Heron Lake Plateau restore me, restore life the way it should be.

The longer she was gone, the more his respect for her dropped.  It would be one thing if she had come back in the first day or so, sheepish about basically going off the deep end and given him a clearer story of what happened, but she was just.. Gone.  Quixote had been left with no answers and not much in the way to find them, which made the whole scene seem particularly off.  Towhee seemed to have taken it that both Niamh and Colt had gone on some quest for vengeance but again, the longer Niamh was gone, the more Quixote became certain that wasn't the case.  He'd let Towhee believe whatever she wanted, because he wasn't in the mood to try and convince her otherwise.  Certainly if they were hunting down the Blackfeather wolf, they should have given them more information so troops could be rallied, right?  Checked back in and said the direction she was heading so that others could assist at the very least.  And why was Colt gone?  So you what, Niamh?

At the very least, prowling along the borders gave him something to do while irritation boiled.  He could do so without anyone bugging him and thus keep from spilling it onto someone who actually didn't deserve it.  His thoughts about his own position got shifted to the backburner.  When the howl came, Quixote turned towards it -- it wasn't like anyone else was in the position to deal with official business... Towhee couldn't hear it, Niamh was off on some distant planet or something... Not to mention he wasn't all that far.

So, it didn't take long for Quixote to show up on the scene.  It was unlikely that they'd seriously crossed paths back during the war, just given Quixote's own behavior at the time, so if there would have been even a flicker of familiarity there, it would have long since been snuffed out in the inky leader's memory.  And he might not be making the best of impressions now -- combine his dour mood with his already-terrible conversational skills and you got an one word answer in response to the summons, Yes?  It didn't smell like this dude was part of a pack, but generally howls for membership carried a bit more information.  Whatever.  He wasn't going to fuss, just do whatever business was needed then back to walking along, stuck in his own brain.