When she heard the buzz of an outboard motor, she jumped up. It must be Thomas. She pulled out the deer tail she’d brought today and dangled it. Khan followed more slowly going back, like a kid being called in from recess, sniffing along the way and squatting to mark every few feet with tiny shots of urine. Finally she slapped the deer tail against her leg and ran. With lolling tongue, Khan swept by her and down the hill, vanishing in the dense green on the other side of the sand spit. He would beat her home.
Feeling exhilarated from their run, she jogged the last few yards to the pen. But Khan was nowhere to be seen, and the pen gate was closed. When her hand reached for the latch, she saw Ian kneeling down on the far side, where the big pines grew. She had been so sure he’d been asleep when they left. Khan was licking Ian’s face and lips. Ian rose, put one hand on his neck, and looked at her. Khan raced toward the gate, then back to Ian.
Quickly and without thinking, Nika grabbed her rain poncho from where she’d hung it on a bush, and hurried down the trail. She heard Ian call her name. Just as she reached Pearl’s cabin, she heard the gate clang and rapid footsteps down the path. She felt panic rising. Her stomach tightened, making it hard to breathe. She slowed, then stopped and brought her hands to her hips.
“Did you hear me call?” Ian asked.
Nika turned to face him. “Thomas is waiting at the dock. I’ve got to go.”
Ian looked away and said, “Later. You can go with Thomas later. Right now you are going to the Center with me. I want you to see the enclosure we built for Khan. You can help out for a while.”
She felt confused. Wasn’t he going to say something about yesterday or about her morning run with Khan? But he didn’t seem angry. Just unwavering.
“Okay.” She hated this. The enclosure they built for Khan. “Can Thomas come?”
“Have him come to town later. If the weather holds, you can go with him for a while before supper,” Ian answered, pulling open the kitchen door.
All day in town! Nika opened her mouth to protest, but Ian stopped her. “Go and tell Thomas. I’ll meet you at the big boat.”
It was a long day. Ian came up with project after project for Nika. First he had her sorting greeting cards of different northern animals and putting them in plastic sleeves for the gift shop. He asked her to mop the office floor that was already so clean, she could hardly see where her mop had been. She unpacked and sorted brochures Elinor had ordered. Nika simmered with impatience, refusing the chicken and avocado sandwich Ian offered her.
In the afternoon, Ian and Elinor showed her the fenced area, roughly the size of two football fields, much larger than she had imagined. They talked about it proudly. It had trees, a small concrete pond with a waterfall, and big rocks all around. Elinor kept going on and on about the den they were having workmen dig. But as Nika looked over the neatly landscaped pen where Khan would live, she could only think how lonely he would be, how he would spend all day standing at the fence.
Finally Ian said, “Okay, off you go. But I want you to help out again tomorrow.”
Thomas’s boat drifted and thumped against the town dock. Hopping in, Nika pushed off, saying, “Let’s go!”
Thomas backed the boat, then shifted into forward gear. “We can probably still beat the storm,” he shouted over the motor.
Nika looked up. It wasn’t raining at all, even though the sky looked like gray hammocks full of water. It was odd that the wind was blowing toward the storm, she thought. Maybe it was going away.
Thomas pulled the boat up on the skid logs and tied up to a tree. They didn’t need to remind each other to be very quiet as they walked to their usual observation spot, next to the chair-shaped tree trunk. Thomas opened his backpack, took out his camera, and handed binoculars to Nika.
At first it looked like all the meat they’d left was gone. Nika saw one raggedy chunk partially covered with dirt. Both of them looked for Luna. There was no sign of her. Then they saw an ear flick. She was stretched out in shadows just inside the margin of the forest. Her golden eyes were turned their way. Finally she raised her head and shoulders and shifted to face them, but she didn’t stand up.
It seemed like hours passed as they sat watching the wolf watch them. The sky continued to darken, but they agreed the storm was still far away. When Luna stood and stretched, they thought she would go to the cache and eat, but she didn’t. She stood tall on her long thin legs, looking down at them. Then slowly, but with a bounce in her step, she trotted directly toward them. Nika and Thomas sat up straight. Nika took a breath and waited. Thomas snapped several pictures, then put his camera away. They looked at each other, not believing what was happening. Thomas whispered, “Look away.” Nika nodded.
