Wild At Heart: A Novel

by Tucker, K. A.

  “What is this place?” I take in the sunken, moss-covered roof and the rough wood logs that make up the four walls. Boards have been nailed across what I guess are windows, sealing them. It reminds me of the safety cabin Jonah and I sought refuge in while waiting for the murky weather to pass.

  “The original homestead on this property.” Muriel steps over a rotten log in her path, then kicks another one. “You’ve heard about that, right? Homesteadin’?”

  “When the government gave away land for free? Yeah, I watched a documentary about it.” I watched everything I could find about Alaska after returning to Toronto, grieving for the loss of both my father and Jonah, and desperate to hold on to it for a little while longer. My mother lovingly accused me of masochism.

  Muriel’s eyes widen with surprise. “That’s right. They’d give a parcel to you, and you had five years to build a dwelling and cultivate a certain portion before the land was yours, free and clear. A man came up here sometime in the ’60s, in the spring to settle with his wife and two young boys. He was from Montana, too. He staked his claim, paid his entry fees, and away he went, thinkin’ he’d made off like a bank robber, ready to show everyone how it’s done.

  “He built houses down there, so he assumed he’d be fine. I remember my parents talkin’ about what an obnoxious fool he was. Didn’t have the first clue about survivin’ up here, though, of what it’s like to be part of a community. Well”—she peers over her shoulder as she walks to give me a knowing look—“one boy was gone before Christmas. Caught somethin’ that he couldn’t shake, livin’ in this drafty, cold place, half-starved. The wife went out in a blizzard a month later and didn’t make it home. Took days to find her body. The man up and left with his remainin’ son before the snow melted. Didn’t last a year.”

  My jaw hangs open as I regard the tiny cabin before me, equal parts amazed and horrified by its dark history. What is it with the McGivney family telling me these terrible stories?

  “Might have gone a completely different way, had they been willin’ to help, and be helped. They didn’t even know how to keep a proper root cellar so their vegetables wouldn’t rot!” She shakes her head. “Eventually, the Beakers showed up with money to spend. It was the ’70s and this area was startin’ to grow, with the Parks Highway finished and talk of movin’ the state capital to the area from Juneau. The government was sellin’ land, so the Beakers bought up a bunch and made somethin’ of it by settling over on the other side of this lake, building the log house where you live. They put in a good decade here before deciding they were ready for something a little easier, so they sold to Phil and Colette, who really made somethin’ of it.”

  She caps off her story with a prideful smile, that grin that transforms her face and softens her harsh tone. “Now it’s your turn to leave your mark.”

  Things have changed, I want to tell her. Even in Alaska. We’re not trying to settle the land. I certainly have no intention of living off it. But this little trip has helped me begin to understand Muriel. Her family not only survived but thrived in what that documentary I watched described as the harshest of conditions—poor soil and short summers that challenged crops, wild animals that threatened livestock, the blistering cold, long winters, the endless assault of mosquitos deep in the thicket, the grueling daily labor required. It’s in her DNA. She’s proud of her heritage, of what her family has accomplished.

  She sees only one right way to live in Alaska.

  Leading me around the corner to where the roof hangs over a single wooden door, Muriel points to the glimpse of water beyond the trees. “That’s your lake. You’re over on the other side.”

  “Seriously?” I’ve spent countless hours looking across to the far shoreline. Never did I catch even a hint of a cabin hidden within. We can’t even see it from above, everything so overgrown.

  “Okay, let’s see if this will budge.” She gives the doorknob a yank and the old door opens with a hair-raising creak of the hinges. Muriel looks impressed as she pushes it all the way back. “Move that rock over here, will ya?” She nods toward a small boulder on the ground a few feet away.

  My back and arms scream in protest from the earlier soil tilling as I struggle to roll it over. I prop it against the bottom corner of the door to hold it open.

  “Haven’t been in here in years,” she admits, leading me into the small room that smells of damp wood. It’s dark, the only light streaming in from the door and the few cracks within the boarded-up windows. It’s empty of everything but dust, debris, and a few chunks of broken glass.

