this trip, and if I kept to the trail, I was never going to find out what it was.

“So I left the trail. I used my knife to mark my path, so I could find my way back. I’d done it before, only back then, I’d had a reason—a deer I’d shot but hadn’t killed, a duck or a quail I’d brought down into the brush—and this time the only thing I was following was some kind of instinct or intuition.”

He shook his head, gazing out at the road ahead but seeing, I was sure, the forests in his mind. “I’m not somebody who gets ‘feelings,’ you know? I never believed in that woo-woo psychic spirit stuff. I still don’t, except…” He scowled, gripping the wheel harder, and behind us, Lobo gave a deep sigh.

“I can’t explain why I left the trail and slashed my way deeper into the woods, why I went that way and no other. But I did, and I reckon I walked at least a mile, to a place so far off the map you’d swear nobody else had been there in about a century, except that there was this wolf, chained by the neck to a tree, and he damn sure hadn’t done that to himself.

“I thought he was dead, at first. I thought I’d come too late. But then as I crouched next to him, I felt his heart still beating. It was a near thing, though. God knows how long he’d been stuck there, with no chance of freeing himself, with nothing to eat or drink.”

Angry tears started to my eyes. “Who’d do such a thing?”

“A person.” He almost spat the word. “In the old days, people told their kids stories about the big, bad wolf, and men who were especially cruel and horrible were said to be like animals, maybe werewolves. But the things ordinary men do every day are a million times worse than anything a wolf would do. A wolf would never torture another animal to death, or lock it up. They kill out of instinct, in order to survive, because they have to—not because they just feel like it, not because they’re evil. Not like us. Man is the scariest animal on the planet, but from the beginning of time, the wolf has gotten the bad rap. We’ve tried to pretend that evil is out there, lurking inside animals beyond the campfire, and not where it really is, in here.” He tapped his chest.

“You saved his life.”

“Yeah. And he changed mine.” He shrugged. “Don’t they say, if you save a life, you take responsibility for it? I guess I could have taken him to one of those animal-rescue places, but that would have been like leaving him to die in prison, or risk him falling into the hands of some other sadistic bastard. It was up to me to make sure that the life I’d saved was worth living. It’s not that hard, you know. Enough food, plenty of exercise outdoors, companionship. Lucky we like the same things.”

As he spoke, he took a sudden turn off the road, hardly slowing as we moved onto a heavily rutted, unpaved track. I held on for dear life as we rocked and bounced deeper into the forest.

“I thought this was a state park?” The way the trees loomed over us, old and heavy with moss, so thick they blocked the sun, made me uncomfortable.

“Some of the Thicket’s a national preserve, but we tend to steer clear of their trails,” he said. “No pets allowed, and if too many people start seeing a wolf, they might come looking for the wolf-man. This old road here, it was used for logging. I think it winds up in some old ghost town. There’s all sorts of old forgotten stuff in here.”

He parked off-road, in a small clearing. He opened his door, got out, opened the back door and stood looking in at the wolf, who was standing on the backseat, absolutely still, utterly focused. One charged moment passed in silence, then Cody barked, “Go free!” and the wolf leaped out of the car, the most beautiful, graceful thing I’d ever seen. He seemed to fly, and in motion, he was perfect, so beautiful it made my chest ache.

“You okay?”

Cody was staring at me. I had to blink hard, but managed not to sniff as I nodded and said, “He’s just so… amazing.”

He went on looking at me for an uncomfortably long time before he nodded, slowly, and said, “More than you know. Will you be okay here by yourself?”

I nodded, but I really wasn’t sure.

He handed me his keys. “If you get too hot, run the air conditioner for a while, listen to some music if you get bored. Does your phone have a camera?”

“Sure. Why?”

“Just, if you see an ivory-billed woodpecker, you want to be sure to get a picture.”

It was only when he flashed me a grin that I realized he was teasing, and managed to respond: “Actually, I was hoping to see Bigfoot.”

I watched him go, light and strong and quick on his feet as he sprinted away into the deep, shadowy forest, and although his movements didn’t have the amazing grace of the fleet, four-legged animal, still he had his own male, human beauty, and when he vanished into the dark, I felt something squeeze my heart.

