Wolves

by Cary J. Griffith

  But he had no illusions about the night. On the way home he pulled into Caldecott’s Liquor. He always bought one bottle of medium-priced red. From experience Sam Rivers knew if wine were in his townhouse, he’d drink it. This way he could limit his intake to, at the very most, a bottle.

  The cashier nodded. Sam nodded back and paid.

  By the time Sam returned to Yellow Rock it was after dark. He walked into his unlit townhouse, tired and hungry. He flipped on the kitchen light, tossed his mail on the table and scrounged in his kitchen drawer for a corkscrew. He opened the bottle and poured the blood-red wine into a glass. He swirled the wine, sticking his nose in it. Then he took a slow sip and... damn... that tasted good.

  He took the glass into his living room and over another sip fired up his laptop and started checking emails.

  He read more than 30 messages, mostly office work to be addressed. Then he found two messages that focused his attention; an attachment from canislupustruth@yahoo.com and something from dianetalbott@gmail.com. He recognized the name of his mother’s friend, but the subject line —Williston Winthrop is dead—sucked all the air out of the room. His chest and stomach lifted, as though he’d hit turbulence. The old man was dead?

  “Sorry for the blunt message. In the event anything happened to your father your mom wanted me to tell you. She gave me your email address... hope it still works. I tried to dig up a phone number, but I couldn’t find one.

  It’s been a long time, Sam. I’m sure you remember the times you and I paddled your mother into the Boundary Waters for some R&R and a good fish dinner. I have missed her these two years. She was a great friend with a heart the size of a kettle drum and kindness for the whole world and everything in it—even, inexplicably, your father.

  Before she died she made me promise that if anything happened to Williston I was to let you know. She knew you wouldn’t come home if he was still alive. She wanted me to remind you about the things you left in her house, things she wanted to make sure you recovered.

  Sam remembered. His mother had told him as much before she died. And it was true. He would never return home as long as the old man was alive.

  She said she’d added to them since you’d left, and you must come home and get them. I wish I could tell you more, but I think that was the sum of it.

  For what it’s worth, Williston was never able to sell her home and it’s still sitting vacant. The way things are on the Range your father never put much effort into fixing it up and selling it. It’s not exactly a seller’s market.

  Your mom told me some of the details of why you disappeared and changed your name. I didn’t like your father before I learned about it. Afterward, I liked him even less.

  Now you can come back for a visit, Sam Rivers. Now that Williston’s dead everything has changed. So if you decide to return, please stop by. Here’s a link to the business about your father.

  All the best,

  Diane Talbott

  Sam remembered every detail about what he and his mother had hidden in her house, minutes before he fled. And she’d added to it? He couldn’t imagine what, wasn’t really sure it mattered, though he was definitely curious.

  He clicked on the link and opened an article to the online version of the Vermilion Falls Gazette. He’d forgotten Diane was a reporter.

  Local Attorney Dies in Hunting Accident

  Diane Talbott

  The Vermilion Falls Gazette, Jan. 27

  Sam stared at the screen and re-read the article twice, in disbelief. The old man was dead. It was impossible to fathom. A hunting accident? There was a time Sam had spent a fair portion of his waking hours dreaming of Williston Winthrop’s demise. But gradually the interests and pursuits of his own life absorbed him. And now the old man was gone?

  He remembered his mother’s friend. She was over ten years younger than his mother. When they canoed into the Boundary Waters Sam had been impressed by her ability to paddle and by her appearance. He was just a kid and Diane Talbott was probably in her late 20s, but at 15 Sam couldn’t help admiring the woman, who had a compelling contour.

  After his last battle with the old man, Sam stayed away from Defiance because you never knew when a man like Williston Winthrop would make good on his promise to charge him with attempted murder and make it stick. Sam didn’t really have any other meaningful connections to his former home.

