"Fuck no. I cooked it." A grunt as he hefts himself to his feet and hands Dalton the last piece of jerky. "I'll take you to the site. You gotta leave the wheels, though. I'm too old to run behind it with the dog."
"You need more caribou hearts," I say.
"Evidently."
29
Dalton is calmer now. Cypher has seen Jacob, and he's doing exactly what Brent said, which explains why he left his last camp and why he hasn't been easy to find. Elk Ridge is north, and we haven't searched in that direction. Brady will head south to find civilization. Actually, the nearest village is west, but he doesn't know that. South makes sense. North does not.
We hide the ATV. It wouldn't have done us any good anyway. The fastest trail to Elk Ridge isn't more than a footpath, soon cutting through sheer rock. As we walk, Storm has a blast, tramping through the mountain streams.
"I want a dog," Cypher muses as she whips past, water droplets flying.
"Well, we do find ourselves in possession of a very young wolf-dog cub," I say. "His mother seemed like she might have been rabid, and the cub bit Dalton, so we're holding him under quarantine."
He glances at Dalton. "Doesn't look like he's quarantined."
I roll my eyes. "The cub."
"It's not rabies anyway. Never seen that in all my years up here." He walks a few more steps. "Wolf-dog you say? How much of each, you figure?"
"More wolf than dog. Just your style."
He gives me a hard look. "Do I strike you as an idiot? Only a fool thinks he can domesticate a wolf. You should give him to your boyfriend there. Seems his style. Raised by wolves, weren't you, boy?"
Dalton ignores him.
"If there's a decent amount of dog in the pup, you might be okay," Cypher says. "Too much work for me, but at least dogs are domestic animals. Wolves aren't. Can't be."
"They probably can be," Dalton says. "The root genus is the same. The question is time frame. It takes generations."
"You letting him read again, kitten?"
Dalton continues. "There was an interesting study using silver foxes in Siberia. They keep breeding them with human contact. After forty generations, they had domesticated foxes. That's forty generations. Going in reverse, with dog DNA already in the cub, it should be easier. You still have the wolf to contend with, though. The question would be mostly one of dominance. Not domestication so much as establishing a leadership position."
"I like you better when you act stupid, boy."
"I like you better when you don't."
"Who says I'm acting? You keep your wolf-dog. Getting too old for that dominance shit. Had that already with a dog like yours. Bull mastiff. Took it in partial trade on a job. I liked the dog. Didn't like the way its master was treating it--the guy figured he'd beat the dog into submission. So I persuaded him to part with the beast."
"Uh-huh."
"It was a civil conversation. I asked nicely. The guy laughed, said the dog was a fucking purebred, too rich for my blood. So I asked again, said he could take five hundred off my pay. He agreed. Well, he nodded. Had some trouble talking dangling two feet off the floor with my arm crushing his windpipe."
"You're very persuasive."
"You have no idea, kitten." He looks at Dalton. "I want a dog. You got this fancy purebred for your girl. I don't need anything that nice, but I don't want some mangy mutt either. If I find this Brady guy and take him off your hands, I get a dog, okay?"
"If you find Val, you get a dog," Dalton says. "After Brent, the other bastard can die out here. If he hasn't already."
Cypher keeps us entertained on the walk. Or I'm entertained. When it comes to Tyrone Cypher, I can never tell how Dalton feels. If asked, he grumbles and rolls his eyes and grumbles some more. I believe he sees Cypher the same way one might view the grizzly the big man resembles--potentially dangerous, potentially useful, trustworthy enough if you know how to approach him but really, you should probably avoid it if you can.
I like Cypher, but I respect Dalton's wariness. Cypher is the only person here who knew Dalton when he was brought to Rockton. When we first met, Cypher mocked Dalton by calling him "jungle boy" and making his "raised by wolves" jabs. Having gotten to know the man better, I think he was teasing. But those jabs cut deep. Dalton might not be that boy anymore--and he was never the half-wild savage Cypher claims--but he feels like he was, like he still is in some ways, and that's the sharpest needle you can dig into someone, piercing straight into their best-hidden insecurities.
There's more to it, too. I've never met Gene Dalton--the former sheriff--but I used to presume Dalton inherited his personae from him. The profanity. The swagger. The creative punishments. The hard-assed sheriff routine that is fifty percent genuine and fifty percent bullshit. Then I met Cypher, and I realized it wasn't Gene Dalton the boy from the woods had admired and emulated.
That boy wouldn't have necessarily admired the man I've since realized Gene is--quiet, thoughtful, fair and reasoned. No, if that boy was going to look up to someone, it'd be Cypher, larger than life, everyone scurrying from his path, a man both feared and respected.