IT WAS STILL hot and almost unbearably humid, even so late in the day, even though it was already October, but I was afraid of draining the battery if I ran the air-conditioning, so instead of curling up in relative comfort with one of my books, I wandered. I kept to the trail, of course, and peered into the undergrowth in hope of seeing one of the rare orchids or carnivorous plants that flourished in these parts.

I didn’t find anything rare, and I got bitten to pieces by mosquitoes before deciding, fairly swiftly, to turn back. I didn’t belong here. Once in the clearing again, knowing that I had the option of locking myself inside the SUV, or even driving away, I felt better. There was a sinister atmosphere about this patch of southern woodland, or maybe I just thought so after Cody’s story. Everybody knows there are people who delight in cruelty to animals, and if Cody had told me he’d rescued the wolf from starvation in somebody’s garage or basement, I would not have been surprised. But why would anyone go so far into a trackless wilderness to chain and abandon, to condemn to a lingering death, such a beautiful, innocent animal?

Something about the mental image struck me as mythic: a wolf-Prometheus bound to a rock? But it had been a tree, and the only classical myth about wolves that came to mind was Romulus and Remus, abandoned babies nursed by a she-wolf.

I was still brooding on the subject when the two of them came back, the wolf panting but still full of energy, bounding across the clearing to do a happy dance around me. Cody, dripping with sweat, his gray T-shirt soaked and clinging to his muscular chest, jogged raggedly after him. He looked exhausted, until he saw me, when his face lit up, and he carried himself differently, with a new spring in his step.

The sight of him, the way his expression changed, the sheer joy in it, as if he’d half expected me to be gone, sent a surge through me, some sort of emotional electricity connecting us. Can these things be explained? Is there any reason in it? Sometimes, once in a lifetime, if you’re lucky, you see someone, and you just know. I was suddenly, ridiculously, happy.

Neither of us said a word.

There was a cooler full of cold drinks in the back of the car. Cody poured water into a dish and set it down for Lobo, then stripped off his shirt and poured the rest of the bottle over his head, shaking it off as unselfconsciously as if he’d been alone. I pretended not to notice, but my eyes were drawn to his naked chest, and I was standing so near that I could smell his clean, salty sweat and feel the heat that radiated from him. It was all suddenly too much; the surge of pure lust that I felt was so powerful that I couldn’t breathe. I had to close my eyes and lean against a tree.

“Want some?”

My eyes flashed open; I saw that he was holding out a can of cold beer. “Thanks,” I said, and took a quick gulp.

He looked at me with a sly grin. “Don’t know why you should feel weak. You been secretly working out with the weights in your bag?”

“No, but the mosquitoes must’ve got two pints out of me, at least.”

He laughed, and I gulped down beer more quickly than usual. But when he offered me a second, I shook my head. “No, I can’t—I shouldn’t—I—”

“I guess you need to be getting back?”

I nodded.

We were silent in the car, as he drove. There was so much to say, I couldn’t think how to begin. He seemed comfortable with the silence. I listened to the steady, regular panting from the backseat, and the hum of the tires on the road, and breathed in the musky scents of man and animal, and as I relaxed into the moment, I felt the hard, tight knot that had been inside me for so long slowly loosen.

Seeing my mailbox coming into view, I remarked, “That’s where I live, right there.”

And he turned, hard, cutting across the highway into my driveway.

I gave a little yelp of surprise.

“What’s wrong? I thought you said… ?” We were bouncing and rolling along the badly rutted track when he stepped on the brake.

“I didn’t mean you should turn.”

“You didn’t want me to take you home?”

Yes, and stay with me forever, I thought. “My car’s on campus.”

“Oh, right. Of course. Well, I’ll take you there, no problem,” he said. “Do I need to back out?”

“You can turn by the trailer,” I said, and a moment later we were in the clearing where my shabby home stood in solitary splendor. He looped smoothly around the clearing in front of it, and in a matter of seconds we were back on the highway.

I felt sorry. Why hadn’t I asked him in for a drink? So, I didn’t have anything but a box of green tea and a couple of Cherry Cokes; there was beer in his cooler. Then, as I was trying to think how to rescue the situation, he spoke:

“Listen, do you want to go get something to eat?”

I looked at him. He was hunched forward, staring at the road.

“That would be nice.”

His shoulders relaxed. “I don’t know about nice. I’d love to take you to a fancy restaurant, but Lobo wouldn’t be welcome.”

I laughed. “Are you kidding? You really don’t go anywhere without him?”

