Running Wild

by Lucy Jane Bledsoe

  “Let go of us?” Seth asks.

  “Heavens, no. He let go of himself.” Aunt Frances takes a deep breath. She scoots across the couch and puts an arm around me. She extends her hand and wiggles her finger at my brothers, asking them to come closer. They don’t. They hover on the far side of the Johnsons’ front room like two skittish mule deer. Aunt Frances says, “Your dad’s a mess, I’m not going to hide that from you.”

  Keith and Seth lean against each other. They don’t understand. No one ever told them, because they were too little when Mama died, about how Dad had quit drinking. They only know what they’ve seen since July.

  “I’m not one to endorse drunkenness,” Aunt Frances continues. “But just this one time I was kind of glad he was so sauced because it made him talk. I learned a lot.”

  She pauses too long and so I press. “What? What did you learn?”

  “Your father’s a man of strong convictions.”

  I already know that. “Go on.”

  “He’s still pretty adamant that the wilds of Alaska have everything you need.”

  “He read my journal. About my wanting so many things we don’t have at the cabin. He doesn’t care.”

  “He cares, Willa.”

  “But—?”

  Aunt Frances just shakes her head. Even the adults don’t have answers.

  “Doesn’t he want to see us?” Seth asks.

  “Of course he does. But the Johnsons told him he wasn’t welcome here in his present state.”

  “He didn’t drink at all,” I tell Aunt Frances, “until this summer. He brought whiskey back from this year’s supply run.”

  She nods. “When your mama died, I think he thought he could beat the grief by coming up here. But grief always catches up, one way or another.”

  The boys just stare, wide-eyed. I want to tell Aunt Frances about so much more than our journey, but don’t know where to begin.

  “I told your dad I wanted to take you three back to New York with me.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He said no.”

  My heart sinks. That was my plan. My only plan.

  “But we can continue the conversation,” Aunt Frances says. “Stanley told him he’s welcome to come over to talk, any time he’s sober.”

  “Dinner is ready,” Constance calls from the kitchen door.

  Aunt Frances gathers me, Seth, and Keith in a hug. “I just love you guys. I can tell that you’re super-resilient.”

  “What does ‘resilient’ mean?” Seth asks.

  “It means I have so much confidence in your abilities to handle everything you need to handle.”

  We don’t all fit around the dining room table anymore, so Amelia and I sit on the couch and hold our plates in our laps. She keeps whispering comments to me about Aunt Frances and about her parents, funny observations that make me laugh. The boys finish their food in about five minutes. It’s already dark, but Stanley flips on the backyard floodlights so they can run out to play with Zhòh. Being with a regular family, talking and joking and playing, feels really good.

  TWENTY-ONE

  WE’RE ALL STILL sound asleep when someone bangs on the Johnsons’ front door. Amelia and I come out of her room as my brothers scramble to their feet. “Who the heck?” Constance says, following Stanley into the living room. The Johnson boys run out of their room, too.

  “Charles,” Stanley says, opening the door. “Good to see you. Come on in.”

  “Where are my children?”

  My brothers hold my hands as we walk over to face Dad. His eyes are bloodshot, and the skin around them darkened. His posture is stiff, as if everything hurts. Dad looks at all three of us for a long time before speaking.

  “You ran away. You called Frances. Why’d you do it?”

  I can’t find my voice.

  “You hate our life that much?”

  It’s not what I hate. It’s what I want. But I still can’t find the words.

  “Are you hungry, Charles?” Stanley asks. “How about some coffee?”

  He shakes his head. “Get your gear, kids. Let’s go.”

  “At least come in for some breakfast,” Stanley suggests. “Before you all leave.”

  “Do you mind?” Dad says, raising his voice. “I’d like to talk to my kids. Alone.”

  “Say what you need to say,” Constance says. “With us here.”

  Dad glares at Constance but doesn’t argue.

  “Why’d you do it?” he asks again.

  He read my journal. He knows the answer, at least some of the answer, to his question. I whisper, “I want to go to New York. I want Keith and Seth to come with me.”

