by Betty Webb
At the sound of my voice, Godiva woke up. Instead of showing curiosity about my presence, she lifted her nose and scented the wind. Suddenly she flattened her ears and charged diagonally across the compound. Startled, I looked in the direction she was running and saw her mate Cisco, busily copulating with Hazel, half hidden by a stand of Great Basin sagebrush. Knowing what was about to happen, I ripped the radio off my belt and called for backup. No way would I enter that enclosure alone.
Godiva reached Hazel within seconds. At first, she seemed content to slash at her flank, driving the smaller wolf away from her busted “life-long” mate. But when Hazel made the mistake of defending herself, the alpha female deepened her attack.
All I could do was stand there, flapping a burlap feed sack, trying to distract her, screaming, “No, Godiva! No!”
Jack Spence responded first to my radio call, followed by Miranda DiBartolo and three park rangers bearing a collection of safety boards, nets, fire extinguishers and Hot Shots—the electric prods used only in emergencies. More keepers and rangers soon arrived and began directing zoo visitors away from the enclosure. Cisco, the unfaithful male whose wandering eye had started the brawl, slunk back to his confused pups, leaving the two females to fight it out. The more timid members of the pack cowered behind a stand of boulders, howling out their terror.
Now that backup had arrived, I grabbed my safety board and catch pole—a long pole with a loop of rope at the end—and entered the enclosure with the rangers. Rank smells of urine and fear enveloped us as we approached the viciously fighting females. Godiva’s snarls were terrible as she ground her teeth into Hazel’s neck, but more horrible still were the smaller wolf’s screams, which sounded heartbreakingly human.
Netting Godiva and hauling her out of the enclosure was the preferred solution. But if we screwed up and netted the fighting animals together we could make the situation even worse, so our first priority was to separate them. Using the catch poles right now was problematical, too. Godiva had dug into Hazel’s neck so firmly that none of us could slip the noose around her head without snaring the smaller wolf at the same time.
The rangers readied their Hot Shots. They didn’t want to shock her, because no one can predict the end result of an electric charge. Still, they had to do something.
Distraction was sometimes enough to end an attack, so I stepped forward. “Let go, Godiva, let go!”
To my side, one of the rangers blasted an air horn at the fighting animals, while another waved a jacket around his head, screaming, “No! No!”
No reaction. Just a continuation of that horrible chewing.
Protected by my safety board, I edged in front of the encircling rangers. Sweat ran into my mouth, the tang of salt blending with the bitterness of my own fear. “No, Godiva!” Close enough now, I prodded her sharply in the flank with the non-noose end of the catch pole, but she ignored it and kept chewing away at her rival’s throat.
Another movement out of the corner of my eye caught my attention. A nearby ranger pointed his fire extinguisher nozzle at the wolves.
“Now! Use it now!” I called.
He sprayed. With a loud whoosh, thick goops of foam immediately covered both wolves. Confused, Godiva released her hold on Hazel. The smaller wolf slumped to the ground, her neck a chewed mess.
With the worst of the noise abated, I heard Zorah on her radio. “Keeper One to Vet One. Attack in gray wolf enclosure, Godiva on Hazel. Possible damage to carotid artery. Rangers and keepers present but medical assistance for wolves needed stat!”
Dr. Kate squawked back that she was on her way.
I couldn’t worry about Hazel’s condition yet, not with Godiva still in a killing mood. Although she’d dropped the smaller wolf, she was close enough to attack again. With my safety board held in a position to protect my torso, I positioned myself between her and her victim, hoping to hold her off until a ranger with a net reached us. With my free hand, I raised the catch pole and prodded her sharply.
“Godiva! Down!”
However habituated to humans they may be, wolves aren’t dogs, and she didn’t lie down. She whirled around to throw me a hungry look that brought back centuries of Big Bad Wolf lore and raised my own hackles. This was the dangerous part, when a keeper—after distracting an animal from its prey—sometimes finds herself the next target. Still, no decent animal worker gives in to fear.
“Back!” I kept my eyes on hers, displaying dominance.
A low growl. She cocked that big, shaggy head at me and looked at my neck.
Oh Grandma, what big teeth you have. I shifted my safety board higher.
“Back!” Stepping forward, I prodded her with the catch pole again, lowering the timbre of my voice to an animal-like growl. “Don’t mess with me, Godiva. Back!”
For a few seconds there was a stare-off. I didn’t flinch. She did.
Outwolved, she ducked her head in submission and whirled away.
Trailed by Jack and two rangers, I went after her, yelling for all I was worth. “Back! Back!”
At one point, she threw me a ferocious look. When I met her glare-for-glare, she ducked her head again.
I should have paid more attention to the direction she was traveling in. Before I knew it, she’d reached Cisco, and to my horror, went for her mate with bloodied fangs flashing.
