Summer of the Wolves (24 page)

Seeing the men, the woman behind the glass opened a heavy door and waved them through. They found Sheriff Dunn in a crowded office in the back, his windowsills filled with leggy geranium plants and his chairs and desk covered with files and loose papers.

“Sorry,” he said, scraping off two chairs. The woman brought two folding chairs and handed them to Ian, smiling sympathetically. She bustled back in with three cups of steaming coffee on a tray.

Sheriff Dunn had longish eyebrows, red hair, and a sandy beard. After looking at Ian and Jake, he pulled a set of wire cutters from a drawer and put them on the desk. He leaned toward Nika and Thomas. “So, am I wrong in guessing that you two were the ones who released Bristo's animals earlier in the summer?” he said.

Ian shot to his feet. Jake rubbed his eyebrows with one hand and said, “Thomas?” Sheriff Dunn held up his hand to the two men like a traffic cop. Ian sat back down.

Thomas spoke first. “Except for the wolf. Luna. We don't know how she got out.”

Nika sat up straight. “It was all my idea. I think it's wrong to keep wild animals in cages.” Even though she was scared, the words just came out. She looked into the eyes of the sheriff.

Sheriff Dunn took a sip of his coffee. “You know, Bristo gets all worked up about things. He can't totally help the way he is. And you're right—he doesn't treat animals very well.” His voice was low and firm. “Authorities have been dealing with him for years.” He paused, then stood and moved some papers aside and perched on the edge of his messy desk. “Probably Bristo wouldn't be in jail right now if you kids hadn't released his animals.”

“Except what would have happened to those animals? Their cages were cramped. They looked starved. He was mean,” Nika blurted. She surprised herself, speaking up like this.

“Protecting those animals wasn't a job for you kids.”

Nika glanced to see Ian's arms crossed in front of him.

She looked down and said more quietly, “It seems to me, no one has ever done much about his mistreatment of animals.”

“You should have shared your concern!” Ian said abruptly, leaning forward. He and Jake met each other's eyes.

“And what would have happened if I did?” Her voice thickened in her throat. Why wasn't he standing up for her? Hurt rose within her. “Isn't Bristo the one who shot Khan's mother? Why didn't someone arrest him then?”

The sheriff shifted to look directly at Nika. “Well, now someone has arrested him. And the charges are serious—shooting the wolf and endangering you kids. We're hoping the judge will order treatment this time.”

He continued on with his quiet, steady voice. “So. For restitution for the vandalism, it's all set up for both of you to do community service at the Greenstone Home for Seniors. I'll decide the number of hours. How does that sound?”

Both Nika and Thomas nodded silently.

“Okay, then.” He emptied his cup and nodded at Ian and Jake. “Sound okay to you?”

Both men leaned back and nodded.

Nika's feelings were helter-skelter. At least mopping floors and sorting magazines was better than going to court. On the other hand, it scared her to be around people who were really sick or old. She was afraid something might happen to them. But Thomas was sort of smiling. What was that about?

“All right, then. Just the thing.” Sheriff Dunn pounded his paper-covered desk with his fist. He gave them a quick smile and reached out to shake hands with Nika and Thomas. Jake and Ian stood but made no effort to leave the office.

“Nika, why don't you head back to the Center? Elinor and Randall should be there,” Ian said.

“Thomas, go straight to the dock,” Jake said. “I'll be down in a bit. You've got jobs to do at home.”

When they burst out of the door, Nika grabbed Thomas's arm to slow him down. “You're smiling. Why are you smiling?”

Thomas said, “Just 'cause we lucked out, I guess.”

“So what's so great about working in the nursing home?” she asked.

Thomas held out both hands palms up and shrugged with one shoulder. “I just like old people.” He snatched a glance at the pies in the window of the Busy Bee, then looked at her and smiled. “He could have asked us to clear prickly invasive plants from the roadsides, haul rocks, or dig outhouses,” he said. “Think of that.”

Nika thought clearing invasive plants might be okay. The two of them didn't talk much as they continued back through town.

When they neared the tall trees at the edge of the Center's property, Thomas stopped. “I've got some stuff to do. See you later.”

“No, no,” Nika pleaded. “Come with me.” Right now she didn't want to be alone.

“Uh-uh. Sorry. You heard my dad,” Thomas answered, accelerating into a jog.

 

Suddenly the air was filled with scents that the silvery-tan wolf knew deep in her body's memory. She sorted the layers of her senses and trotted over to peer through the fence. There she saw the familiar humans huddled together looking at something, their backs to her. The tan wolf scraped the ground, parted her lips, then sniffed again.

After the meeting in the sheriff”s office, Ian seemed even more intent on keeping Nika busy with her project, or with jobs at the Center. Maybe he was trying to get her used to life without the growing black pup. A routine developed. Each morning after she fed Khan, she had to meet Ian in front of his cabin for their ride to town. Volunteers were spending more and more time with the pup. Ian thought it was important for Khan to accept care from a variety of people. In Nika's opinion, too many people. Khan was slipping away from her, Ian was still pretty mad about Bristo's, and now everyone in town would know that she had been ordered to do community service in restitution for vandalism.

When she arrived at Ian's cabin on Tuesday morning, he was still inside. She knocked and peeked in. He was at his laptop writing.

“C'mon in,” he said. She opened the door and stepped inside.

It had been almost a week, and she still hadn't brought up number five from Ian's list. She'd wanted things to settle down a bit after their visit to the sheriff.

“Looks like Friday will be moving day,” Ian said. “Just a sec. I have to finish this. Did you eat?”

“Pearl sent these.” She unwrapped two blueberry muffins from a napkin and looked around for a plate to put them on, or at least a paper towel. “Do you have any dishes? I'll get something.”