“Did you think I was lying?”

“Whoa, you’re sensitive! No, but people exaggerate. I’ve done it myself. And—well, to change your life that much—”

“Why is that so hard to believe? Haven’t you ever changed your life to suit another person? People do it all the time. They do it when they fall in love. You don’t live like you’re single when you’re married. Women do it when they have kids, every time. So I’ve done it for an animal—why not? I like him better than any—well, let’s say, better than ninty-nine percent of all the people I’ve ever met.”

We went to Whattaburger. It felt very retro, having a date at a drive-in, very old-fashioned teenage, and that was pretty appropriate to the hormonal rush his presence caused, a desire so strong it took away my appetite for anything but him.

HE ORDERED THREE hamburgers, and fed one of them to Lobo, bit by bit. When the two of them were finished, my own burger was still nearly untouched. Cody advised me to eat up: “You’re driving him crazy.”

“He can have it.”

“Something wrong with it?”

“No!”

“You’re not hungry?”

I shook my head. “The milkshake’s enough.”

“Go on, then. Cement your friendship with a burger.”

“The whole thing? I mean, bun and lettuce and all?”

“Unless you want it.”

I enjoyed watching Lobo wolf it down. As I turned away, wiping my fingers on a napkin, I noticed some college kids walking past, heading for either the Taco Bell or the 7-Eleven, on foot because, as freshmen, they were required to live on campus and not allowed cars. One of the girls gave the SUV a sharp look as she walked by, and I recognized her as one of my students. She saw me through the lowered window just as I saw her, and her eyes widened. I couldn’t help smiling as I raised my hand in a casual salute: yes, your boring English teacher does have a life outside the classroom! She lowered her gaze without responding, and hurried away.

Cody said, “Let’s go. Unless you wanted something else?”

“No, nothing,” I said, and while it was true, I had hoped we could sit and talk awhile. I still knew almost nothing about this man, except that he was happy to allow a wolf to set his schedule. “I guess Lobo wouldn’t be too happy about sitting in a drive-in after the food’s all gone.”

“Not when he can smell more burgers being taken to other cars.”

“So now what?” I asked, as he started the engine.

“Now I take you to get your car, like you asked.”

I didn’t want our date to be over, but I reminded myself there could be others, and so, as we headed toward campus, I invited them to dinner at my place the next evening.

I felt Cody’s happiness like my own, and I think it was.

I WAS STILL feeling happy the next afternoon, and even more excited as I anticipated the night to come, when I got the message that Nadia Sorenko, head of my department, wanted to see me. I wasn’t worried, not even when I saw how serious she looked as she gestured to me to take a seat, and I was totally unprepared for her first question.

“What is the nature of your relationship with Cody Vela?”

I gaped at her stupidly. “What… ?”

She leaned forward across her desk. “The kids call him the wolf-man. You know who I mean? There’s a disturbing rumor going around that you were seen sitting with him in his SUV yesterday evening.”

I bristled. “Well, so what if I was?”

She repeated, “What’s the nature of your relationship?”

I was afraid I was blushing. “I only met him yesterday. I’d hardly call that a relationship.”

She nodded slowly. “Not a business relationship?”

“What are you talking about? What business? And isn’t it my business who I talk to on my own time?”

“Not when he’s the local drug dealer.” She smiled a bit grimly. “You didn’t know? Oh, yes. And it’s not a part-time, share the joy, home-grown pot kind of thing. Have no illusions—he might be a local boy, but the man’s a criminal, with connections to organized crime.”

I tried to swallow. My throat was sore. “I—I had no idea.”

“How did you meet him?”

“I saw his wolf. I was curious, I guess.”

“His wolf.” She shook her head. “Some wolf. Half coyote, half German shepherd, you ask me. But the kids all believe his stories: It’s purely wild; he found the little cub in the woods, the only survivor of a pack butchered by hunters, or it saved his life when he was attacked by a panther—which one did he tell you?”

“He didn’t say anything like that.”

“Must have guessed you weren’t as gullible as your students. They think the Big Thicket is more than a few scattered remnants, that it’s primeval, magical, filled with wolf packs, big cats, and extinct birds, not to mention ghost lights and hairy ape men.” Her interest in me waning, she stole a glance at her computer screen and sighed. “All right, Katherine. Now you know what he is, you’ll steer clear. And if you ever see him on campus, call security.”

