* * *
On a cold day some months later, I was alone in the woods to collect the fungi that grew at the base of a big red cedar. Its trunk had gnarled roots that made a comfortable nook for sitting, and from here, even though I was in a bit of a hurry, I could lie back and watch the light flicker through the canopy of its needles.
A flurry of blue wings signaled the arrival of a bird on a low-hanging branch.
“Hello,” I said, and it gave no sign it noticed me. It had a dark crested head; I would have to ask Dad what its name was.
Something drew my attention. A mark in the dirt, not far from the mushrooms I was picking. A paw print, unlike the tracks made by passing deer. I’d never seen its like, and stood to inspect it. I searched for more, hoping to follow them, but found no others.
At home I dropped the mushrooms into their box and went to find Dad in the garden. He was sitting in a slice of sun, watching his horses in the valley below.
“I have a question, Dad,” I said as I sat beside him.
“I hope you have more than one, always.”
“I think I found an animal print, but it didn’t look like deer.”
“How big was it?”
“Too small for a bear, but quite big. About…” I made a shape with my fingers. “A paw, I think. And it was the only one, like it just disappeared.”
Dad smiled. “You found yourself a wolf print, Inti-loo. About as rare as they come.”
“A wolf?” A thrill ran through me. Only twice in my life had I caught a glimpse of a wolf, and both times had been many years ago when I was a child. I’d almost started to believe I’d dreamt those moments. “Can you help me follow it?”
He shook his head. “Can’t track wolves, not really.”
“Then how do you find them?”
“You don’t. You leave them be.”
I slumped, disappointed.
He watched me sideways. “All right then, I’ll tell you a secret. But you must use it for good. Do you promise?”
“Yes.”
“There is no tracking a wolf,” Dad said. “They are cleverer than we are. So instead you track its prey.”
We grinned at each other.
I couldn’t stop thinking about that solitary paw print. “How’d it move with no tracks like that?”
“The infinite mystery of wolves,” Dad replied, and I decided then that I would discover the creature’s secrets.
6
They don’t explode free. They don’t run.
The snow is melting; winter has ended. But our wolves don’t seem to want to leave their cages.
* * *
The Cairngorms Wolf Project was only ever agreed to because we had such a successful precedent. It’s what we base some of our decisions on, not all. It’s how I know to expect this. The wolves in Yellowstone didn’t rush from their cages either. And we were able to learn from them.
So we had gates built on both sides of the pens and we have only ever entered through one of them, leaving the second gate free of our scents. These are the gates we open now, remotely, after having tied deer carcasses to trees beyond the thresholds to draw them out. But still the wolves don’t leave.
Be patient, I tell my team. They will.
* * *
On day two of the gates being open a single wolf pads from her cage, scents the air, and then runs north. Number Ten, fiercer than the rest.
She is running home, unaware that no home waits for her. Only livestock and those who raise livestock, who may well prove deadly to her. Beyond them, an uncrossable ocean.
I wonder if we will ever see her again.
* * *
Days pass and no movement from the others, not from Ten’s abandoned Glenshee Pack to the south, or from the Tanar Pack to the east or the northwestern-based Abernethy Pack, made up of newly mated Six and Nine and her yearling daughter, Thirteen. The wolves sit and watch and wait, certainly more patient than we are.
On day five Evan and Niels are in a panic, pacing the base camp and endlessly debating what to do. Have the wolves marked their territories within the pens? Is that why they refuse to leave? This would be a disaster.
Be patient, I say.
* * *
On day six the remaining five members of the Glenshee Pack follow their missing sister, Number Ten, who is long gone by now. They are led not by their two alphas, male Number Seven and female Number Eight, but by the old silver wolf, Number Fourteen, who is ten years old and geriatric in wolf lifespans. The world is hard on wolves; if they don’t die by illness or starvation, if they are not killed in fights with other packs or in some disastrous accident, they are shot by humans. It seems their lot in life is to die young, for seldom do they reach old age. This silver male is a rare creature. Perhaps he is braver than the rest, his long life lending him more experience. Perhaps he simply knows when to move and when to stay; maybe that’s what’s kept him alive so long. Either way, something has spoken to him, some call of the forest, and his family trust in it. They trickle out of the pen behind him and go straight past the deer carcass we left for them, flowing into the smattering of trees. It is bleak terrain down there to the south where we have placed them, few trees, but then wolves don’t need forests, they grow them. The pack’s yearling male pup, Number Twelve, heads off in a different direction. It’s possible he will meet up with his pack again, or he may have left them for good, parting ways with his family to find a mate and start a pack of his own.
