Wolves, Boys and Other Things That Might Kill Me (25 page)

“I’ve been following the wolf referendum for the station. Your experiment is a great human interest story.”

Virgil isn’t here yet. Addie, Dennis, and Sondra are all looking at me.

“Mrs. Brady,” I say as politely as I can. “May I see you outside?”

Once we are in the hall I say, “Aren’t you going to get in trouble for this?”

“Actually the principal is thrilled. He says it will be an honor to have our school represented by such enterprising students.”

“What about Addie, Sondra, and Dennis? They helped.”

“He can’t interview everyone.”

“Have you talked to our parents? And the Martins?”

“Spoke with everyone just minutes ago. Your dad wasn’t very excited. But I knew you’d be glad. This is a great way to show people that they shouldn’t vote against the wolves. That there are ways to live with them nonviolently.”

“But you weren’t even paying attention to this a few weeks ago. Who have you been talking to?” I say.

“A journalist never reveals her sources.”

“You’re a home ec teacher.”

“I beg your pardon.”

“I’m sorry. I don’t want to cause trouble again.”

“No trouble. We’re just going to meet everyone out at the Martins right now. Where’s Virgil? His mom said he was on his way.”

“Virgil isn’t going to like it.”

“Nonsense,” says Mrs. Brady.

“Exactly.”

 

Virgil shows up at the Martins’ with Eloise. He looks like he hasn’t had his tea. “Whose idea was this?” he snaps.

I say, “Don’t look at me. I was ambushed.”

Mr. and Mrs. Martin actually seem kind of happy, in a nervous sort of way. They show the TV crew around the ranch. Mr. Sandcastle assures the Martins that this interview is going to be good for the town, tourism, and the ranching industry. Just hearing him say that makes my skin crawl.

 

Mr. Sandcastle seems to be particularly fond of putting me in the middle of Virgil and Kenner, then siccing a camera on us. I’m particularly fond of the moment when a cow blows snot on Mr. Sandcastle.

After it’s over I ask Heidi where Will is. She says, “He told Dad letting that guy take pictures for the news was like making a commercial for wolves. Dad didn’t like that very much, so Will left.”

The spot goes on the evening news that night. It lasts less than a minute. I have a piece of hair blowing up in the wind the whole time. Afterward the anchor says, “It’s great to see kids making a difference.”

Dad stands up from the couch and pats me on the shoulder. “That ought to generate some discourse.”

He goes into the kitchen and starts moving things around under the sink.

“What are you doing?” I say.

He pulls out a fire extinguisher. “Nothing.”

COWBOY SONGS

MRS. MARTIN INVITES us all to take marshmallows and popcorn out to the barbecue pit and have a little celebration for six weeks with no wolves. They’ve had a phone call from just about every person they have ever known to say they saw them on TV. My dad’s had a flood of phone calls, too, which is great for business because more than a few book a guide trip. But my favorite call was the Wyoming soap company that asked my dad if I wanted to be in their Milk Face commercials. He told them no.

The whole thing is completely ridiculous, except the part where people hear that there are ways to make this work. Even kids can do it . . . if they don’t mind going without heat and sleep. Maybe it will make people think twice before they sign a petition to get rid of the wolves if they think they can have their wolves and the cattle won’t be eaten, too. A commercial for wolves, just like Will said.

Will isn’t speaking to anyone in his family, not even the dog.

 

Kenner holds the popcorn over the fire with a clamp they use to tag the stock. We all sit close to each other because it’s freezing and we like to. Kenner sits next to Addie but he doesn’t push the issue, which is nice. Someone makes the obligatory joke about smoke following beauty. If that were true Virgil would never get a break, especially not tonight.

I doze to the blending sounds of the fire, Sondra’s bad guitar, and Dennis’s recital about the stars being in alignment for something. Everything that happens in this moment is real and gone as quickly as it happens, except for Virgil. For me, time moves around him like the smoke.

I listen to the cattle, too. I guess they’re lowing. It’s a warm, comforting sound. The sky is bitter cold but clear. So many stars. On a night like tonight it’s good to be irrelevant to the universe and still a piece of it. Maybe that’s the magic of the Martins’ place. You start to think you belong here.

Virgil puts his arm around me. “You look beautiful tonight,” he says. Everyone hears him.

“Geez, Virgil, I just ate,” says Kenner.

Sondra keeps strumming the chorus to “Sweet Baby James.”

“What else do you play?” says Addie. “How about ‘Streets of Laredo’? My dad sings that when we make a fire.”

“I don’t sing songs that glorify violence,” says Sondra.

“Well, that cuts out about every cowboy song ever written,” says Kenner.

“How about ‘This Land Is Your Land,’” says Sondra. “I know most of that.”

