Wrapped against the chill that the forty-eighth parallel would not relinquish even in June, Anna sat on the front steps of the ranger station. Cloaked in a shapeless plaid flannel bathrobe, the tail tucked under her feet to keep them from the dew-bitten planks, she stared through binoculars at the far shore: a thin line of sand and stone, now revealed, now shrouded by the mist. Beside her a mug of coffee curled tiny tendrils of fog into the cold air; a minuscule offering to the gods of the lake.

“Come on,” Anna said softly. “Come out. I know you’re there. And I know you’ve got the baby. Show yourselves.”

From the silence of the channel a loon called and was answered. The sun pierced the pines on the cliff’s top and dyed the mist rose. Open water glittered, bright as new pennies. Again the loon called its haunting liquid warble, this time to be answered by the sound of wings on water.

Now they’ll come, Anna thought. “I’ve seen your tracks,” she whispered. “I know you’re there.”

A shadowy red form darted between her and the dock where gently rocking boats cradled fishermen. She refocused the glasses. The black muzzle of a little fox came into view. Head tilted to one side, pink tongue lolling, she sat less than twenty feet from the station steps ready to beg for her breakfast like a house dog. “Not you, Knucklehead,” Anna murmured and again trained the field glasses on the opposite shore.

Somewhere to the north a power boat growled to life and morning’s spell was broken. Now they wouldn’t come. “Damn.” Anna lowered the binoculars. Isle Royale’s wolves were the shyest of creatures. Some rangers who’d worked the island for years had never so much as glimpsed them. Scat, tracks, howling, confused reports from hikers startled by foxes-that was all most people ever knew of the wolves in summer.