“Yeah, I came over to help.” Thomas said, “Nika, maybe you and I can haul some of the spoiled venison to town. Elinor said the Center has a freezer ready for keeping roadkill and she said we could bring some of the meat.” His eyes were extra-wide open and boring into hers.
Finally, Nika understood. Suddenly excited, she asked Ian, “Can Khan have some of the venison?”
Preoccupied with saving what he could of the slightly damp leftover camping food, Ian said, “Sure, we’ll hack off some pup-size bits.”
In a brisk businesslike voice, Nika said to Thomas, “I’ve got to go see Khan for a minute, then I’ll change, and we can take the venison.” Randall shrank down on the sleeping bag again, as he listened to her making plans with Thomas. Once again they weren’t including him.
“Want to come see Khan?” she asked her brother.
Khan greeted Nika and Randall by wagging and squirming and whimpering. Nika pushed him over on his side and rubbed his belly. He had put on a few more pounds while they were gone. There was no puppy roundness left. It seemed that in days he had become more long legged and graceful, his face lengthening, his ears taller. Randall knelt down to pet his back. Khan leaped up again and ran laps in excitement.
Elinor was sitting cross-legged on top of a picnic table in the corner of the pen, working on a pile of papers. “How was the canoe trip?” she asked with a smile. She flipped her long reddish-blond braid over her shoulder.
“Good,” Nika answered as Khan charged around the pen. She put her hand up to her sunburned nose and cheeks. “I didn’t quite get the sunscreen on in time. It was fun, though.”
Eyes wide with stories to tell, Randall said, “Nika actually fished. I caught a whole bunch. Mostly bass. One really big northern!” He stretched his arms wide.
Nika had to smile at her brother. He acted like he was born for this new life of water and fish and tackle boxes and tents and sleeping bags drying in the sun.
“And there were northern lights!” he added.
When they came down, Ian was still sorting equipment in the porch.
“Lunch is almost ready,” he said, nodding toward the kitchen. He took a step toward Elinor, glanced at Nika, and then stopped, blushing beneath his tan.
In the kitchen Thomas pitched in to help Pearl stack bowls and plates and silverware on a tray and carry it to the table.
“Come on everyone, let’s eat,” said Pearl, bringing hot blueberry muffins and a humongous bowl of chili. “We’ll have to eat the food missed by our bear friend’s looting before it spoils. There were a few quarts of berries that made it and some chili that was still frozen solid.” She paused at the table. “It’s rare for a bear to break in. I should have kept the shed door closed. He went right through the screen. I can’t believe he ate frozen berries!”
“Luckily we just brought you more,” said Ian. “Looks like you’re going to have to update your seventies freezer, though.”
Nika edged toward the door, trying to get Thomas’s attention. She wanted to leave immediately for their mission.
But when he noticed, he said, “I’m hungry. Come on, Nika, let’s eat.”
“Okay, okay,” she said.
Thomas smiled at Nika as they down next to each other and helped themselves to chili.
“Nika still runs with Khan on the Big Island, even after Khan chased the skunk,” said Randall from the other end of the table, where he sat as close as possible to Ian. He smirked at his sister. In all their time as siblings, Nika had never known Randall to be a tattletale, or to be mean. She snapped her eyes to lock onto her brother’s face. He stirred his chili and shrugged.
“Thanks, Randall,” she said sarcastically.
Calmly buttering a muffin, Ian said, “Well, please, Nika, I’d like you to stop taking Khan out alone. We talked about this on the canoe trip. None of us wants something to happen to him, or you. The skunk thing turned out okay, but you were lucky.”
“He likes it,” Nika said. She wanted to say more, but the look on Ian’s face stopped her.
A carrot salad was passed from hand to hand with no words spoken.
Elinor finally broke the silence. “Those new pens are really coming along.” She smiled and scooped out some salad.
“I’m anxious to see the progress,” Ian added, nodding.
Nika kept noticing how Ian shot quick looks at Elinor during lunch, like they had a secret. Nika didn’t know why it bothered her. She should be glad Ian could finally unbolt his attention from his work long enough to notice something besides radio collars and statistics and blueprints for renovations.
“What pens?” Randall asked in a food-muffled voice, filling his face with a muffin he held with both hands.
Ian let out a long breath and cast an uncertain look at Elinor.
