Summer of the Wolves (20 page)

As she lay in the darkness, she tried to remember the words she'd spoken to the crowd, but the dream folded shut and drifted away like a loose kite.

 

The wolf sensed a change in the air. The young humans came late in the day and sat very still. In spite of her fear, the silvery-tan wolf was drawn to them. The one-like-the-woman puppy-whined. Hesitating at first and alert to faraway thunder, the wolf advanced on bent legs. Halfway down from the protection of trees, she urinated, then inched forward until she was several body lengths away. She lifted her lips in a smile and lowered her head and body in greeting.

Thomas would be by to pick her up at seven a.m., so she'd better hurry. Now that Randall had made the subject so public, she shouldn't be taking Khan for runs at all. But, it probably didn't matter. Khan would soon be living the rest of his life as a media attraction. For her, it was worth risking Ian's anger to give Khan at least one more taste of freedom.

Nika got up, dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt, grabbed her rain poncho and anorak, and tiptoed into the morning. After lacing on her leather boots, she headed up to see Khan. Rose light spilled into the treetops. Lengths of chiffon mist wound through the tree trunks as she hurried up to the pen. The ground was dry, even though the sky still looked overcast. On the canoe trip Ian had said something about how dry ground in the morning meant it was going to rain, or it wasn't. She couldn't remember.

Khan leaped at the fence when she arrived. He was eleven and a half weeks old now and weighed thirty-two pounds, with large paws and long limbs like a perfect little wolf. His ears were too big for his head and were in a constant commotion of alertness and intensity. His eyes had almost completely changed from blue to amber. Ian left parts of deer legs for him to eat in his pen overnight, but he still loved chicken the best. He enjoyed cooling off in his pool, especially when they brought chunks of ice for him to play with. He had been a well-mannered wolf for his puppy checkup and shots with Dr. Dave. His workouts with Maki's big lab Trucker had been good for him, giving him the experience of being dominated and playing wild chase.

Nika pressed his vitamin meatballs against the wire, and while he devoured them, she slipped through the gate and hunkered down. He licked and leaped, trying always to reach her mouth and lips, whimpering the whole time. When he turned to race around the pen, she placed a chunk of hand-me-down venison on top of his favorite rock. He found it, grabbed it, then circled the pen. He stopped to eat a few bites, but soon ran with it again. He'd grown so fast!

But as she opened the gate, for a minute she felt almost unable to breathe. What if she did lose the pup? Her whole world would turn upside-down. Again. Suddenly a black streak flew past her and straight down the path toward the sand spit. At the beach Khan doubled back to check on her. She trotted behind him up the path on the Big Island, surprised when he peeked out from behind a tree. They played this game all the way to the beach overlook. When they arrived at the rendezvous site, Khan sniffed every inch of the small clearing. Nika sat down on the dry ground.

Thomas had been right about the weather—the sky looked like it had sponged up water and was holding it in heavy gray layers. Khan soon flopped beside her and turned over for his deserved belly rub. The pup pressed his oversize feet against her leg. She separated the pads with her fingers, as she'd done since he was tiny, massaging them. She was always intrigued by the skin webs between the toes. Elinor had given her a little lecture on wolf body parts, and one thing she'd said was that their big feet were almost like snowshoes in winter and that they helped them travel over uneven ground. Nika closed her eyes as she held the pup's paw in hers. For a while, neither of them moved.

When she heard the buzz of an outboard motor, she jumped up. It must be Thomas. She pulled out the deer tail she'd brought today and dangled it. Khan followed more slowly going back, like a kid being called in from recess, sniffing along the way and squatting to mark every few feet with tiny shots of urine. Finally she slapped the deer tail against her leg and ran. With lolling tongue, Khan swept by her and down the hill, vanishing in the dense green on the other side of the sand spit. He would beat her home.

Feeling exhilarated from their run, she jogged the last few yards to the pen. But Khan was nowhere to be seen, and the pen gate was closed. When her hand reached for the latch, she saw Ian kneeling down on the far side, where the big pines grew. She had been so sure he'd been asleep when they left. Khan was licking Ian's face and lips. Ian rose, put one hand on his neck, and looked at her. Khan raced toward the gate, then back to Ian.

Quickly and without thinking, Nika grabbed her rain poncho from where she'd hung it on a bush, and hurried down the trail. She heard Ian call her name. Just as she reached Pearl's cabin, she heard the gate clang and rapid footsteps down the path. She felt panic rising. Her stomach tightened, making it hard to breathe. She slowed, then stopped and brought her hands to her hips.

“Did you hear me call?” Ian asked.

Nika turned to face him. “Thomas is waiting at the dock. I've got to go.”

Ian looked away and said, “Later. You can go with Thomas later. Right now you are going to the Center with me. I want you to see the enclosure we built for Khan. You can help out for a while.”

She felt confused. Wasn't he going to say something about yesterday or about her morning run with Khan? But he didn't seem angry. Just unwavering.

“Okay.” She hated this. The enclosure they built for Khan. “Can Thomas come?”

“Have him come to town later. If the weather holds, you can go with him for a while before supper,” Ian answered, pulling open the kitchen door.

All day in town! Nika opened her mouth to protest, but Ian stopped her. “Go and tell Thomas. I'll meet you at the big boat.”