  I do a slow spin, trying to imagine where four people slept and ate, where the kitchen was situated. A black pipe in one corner hints at the location of the woodstove, but nothing of it remains.

  “Locals cleaned the place out as soon as they caught wind of the family takin’ off,” Muriel explains, as if reading my mind.

  “How old is this place again?”

  “Well, it was built in the ’60s, so well over fifty years old now.” She paces in a slow circle. “That man might have been a shmuck when it came to survivin’, but he built a sturdy enough cabin. Phil’s done some repairs and upkeep over the years and made sure it stayed boarded up, or else he was bound to find a sleeping bear in here, come winter. Thomas used to come out here with his friends and get up to no good. That’s their son, by the way. My boys would come out with him from time to time, too.”

  It’s the first time she’s even alluded to having more than one son.

  “And of course, Thomas would sneak out with his girlfriend, too. What teenager could resist a place to shack up.” She raises her eyebrow with meaning. “Anyway, thought you should see some good Alaskan history on your land.”

  I may have been reluctant at the start, but now I find myself appreciative. “I had no idea. There wasn’t any mention of the cabin in any of the paperwork.”

  “They probably lost track of it.” She shoos me out the door with a wave of her hand, then gives the boulder a swift kick with her boot, sending it rolling enough to loosen its grip of the door. With the cabin secured, she leads the way back through the bramble. “That spot where you have your garden, it wasn’t too much better than this when Colette and Phil took over. Of course, the Beakers had a little garden. Colette wanted bigger, so Phil gave her bigger. Lord, did that man ever love her, bless his heart.

  “Anyway, it took them a good five years to get it to size. Every year they’d clear and churn more. So much hard work put into it. That’s why it needs to continue being used.” Muriel straps her gun onto the rack and climbs back on her ATV. “Okay. You’ll want me to lead again so I’m gonna go around you and cut back onto the path—”

  A loud metal snapping sound followed by a howl of pain cuts through the silent forest, the echo sending countless birds from their perches, flapping into the air.

  “What was that?” I ask in a rushed voice.

  “Shhh!” Muriel holds a hand up to silence me, her head cocked in the general direction of where the noise came from.

  A second howl, less piercing but full of agony, carries moments later. It’s to our right, and it’s close. Too close.

  “Somethin’ got caught in a trap. Probably a wolf.”

  My stomach drops at the idea that there was a wolf lurking that close to us and we had no idea.

  “Okay, come on,” she says with a heavy sigh. “Let’s go and deal with it.” She cranks her engine and takes off in the direction of the wounded animal, forcing me to hurry to follow.

  * * *

  Muriel’s already off her ATV and heading toward a pile of fallen trees when I pull up and cut my engine.

  “A leg-hold trap! Big enough for a bear!” she announces, nodding to herself, as if she’s delighted for having guessed correctly. “Got ’im good, too.”

  I spot the mound of mottled, tawny-gray fur. With trepidation, I close the distance. “Oh my God.” I wince at the jagged metal teeth that dig into the wolf’s hind leg.

  “I heard
you’ve already had the pleasure of meetin’ your next-door neighbor?” she says, her tone grim.

  “Who, Roy? Yeah. Why …” My question fades as I take in the poor creature’s face, sharp, fear- and pain-laden eyes intent on our every move as it whimpers. “That’s Roy’s dog.” The one that seemed to be sizing up my jugular that day.

  She snorts. “Dog, my ass. He’ll swear up and down that he’s got malamutes, but he ain’t foolin’ nobody, includin’ himself. Lucky for him neither of ’em have caused any trouble that needed reportin’.” She shakes her head with dismay. “Roy ain’t gonna be too happy about this. Those hounds are like his kin.” She glances around. “Wonder where the other one went to. They’re usually a combo deal.” Branches crack beneath her footfalls as she heads toward her ATV, leaving me with the wounded animal.

  As little as I cared for Roy’s threatening beasts, the sound of it in agony stirs a natural response to end its misery somehow. “Is there a way we can pry this thing off?”