They averted their eyes so they wouldn’t scare her. They heard her feet crunch lichen and sticks nearby. Nika looked up and pup-whined and whimpered and said, “Hey Luna-girl, hey girl.” Luna edged toward them pausing and ducking and finally threw herself down on a mat of moss growing in a hollow not far away. Nika continued to croon. The wolf wagged the tip of her tail, making a low groaning sound, and lay still, moving nothing but her eyes. It seemed forever that they sat like that. Nika badly wanted to get close enough to touch her, but Thomas wasn’t so sure it was a good idea. They decided it was best to be patient, as she’d learned to be with Khan.
“This is magical,” Nika said when she stopped holding her breath at last.
“Yeah, and she’s telling us something, too, something important,” whispered Thomas. Nika looked at him and waited.
“I think she just told us that she really was raised by humans. I’ll bet that once she felt safe with some person. Not Bristo. Maybe a woman, because she seemed to respond when you called.” Nika nodded. It was true. From what she’d read recently, no wild wolf would ever act as Luna was acting now.
A rumble of thunder rolled down the lake. The southwestern sky looked bruised. On the horizon, dark clouds bloomed with tall white cauliflower tops. Smaller gray popcorn clouds marched in rows in front of them.
Luna was suddenly nervous. She stood, crouched, and looked around, her muscles tensed, legs bent.
“Maybe the storm is making her nervous,” Nika said.
“We’d better go.” Thomas slowly rose to his feet. The second they moved, the wolf glided as smoothly as moving light back up the hill, up and into the cover of dark trees.
The wolf heard sounds. She smelled smells. The smells put fire into her muscles and pulled her toward the cover of trees. She recognized the voice beneath the eagle tree. With it was the metal sound that came with humans. And beyond that, thunder, but more than thunder, fear.
Later, pain burned into the wolf’s body, and she slipped back away from her body. She could smell the one-like-the-woman beside her as the wolf fell deep into the forest of her mind.
Chapter Eighteen
Before they took another step, Nika heard the unmistakable bong of an aluminum boat hitting rock. Thomas reached out his hand for her to be still, and the two of them inched up the shore toward the sound.
They slipped into the bushes behind the eagle tree and carefully parted dense branches to peek through. Bristo was swearing and muttering as he clumsily tugged his boat over a piece of driftwood. He fumbled and leaned forward, pulling a rifle from the seat.
Electric fear shot through Nika’s body. She scrambled back across the ledge and ran, her feet tangling and tripping in knots of weeds and brush, propelled by her own racing blood. Thomas was right behind her.
At the small clearing by the chair tree, they looked up the hill, frantic to see Luna. In patchwork shadows, she was peering from several feet beyond the edge of the woods, her light face barely visible. She turned her head and looked toward the eagle tree. Her ears were air-planed to the side, uncertain, her body motionless.
What could they do? They’d heard Bristo say he would kill the runaway wolf if he could find her. Had he followed them?
“If we can get the wolf to come to us, Bristo would
n’t dare shoot,” said Thomas.
“Come on, Luna,” Nika called, kneeling and pup-whining, trying to keep the urgency from her voice so she wouldn’t scare the wolf. She puppy-whined again. When Luna didn’t come toward them, Thomas dug into his pack and produced a piece of jerky, holding it out. One of Luna’s ears stood taller, the other still pulled partway back in fear. She began to move toward Nika and Thomas in a crouch, shooting glances toward the clunking noises from Bristo’s boat. She circled around behind them and flattened herself in the cover of bushy junipers. Thomas tossed her a chunk of the jerky. She took it in her mouth, then dropped it.
Nika crooned, “Good girl, Luna, good girl. You can do it. Stay with us. Come on, Luna.”
Nika and Thomas both realized at the same moment that there was no going home now. The sky was burly with purple clouds, and they could hear the collisions of thunder coming closer.