LEAVING CAMPUS, HALF an hour later, I went to the grocery store and bought three steaks, potatoes, green beans, a bottle of wine, cheese and crackers, grapes, a frozen cheesecake… I reasoned that since I didn’t have his phone number, I couldn’t cancel, and the least I could do was give Cody a chance to defend himself. Maybe he could explain everything: He was working undercover for the DEA, or the victim of identity-theft…

I was totally in denial.

When I heard his car, I went outside and stood in front of the trailer, my arms crossed, holding myself. Lobo sensed my mood instantly and hung back by the car, just watching as Cody, less aware, only lost his smile and his jaunty, swinging stride when we were in touching distance.

“What’s up?”

I told him what my boss had said.

He didn’t prevaricate, bluster, or deny the charge, and he didn’t make light of it, either. He sucked in his lips. “You didn’t know?”

“Like I’d get in a car and go for a ride with a drug dealer!”

He sighed. “You’re a good person. I’m not used to being around good people.”

“I can’t see you anymore.”

“I understand.” Yet he didn’t move. He stared at the ground. Behind him, Lobo gave a low, sad whine.

“Please go.”

He raised his eyes. “I’ve done bad things. Most people would say that makes me a bad man. But—I could change. If I stopped dealing drugs, broke free of the people I’ve been working for, promised to go straight—would you give me another chance?”

“What do you mean?” I was hedging, scared.

“You know what I mean. I want to be with you.”

“I want to be with you, too,” I said in a rush. “But only if—well, it has to happen first. For real. I can’t just take your word for it, you know, that you’re suddenly all straight and honest. It has to be clear, to everyone, that you’re not a criminal anymore, or I lose my job.”

“Of course. Just give me a chance. That’s all I’m asking. I can’t just snap my fingers; there are people I have to deal with. And to get clear, really, I’d probably have to leave the state.”

“I’ll go with you,” I blurted without thinking about it.

Our eyes met. “What about your job?”

“The job’s not the most important thing. I’m not asking you to change just so I can keep my job!”

He nodded slowly. “I don’t want mine anymore. I didn’t used to care. It was easy money, so I did it, thinking it was my choice. But lately, especially since I found Lobo, I’ve started to change. I’d like to make a clean start. But, well, I’m so involved now, I can’t just walk away. I know too much, and there’s a history… There’s people who won’t want to cut me loose.”

“So what’s going to happen?” I asked, my stomach in knots. “Will they let you go?”

He gave a little shrug like it didn’t matter, but I saw from his eyes that he was scared as well as strong. “I’ll just have to make them. I have to, now—for you.”

I thought he would come forward and kiss me—I wanted him to—but he moved back toward the car instead, opening the door and snapping his fingers for Lobo before he looked around at me again.

“I’ll come back for you when it’s safe,” he said. He shut Lobo into the back and opened his door and got into the driver’s seat, and then he hesitated again, and gave me a long, burning look.

“I’ll come back to you as soon as I can, Katherine. I love you.”

I stared back at him through repressed tears, unable to say those words back to him, too choked up to say anything at all, although later my silence would haunt me, and I hoped he read in my eyes what I felt.

A WEEK DRAGGED slowly by. There were classes and meetings and other people to keep me occupied during the days, but in the evenings I was lonely and plagued by fears about what danger Cody was putting himself in for my sake. And I hadn’t even told him I loved him! Why hadn’t I rushed over and kissed him, at least?

Another, different fear also tormented me: the idea that Cody didn’t really love me, that he hadn’t meant what he’d said, that he’d just been playing with me, saying what he thought I’d believe, the way he’d told different people different versions of how Lobo had come into his possession. What if none of it was true?

Friday morning, as I stepped outside the trailer, turning toward my car, I found the wolf waiting for me.

He looked thinner and scrawnier than ever, his head hung down. He was visibly trembling, panting hard, seemingly on the point of collapse. Naturally I looked for some sign of Cody or his black SUV, but the shivering animal was my only early-morning visitor.

“Here, Lobo,” I said softly, patting my side. He came at once, pressing himself against my legs, sending the vibrations of his fast-beating heart through me.

Somewhere in the trees, a mockingbird sang, and there was the sound of a heavy vehicle grumbling away down the highway. I told myself that Cody could have paused beside my mailbox, just long enough to let Lobo out before making his escape… but then, I was sure, even if he’d driven away at top speed, the wolf would have gone chasing after his master’s car until his heart burst. And if Cody were able to command Lobo to go to me, surely he would have sent a note of explanation.