On the following day, as though it has been arranged between them, the Tanar Pack also make a move. Its alphas, female Number One and male Number Two, our only black wolf, lead their three nearly adult pups out of the pen and into their stretch of forest.
Which leaves only the three wolves of Abernethy, a week after being offered freedom and still refusing to take it.
* * *
I walk in the front door of Blue Cottage to find Aggie cooking in the kitchen, and when she smiles at me I almost start crying. She has returned to her body. She is here with me and I can breathe again.
After dinner she signs, They don’t know what’s out there. Why would they leave?
“Because,” I tell her, “movement is natural. It’s survival.”
You moved them. What’s natural about that?
I don’t have an answer so I give her the finger, which makes her laugh silently. I really miss the sound of her laugh. I think I miss it more than anything. Although Aggie has always been prone to bouts of silence—she didn’t say her first word until she was four years old because she didn’t need to, I understood exactly what she wanted and asked for it on her behalf—this is the longest. Sometimes I think she will never speak again. Her sign language, at this point, is mostly ASL, but still has some of her own signs peppered throughout, because she likes holding on to our old twin language, likes the thought of returning us to our little universe.
Mum phones, as she does every week. She doesn’t know the whole truth of what happened in Alaska. I think it would break her, knowing. And maybe even vindicate her (which is a graceless, cruel thought). She doesn’t know why I never put Aggie on the phone, but Mum told me last week that I sound more like my sister each time we speak. Brash, defiant, fierce. I didn’t know how to feel about that. Sometimes I think Aggie and I must have switched places and forgotten to switch back.
“How’s it going?” Mum asks now.
“Not too bad. Two packs out of three have left their pens.”
“Bet the locals love that. They been giving you any trouble?”
“No,” I lie. “They’ve been nice.”
“Right. Let’s see what they are when their lambs start getting eaten.”
“Don’t look forward to that too much, Mum.”
“Ha. You’re funnier than you used to be.”
“Thanks,” I mutter.
“Where’s your sister? I don’t have long—I’m on a case.”
“What terrible crime are you solving at the moment?”
�
��You don’t want to know, sweet girl.”
“Aggie’s teaching French to kids in town,” I tell her as I watch Aggie do the dishes.
“Fine, au revoir, give her a kiss from me.” Before we hang up Mum asks, “What about the third pack. Why haven’t they left their pen?”
“I don’t know.”
Mum answers her own question with certainty. “’Course you do. It’s ’cause they’re sharper than the rest. More awake to the threat of what awaits them.”
“There’s no threat out there.”
Mum just laughs and hangs up.
* * *
On day eight Evan, Niels, Amelia, and I hike to the Abernethy Pack. We need eyes on the wolves; they may be unwell. It could be that we need to use our jab sticks to scare them from the pen. We may just need to leave them alone, but we won’t know until we see them properly.
Evan and Niels debate the next move while we walk. Their voices grate at me, disturbing the peace of the spring forest. Wildflowers have begun to poke through the frost. Leaves are returning to branches. Trees shake off the winter and turn toward the sun.
I stop.
The scent, maybe. Is my nose sharp enough for that? Or is it my instincts that sense it?
The others stop behind me, falling quiet.
I look up to the crest of a ridge. Beyond it lies the pen. But atop it is the striking figure of a creature in profile: Number Nine, surveying the landscape of which he is now king.
“Fuck,” Evan whispers, reverent. Amelia gasps. It’s one thing to touch an unconscious wolf, another to see one in a pen, another thing entirely to see one in the wild, and this close, this in charge of his dominion. It is a deep punch to the gut, a tugging on that primal part of us all. He is at once still and full of movement; the wind in his fur makes it glint. I wish Aggie were here with me; it feels wrong to experience this without her.
We retreat, leaving Nine to explore the forest his Abernethy Pack was named after. As of today the wolves have all walked free into the Cairngorms. They’ve been given a home in Scotland once more but time will tell if that home intends to nurture or destroy them.
To celebrate, the pub.
I met both Evan and Niels when the three of us worked with the Alaskan wolves in Denali National Park. Back then we and the other biologists socialized a lot; it was part and parcel of the job to go for a few beers each night. There’s a remoteness to that land that encourages a seeking of each other, and it was the first time I’d really spent with other wolf biologists. We are a particular breed, it’s true. Restless and physical, we like to be outdoors instead of behind desks or in labs. I was enamored with the group of us, with the animals and the work and the world. So it had been an easy call for me to recruit both Evan and Niels when I took on the Cairngorms Project: it makes sense to work with people you know, whose attitudes and philosophies align.
Now I would give anything to have hired strangers. Evan and Niels expect the beers after work each night and don’t understand why I can’t, they don’t understand why I am so at odds with the woman I once was.
