Excerpt from Sweeping Up Glass by Carolyn Wall, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Below, to the left, lights blink on in Aurora, and a car or two winks along in the slush.

“Another shot!” Will’m says. “Gran?”

I hate it when he looks to me like that, like I can fix every damn thing in Pope County. “Will’m, this winter they’ll starve to death anyway.”

But I don’t mean that, and he knows it. Shortly the hunters will go home to their dining rooms where they’ll drink rye whiskey and eat hot suppers. Past the alder line, the last of the silver-faced wolves are curling up, hungry. They’re the only wolves recorded in Kentucky, and tonight a few more are dead.

In a clearing, we come upon the two males. Will’m stares at the round dark holes in their flanks. Their right ears are gone. A small gray female has crawled off under the brush, and she lies there, baring her teeth. She’s been shot, too, and her ear cut away. The blood has run from the wound, filling her eye and matting her fur. There’s no sign of the ears.

These aren’t just any wolves. The silver-faces have lived peaceably on Big Foley for sixty-five years. Then a week ago, a male was shot and his ear cut off. Will’m and I found the wolf, and finished him off. Today, the hunter was back, and he brought others.

“Damn,” I say. “This one’s had pups, winter pups.”

“Don’t shoot her,” he says.

“There’s lead in her haunch, and she’s near bled to death.”

“We’ll take her home.”

What I’m really thinking is—I know who did this.

“Back off from her, boy.” I lay the gun to my shoulder. “Halfway down, we’d have a dead wolf on our hands.”

Will’m says, “But she’s not dead yet.”

Confound this child. I ache with the cold. More snow is likely, and when it comes, it’ll cover our tracks and the sheer rock faces. It would be right to put a clean shot between her eyes. But also between her eyes is that fine silver stripe.

I wonder if Will’m’s likening himself to the cubs. Time’s coming when I’ll have to tell him about Pauline, although he’s never asked. He hasn’t yet learned that all God’s creatures got to fend for themselves, and the devil takes the hindmost.

“Well, give me your scarf, boy. We’ll muzzle her good and tie her on the toboggan.”

“I could sit with her,” he says, grinning.

“You could not. You’ll walk behind and keep your eyes open. Now do as I say, or we’ll leave her here.”

“Yes’m.”

“And there’s not God’s chance she’s sleepin’ in the four-poster, or under it, either. And if there’s no change by morning, I’m putting her down.”

It’s tricky without a rope. I pull, Will’m steadies. More than once the wolf slides off, and we stop to rearrange, and trade places. God love me, every day I understand myself less. I’m so tired that the wolf and the boy and Ida run together in my mind till I can’t think who’s who, or which needs me most.

Excerpted from Sweeping Up Glass by Carolyn Wall Copyright © 2009 by Carolyn Wall. Excerpted by permission of Delta, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.