My hand, digging into the thick ruff of fur at the wolf’s neck, discovered no collar. Cody had told me he would never chain him, and the collar was for appearances only, always notched loose enough for him to slip his head through.

I knew then that something terrible had happened; Lobo had escaped, and come to me for help.

Taking him inside with me, I locked the flimsy door and called the police.

I stumbled through a story about finding a “dog” I thought belonged to a man named Cody Vela—at the mention of his name, I was put through to someone else who instructed me to tell him everything I knew about Mr. Vela and his associates.

I told him I didn’t know anything, I’d just seen him around, and when the dog turned up this morning, obviously upset, I was concerned…

He told me then that Cody had been murdered, but he couldn’t give me any details because it was part of an ongoing investigation.

“But you should be aware, that animal’s more wolf than dog. I advise you to call the county animal-control office and let them take care of it.”

Hearing that Cody was dead was a terrible shock. At least, it should have been, but somehow I couldn’t feel it. It didn’t seem real.

What was real, what I had to deal with immediately, was the weary, frightened animal that had come to me for help.

Of course I didn’t call the animal-control officer. Looking after his wolf was now the only thing I could do for the man I’d so briefly thought of loving and then lost. I made just one more phone call that morning, to the secretary in the English department, to say I was suffering from food poisoning and my classes would have to be canceled. Then I devoted myself to my new responsibility.

We spent the weekend getting to know each other, and learning to trust. I was a bit apprehensive about letting him off the leash, in case he simply ran off and got lost, but he needed exercise, and taking him out to the Thicket where there was no one to stare or get scared, and no other dogs to hassle him, seemed the best option.

I’m a walker, not a jogger, and I knew I could never keep up with him the way that Cody could. Arriving in the same clearing where Cody had parked on the day we met, I let him out of the car and told him, “Go free!” He did. But as soon as he was lost to view in the shadowy depths of the forest, I got scared and shouted for him to come back. He reappeared within seconds, clearly alarmed by my alarm, and after that unpromising start, I had a hard time convincing him to leave my side so he could get the exercise he clearly needed.

It turned out that Lobo was even more worried about losing me than I was about him. He didn’t like to let me out of his sight. If I was in the trailer, he wanted to be there, too; if I was outside, he was happy to stay out, but not on his own. Eventually we reached a compromise: if the door to the trailer was open, he knew he could reach me, and so he became more relaxed about roaming around, exploring the area. At night, he stretched out on the floor of my bedroom, blocking the door with his body: If I decided to go anywhere, he’d know about it.

Just as he had with Cody, he was happy to jump into my car at any time, and willing to wait for me when I ran errands—at least, for a few minutes. I didn’t dare test his patience, knowing that if he got anxious or bored he could destroy the interior of the car I was still paying for. That first weekend, I never left him for more than the five minutes it took me to dash into a convenience store to pick up some food for us both.

By the end of the weekend, the wolf was part of my life, and I understood what Cody had felt. There was no hardship in adapting my habits to fit in with his; I wasn’t interested in a way of life that had no room for this wolf. I didn’t think twice on Monday morning; of course I took him with me.

A ripple of excitement ran around the classroom as we walked in.

“Don’t worry,” I said calmly. “He’s had a good run this morning, so he’ll probably just lie on the floor and go to sleep while I talk. Don’t any of you guys copy him.”

That got a laugh, bigger than it deserved. I was suddenly much more interesting to my students.

“What kind of a dog is that?” one of the girls asked.

“He’s a wolf.”

“What’s his name?”

“Cody.” It just came out. All through the weekend I had called him by various terms of endearment, but hadn’t thought about changing the name Cody had given him.

But now, quite suddenly, I had done it.

The animal himself raised his head and looked at me when I spoke Cody’s name, recognizing it, and it was obvious from the caught breaths and exchange of looks among the students that they had, too. Everybody had heard the news of the death of the local drug dealer, Cody “Wolf-man” Vela, most of them in far more lurid, graphic detail than I’d picked up from local radio.

I wondered if I’d just made a huge mistake and put my job on the line. But I couldn’t have done anything else.