As she tore into him, their pups scattered, yelping in fright. But Cisco was no Hazel. Before his mate could do him serious damage, he leaped into the air and landed with his neck positioned away from her deadly fangs. At first it seemed that he would merely continue his evasion tactic, but after she slashed at his rump and opened a wound at least four inches long, he whirled around and bared his own fangs.
Cisco was not the pack’s alpha male for nothing.
Before I could shout a warning, he lunged for her. His superior weight, added to the lightning thrust of his attack, knocked her onto her side. Ears back, he straddled her prone body with his fangs at her throat.
He was going to kill her.
Godiva, her rage transformed by fear, let out a whine that segued into a high wail.
“Cisco! No!” I tried to position the noose end of the catch pole around his neck. He shook it off.
“Say when.” I glanced around and found a ranger at my side, Hot Shot in one hand, a net in the other.
As it turned out, the Hot Shot wasn’t necessary.
Cisco, having proven his dominance, backed away from his mate. After one final growl, he trotted over to his pups.
I slipped the noose around Godiva’s neck and pinned her to the ground. The ranger threw his net.
And just like that, it was over.
Chapter Twenty-three
While Hazel was undergoing surgery and her attacker sulked in quarantine, I went to the administration building and wrote my report. It was a lengthy process requiring not only an account of every animal’s reaction, but also that of each human—much of which had taken place outside my sight line. At least I had company. Other keepers and rangers involved in the incident drifted in and began filling out their own reports. Two hours later, I finished. After making several copies and putting them in the appropriate mail slots, I left the others to their red-tape misery and walked shakily to the employees’ lounge.
For once, it was deserted. I poured myself a cup of decaf—I didn’t need more adrenaline coursing through my body—and collapsed into a chair. I tried not to think about the wolves, but images of the fight kept crowding into my head. The zoo might need to separate Godiva and Cisco permanently, which would be unfortunate because they made a good breeding pair.
Whatever we decided, she’d be fine and would eventually find a new mate. Most people believed Mexican gray wolves mated for life because that’s what the popular magazines told them. Wolves can’t read. Although they were usually faithful, they strayed whenever they could get away with it.
Kind of like humans, I guessed.
Like Roarke. Like Michael.
But
never like Joe.
Remembering his loyal heart, I smiled for the first time in hours. I closed my eyes and let the images come. His mouth. His hands.
Why had I ever feared his love?
Calmer now—and certainly w enough, with my fantasies—I tossed the remainder of the decaf in the sink and headed toward the capybaras.
Gladys and Myrtle had resolved their jealousies over Gus’ attentions, and lay snuggled next to him with the less-aggressive Agnes. They ignored the melon pieces I tossed them and snuggled even closer together. Gus nibbled Myrtle’s ear. She, in turn, nibbled Agnes’. Gladys sighed in contentment.
My wonderful, ugly capybaras. Making up, kissing up. Not at all like people, who harbored their grudges forever.
I stiffened.
Not like people?
I looked at the capybara snuggle-group again. If they weren’t like people, then why...?
Carefully, I reexamined the events of the past three weeks, the behavior of the capybaras, the anteater, and especially that of the wolves. Hazel. Godiva. Cisco. What they had gone through and would continue to go through.
Then I thought about what a particular human had said and not said, had done and not done.
After I’d filtered out all the lies and the evasions, the only thing left was the truth.
Now I knew what I had to do.
Call Joe.
Dismissing the happy capybaras, I grabbed my cell phone, but my hands shook so badly I dropped it twice and mispunched the number several times. When I connected to the sheriff’s office, Deputy Emilio Guiterrez told me Joe wasn’t in. After a heavy weekend of car wrecks and convenience store robberies, he’d taken the day off. He was on a boat with his children somewhere west of Dolphin Island, fishing for albacore.
“I’m not supposed to message him unless it’s an emergency, Teddy. Is it?”
“No, but if he checks in with you, tell him to call me.”
“Will do. Hey, you sound stressed. You sure I shouldn’t radio him?”
Spoil one of Joe’s few days off with his children? Telling Emilio not to bother, I rang off. To cover all my bases, I then called Joe’s house, where his mother, Colleen, answered. This necessitated more casual conversation—we’d always been friendly—but I eventually got around to the reason for my call.
“If he stops by on the way home, have him phone me, okay? Even if it’s late. I tend to stay up.”
“Surely, Teddy.” Almost forty years out of Dublin and she still spoke with an Irish accent. A woman totally without pretense.
Speaking to Joe’s mother reminded me of my own, so as soon as I rang off, I called Caro and gave her a sanitized version of the wolf attack before she could hear it from anyone else. I let her vent for a while, then derailed her by saying, “I’m coming back to Old Town tonight. There’s too much work left on the house, especially the bathrooms.”
There was no way I would return alone to the Merilee/i> Not until I reached Joe and told him what he needed to know.
“Bathrooms?” Caro shrilled. “What do I care about bathrooms? Teddy, I want to talk to you about those wolves!”
