Matt grabbed a piece of hay from the stack of bales and stuck it in his mouth. “I don’t know. Sometimes, you go over my head.” He looked at Fudge. “But I know this. If he never leaves his stall, he’ll never become the bull moose of some cow moose’s dreams.” He smiled at his own joke. “Y’know what I mean?”
“I get it,” Seth said. “I’m not that much of an egghead.”
“Oh, don’t get me wrong. You’re an egghead,” Matt said, “but that’s okay. I don’t always let on, but sometimes I actually learn a few things from you.”
Seth met his eyes and gave a nod. “Good.”
Matt walked the length of the barn, opened the door until it jammed in the snow, then stood aside. “Ready!” he called.
Seth eased open the stall door. “Okay, Fudge,” he said. The calf stopped rubbing and eyed the open gap.
“You’re on your own now. Go out there and multiply.”
Seth backed himself behind the stall door, and the calf stepped forward—one step, two. When it found itself in the walkway, it pawed, swung its head left and right, then trotted for the sunshine outside the door, leaving tear-shaped tracks in the dirt.
Seth ran a few yards behind it. “C’mon!” he called to Matt, who joined him in breaking through the deep snow after the moose calf.
The moose followed along the fence, then stopped abruptly beside a crab apple tree. It extended its rubbery lips and pulled a remaining dried apple into its mouth.
“There’s more under the snow,” Seth called.
For a moment, the moose calf looked toward him with its brown marble eyes, as if considering whether to stay or go. But it turned, lumbered off on its long legs, picking up speed as it headed for the thickest trees, and like a ghost stepping into another world, disappeared into the late afternoon shadows.
For a few minutes, the boys perched on the split rail fence, boots hooked on the bottom rung, watching. The silence between them was comfortable, the kind that comes from knowing someone a long time.
Matt spoke. “I think he’s gone.”
“Yeah, maybe,” Seth answered, holding a hope the calf might return. One thing he knew. Moose—like wolves—were wild, part of a greater mystery he would never fully understand. And that was just fine.
He could live with that.
Author’s Note
When this novel was first written, wolves were on the Endangered Species list. Their numbers were woefully low because of excessive bounty hunting and trapping. With protection, the wolf population successfully rebounded and was eventually “delisted” or removed from the list of threatened or endangered species. Now individual states determine how to “manage” their wolf populations.
In 2012, the state of Minnesota opened a hunting season on wolves. Each year, hunters are allowed to hunt or trap wolves until an overall “harvest,” or number of wolves killed, is reached.
Without a doubt, the wolf will always be the focus of debate, arousing admiration and fear, love and hate. One thing is certain: the wolf has made a strong comeback from its threatened existence and again adds its song to the chorus of the land.
Further Reading About Wolves
Decade of the Wolf: Returning the Wild to Yellowstone (revised and updated edition), by Douglas W. Smith and Gary Ferguson (Lyons Press, 2012).
Face to Face with Wolves, by Jim Brandenburg (National Geographic Press, 2010).
Wolf Almanac: A Celebration of Wolves and Their World (revised edition), by Robert H. Busch (Lyons Press, 2007).
Wolf Empire: An Intimate Portrait of a Species, by Scott Ian Barry (Lyons Press, 2007).
Wolves, by Seymour Simon (HarperCollins, 2010).
Wolves: Behavior, Ecology, and Conservation, by David L. Mech (University of Chicago Press, 2007).
Mary Casanova is the author of more than thirty books for young readers, ranging from picture books such as The Day Dirk Yeller Came to Town, Utterly Otterly Night, and One-Dog Canoe to novels, including Frozen (Minnesota, 2012). Her books are on many state reading lists and have received the American Library Association Notable Book Award, Aesop Accolades from the American Folklore Society, Parents’ Choice Gold Award, Booklist Editors’ Choice, and two Minnesota Book Awards. She speaks frequently around the country at readings, schools, and libraries.
She lives with her husband and three dogs in a turn-of-the-century house in Ranier, Minnesota, near the Canadian border.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Author’s Note
Further Reading About Wolves
Wolf Shadows Page 8