Elton sighs with relief, clearly overjoyed, but says only, “Can we go now?”
I scratch the basset hound behind his ears and smile up at Pilot. I’m glad that we can smile at all after everything we’ve been through. We will never forget the lives lost in these woods. But if we can smile now, even for a moment, then we can find happiness at the end of this. I just know it.
As the boat moves toward the center of the river, and we chug through the icy water, I imagine for a second that I see the slim body of a wolf racing through the trees. From my place between Pilot and Elton, the animal looks beautiful, magnificent. A beast of the wild, not so unlike myself.
I imagine the wolf howls.
But if it does, I can no longer hear it.
The idea for this book was forged from a storm. And a dream. As a brutal wave of snow and freezing temperatures rocked the northeastern coast of the U.S. I sat warm in my bed. New Yorkers dashed to grocery stores, buying out bottled water and canned goods and matches. Living in Texas, I couldn’t imagine preparing for a winter storm of this proportion.
I turned off the lamp that night, thinking about the cold. The snow. About what would happen to all those people if it never let up. Then I slept. And I dreamed. And in my dreams, the wolves came. A blizzard raged too long. And those wolves grew hungry. They had nothing to eat because skyscrapers and condo buildings and parking lots had swallowed their land, and their food. So a-hunting they did go.
When I woke, I couldn’t stop thinking of those wolves. So I took a drive to my family’s cabin in Blanco, Texas, where I spent my youth unearthing Comanche arrowheads and learning how to fire a rifle. The one-room cabin sits on two hundred acres of family-owned land, is heated by a generator on cold winter nights, and has a potbellied stove in the center of the room. There, on a porch built by my grandfather, the Moleskine notebook in my lap lit by a kerosene lamp, I fleshed out the first scenes for what would later become Hear the Wolves.
As part of my research for this novel, I drove to a wolf sanctuary two hundred miles from my home. Regardless of what previous conceptions I may have held before arriving, I soon learned that wolves are not dogs. They cannot be tamed, and will never think of humans as their masters. In other words, mind your fingers.
As I strolled toward the building, I saw the difference for myself. Two wolves watched me from behind a chain-link fence. They’d spotted me long before I’d seen them. Grizzled in color, and lean, they tracked my every movement, quietly. No barking. No running. They simply watched.
I’d be lying if I said it didn’t unnerve me.
Soon after, I was kindly shown inside the office and asked to sign paperwork instructing me not to bend down. Or look a wolf in the eye. Or wear sunglasses. Or run.
The list went on.
“This is a lot of stuff to remember,” I said to my tour guide, with a nervous laugh.
“We’ll make sure you’re okay,” he replied. “Most of this is just to ensure you don’t scare the wolves.”
We went through two locked gates to arrive in the first spacious enclosure. And I discovered that while the wolves were affectionate and respectful of the handlers they’d grown to trust, I was an unknown. They kept their distance, always watchful, always quiet. Until of course, I ventured too close on our way out. A large male growled deep in his throat. An unmistakable warning. My guide stepped in, and I swiftly made my exit.
After my first close encounter, the deeply knowledgeable guide walked me past numerous enclosures, talking about the wolves, answering my plethora of questions. Finally, he looked at one of the handlers and asked, “Should she meet Achilles?”
Who is Achilles? I thought. I don’t want to meet Achilles.
The handler shrugged. “Yeah, I think it’d be fine. We’re still working with him, but we’ll all go in with her.”
“Achilles is new,” the guide said, looking at me. “He’s … large.”
I don’t wanna meet Achilles, I don’t wanna meet Achilles, I don’t wanna meet Achilles.
“Cool,” I said. “Let’s do it.”
With a trainer on one side of me, and my guide on the other, I followed a second trainer into Achilles’s enclosure. The wolf trotted toward us quickly. We leaned against the cage, not moving, not speaking. Achilles smelled my hands, my legs, my crotch. My heart beat so hard I thought I might faint. I didn’t realize how large wolves could get until this moment. I didn’t realize how large their teeth were.
“He’ll be even bigger in the winter,” one of the handlers told me.
But I could hardly focus on what she was saying, because all I was thinking was, I forgot to take off my sunglasses. The wolf is going to maul me because I forgot to remove my sunglasses!
But Achilles was surprisingly generous and playful. So when the female handler suggested I take a photo next to him, I agreed … after ensuring the male handler would stay close by. As I posed with the wolf, I made the mistake of placing my hand on top of his head. A big no-no. The handlers had told me as much. A mouthing from Achilles redirected my hand, and I made my exit soon after.