  Dad looks out into the dark, as if there’s something important just beyond the Johnsons’ yard. “We can walk back to the cabin,” he says, ignoring what I just said. “It’ll be an adventure.”

  “Charles, for heaven’s sake,” Constance says. “The rivers are freezing.”

  “I said walk, not row.”

  I know my dad could do it. He could walk all the way back to the cabin, even at this time of year. He’d love it. He’d build snow shelters every night, manage to catch enough snowshoe hare and ptarmigan along the way. He could probably even get us three kids there, if not comfortably, at least alive.

  “We could go back in a helicopter,” Seth suggests.

  “Flat-out broke, son. Our savings are gone. I can’t hire a pilot. But that’s okay. Good, even. This is when our skills will be truly tested. How about it, kids?”

  I feel both of my brothers’ grips tightening on my hands. I shake my head no.

  Dad takes a couple of deep breaths. He nods hard once, making a decision. “Okay. Fine. Go to New York with your aunt for the winter. I’ll stay here in town. Get a job. Make a little cash. We can go back to the cabin in the spring.” He pauses and looks almost apologetic. “Fresh start after the melt.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” Stanley says.

  “Nobody asked you,” Dad says, before loping down the path to the front gate. There he stops and turns, looks at us gathered under the porch light for a long time. Without another word, he disappears into the early-morning dark.

  TWENTY-TWO

  AT BREAKFAST, STANLEY says, “I made some phone calls and found a home for Zhòh.”

  Seth doesn’t miss a beat. “Zhòh is coming to New York with me.”

  “That’s not possible,” Stanley says. “He’s wild. He needs miles of wilderness for roaming.”

  “He’s tame,” Seth says.

  “Not far from here, a woman named Charlotte has a sanctuary for wolves. Ones exactly like Zhòh, who have been tamed by humans, and then abandoned.”

  “I would never abandon Zhòh!” Seth shouts. He runs for the back door, as if he is going to collect his pet wolf and leave on his own, right this minute.

  Constance jumps up and intercepts him. She holds Seth in a tight hug as he thrashes. Amelia widens her eyes at me and I shrug. Seth shrieks, “Zhòh is coming to New York! Zhòh is coming to New York!”

  Stanley says, “I used the wrong word. Of course you’d never abandon Zhòh. But I know you’d want to choose the very best life for him.”

  I’m glad Aunt Frances is still at the guesthouse the Johnsons found for her. If she saw Seth’s behavior, she might change her mind about taking us back to New York.

  “Seth,” Constance says, “wait until you see the city. It’s all buildings and paved roads, millions of people everywhere. Zhòh would be so unhappy. A sanctuary where he can—”

  Seth puts his fingers in his ears.

  Stanley tells the rest of us that the sooner Zhòh is integrated into his new pack, the better he’ll adapt, so we’ll be taking him later today. After breakfast, the three older Johnson kids head off for school and Stanley goes to open the store. Constance, Eddi
e, who is too little for school, my brothers, and I pick up Aunt Frances and we have a tour of Fort Yukon and its surroundings. Aunt Frances keeps gasping, as if it’s the wildest place she’s ever been. When we spot a brown bear, she practically faints, even though it’s a couple hundred yards away and we’re in the van.

  After lunch, I pretend I’m watching television with the boys, but really I’m listening to Aunt Frances talk to Constance as she makes arrangements for our flights to New York.

  “Do you really have to go tomorrow?” Constance asks. “You know the kids are welcome here for however long.”

  “I work as an office manager in a medical clinic. My boss didn’t appreciate my taking off with no notice. I really do need to get back. Besides, I don’t trust Charles to not change his mind. The sooner we go the better.”

  “Charles is in pretty bad shape,” Constance says. “I’d be very surprised if he pulls it together anytime soon. Are you prepared to keep the kids for good, if it comes to that?”

  “Of course,” Aunt Frances says.

  New York. For the rest of my life. Is that what I really want?

  Shortly after three o’clock, when the other kids get home from school, Stanley leaves the store with Susie again and we get ready to take Zhòh to the sanctuary.