Luckily, the kids loved him, and weren’t going to do or say anything that would get him banned. They were more attentive in class, and although word must have spread fairly quickly around campus, even if it caused Nadia to wonder about my honesty, I didn’t get called into her office again. Maybe death had absolved me; anyway, nobody could blame an innocent animal for the sins of his master, and somebody had to look after him. I found out that my wolf wasn’t the first animal to become an accepted fixture on campus: There was a cat in the science department, some teachers had brought their dogs, and, in one case, a parrot, without causing any trouble.

Over the next few days, I learned more about Cody’s death than I really wanted to know. Probably no death by violence is easy, but his had been especially hard; it was referred to as a “punishment killing,” with talk of mutilation and torture. Some people wondered if the wolf-man’s famous pet had managed to inflict any damage on his killers—it might help the police if anyone was reported with unexplained animal bites. It was widely assumed that Cody’s wolf must now be dead, too. Such is the fearsome reputation of the wolf; few would believe that he would sooner hide, or run away, than attack armed men. I knew better, knew it was foolish to judge an animal by human values, yet even I couldn’t help feeling that Lobo had let Cody down. His response seemed shameful and cowardly. The man who had saved his life was dead, and the wolf hadn’t done a thing to stop his murder, hadn’t tried to rip his killer’s throat out.

And yet, if he had attacked armed men, he’d be dead too, and I couldn’t bear that.

Although I mourned the loss of the man I could have loved, the truth was that I’d never really known him. The wolf to whom I’d given his name was more real, and now even more important to me. Maybe it was because I now had the responsibility for another life, so I couldn’t afford to indulge in feeling sorry for myself, but the two weeks that followed Cody’s death were rich and interesting, full of life, hardly a sorrowful time at all.

At the end of October, a norther blew in, and as I felt the cold for the first time since leaving Chicago, I put on my favorite sweater and rust-colored corduroy pants, and felt my spirits rise.

Cody’s mood changed, too, that day, but not, like mine, for the better. He seemed restless, distracted, and somehow aloof from me, not his usual self at all. Despite a good, long run, he didn’t snooze through class but sat with his ears pricked, glancing at the door every now and then as if waiting for someone who never came. When a couple of students tried to pet him, he retreated under my desk. After we got home, it was worse. He didn’t want to stay in the trailer with me, but every time I let him out, I had to get up again a few minutes later to answer his anxious scratching at the door.

“Cody, make up your mind!” I told him. “It’s too cold to leave the damn door open tonight!”

A minute later, he went out again. I settled down to mark some essays, and this time I wasn’t disturbed for almost an hour, when I heard a low but terrible sound outside, a deep groan that sounded almost human.

I jumped up and flung the door open, calling his name. It was dark outside, the profound darkness of night in the country, but even deeper than usual because there was no moon. A single, low-energy bulb fixed to the right of the doorframe cast a little murky light in a small semicircle around the steps, but beyond that I was blind.

“Cody?” I called again, my voice strained and cracking with worry. “Cody, sweetheart, where are you? Come here, Cody!” I hurried down the steps.

“Katherine?” The voice came out of the darkness, a voice I’d never expected to hear again.

Then a man walked out of the darkness, and it was Cody Vela, alive, stark naked, and staring at me with a look that mingled confusion and longing. He came closer still, close enough to smell, and the scent of sweat and musk took me back to the day we’d met, and stirred the same desire.

“I thought you were dead!” I cried.

“Me, too.” He shivered convulsively, and he reached for me at the same moment I reached for him, and then we were hugging each other, and it was crazy, but I’d never wanted anyone so much in my life, and nothing else mattered. I could feel that he felt the same way, and when he started to nuzzle my neck, and his hands moved down to squeeze and caress my bottom, I almost fell onto the ground with him. But even though he was naked, I wasn’t, and the awkwardness of trying to get undressed was just enough to give me pause, and so I managed to pull him inside, where it was warm, and we could make love in the comfort of my bed.

The first time was hungry and desperate, but after that we were able to take things more slowly, indulging in sensuality and exploration, teasing and playing, until, finally, resting, we talked.

I expected an explanation, a movie-worthy plot involving doubles and disinformation, or lies and kidnapping, but there was nothing like that. He had no idea how he’d turned up naked and disoriented in the woods outside my trailer.

His last memory before that was of intense, agonizing pain. He’d been on the edge of death, horribly tortured by three men, one of whom he knew, two he’d never seen before: “But I’d know them again,” he said darkly.