“What pens?” asked Nika, looking back and forth from one adult to the other.
“For the first resident animals at the Center,” Elinor answered brightly, getting up from the table. “Anyone want more water or milk?”
Pearl leaned back in her chair with her eyebrows raised in expectation.
Ian looked around for a minute, then said, “Well, this wasn’t the way I planned to talk about this.”
All of them looked at him and waited.
Thomas looked uncomfortable and started quietly battling his fork with his spoon.
“We’re hoping that Khan will be our first resident. Things are coming along so well with his socialization.” He looked straight ahead. It was hard to know whom he was looking at.
Nika stood. Of course. Had she really thought that raising this wolf pup meant she had some say about what happened to him? No one had even discussed it with her. Would that have been too much to ask?
“He should be free to run. Like on the Big Island!” She threw down her napkin and shoved her heavy wooden chair away from the table. “Not live his life in a cage.”
“It just can’t be that way—you know that. Besides, a couple of acres is not a cage,” Ian answered in a level, no-fooling-around kind of voice. “I’m sorry.”
Had he always known what he was going to do with Khan but just waited until the last minute to tell? She felt a bloom of dark anger.
“Sorry for what? Sorry for everything? Me, too. I’m sorry we came here.” Nika hurtled out the back door, allowing the screen to bang shut, and ran up the hill to Khan’s pen. She heard footsteps behind her and looked back to see Thomas following.
The pup looked startled as she clanged through the gate. Nika had learned that wolves can be very sensitive to loud noises and emotional upsets. She slowed herself, opened the gate quietly for Thomas, and went down on her knees. Khan approached slowly at first, then fell on her with licks and nibbles at her chin. Thomas squatted down and got licks as well.
“I brought my camera. I’ll be your paparazzi,” he said. “After all, you should have photos of you and Khan in the woods, in case you ever write a book about him or something.”
“Let’s go,” she said. She opened the gate, and they all raced down the path to the Big Island, Khan almost tangled in their legs.
She slowed at the sand spit so Khan could take a long drink. Thomas snapped a picture. As the three of them ran the familiar path toward the rendezvous site, Nika wondered how things could seem so bad when just yesterday they had seemed so good.
When she came back from running Khan with Thomas, Nika discovered that Ian and Elinor and Randall had unexpectedly left. And Pearl was up working in her garden. Nika had been so upset, but now she wondered if they’d left her behind on purpose.
Thomas called her from the front of the cabin. “Nika, are you coming?”
“Can you believe it?” Thomas asked as they hauled the last load of spoiled venison down to the dock. The small boat rode a little lower in the water from the load. He steered out into gray water and gray skies. As they rounded the point and headed across Anchor Lake, the wind picked up. With the wind and the motor noise, it was hard to hear each other talk
. “We’ll talk when we get into the lee of Eagle Island,” Thomas shouted, “with our bonanza!” Now that they were off by themselves, Nika couldn’t stop smiling. Wouldn’t Luna be surprised!
Finally in the shelter of the small island, they turned off the motor and coasted to shore. Nika asked, “So what are we going to do? It’s a lot of meat for one wolf!”
“I’ve been thinking about it. We have to take some to Elinor. I figure that if Luna was wild and she found a whole roadkilled deer carcass, she would work on it over a long period of time and probably bury a bunch for later. They’re not as picky about expiration dates as we are.” The boat thunked and scraped up onto the skid logs. “I think we should give her at least half, don’t you?”
“Sure, and then we can come back and just watch and not worry about food for a while.”
They unloaded deer meat wrapped in white paper packages and hauled it up the hill, making several trips. When all the meat had been plopped in a bloody heap on some moss behind a large boulder, they took the paper and went back down to their watching spot. Near the shore Thomas made a ring of rocks and piled up some dry twigs. He put the wadded paper in the ring and took some matches from his pocket. The damp paper burned slowly, and he had to keep adding twigs to keep it going.
They waited for an hour, expecting the wolf to leap upon the pile of meat and devour it, but there was no sign of Luna. Finally, they decided they’d better take the rest of the meat to Elinor.
“Let’s come back tomorrow,” said Nika.
“I heard about a storm warning for tomorrow,” answered Thomas, seeming to calculate in his head.
“Well, we could come early.”
“Should be okay, I don’t think it’s supposed to really storm until later.” Thomas doused the remains of the fire before they launched the boat.