  We use a piece of meat to lure him into a wire crate and load this into the back of the van. Tears stream down Seth’s cheeks and he refuses to go with us. Keith stands close to his twin and says he’s not going, either. So Constance and Aunt Frances stay with the boys, while Amelia and I go with Stanley to take Zhòh to his new home.

  Amelia and I sit in the middle seat, leaving Stanley by himself in front. He pretends he’s our taxi driver and calls us mesdames, which Amelia says is French for ladies. As the van bumps along the dirt road on our way north, I can’t quite believe how fast the miles disappear under the tires. Until today, I haven’t been in a vehicle since we got out of Dad’s truck in Fairbanks five years ago. I feel carsick as we go around the curves. Or maybe I’m just feeling sick from seeing Dad this morning. Will he be okay here on his own?

  But Amelia makes me laugh by telling stories about her little brothers. I tell her stories about mine, too. It’s not long before we’re laughing at everything we see out the windows: a man wrestling a wild turkey, a cloud in the shape of a woman’s body, a ramshackle house with moss on the roof so thick trees are growing out of it.

  The more we laugh, the more we can’t stop. Everything is funny. A big airy happiness, like the high atmospheric pressure preceding good weather, lofts inside me.

  When we get to the wolf sanctuary, we park in the gravel parking lot and jump out of the van. A woman with short blond hair and a big smile comes out of the cabin next to the entrance. She holds out a hand to Stanley and they shake. He introduces us to Charlotte.

  “How about a quick tour?” she asks. “So you can decide whether this would be a good home for your wolf.”

  Stanley and Amelia wait for me to answer, so I say, “Okay.”

  We climb into Charlotte’s truck and, while a volunteer holds open the big gate, she drives us into the fenced wolf sanctuary. The volunteer closes the gate behind the truck.

  Charlotte drives slowly along a dirt road that winds through the sanctuary and tells us about wolves in zoos who’ve bitten zookeepers and must be given new homes. About wolves rescued from roadside attractions where they were kept on short chains. Or ones bought illegally from breeders as puppies and kept in small cages, even after they reached adulthood. Charlotte has a deal with the Department of Fish and Game: before euthanizing a problem wolf, they are supposed to call her. Sometimes they do, and sometimes they don’t. The nineteen wolves in her sanctuary have homes for the rest of their lives. They can run and play in the forest. They get regular meals. They have each other for a pack. As we roll across the sanctuary acreage, we spy two gray wolves and one white wolf.

  “We have a program for veterans, too,” Charlotte says. “It’s been really successful.”

  “I didn’t know wolves did military service,” Stanley jokes, and Charlotte smiles.

  Amelia says, “Dad. Please.”

  “We pair up sanctuary wolves with returning vets,” Charlotte says. “When you think about it, they’re going through a lot of the same things. Trauma. Loss. Rediscovering the meaning of home and family. Experiences that most people in their lives can’t fully understand. The vet develops a long-term relationship with one of the sanctuary wolves. Each relationship is unique, depending on what the wolf and the vet need, or can handle. But we’ve found it to be really healing.”

  Dad isn’t a veteran. But he might need a wolf partner, anyway. I would pair him with the white wolf. They have the same bright blue eyes.

  When we get back to the cabin at the entrance gate, Charlotte asks, “Do you think Zhòh will be happy here?”

  “Yes,” I say. “I’m sure of it.”

  Amelia helps me wrestle the cage, with Zhòh inside, out of the back of the van. We each weave our fingers into the wire sides and crab-walk the load to the sanctuary gate. Charlotte unlocks it and we carry the cage into a smaller fenced area where the new arrivals are released. She explains that Zhòh needs to be kept separate from the other wolves for a while, until they decide to accept him. Stanley stands outside the enclosure, arms crossed, letting us handle the release of the wolf pup.

  I bend down and unhinge the cage door. Zhòh looks up at me.

  “He’s so pretty,” Amelia says.

  I take a long look, memorizing the picture of his thick gray coat, the sweet white mask around his eyes, the white legs and the white tip on the end of his tail.

