The sound a wolf makes when it isn't announcing itself but communicating pack to pack at the edge of the range where the prey is. "Stay in here," he told Owen. "I know," Owen said. He pulled the blanket to his chin and watched with enormous eyes.
Caleb took the lantern and the rifle and went out into the snow. The temperature had dropped hard overnight, properly cold now, the kind that had weight to it. His breath came out in clouds. He moved along the fence line toward the northwest corner, keeping the lantern at his side rather than raised, because a raised lantern destroyed your distance vision, and he needed to see.
He found the tracks at the fence, five sets this time. They'd been working the fence line, testing it, looking for the soft spot the way predators do, with patience and with method. One section of fence had been paced so many times the snow around it was churned to mud despite the temperature. He fired a shot into the air.
The sound went out across the valley like a stone dropped in still water, and somewhere in the tree line there was movement, sudden, fast, away. He stood at the fence and listened until the sound of movement stopped, and the night went back to the specific silence that follows when a threat decides to leave. He stood there in the cold for another 10 minutes, listening. When he came back to the barn, Evan was awake and standing near Owen's cot in his coat and boots, rifle in hand, having come in from the bunkhouse at the sound of the shot.
His wrist was still wrapped, but he was holding the gun correctly, one-handed, his right arm tucked against his chest. "How many?" Evan said. "Five that I counted."
"Same pack?" "Probably bigger now. They're ranging down for food." Caleb set the lantern on the hook and unloaded the rifle's spent casing.
"They'll be back. A single shot buys a night, maybe two." Owen was watching both of them from his cot. "Did you see them?"
He said. "No," Caleb said, "just the tracks." "Are they big?" Big enough.
Owen considered this. "I'm glad I have a job," he said with the solemn satisfaction of someone who has contributed to a situation and knows it. Then he lay back down and pulled the blanket up and appeared to go back to sleep with the baffling ease of the very young. Evan looked at Caleb.