“Frills,” he said, picking up a muffin. “Looks delicious. Thanks.” She guessed after being a bachelor so long, he'd developed casual habits.

He took a bite and looked back at his computer screen, where columns of numbers trooped across the page. “Plans for the Center. Budgets for buildings and enclosures and what not. Not my favorite chore.”

Nika looked around. His cabin was messy, with packs, books, radio parts, reports, and tools scattered across every surface. In the food area, a single jar of trail mix rested on a stack of books. CDs were stacked in uneven piles beside his CD player. Old blues, Scott Joplin, classical. Two guitars hung from pegs on the wall.

His clothes were neatly folded on the unpainted wood shelves of an open closet in the corner. A small couch with leaf print fabric sat by itself on a bright red and orange foreign-looking rug in the center of the room. In one corner was a bed. Against the back wall was a potbellied wood stove with curvy legs crouched on a platform of bricks. With its almost-human shape, it seemed like it should have a name, like Gertrude.

Nika was avoiding the subject that was festering. She picked a piece of muffin off the front of her shirt.

She wanted to say something, but her words vaporized. Her face must have shown how she stopped herself from speaking.

“What's up?” Ian asked. He stacked his papers, packed his computer in a case, and gathered his socks and boots.

She plopped down on the small couch and ran her hand over the faded green fabric. “Well, okay . . .” She shrugged and tried to force a smile, but it stiffened up. “So why can't I ever be with Khan again, after he's in with Luna?”

Ian walked slowly over to the couch, dropped his boots onto the floor, and sat next to her. They were both silent. Then he shifted to face her. “We all have to have rabies shots to be with the animals after they are in the Center. Then we don't know about Luna, yet—socialized wolves can be more dangerous than wild wolves.”

“But you never told me I couldn't be with Khan. In the big pen. I only know because I found your list at the Center.” Her voice got very quiet. “It's like I don't matter.”

“Of course you matter, and I'm sorry if you think—” Ian put his head back and took a deep breath. “I never should have done this, let you help raise the pup.” It was as though he were talking to himself. “I thought it would be a way for us to . . . well, to work together, get to know each other. It was a mistake. I didn't realize you might, well, that the pup might—”

Anger brought her to her feet, and she turned to face him.

“That I might love him and want to keep him? Is that what you mean?” What did he expect when he'd handed her a helpless pup and asked her to hold it close?

“Look, Nika. You haven't made this easy.” He stood up and paced barefoot. “First, you decide to take Khan without a leash, knowing I wouldn't approve.”

“I just wanted him to know what it felt like, to be free like a wild wolf.”

“That wasn't your decision to make.”

“Obviously,” she threw back.

“And you almost lost Khan. Then I find out you and Thomas released Bristo's animals and are in trouble with the sheriff. Again, deciding to do something you both knew your families wouldn't like.”

“We're doing community service to pay back for that!”

Ian's face was red. “As if this weren't enough, then you feed a wolf, and that wolf gets shot!”

“Shooting the wolf wasn't because we fed her. She might have died! It was Bristo!” Didn't he understand? It was because of them that Luna was alive!

“You endangered yourselves. You figured she was Bristo's runaway, and you knew the man had shown threatening behavior before. No one should ever feel certain that a wolf is totally safe. Finally, you went there just as a storm was brewing, instead of coming home. None of this shows good judgment. How can I trust you?” Ian threw his hands up in a helpless gesture.

“Well then, maybe you should just send me home, if I'm that much trouble.”

“Oh, Nika,” Ian said, half groaning and turning toward his desk.

Nika charged out the door, slamming it behind her. She felt sick as she ran to the dock. A fight like this was new to her. There'd been a girl in her second foster home who liked to hit and seemed to wait for Nika around every corner. Nika had hit her back once, hard. She remembered the sound. It didn't feel good, even though the girl deserved it. But this was different. This felt dangerous. It felt as if, just by getting mad, she could lose everything.

 

That night was still and dry. Nika's sleeplessness became a net for every sound: loons, the scuffling of small rodents, the short barking call of an owl. The fight with Ian kept rolling over and over in her mind. It was so confusing. There was only one thing that could make her feel better.

After Pearl was in bed and Ian had gone down to his cabin on the beach, she collected the old raggedy sleeping bag and followed the moon up the path, not even using a flashlight. The night was cloudless. Inside the pen, as she slid into the bag, she felt a mist of dew settle on the nylon. Khan came to nestle quietly beside her as though agreeing with the need for stealth. His eyes sparked in the moonlight, and she felt his breath against her arm. Most of the night the wolf slept. Most of the night she didn't.

When she woke at dawn, Khan was gone. She didn't want to get up. Maybe if she never crawled out of her sleeping bag into the thin light of the soundless morning, nothing would change. The warmth of Khan beside her at midnight would never cool, and every morning forever the wolf would greet her like a wave smoothly running to shore.

But then, if she didn't get up, they couldn't have a last run. She'd planned not to run with Khan again, because of Ian. But then they had argued, and she figured she'd never have another opportunity in her whole life. Just one more time. She pulled herself out of the sleeping bag and slipped out of the gate to visit the outhouse. On her way back she picked up meat scraps from the fridge.

Back in the pen, she put the scraps on a rock and waited. The agile pup, now weighing nearly forty-two pounds at fourteen weeks old, trotted down to accept his gift. After a quick greeting, Nika opened the gate, and Khan lengthened his smooth black shape to bullet down the path.

Today, instead of disappearing or playing hide and seek, Khan ran circles around her as they walked. He bumped his head under her hand and once took her hand in his mouth and pulled as if he wanted her to play. She stopped, said “No!” then pushed him over on his back, having to be forceful and use both hands. He squirmed, and when he quieted, she rubbed his belly.