  “He saved our lives,” I say.

  “All the wolves save our lives,” Charlotte says. “We need top predators in the food chain to keep the ecosystem healthy.”

  “Why isn’t he leaving the cage?” Amelia asks.

  “Give him time,” Charlotte says.

  “He’s just a puppy.” I hear myself repeating Seth’s words.

  “I have another pup,” Charlotte tells us. “Maybe six months older than Zhòh. A female. He’ll have a young one to play with.”

  “A girlfriend.” Amelia grins.

  Zhòh shoots out of the cage, runs straight for the perimeter of the fenced area. He does a full lap and flies back to me. He stops and yips. I scratch behind his ears and tell him, “I love you. Seth loves you. Keith, too! We’ll love you forever. You be a good boy, okay?”

  Off he runs again. This time he stops at the side of the enclosure nearest the forest and pokes his nose through the fence.

  “If the space observatory doesn’t work out for us,” Amelia says, “we could have a wildlife sanctuary.”

  “Yes!” I agree.

  Charlotte locks the gate behind us, and Stanley carries the empty cage back to the van. As Amelia climbs in, she says, “Driver, take us to Fort Yukon.”

  I hold back and look for a long time into the trees of the wolf sanctuary, thinking of the white wolf, the two gray ones, and all the others I didn’t get to see. I whisper, “Goodbye, Zhòh.”

  A low moan rises out of the trees. Followed by a higher-pitched howl. Three or four, even more, wolves all sing out at once. Zhòh lifts his chin, nose pointed at the sky, and howls. He has met his new pack.

  TWENTY-THREE

  WE GET UP in the dark, well before dawn. I hoist my pack and leave the house. My brothers and the Johnson family follow. As we head to the van, I check for the northern lights, but the sky is solid black behind a sparkle of stars. It’s so cold that I can practically see the feathery white frost in the air.

  We all stuff into the Johnsons’ van, with me sitting next to Amelia in the middle seat. My brothers and I have to hold our packs in our laps. When Stanley turns on the van’s heater, Seth gasps at the blast of warm air. The idea of not having to chop wood or build a fire in
order to be warm seems almost like magic. I reach back into the seat behind me and brush the hair off his forehead. “The van has a heater,” I whisper.

  Amelia elbows me gently and smiles. Last night I told her she didn’t have to get up at this horribly early hour to drive to the airstrip with us.

  “You mean vomit o’clock?” she’d said. I finally find a friend—one who understands little brothers and wolves, one who likes to talk and wants to have a space observatory, one who loves the color orange and makes me laugh—only to have to leave her, move thousands of miles away.

  “What about Dad?” Keith blurts.

  “Will he meet us in New York?” Seth asks.

  “He’s staying here,” I say, and pause to clear the jiggle from my throat. “You boys heard what he said.”

  We pick up Aunt Frances from the guesthouse, and ride out to the Fort Yukon airstrip, all of us as silent and glum as the predawn darkness. When we arrive and get out of the van, a stiff wintry wind blasts my face. The lake bordering the western length of the runway is entirely crusted over with ice. A couple of ragtag buildings squat next to the runway, and a bright orange wind sock puffs out from its tall pole. I wonder if I’ll ever see Amelia, Stanley, Constance, Eddie, Carl, and Zachary again.

  “Don’t cry!” Amelia shouts. “I always cry when other people cry.” She laughs and wipes away the tears running down her cheeks. “We’ll e-mail. It’ll be fun.”

  I open my pack and dig out Jane Eyre. I hold it out to her. “A present.”

  She tips the book, trying to read the title in the fading starlight. “Is it good?”

  “It’s so good.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Let’s go, girls,” Stanley calls. He, Constance, Aunt Frances, and the boys have gathered at the bottom of the set of stairs placed on the tarmac next to the airplane door. “The plane takes off in fifteen minutes.”

  Just a ten-seater, what Stanley calls a puddle-jumper, the little plane will take us to Fairbanks. From there we’ll board a much bigger plane for flying to New York.