“That’s not a cowboy song,” says Kenner.

Dennis says, “How about ‘Wanted Dead or Alive’ by Bon Jovi.”

Kenner takes the guitar from Sondra and strums. I think he’s faking. Then he says, “This is one my dad taught me.

His voice dips to the last note and then disappears. No one says anything. Kenner laughs and hands Sondra back her guitar. “That’s a cowboy song.”

“Geez, Kenner, I just ate,” says Virgil.

Those Martin boys. They’re full of surprises.

CRYING WOLF

IT’S ONE O’CLOCK and Virgil isn’t here. It’s the end of April and all the teachers are binge testing. We both have a math test in the morning and I threatened Virgil with his life if he didn’t get some sleep. I’ll be tired tomorrow, too, but at least I’ve studied. For the last two days he’s barely stayed awake long enough to answer the roll.

The snow is muddy tonight. We’ve had a warm snap. It’s almost warm enough to be pleasant. I stand at the gate by the barn and listen to the sloshing of the cattle. I’m ready for a snooze, but I’m too tired to walk across the yard to go inside. I lean against the fence post and close my eyes.

I wake up when I hear cows bawling in the far pasture. I listen for Virgil’s voice but hear only cows complaining. I am about to turn on my flashlight when I decide it’s time for a little payback. I wonder how I can get out there and get behind him without him hearing my feet.

I stand perfectly still, trying to see into the dark. The bawling is loud. They sound like they’re moving around a lot. I start walking.

My boots splash in the mud so I give up trying to be sneaky. “Virgil,” I call as I walk. I can’t believe Virgil came out here after I told him not to. I look through the darkness. All I hear is moving cows. I wonder absently,
Why are they moving so much?
Then suddenly my brain wakes up.

I run.

When I get to the pasture all the cows are on one side of the pen. I shine the spotlight out and catch the three shadows on the opposite side of the pasture. I see their long, thin haunches in a circle. One turns and I see teeth. Teeth and reflecting eyes. I also see the carcasses at their feet.

I yell, “No! No!” The wolves go back to eating. They aren’t even bothered by me. I pull around my shotgun. I try to aim. I can’t hold my arm steady. I lift my gun and fire up into the empty sky three times, one for each wolf. The wolves disappear like smoke.

I turn around, soundless. I can see the lights come on in the Martins’ kitchen. I turn the light back on the two dead cows. They’re torn to pieces. Everything is torn to pieces.

COLLATERAL DAMAGE

I ANSWER A lot of questions, for a lot of people. The Fish and Wildlife people grill me in front of the Martins like I’m an ecoterrorist. The answers boil down to this: I fell asleep, the cows were already dead when I got there, and, no, I didn’t let the wolves kill the cows on purpose.

That afternoon I go back to school and take my math test. I know if I fail this test I’m failing his class. Mr. Muir asks me if I want to stick around after all the other kids leave. I can’t tell him too much because I’ll start to bawl. He grades my test but doesn’t give it back to me. “Go home. We’ll figure this out tomorrow.”

The next day Ed Buck’s men come in. The three wolves are tracked down and shot. There are two pups with them that are also “accidentally” shot.

Now we’re the real news. Papers in Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho run pictures of Virgil, Kenner, and me. The Billings and Bozeman papers both run editorials talking about the wolf referendum and the management crisis. They describe the shooting, the vandalism, the fire, and last, but not least, some young people’s “naive, misguided, idealism” in pursuit of a “feel-good solution.”

The Internet picks the story up. Pro-wolf and anti-wolf Web sites. Liberal and conservative Web sites. People-with-nothing-better-to-do Web sites. Joss and Mandy forward a link to an inventive picture of me holding bleeding wolf pups, with the caption “Blood on Her Hands.” I unplug my computer.

I’m an example of all that’s wrong with the environmental movement, teenagers, and America. Maybe I can get a recording contract.

Mr. Martin calls Virgil. We’re not invited to come back.

 

Virgil and I sit next to each other in every class, but we don’t talk. Addie, Sondra, and Dennis don’t talk much either. Kenner ignores us. His friends aren’t so quiet. They chuck notes in class, and Road Work asks me if I’d like go hunting with him and his friends after school. Joss and Mandy offer to buy me a new flashlight. I see Virgil getting shoved at lunch. A girl I barely know bumps me in the hall, completely by accident of course, and knocks my books out of my arms. Addie’s old friends won’t speak to her. The typical shunning. I wouldn’t care, except it reminds me of what I have done.

My friends stick together. But we walk around with an invisible boundary between us and the other kids at school. We tried to do something a different way. We wrote the paper and then we made the paper. Now we are like the United States of Failure.

At home Dad doesn’t say a thing.

He doesn’t put away the fire extinguisher either.