  Sam returned to his email and opened the message from canislupustruth. This time there was no note, only an attachment. He opened the PDF and read “Will & Testament” printed across its top. It was a copy of the old man’s Will. The list of properties included the 300-acre farm, all of the farm’s machinery, three feeder calves still in the barn, one truck, a car, his mother’s house, apparently vacant, and her car. And money, lots of it.

  The old man had over 2.3 million dollars in various Ameritrade accounts, and over 50,000 dollars distributed throughout money market, checking and savings accounts at the Vermilion Falls State Bank. An additional 2.5 million-dollar term life policy was listed in his father’s name. Everything else was tied up in personal property. Williston Winthrop’s signature was dated almost two years earlier, not long after Sam’s mother’s death. At the line marked BENEFICIARY(IES) he had written “The members of the Iron County Gun Club, to be divided equally: Angus Moon, Bill Grebs, Hank Gunderson and Hal Young.”

  Sam was shocked by the size of the old man’s estate. Maybe legal work on Minnesota’s Iron Range was more lucrative than he’d imagined. More likely, the old man had figured out a scheme for bilking clients.

  The absence of his own name on the list of beneficiaries was no surprise. Sam Rivers’s miserable connection to the old man had ended with their last disagreement, the one that broke three of Sam’s ribs and knocked him sprawling into North Dakota’s emptiness.

  Why would the old man carry a two and a half million-dollar policy on himself? For the benefit of his Club? They’d been that close? Sam remembered their weekly meetings, their out-of-season hunting excursions, even their talk of building a remote, isolated cabin in Skinwalker’s Bog.

  The man who’d suggested re-instating wolf bounties; that was the man Sam remembered. He could imagine the old man standing at a public hearing and arguing, vociferously, that wolves should be de-listed, hunted, even exterminated. Bring back the bounties.

  Sam was familiar enough with wolf depredation figures to know such encounters were increasing as the wolf populations grew. Like most wildlife biologists, Sam believed the population would eventually reach a carefully managed balance. The depredating wolves, like Judy Rutgers’s, would be captured or killed. There would always be livestock taken. If you were going to have wolves, it was unavoidable. Most farmers and ranchers appreciated the wild animals, were willing to work with the state to ensure their survival. Williston Winthrop’s perspective was a minority opinion, but there were plenty who shared it.

  The old man was right about one thing. There had been some well-documented encounters between humans and wolves. In 2005, in a mining operation in Saskatchewan, a man apparently walked into the woods and was stalked, attacked, killed and partially eaten by a pair of wolves. In 2010 a female jogger in Alaska was killed by wolves. These were two recent North American occurrences, and there were others elsewhere around the world. But compared to human depredation by other species (crocodile, shark, bear or cougar, for instance) wolf/human attacks were incredibly rare.

  Sam leaned back from the screen. Canislupustruth again. And two days after the cryptic message: SOON. Soon what? Soon there was going to be a hunting accident? And why send him the goddamn messages? A will would only be public in Minnesota if it was probated. Sam assumed this will wasn’t probated, so the only people who likely had copies were the beneficiaries. But why would they send him a copy? If it was probated there would be a copy filed in the Vermilion County Recorder’s office, and he might be able to track down wh
oever pulled it, if he was willing to drive more than 1,000 miles to find out. Those were a lot of ifs.

  Sam Rivers sat in his chair a long time, recalling scenes from his childhood. He remembered the way the old man cooked breakfast. He remembered his fixation on hunting, and the way he instilled in Sam, who did not have the heart for it, hunting’s commandments.

  “Surprise,” the old man said, “is what you hunt. Not the animal. Look for the unexpected place they feel secure, where you can smell it in their blood.”

  “You’ve got to put it down,” the old man told him, on one of the occasions he’d tried to teach him trapping. They were laying baits around foothold traps on the outside of a wolverine’s den. The rancid meat smelled awful, and Sam turned up his nose and held it at arm’s length.

  “If you don’t put it down they won’t come around. The worse it smells, the better. Distracts them from the traps.”