In town the two of them loaded the remaining wrapped meat into an old wagon that Thomas kept stashed by the main docks, pulling together to haul it up the hill.
As they approached the Center, Nika thought it didn’t exactly look finished. The main brick building had carpenter’s tools and piles of materials lying about. New observation windows across one side still had brand stickers glued to them. Elinor was inside, busy at her computer. She directed them to the new walk-in freezer out the back door and went back to work, leaving them to unload. The packages of meat looked pretty puny in a freezer that must have been designed for a whole herd of road-killed deer hanging from hooks. It was good Elinor hadn’t come with them. She might have wondered why they hadn’t brought more.
On the way back to the island, Nika thought out different scenarios for the two wolves. Scenario one: Put them both on Eagle Island and bring them food. Problem: The ice freezes in the winter and the wolves might leave to hunt. If they went toward town, someone might shoot them for coming close to farms or houses. Ian said that happened. She kept reading that captive wolves in the wild would most likely starve from undeveloped hunting skills and no pack to hunt with. They could die from being shot, or if they invaded the territory of a pack of wild wolves, they could be killed.
Scenario two: Release them where they first found Khan. They could have pups and become a pack far away from people. Problem: How would Thomas and Nika catch Luna by themselves to move her? Khan had never been in a boat. Would he get desperate and hurt himself? And again, could they learn to hunt on their own?
Scenario three: They could find an adult to help them release the two wolves. Problem: There wasn’t an adult who would agree to what they wanted to do. Scenario four: Take Khan back to California and find a wildlife sanctuary where she could visit him. Problem: Wouldn’t it mess him up to be caged, drugged, and put on a plane and wake up in a whole new place? Besides, if she hated the thought of him locked up here, why would California be any different?
Scenario five: Talk Ian into adopting all of them, Randall, Nika, Luna, and Khan, and buying a big piece of land right at the edge of the roadless wilderness where the wolves could come and go. Thomas told her about a couple of naturalists who lived near Red Pine who watched a pack of wolves that lived near them for years. The people hid in blinds and observed and took pictures with long lenses. Problem: For her, that would mean making a home here, not that she had been invited. The land would have to be far away from farms and towns, with a national forest or something nearby. And would Ian do it anyway? He had his heart set on this educational center and his star wolf, little orphan Khan. And, besides, was he really the type to settle down and raise a couple of kids who weren’t even his own?
Unfortunately, from all the reading she had done, she now knew keeping a wolf isn’t simple. And there were permits and laws. Legally, Khan belonged to the state.
By the time they motored back to Pearl’s dock, Nika had a headache from thinking. Maybe she could sleep on it, and a solution would become clear.
“At seven tomorrow,” Thomas said as he pushed off to head for home. “No later, or we might have to worry about the storm.”
When she got home, Ian was still gone. She had a quiet supper with Pearl and wondered where Ian was. She had thought he would be waiting to talk to her. After all, she had said she was sorry they had ever come and then had run out. Maybe the fact that he was gone meant he’d given up, and there was nothing to say.
She went to bed early but couldn’t sleep. The wind tossed the trees and whistled in the eaves, and she felt disconnected and alone. Finally she slept but jerked awake with a whole dream clear in her mind like a movie. She had been sitting on the floor in the corner of a huge high-ceilinged room. Everyone in the large crowd was standing around taking turns talking. Then the mood changed and everyone hugged. She couldn’t make out their words, but she thought, They don’t need me here. I have nothing to say. Then a large black wolf entered a door on the far side of the room. Some people were afraid and backed away. The wolf began to weave calmly through the crowd, his eyes and ears alert as he walked. He was coming straight toward her. After he arrived beside her, he turned and faced the crowd, standing as still as stone. Everyone turned to look. Slowly she reached out one hand and laid it on the wolf’s back. His fur was inches deep and closed around her wrist. She rose to her feet, steadying herself with one hand on his back. When she was standing, she realized how big he was, his back at waist height. People smiled and asked questions. Suddenly she understood that she was expected to speak. Her voice felt clear and strong. People listened. She knew the wolf had come just for her. The wolf leaned closer, his shoulder pressing against her, and she once again sank her hand into the fur over his shoulders, feeling changed somehow.
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.
Chapter Seventeen
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, o
r 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.
Summer of the Wolves Page 14