 

It was a long day. Ian came up with project after project for Nika. First he had her sorting greeting cards of different northern animals and putting them in plastic sleeves for the gift shop. He asked her to mop the office floor that was already so clean, she could hardly see where her mop had been. She unpacked and sorted brochures Elinor had ordered. Nika simmered with impatience, refusing the chicken and avocado sandwich Ian offered her.

In the afternoon, Ian and Elinor showed her the fenced area, roughly the size of two football fields, much larger than she had imagined. They talked about it proudly. It had trees, a small concrete pond with a waterfall, and big rocks all around. Elinor kept going on and on about the den they were having workmen dig. But as Nika looked over the neatly landscaped pen where Khan would live, she could only think how lonely he would be, how he would spend all day standing at the fence.

Finally Ian said, “Okay, off you go. But I want you to help out again tomorrow.”

 

Thomas's boat drifted and thumped against the town dock. Hopping in, Nika pushed off, saying, “Let's go!”

Thomas backed the boat, then shifted into forward gear. “We can probably still beat the storm,” he shouted over the motor.

Nika looked up. It wasn't raining at all, even though the sky looked like gray hammocks full of water. It was odd that the wind was blowing toward the storm, she thought. Maybe it was going away.

Thomas pulled the boat up on the skid logs and tied up to a tree. They didn't need to remind each other to be very quiet as they walked to their usual observation spot, next to the chair-shaped tree trunk. Thomas opened his backpack, took out his camera, and handed binoculars to Nika.

At first it looked like all the meat they'd left was gone. Nika saw one raggedy chunk partially covered with dirt. Both of them looked for Luna. There was no sign of her. Then they saw an ear flick. She was stretched out in shadows just inside the margin of the forest. Her golden eyes were turned their way. Finally she raised her head and shoulders and shifted to face them, but she didn't stand up.

It seemed like hours passed as they sat watching the wolf watch them. The sky continued to darken, but they agreed the storm was still far away. When Luna stood and stretched, they thought she would go to the cache and eat, but she didn't. She stood tall on her long thin legs, looking down at them. Then slowly, but with a bounce in her step, she trotted directly toward them. Nika and Thomas sat up straight. Nika took a breath and waited. Thomas snapped several pictures, then put his camera away. They looked at each other, not believing what was happening. Thomas whispered, “Look away.” Nika nodded.

They averted their eyes so they wouldn't scare her. They heard her feet crunch lichen and sticks nearby. Nika looked up and pup-whined and whimpered and said, “Hey Luna-girl, hey girl.” Luna edged toward them pausing and ducking and finally threw herself down on a mat of moss growing in a hollow not far away. Nika continued to croon. The wolf wagged the tip of her tail, making a low groaning sound, and lay still, moving nothing but her eyes. It seemed forever that they sat like that. Nika badly wanted to get close enough to touch her, but Thomas wasn't so sure it was a good idea. They decided it was best to be patient, as she'd learned to be with Khan.

“This is magical,” Nika said when she stopped holding her breath at last.

“Yeah, and she's telling us something, too, something important,” whispered Thomas. Nika looked at him and waited.

“I think she just told us that she really was raised by humans. I'll bet that once she felt safe with some person. Not Bristo. Maybe a woman, because she seemed to respond when you called.” Nika nodded. It was true. From what she'd read recently, no wild wolf would ever act as Luna was acting now.

A rumble of thunder rolled down the lake. The southwestern sky looked bruised. On the horizon, dark clouds bloomed with tall white cauliflower tops. Smaller gray popcorn clouds marched in rows in front of them.

Luna was suddenly nervous. She stood, crouched, and looked around, her muscles tensed, legs bent.

“Maybe the storm is making her nervous,” Nika said.

“We'd better go.” Thomas slowly rose to his feet. The second they moved, the wolf glided as smoothly as moving light back up the hill, up and into the cover of dark trees.

 

The wolf heard sounds. She smelled smells. The smells put fire into her muscles and pulled her toward the cover of trees. She recognized the voice beneath the eagle tree. With it was the metal sound that came with humans. And beyond that, thunder, but more than thunder, fear.

Later, pain burned into the wolf's body, and she slipped back away from her body. She could smell the one-like-the-woman beside her as the wolf fell deep into the forest of her mind.

Before they took another step, Nika heard the unmistakable
bong
of an aluminum boat hitting rock. Thomas reached out his hand for her to be still, and the two of them inched up the shore toward the sound.

They slipped into the bushes behind the eagle tree and carefully parted dense branches to peek through. Bristo was swearing and muttering as he clumsily tugged his boat over a piece of driftwood. He fumbled and leaned forward, pulling a rifle from the seat.

Electric fear shot through Nika's body. She scrambled back across the ledge and ran, her feet tangling and tripping in knots of weeds and brush, propelled by her own racing blood. Thomas was right behind her.

At the small clearing by the chair tree, they looked up the hill, frantic to see Luna. In patchwork shadows, she was peering from several feet beyond the edge of the woods, her light face barely visible. She turned her head and looked toward the eagle tree. Her ears were air-planed to the side, uncertain, her body motionless.

What could they do? They'd heard Bristo say he would kill the runaway wolf if he could find her. Had he followed them?

“If we can get the wolf to come to us, Bristo wouldn't dare shoot,” said Thomas.