  It was one of many things the old man tried to teach him. And though he was a capable student and learned the lessons easily, he chose not to use them, at least for the kind of trapping the old man pursued. But he was surprised by how easily he recalled the lessons.

  After a while Sam got up, went to his freezer and pulled out a nearly full bottle of Grey Goose, a more fitting drink given the circumstances and the old man’s end. Sam wasn’t big on hard liquor, which was why it didn’t bother him that it was sitting in his freezer. But there were times, like this one, when he needed something stronger. He took a clear glass out of the cupboard, filled it with cubes, and topped them off with the thickened liquid. He raised it in his empty kitchen air, trying to conjure some words... something.

  His father’s death was sudden and unexpected. It was amazing how a single afternoon could change life entirely. That’s the way he felt, though he did not know where the new direction led.

  “To the son of a bitch,” he finally said, and drank off a long swallow. It burned down his throat, across his rib cage. Fitting.

  He sipped the rest of the Grey Goose meditatively, the night deepening in his townhouse windows. Eventually he returned to Diane Talbott’s message.

  “Thanks for the information,” he wrote, considering. He thought about what else to say. “I hope you’re well,” he concluded.

  Then, “More, later.”

  “—Sam”

  He dialed his Supervisor. At the voicemail’s beep he said, “Something’s come up. I need to leave town for a while. A week should be plenty. I’ll get Becker or Barnes to set those traps at Judy’s place tomorrow morning. But I suspect my hunch about that wolf not returning is correct. I’ll call you tomorrow from the road.”

  The funeral wasn’t for five more days. He thought he might like to be there when the old man was dropped into frozen ground. He’d enjoy seeing the look in the Club members’ faces. If they were still the raw group of outdoorsmen he remembered he would relish making them squirm. They had been the kind of men who would harass anyone they thought might threaten their claim to the old man’s estate. If his father had ever filed an attempted murder charge against Clayton Winthrop (Sam’s childhood name), Bill Grebs would have reason enough to give him trouble. But Sam never heard about any charges and besides, the difference between Sam Rivers and Clayton Winthrop was twenty years and a lifetime.

  Now that the old man was out of the picture, Sam felt ready to return. He needed to recover his things. He would have to be careful about getting back into his mother’s house.

  It was just after 9:00. He worked through the details in his head.

  He was nagged by his mother’s house and the contents of their secret basement recess. Her house was still vacant. He wondered what she’d placed there, in the bag next to the old man’s precious heirloom.

  He cleaned up, thinking about what he’d need to take with him. Some tools. Couple sets of clothes. He remembered northern Minnesota. It could be blistering cold this time of year. He’d need some serious gear.

  But how to get into his mother’s without being seen...?

  Gradually, the outline of a plan began to take shape. He worked out the timing in his head: the 20-plus-hour drive, the post-midnight hour of his arrival. If he left well before dawn he could probably make 15 hours tomorrow, which would put him in or near Minnesota. Close to northern Minnesota, if he retraced the Dakota journey he’d taken 20 years earlier. He could find a place; sleep in, rest up, and head out around dinner time on the 29th, which would land him in Defiance late that night or early the 30th. Better early the 30th, when everyone would be asleep.

  If nothing much had changed in Defiance, it could work. For the first time in long while, Sam was looking forward to first light.

  Chapter Five

  January 29th, just before midnight—Angus Moon’s northwoods cabin

  The five men walked out of the cabin into the woods where the dogs’ houses stood. Williston Winthrop held the lantern. Its mantles flared in the dark. The others followed him up the ice-covered path through the trees. When they reached the houses, Winthrop peered into the black sky. A few thick snowflakes filtered down through the lantern’s light.

  “It’s starting,” Winthrop said.

  “Gonna be a hell of a storm,” Angus Moon said.

  “It just gets better and better,” Hank Gunderson chuckled.