On our way back to the office, I snapped pictures of the encaged wolves. One too many, I suppose. A large female grew visibly agitated before leaping toward the chain-link fence with a growl. The guide drew me back and told me it was the snapping of my camera that had frightened her. I apologized and went to pocket the thing, wondering if I was in over my head. Trying to recall how many hours I was from home.
But then something happened.
A wolf began to howl.
Soon after, another joined in. And then … magic. Every last wolf in the sanctuary erupted in howls, noses to the sky, long, mournful wails blending. Each had their own unique sound, but somehow, they still created a harmonic chorus that’ll keep me dreaming of wolves long after this book reaches readers.
My visit to the sanctuary taught me many things. First, how blessed the resident animals are to have such respectful, compassionate, committed caretakers. But mostly, what I learned is that humans threaten the lives of wolves much, much more than wolves do us. In fact, for the amount of fear we hold toward wolves, there hasn’t been a fatal attack on a human in North America since 2010.
That’s not to say wolves never pose a danger. They do have quite the history, after all. According to my research, and that of others (especially The Fear of Wolves: A Review of Wolf Attacks on Humans, 2002), there were approximately 1,572 wolf attacks on humans in the eighteenth century, 2,509 attacks in the nineteenth century, 703 attacks between 1900 and 1949, and 1,150 attacks between 1950 and 2000. These numbers include incidents recorded by reliable sources only, so it’s reasonable to assume the actual number of attacks may be significantly higher.
Wolf attacks are generally clustered in time and location, meaning once a wolf, or wolf pack, has deemed humans a possible food source, they will continue hunting them until the wolves are killed. For example, in 1995, seventy-five children were attacked in a localized area of India over a period of only eight months. Compare that to the one North American death in the past five years.
One of the attacks in India provided the story Nash retells about a child taken before her mother’s eyes, leaving only the head for authorities to find. As much as I tried to find proof that the story was fabricated, it appears it actually happened.
As I purchased a wolf plush for my daughter, my guide sheepishly asked me about my book. I explained the story, and his face fell. “Oh, so they are bad wolves,” he said, visibly disappointed. “Not exactly,” I explained. “See, the humans took away their normal food source. And they built a fence that blocked other prey. Also, the wolves live really close to the residents, so they don’t fear them.” These are all things he’d told me increased the chances of wolf attacks, and I knew from research that wolves living near campsites and national parks have had aggressive run-ins with campers due to proximity and a lack of negative conditioning.
The more comfortable wolves grow with humans, and the
more they associate them with food, the more likely they are to attack, he’d explained earlier.
I finished the premise for the story, and asked, “So, is it totally irrational to think these Alaskan wolves would attack my characters?”
“Well, no,” he answered honestly. “Actually, it’s that certain situation I was telling you about. It could happen.”
On my way out, the female handler waved cheerfully. “You know, I’m a photographer. If you want to come back in winter, I’ll get a shot of just you and Achilles in the field. He’ll have his winter coat, so he’ll be huge. Just the two of you this time!”
“Sounds great!” I chirped.
I haven’t taken her up on the offer.
Would you?
I’m thankful to so many people who loved, shaped, and rallied behind Hear the Wolves.
To my agent, Sara Crowe, who instantly championed the idea. To the team at Scholastic—Erin Black, the only person who could rival the passion I have for Hear the Wolves; Nina Goffi, for a cover that brought me to tears; as well as to Michelle Campbell, Saraciea Fennell, Lauren Festa, Emily Heddleson, Lizette Serrano, Tracy Van Straaten, Elizabeth Tiffany, and the domestic and foreign sales teams. And I couldn’t forget Nikki Mutch; thank you for being a fantastic fan.
To my family and friends for continually asking what I’m working on next, especially Mark Stanley, my dad, the ultimate outdoorsman, who read this book before anyone else and provided invaluable feedback on all things hunting, wildlife, and weaponry. And to author pal April Genevieve Tucholke, who was reading an early version of this book at night, while her husband was away, and had to put it down until he returned. Are those coyotes still lurking?
To my daughter, who reminds me there are things worth fighting and growing for, and finally, always, to my husband. You believed in this book. You believed in me. By the time you read this we’ll be across the country. To our next great adventure!
Victoria Scott is the author of Fire & Flood, Salt & Stone, Titans, and the Dante Walker series for older readers. She lives in Dallas with her family and is currently working on her next novel. Victoria adores getting to know her readers. Visit her online at VictoriaScottYA.com.
Copyright © 2017 by Victoria Scott
All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Press, an imprint of Scholastic Inc., Publishers since 1920. SCHOLASTIC, SCHOLASTIC PRESS, and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.
The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available
ISBN 978-1-338-04358-7
First edition, April 2017
Cover art and design by Nina Goffi
e-ISBN 978-1-338-04747-9
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Scholastic Inc., Attention: Permissions Department, 557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012.
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