Time to distract her again. “Those bathrooms are looking rough, don’t you think? After all, it’s been a couple of weeks since the maid’s been over, and boy, does it look it. The hall bath downstairs, for instance, there’s green...” Hearing a gagging sound at the other end of the line, I found something else to distract her with. “Find any transportation for our friend yet?”
Caro was no more interested in talking about Dad than she was in talking about moldy bathrooms. “First it’s bears, and now wolves. If you don’t quit that job, I’ll write you out of my will!” She was nothing if not focused.
After all the danger I’d faced in the past weeks, and perhaps still faced, her threat made me laugh out loud. She didn’t like that.
“Teddy, you could have been killed!”
“A tornado could have carried me off to Oz, too, but it didn’t. See you tonight.” I hung up before she started in again.
One last detail to clear up.
And a warning to give.
I found Kim in the auditorium putting the finishing touches on a brightly colored puppet stage, her crutches propped against the wall. In all the excitement, I’d forgotten that Little Red Riding Hood and the Giant Anteater would debut tomorrow to a group of school children bussed in from San Sebastian.
“How’s it going?” I asked.
Regardless of her big smile, she didn’t meet my eyes and appeared to be trying to keep the puppet stage between us. “Oh, great! Just great!” The strained look on her face had grown worse. No surprise there. Forcing yourself to act cheerful when you had so much on your mind had to be exhausting.
“Let’s talk about your accident.” I watched her reaction carefully.
“I slipped, that’s all.”
“What were you doing when you slipped?”
She ducked behind the small stage so I couldn’t see her. “Shopping and stuff.”
“That’s not what I meant. Were you getting ready to cross the street?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Are you certain of that, Kim? Or do you remember everything and feel too guilty to admit it?”
From behind the stage I heard scrambling sounds, then a loud thud. I peeked around to find that she had fallen over, bringing her crutches down with her.
“Now look what you made me do, Teddy!”
She sprawled on the floor, crying hard. Mascara ran down her pretty cheeks and her lipstick appeared to be bleedin off her mouth. I tried to help her up but she batted away my hands.
“Tell me what happened, Kim. Everything.”
She struck at me with her crutch. “Get away! What’s wrong with you, bothering me like this? Can’t you see I’m in pain.”
Yes, I could see that, but someone else was in pain, too. “Let’s see if I have this right. You were on the curb, ready to cross the street. The light was red and a big SUV was approaching, speeding up to get across the intersection before the light changed. Then someone came up behind you and...”
“Shut up! Just shut up!” She aimed the crutch at me again. I sprang out of the way. Her reflexes weren’t nearly as good as a zookeeper’s, perhaps because puppets so seldom tried to tear out your throat.
“You didn’t slip, did you? You were pushed off that curb, weren’t you?”
Hate blazed from her eyes. “Nosy bitch!”
Sticks and stones. “Stay home tonight, Kim. Whatever happens, don’t go wandering around. Especially not in Carmel. I’m afraid—”
A noise from behind interrupted me. Zorah, probably summoned back to the zoo by Dr. Kate so that she could debrief those involved in the wolf incident, opened the door to the auditorium and peered in.
She spotted Kim scrabbling around on the floor, her face muddy with dust and tears. “Hey, you two. What’s going on?”
A sniffle. “I tripped. Teddy was about to help me up.”
Zorah rushed forward and lifted Kim to her feet. “Oh, you poor thing,” she crooned, as if to an injured squirrel monkey. “The day’s almost over, so why don’t you go home?”
“Good idea,” I agreed, with relief. “And Kim, remember what I told you. Watch TV. Play Scrabble. Don’t go out.”
Giving me an accusatory look, Kim hobbled out of the auditorium.
Oblivious as to what had just transpired, Zorah turned to me and said, “I’ve been looking everywhere for you. Now, about that wolf incident...”
My anxiety faded while we talked wolves. Zorah insisted on going over to the Animal Care Center to see how Hazel was doing, but the animal wasn’t out of surgery yet. From there, we went to the wolf enclosure, which had been closed to the public and would remain so for several days. Cisco was standing under the cottonwood tree with his pups, looking bereft. With the heat of battle already a fading memory, he missed his mate.
“Think we can salvage their relationship?” Zorah asked, studying him.
“You’re the wolf expert, not me. I’m just helping out until their regular keeper gets back from vacation, remember?”
“But you’re the one who watched the dynamics play out.”
She was testing me, attempting to find out how good my judgment was. Not taking my eyes off Cisco, I ventured an educated guess. “We’ll need to relocate Hazel. The Phoenix Zoo’s been desperate for another breeding-age female, and their Mexican Gray Wolf Conservation Program is as good as our own. As for Godiva, we can’t bring her back like nothing ever happened. Too dangerous. If we want to salvage this thing, we’ll have to reintroduce her to the pack slowly, like we would any new animal. You know, put her in a cage and move it in a few feet further every day, let everyone sniff around, see how Cisco responds. It’s my guess he’ll welcome her with open arms, er, paws.”