  The others considered their words, peering into the dark. They’d spent the evening in Angus Moon’s remote cabin, playing cards and being liberal with the juice, waiting for midnight and the forecast onset of storm. The wind-driven pines and the first light dust of white told them it was time. Now Williston carried the lantern into the wooded enclosure. He lifted it to show the first dog’s house, then turned to look at Moon.

  “You sure they’re ready?”

  Angus nodded. He stepped up to the side of the closest house. The five houses stood at different angles in the narrow enclosure. They were fashioned out of scrap lumber. Large pieces of plywood had been nailed over each door. A thin opening at the bottom allowed a shallow bowl of water to be shoved through. As they came closer the pungent odor of the dogs’ confinement was nauseating.

  “Christ,” Bill Grebs muttered.

  “Jesus, Angus. Sure ain’t the Duluth Radisson,” Hank said.

  “That’d be for us, later,” added Grebs, smiling.

  Gunderson and Hal Young chuckled, but Winthrop knew there was work to be done.

  A small wolf head peered out from behind the nearest house. The visage startled Young and Grebs.

  “What the hell is that?” Grebs asked.

  “What’s left of the last litter,” Moon said.

  “Couldn’t sell it?”

  “Not yet. And gettin‘ a little old. Might have to keep it for breeding stock. But that one’s got more dog than I ever seen come out of a match between the Arctic sire and Malamute bitch. Not sure the others’ll accept it. Might just have to cut the little shit loose. Or use him for target practice.”

  The youngling cowered behind the house.

  “Git,” Angus snarled, and the dog disappeared, its collar and chain jangling into the dark. “See what I mean?”

  Just to give them the feel of a real hybrid, Angus brought back a steel-toed boot and kicked the nearest house. There was an explosive growl and the sound of teeth gnashing against the plywood wall. It captured Hal Young’s attention like a slap in the face. He stepped back, afraid the boards might break.

  Angus turned and smiled, watching Young’s retreat.

  There was nothing in Angus Moon’s unshaven face, or the intent focus of his gray eyes, that betrayed his role in what happened that Sunday night on Williston Winthrop’s farm, though all the Club members knew it was Angus who brought on the vagrant James T. Beauregard’s doom. When the scheme was conceived, unanimous decision appointed Moon the executioner. Now he spit across the path, comfortable with his new stature, sending a spasm of br
own saliva directly behind the tremulous Hal Young. “They’ll keep,” he said.

  “How long they been in there?” Young asked, more to make conversation than out of curiosity.

  “Two days,” Angus said. His tongue moved to resettle his chew. When he smiled he revealed two rows of stunted yellow pegs.

  The five hybrids now penned and starving had been kept for breeding and the Club’s amusement. They could run down deer better than their wild brethren. And a hefty wooden club let them know Angus was their unchallenged leader. They touched no part of a downed animal until Angus Moon gave them the nod. Now the prolonged absence of food had caused their lupine instincts to surface like an ancient muscle group.

  In the growing snowfall the first dog’s howl triggered a chorus of low snarls. The other four houses vibrated with the noise.

  “I think they’re all just about ready for a little meat,” Angus added.

  He turned and stepped up to each house and kicked it, eliciting the same whipped fury of teeth and feral growls. Under the force of one of the dog’s gnashing, a plywood board bowed out. Young stepped back. Winthrop heard his shuffle and raised the light to look at him.

  “They won’t get out until we let them out.”

  “No need to rile ’em, Angus,” Grebs admonished. “They’re ready.”

  Williston Winthrop raised his lantern. At the edge of the trees there was a black tarpaulin thrown carelessly over stacked metal cages. Angus threw off the tarp and hauled a cage to the nearest house.

  “Come here, Young. Give me a hand.”

  Young hesitated. Then he stepped to the opposite side of Angus. Young was five foot ten, one hundred eighty pounds. He wore a heavy down coat that accentuated his flaccid pudginess. Over his right breast, stenciled yellow letters declared Hal Young Independent Insurance.