Thomas tried to lure Luna with another small piece of jerky. Like Hansel and Gretel and Little Red Riding Hood all mixed up, this time they were dropping crumbs for the wolf.
Luna moved closer to them, but kept her eyes and ears trained on the muffled scraping behind the eagle tree. She growled, raised her hackles, trotted in a circle, then froze and sank into the junipers again.
Nika heard a thud and saw the bushes shake beneath the eagle tree. Luna heard it too and tensed. She crouched. Then Nika and Thomas heard Bristo moving through the trees and swearing. The wolf ran up the rock heading for safety, but Bristo had cut uphill and was coming out near the feeding spot. Luna froze. Nika and Thomas saw Bristo at the edge of the trees, staring at the crouched wolf. He laughed, then raised his rifle. There was a snapping sound, like a large branch breaking in the wind, followed by a yelp of pain.
Nika yelled and ran across the rock toward the man. She didn’t think and didn’t care.
Thomas shouted, “Nika, don’t!”
But Nika was screaming at Bristo, “Stop! Stop! I’ll get my uncle. You’ll go to jail!”
Halfway across the rock ledge, she tripped, her foot jammed between two rocks. Pain spiked up through her ankle. Panic dulled the pain, and she hobbled on. She couldn’t see Luna. When she came around a giant boulder, she saw Bristo staggering toward the wolf with his rifle pointed down. He stopped to maintain his balance, one hand on a stump. Luna was on the ground past the boulder, at the edge of some small trees. She was bleeding from a wound in her shoulder, her head partly raised. Bristo was cursing and swaying.
Nika ran to Luna and fell to her knees beside her, screaming at Bristo, “This is what you wanted! Get out of here! You going to shoot kids, too?”
“You didn’t see nuthin!” shouted Bristo, breathing heavily. “I bet you’re the one let go the others so I got nuthin’. Stupid bleedin’-heart kids . . .” Bristo turned and walked haltingly away. At that moment, the wind died, and the lake went completely still.
After a snarl of engine noise and swearing, Nika heard the boat putter away from the island.
Luna wasn’t moving much, but she panted and made low-pitched puppy-whines. Nika felt a sharp wave of pain from her own ankle. She slumped down next to the beautiful tan wolf. Across the lake yellow wires of light cut through the navy blue sky, followed by a grumble of thunder. Inside, Nika felt her courage collapse. Luna could die. Maybe Bristo had found her because of them. She jabbed at her tears with the back of her hand. Then taking a breath, she yelled, “Thomas!
Thomas came scrambling up with his backpack, his face frozen in fear, his mouth gaping as he stared at the downed wolf. “I thought he shot you!”
He quickly seemed to collect himself. “We’ll get the vet. Touch her. Go slowly,” he said.
Nika reached out and carefully lowered her hand onto the thick fur on the wolf’s shoulder. Her hand came away bloody. Luna lifted her nose, then let her head drop back down again.
“Good. Now see if you can find the wound, and press, to stop the bleeding.” Nika found a wet hole in Luna’s bloody shoulder and pinched it together with her fingers. The wolf moaned and jerked, then looked away, as though she’d given up.
The wolf’s breathing seemed to steady, and Nika started to breathe with her, feeling a strange calm. She thought about Ian, how much she needed him right now.
The wind was picking up. Thomas looked at the sky again. “The storm’s gonna hit. I can just make it to town. You stay here. You’re going to get pretty wet. Wait a sec. Hang on.” Thomas flew down to his boat and came back with a life jacket and a boat cushion. “For insulation from the ground,” he said. Then he attacked some nearby trees with the knife he always carried. He came back with armloads of branches that he began to teepee around and over her and the wolf.
As the balsam branches began to surround her, Nika was grateful that Luna had fallen next to a dense stand of trees on brushy ground. She remembered hearing you didn’t want to be next to a tall tree or on a big rock in a lightning storm.
Thomas poked his head into the ragged shelter he’d thrown up around them. “When the lightning starts, if your hair stands on end, squat on the life jacket with your head between your knees.” She heard the scraping of his boots as he scrambled down to his boat. At least it was still light out. The engine started right away, and she heard his small boat move out into the lake, thumping as it bucked the waves. She was glad it wasn’t far to Red Pine.