The traumatic memories made him break out in a cold sweat; although he spared me the gory details, his hands went convulsively to his genitals, ears, mouth, knees, chest, seeking the remembered damage.

But he was whole, there were no wounds, not a trace of any injury, as I had already so pleasurably discovered. He’d switched on the small, pink-shaded light on the night table as we talked, and it was clear to us both that his lean, muscular body was unmarked except for the pale, curved line of a very old scar on the side of his neck, and a screaming face tattooed on his left bicep.

I thought about drugs, hypnotism, false memories, but before I could say anything he continued. “I wanted to die. After what they’d done to me, I knew I couldn’t live, but dying was so hellishly slow. But then I knew it was happening, because the pain wasn’t so bad, and I couldn’t see, or hear those bastards taunting me anymore—I realized they must have taken me somewhere, and left me, because I wasn’t in my house anymore. I wasn’t tied to a chair. I was curled up on my side, on the ground, outside—hard earth—sticky with blood, but not really hurting, and Lobo was licking my face.”

He reared up in bed, alarmed. “Lobo! I yelled at him to run when those guys grabbed me—but he must have come back. If those bastards got him—”

“He’s fine,” I said, putting my arms around him and hugging him tight. “He came here to me the morning that… that they said you were dead. I’ve been looking after him. He’s outside—do you want me to—?”

I started to get up, but he pulled me back until we were both lying down again. “Later. Long as I know he’s okay.”

“So Lobo found you,” I said. “And then what, the police arrived? They took you to the hospital?” I was struggling to make sense of it.

He made a small, negative movement with his head on the pillow. “No cops, no doctors, no hospital. Just Lobo. But that wasn’t right, because he was huge—or I was really little—and he put his head down and picked me up, very gently, in his mouth.

“I wasn’t scared. I was glad. I relaxed, and knew he was going to take care of me. I thought I’d died and been born again as a wolf cub—as one of Lobo’s pups. I thought, I get to have another chance at life, this time as a wolf, and I thought maybe that would be better than what I was the first time around.”

I said, “So you died and turned into a wolf?”

He laughed, and rolled on top of me. “Does this feel like wolf to you? Is this fur? Are these claws? Is my nose cold?” He licked my face, then kissed me and laughed again. “I’m not dead, and I am definitely still a man!”

“I don’t understand.”

“Neither do I, my love. I’m just telling you the last thing I remember, I guess it was a dream, and I was asleep until I woke up in the dark out there and heard you call my name.” His face wrinkled in puzzlement. “How did you know I was there?”

“I didn’t. I thought you were dead, I told you.” I closed my eyes and held on to him as tightly as I could, feeling the unmistakable warmth and weight of him pressing me against the bed, inhaling his scent, yet even still fighting the fear that I’d lost my mind. “Oh, this must be a dream,” I said sadly.

“Does this feel like a dream?” he asked. “How about this? Hmmm?”

Surely no dream could ever be so real, so physical.

We made love until sleep overwhelmed us both.

When I woke, the little room was full of daylight, and I was alone in a bed with tumbled sheets and the heavy, cloying odor of sex. He must have just gotten up to go to the bathroom, I told myself, but anxiety made me sit bolt upright, and I couldn’t keep it out of my voice as I called, “Cody?”

There, blocking the doorway, in his customary sleeping spot, was the wolf. He lifted his head in response to his name and sleepily blinked his amber eyes. I recognized the animal I loved, but this time I also saw a second awareness, a different intelligence, looking back at me, and I knew.

I CAN’T SAY that I understand, even now, but there’s no doubt that the wolf Cody rescued was no ordinary animal. Once upon a time, a man called Cody saved a wolf. Later, when the man was about to die, that wolf saved him, taking his soul inside himself. I called the wolf Cody before I knew how true that was.

He comes out at the dark of the moon. For me, it’s wonderful. Life has been good to me. I have my work, the company of my wolf, and four nights a month, the undivided attention of my lover. For him, he’s told me, the wolf-time passes like sleep. He’s conscious, he can think like the man he was only during the moon-dark days, and although he loves me dearly, there’s more to life than love. I’m not afraid of him, but there are some bad men out there who should be.

When you really think about it, which is more frightening: a man who turns into a wolf, or a wolf who becomes a man?