The first column filled up neatly. The entries—written out in words, not numbers—sat in straight lines: one a.m., four a.m., seven a.m. In the second: two teaspoons, one and a half. In the third Eleanor wrote briefly, like telegrams: “Second one didn’t finish,” “First one scratches,” “Both slept till next feeding.” Not analysis. Not wildlife observation. Just facts, because facts ought to be recorded.
At 10:30 there was a knock at the gate.
— Busy, — Eleanor said without looking up from the notebook.
Silence outside the fence. Then slow shuffling footsteps moving away, cane tapping. Frank. She knew his gait. He dragged one foot just a little, as if the ground resisted him each time.
Eleanor finished the line and closed the notebook. On the fourth night the alarm went off at one, four, and seven, and each time Eleanor got up, went to the kitchen, fed them, and went back to bed. By the morning of the fifth day she felt something heavy and woolly lodged between her shoulder blades that refused to leave.
Her hands shook. Only a little, almost not enough to notice, but she held the syringe with both hands because one didn’t feel reliable. The second pup—the one who had barely licked milk from her finger that first night—now nudged her palm before she had even finished filling the syringe. Insistent. Not shy about it at all.
— Pushy, — Eleanor said out loud.
It wasn’t criticism. It sounded almost like approval.
She didn’t remember falling asleep. At some point she simply realized she was sitting in the chair by the box, head tipped to one side, neck stiff enough that turning it hurt.
A whine woke her. The first pup was demanding his due with the same certainty some people bring to payday. Eleanor got up slowly, rubbed her neck, picked up the syringe. For the first time she thought: how long is this going to last? The thought was short and unanswered. She set it aside the way she cleared clutter off a table: over there, out of sight.
Frank’s cow had no name. He just called her “the cow,” and that seemed to cover it. She was old and didn’t give much milk, but she gave it regularly, and every morning Eleanor came over with a pail and left with a quart and a half—exactly enough for the day.
On the fifth day Frank opened his gate with the expression of a man bringing bad news he would prefer not to own.
— She’s under the weather, — he said, nodding toward the shed. — No milk. Maybe in three days…
— Got it, — Eleanor cut in.
She stood at his gate looking off toward the birches, where the first leaves of May were already opening. Three days meant twenty-seven feedings without milk, and the pups were still too small to get by on water.
At home she picked up her phone and searched what to feed wolf pups. The internet thought it over, wheezed a little, and produced several pages. Eleanor read slowly, wearing her glasses, scrolling with one finger: “Infant formula may work, goat’s milk or lactose-free formula prepared as directed.” Some sites mentioned special formula for wild animals, but where exactly one was supposed to find that in a place like this was another matter.
She set the phone down. The last thing she had looked up online was in February: how to salt cabbage properly. Before that—she couldn’t remember.
The bus came through the hollow on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays at eight in the morning. Eight miles to town. Three hours round trip with the store. Three hours. Eleanor looked at the box. The pups were asleep, curled into one gray heap on Walter’s sweater.
Three hours without feeding, they would probably survive. Three hours without warmth and someone watching them—that was another question. She put on her coat and went to Frank’s.
— Can you keep an eye on them tomorrow morning? — she asked from the porch without going in. — Three hours, maybe less.
Frank looked at her for a long moment, with the expression people wear when someone has done something genuinely unexpected. Eleanor Carter did not ask for help. That was known in the hollow as firmly as the bus schedule.
— What’ve you got over there, anyway? — he asked at last, squinting.
— Wolf pups, — she said shortly. — Two. Found them hanging in a sack in the chokecherry by the creek.
Frank was quiet again. Worked his jaw a little.
— All right, — he said.
Eleanor nodded and headed back. By the time she reached her own gate, she realized what she had done: she had asked for help. Just like that. Straight out. Gone over and asked. The feeling was odd, like wearing a shoe on the wrong foot. Same shoe, but something was off. Not unpleasant. Just unfamiliar. She mixed those two words up a little as she crossed the yard.
On the bus she sat by the window and watched the road she hadn’t seen since March. The fields were greening up, May grass already coming in strong, and only here and there along the shoulder did last year’s dead stalks still show dark. Eleanor watched and thought about making the return bus.
At the store she bought infant formula, two cans to be safe, droppers, cotton balls. The clerk, June—red-haired, loud, knew everybody in the county by name and most of them by family business too—was already leaning over the counter.
— Eleanor! — she said brightly. — Grandkids in town?