The rain fell softly at first, then increased to a rhythm of heavy drops plunked against the rocks and leaves. In the distance she could barely hear the drone of Thomas’s boat. Adjusting the branches, Nika laid the life jacket and cushion so she could circle her body around Luna. As rain trickled down her face, she positioned her arm over the wolf, pressing the wound. Soon she was soaked through, shivering, and her ankle throbbed with pain. Thunder tumbled, dark sounds ripped by stabs of lightning. The storm lowered around them like a sudden fall of early night.
Nika wondered what time it had been when Thomas left. She wished she’d worn a watch. She tried to remember when Ian said he was going home today. Had he already left town? If so, who would Thomas find to help?
Spikes of lightning, explosions of thunder, wind pushing trees in dizzy circles, and slanting sheets of water all surrounded Nika and the unconscious wolf. She tried to think of something else beside her fear and the pulsing pain in her ankle. Something besides how Luna might die because of them. She thought of her old dog-friend Rookie and his knowing brown eyes. Once she had been with her mom in the mountains in a cabin, and both she and Randall had been afraid of the thunder and lightning. Her mom had made up a story about the Thunder Princess, how she had big feet, and how she made thunder when her enormous boots pounded across the sky. Nika imagined her mom cuddled up next to her now, telling the story.
Time seemed to crawl on its belly. Nika couldn’t stop worrying. She had to do something to pass the eternity until someone came. She tried reciting nursery rhymes, starting with “There was an old woman tossed up in a basket,” but she couldn’t remember all of the words. Then she tried to remember her lines from the school play last year. She said the alphabet with an animal for each letter. Aardvark was her favorite. She bogged down with N and ended up singing Girl Scout songs. Finally she just sat in the dark, clutching the green jade of the necklace Olivia had made.
When the heavy rain began to let up, Nika could see the lake again. Sunset threw fingers of yellow light in fans above the leftover hunching thunderclouds. It had been a hot day before the storm, but now the temperature had dropped. She worried about Luna being cold. She remembered that when a person was injured, you were supposed to keep him warm. The wolf was unresponsive, but Nika could feel a pulse. Shivering, she put as much of her body as she could next to the wolf for warmth. At least she could feel the soft rise and fall of the wolf’s breathing under her hand. “Good girl, Luna. Good girl,” she said.
Nika remembered all the lonely waiting she’d experienced in her life, wondering what would happen next. And here she was waiting again, cold and soaking we
t. After the sun went down, she couldn’t even see beyond her foot in the storm-swept moonless night. What if Thomas’s boat had broken down? If so, the only person who knew she was here was Bristo.
Finally she heard outboard motors, then a man’s voice, and aluminum clonks from the landing. Soon thin bars of light were breaking and zigzagging through the trees. She shivered even more. Even her jaw was shaking. What if it was Bristo? Finally she heard low voices and one higher one. Bristo would have been alone.
“They’re up the hill a little, over here.” It was Thomas! In a moment shafts of light from four flashlights pinned the balsam tent. She heard the squishing of wet boots, then Thomas, Ian, Maki, and Elinor all emerged. As Thomas removed the branches, no one spoke. Maki propped a large flashlight in the crotch of a tree to light the scene.
“We got a little wet” was all Nika managed to say through chattering teeth. The three adults in their rain slickers looked down at the sodden pair. Elinor and Maki gently squatted by the wolf. Ian stood holding his flashlight, shaking his head, then went down on his knees next to Nika.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“My ankle,” she answered in a shaky voice. Now that they were here, she felt warm tears on her cold cheeks, and her nose was running.
Ian gently flexed and probed at her ankle, saying, “Does this hurt? How about this?” His voice was steady, as it had been when he’d examined the dead wolf earlier in the summer—very professional. “Well, I don’t think it’s broken. But we need to get you home.” Then he turned to Luna and, with the same calm, quickly assessed the wound in her shoulder. The wolf seemed to be barely breathing.
Summer of the Wolves Page 15