  “Not without you needin’ a few dozen stitches in that pretty skin of yours. That there ain’t no friendly mutt. Besides, even if we could get the trap off, that leg is so mangled, I doubt he could keep it.”

  I study the trap again, meant for an animal at least twice the size—its giant metal teeth gripping flesh without mercy, cutting through tendon and muscle, anchoring into bone. I cringe with the thought of it clamped over my own leg. “What the hell is a bear trap doing out here, anyway? A person could have stepped in this!”

  “Who knows how long it’s been there. I remember Phil havin’ a bear issue a few years back, so maybe this was him. I don’t see any fresh bait anywhere.”

  I crouch, and with a tentative hand, reach for the nearby chain. The dog bares its teeth and emits a grating growl, warning me back. Muriel’s right—I’ll only end up getting hurt trying to help it.

  I stand, sighing with frustration. “So, what do we do?”

  A click sounds that raises the hairs on the back of my neck. It’s a sound I’ve heard only a handful of times, when Jonah loads his rifle.

  “What are you doing?” I ask warily, cold dread seeping into my stomach as I watch Muriel approaching with her gun. I know exactly what she’s about to do.

  She gives me a blank look. “I’m puttin’ the thing out of its misery.”

  “You can’t just shoot it!”

  She shakes her head at me in disbelief. I’m sure my face is painted with horror. “We can’t leave it here. It’ll gnaw its damn leg off to get out of that thing and then bleed out in the bush! This is the humane thing to do, Calla!”

  “Well …” I stall, looking for an answer that doesn’t involve a bullet in this poor dog’s head in the next five seconds. “Shouldn’t we go and tell Roy? It’s his dog.”

  “And what do you think Roy’s gonna do for the wretched creature? Sing it lullabies?” She snorts. “This is a kindness. Now go on and get out of the way.” The gun is gripped within her rough, calloused hands, ready to point, aim, and fire.

  “No.” The word comes out before I can even think about it. My feet are rooted in place.

  Her eyebrows arch. “What do ya mean, no?”

  “I’m not letting you shoot the poor dog without first giving it a chance!”

  She sighs heavily. “Look, Calla, I know this might seem cruel to a girl like you, but what else are we gonna do? How are we gonna help it, all the way out here?” She waves a hand around us, emphasizing the fact that we’re deep in the bush. “Can’t even get it out of that trap without tranquilizing it first. I don’t have a tranquilizer. Do you?” She snorts derisively.

  A tranquilizer.

  Of course. I dig out my phone. I have one bar of reception. It might just be enough. “Yes. Actually. I do.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Jonah slows the ATV to a stop. Ahead of us, the ruts stretch beyond the bend in the trees. Someone’s been driving along Roy’s laneway with big tires, tearing up the soggy ground, churning the mud into a mess.

  “Tell me again why we’re goin’ to all this trouble for this asshole?” Jonah yells over the hum of the idling engine.

  I huddle within my jacket, chilled within the shade of the forest. “It’s not for him.”

  Jonah peers over his shoulder at me, takes in my grim, weary face, and his blue eyes soften. He gives one of my hands clasped around his waist a squeeze and then hollers, “Hold on!”

  I cling to Jonah’s body as we bump and jostle and dip through the trenches, my teeth rattling, tiny specks of mud splattering the back of my clothes like raindrops. A feel some land on my neck.

  And I remind myself that this is the right thing to do, even as my anxiety over telling this foul old man that his beloved dog is probably going to die twists my stomach into knots.

  Marie answered her phone on the third ring and, when I rushed to explain the situation, said she was hopping in her truck straight away. Muriel, who couldn’t stop shaking her head at me every time our gazes met, got hold of Toby, gave him an explicit “two hundred yards southwest of the old homesteader cabin” location, and told him to be waiting for Marie at our place with a trailer.

  It took almost half an hour before we heard the familiar hum of an approaching ATV engine in the woods. It was the longest half hour of my life, with the poor dog taking turns whimpering in pain and baring its fangs every time Muriel tried to get anywhere near the trap. Marie got to work immediately, sinking a dart between the dog’s shoulders and, as soon as his lids shuttered, releasing the metal teeth with deft skill. Toby and I helped lift the unconscious dog—who Toby put at a hundred twenty pounds—onto an old bedsheet that Marie brought, and then she wrapped his mangled leg, wearing a furrowed brow the entire time.

  Our convoy of ATVs emerged from the woods as Jonah was landing, Marie sitting cross-legged in the trailer, cradling the animal’s head in her arms as best she could, a grim mask of determination on her pretty face.

  She never complained once through all of it. Not as the wagon hit bone-jarring bump after bump, not as the dog’s blood seeped through the gauze and blanket, staining her jeans, not even as Muriel attempted to instruct her about where she should put the tranquilizer, on how best to release the trap, and how tight to bandage the wounds.

  The woman who still secretly pines over Jonah was, for lack of a better word, inspiring. Also, incredibly intimidating for her even temper and skill.

  The least I can do is deal with this asshole while Marie tries to save a life.

  Roy is outside when we approach the cabin, removing slabs of wood from the back of his pickup truck. The barn’s door is propped open, giving me a glimpse of the many tools and work benches inside.

  His truck is caked with dried mud, its sides wearing countless scratches in the paint. From the tree branches along his narrow driveway, I surmise. The oversized tires are likely what tore up the ground.

  The enormous black wolf dog is nearby, growl-barking.

  “Settle down!” Roy yells. The wolf dog instantly quiets and sits on his haunches. I wonder if it’s the words or his tone that get such an immediate response. Is the dog as daunted by Roy as I am?

  I steel my spine as Jonah cuts the engine. “Hey, Roy. How’s it goin’?” He doesn’t bother climbing off to shake the man’s hand this time.

  Roy makes a grunting sound that might be a greeting. His old worn blue jeans and checkered jacket—possibly the same outfit he was wearing last time we came here—are covered in sawdust again. The rifle is nowhere in sight, thankfully.

  “Listen, we found your dog caught in a bear trap, out in the woods. We called a good friend who’s a veterinarian to help. She took it to her clinic to see if anything can be done,” Jonah says, cutting all pretenses of small talk.

  “Damn animal … He’s been wandering off for weeks.” Roy’s tense jaw the only sign that the grim news has any impact on him. “He gonna lose his leg? ’Cause I got no use for a lame dog.”

  Jonah sighs heavily. “I don’t know
, Roy.” He slips Marie’s business card out of his shirt pocket. “Here’s my friend’s number. She’ll give you an update, and you can decide what to do.”

  Wait a minute. “What does that mean? Decide what to do?” I whisper.

  Jonah shoots a pointed look over his shoulder at me that tells me it’s exactly what I think it means.

  My anger flares, at Roy for his callous attitude and at Jonah for his indifference. “I just spent the last hour fending off Muriel and her trigger finger. Marie’s trying to save him. He can’t turn around and tell her to put it down,” I hiss, my words meant for Jonah but too loud, apparently.

  Roy’s eyes narrow. “I can do whatever the hell I want.” He casts a hand toward the black beast that’s watching us intently. “I could shoot him if I wanted and you couldn’t do a goddamn thing about it.”

  My jaw drops as I grapple with a suitable response, but I can’t think of one. Didn’t Muriel claim these animals were like family to him?

  “Muriel.” In that single name, it’s obvious her displeasure with Roy is mutual. His lips twist in thought. A long, silent moment drags as he regards his other dog. “You probably shoulda let her shoot him. ’Course, a young, city slicker like you wouldn’t have the guts for that.”

  I glare at him. It’s like he’s trying to antagonize me. “Well, I didn’t let her, so now you get to be a decent human being and take care of your wolf. Of course, a miserable, curmudgeon like you probably doesn’t have the guts for that.”

  Roy cocks his head, seemingly astonished by my retort.

  So is Jonah, by the arched eyebrow he flashes me. “On that note …” He’s still holding the business card up between two fingers. “Do you want Marie’s information or not? I’ve got shit to do.”

  I hold my breath. What if Roy says “not”? What happens to the animal?

  Roy saunters over and accepts the card, examining it as he steps backward. “She gonna give me issues?”