Alas, tonight there’s no excuse.
The Snow Goose is dark and earthy, and as my eyes adjust, I am met with animals. A stag head gazing sightlessly at me from above the bar. Beside it, an array of smaller deer, on another wall a badger, an eagle, a fox. The air hangs thick with their musk, although I may be imagining that. They are everywhere, pulling my focus from the big stone fireplaces, the crooked wooden tables and cast-iron chandeliers. Off the main space sprout secret rooms and corners with low leather couches, all of them full of people. The watering hole, I’m told, for the entire region. I force my gaze from the taxidermy, unnerved.
In a far corner booth sit Red McRae, Mayor Oakes and Stuart Burns. Stuart looks more robust and friendly than ever. We head to a booth on the opposite side of the pub, but I sit so I can watch him. Ways to kill a person: slipping something in his drink, tampering with his brakes, driving him off an icy road, following him into the night and bludgeoning him …
“Inti?”
I blink and look at Zoe. “What?”
“What do you want to drink?” she repeats slowly.
“Anything.”
I spot Duncan sitting at the bar with Amelia and her wife Holly. He is wearing a thick red jumper, clearly hand-knitted and sporting several holes. I wonder who knitted it for him, a partner, maybe. He laughs at whatever Holly is saying and my eyes slide swiftly away from him, hoping he doesn’t spot me. Red McRae shows up at our table with a jug of beer. He places it roughly enough to slop onto the sticky wood. “Congratulations are in order, I hear.”
There’s an awkward silence.
“Thanks,” Evan says.
Stuart is right behind Red, placing a calming hand on his shoulder.
“Drink this now, while there’s anything left to drink to,” Red says, sounding a little drunk. “’Cause soon enough it’ll be murder and mayhem that rule this place.”
“At least we’re not being melodramatic about it,” I say.
“I hope you think it’s funny when retribution comes knocking on your door,” he tells me.
“You’re threatening us?” Zoe asks.
Red laughs.
“No threats here,” Stuart says, and he is so friendly, so appeasing that it makes my skin crawl.
“No point threatening animals,” Red agrees. “Not how nature works. You got a problem with one of them,” and here he looks straight at me, “only thing to do is to show your animal who’s stronger.”
I smile; I can’t help it. Because he amuses me, and he makes me nervous. I lift the entire jug of beer to my lips and take a long gulp to calm myself. “Cheers,” I say. Then I slide from the booth and stand because I can’t put up with them towering over me like this, I need to at least be on my feet. “If it’s a conversation about strength you wanna have, we can do that.” With this I look at Stuart. His neck turns splotchy and I know I have unsettled him. In this moment I am so angry with him that it can no longer be contained in my body. The remembered feel of his wife’s injuries, and the knowing deep in my body of how frightened she feels, all the time. For better or worse, I must speak. “Anyone here,” I ask, holding his eyes, “think it’s a strong man who beats his wife?”
A hush sucks the air from the space. I have broken the code, given voice to what they don’t speak of.
Stuart looks abruptly apoplectic. “What did you say?”
“You’ve got a lot of nerve showing up here after what you did today,” Red says, trying to steer the conversation back to his own anger, which I daresay is less dangerous. “I’d salute that if it wasn’t so disrespectful.”
“Look, we’re not trying to cause any disrespect,” Evan tries.
“That’s true,” I agree, “but I’m quickly losing what little respect I did have.”
“Shut your mouth,” Stuart says softly, “and keep it shut,” and if I had any doubt about the kind of man he is, it vanishes as I see the shift in him. I think this is what I’ve been needing to see. To be sure.
I look over at Duncan, who is watching us from the bar, but he sends no help.
“Back up,” I tell Stuart, who is standing too close and towering over me. He doesn’t, but Red pulls him away and I unclench my stiff fists, remember to breathe.
“All right then, all right, that’ll do now,” Red says, and Stuart allows himself to be guided back to their table. He doesn’t sit, but takes his hat and strides for the door, and have I just earned Lainey another punishment? I can’t let that happen, but it doesn’t take long for Duncan to follow Stuart from the pub, off, hopefully, to watch from the shadows, and if he’s going to watch he’d best watch all damn night this time.
“I’ve lost my appetite for celebrating,” Zoe says.
“Really? I’d take that as a win,” I say, gulping more beer to calm myself.
“How come they don’t bother you?” she asks me. “That was scary.”
It was scary. But, “If you
let them intimidate you they’ve won.”
We finish up, the night soured.
Outside Duncan is leaning against his truck. I bid my team goodnight and walk over to him.
“You’ve been drinking,” he says, then opens the door for me.
He drives me home, windows down. The smell, I lose my breath from it.
“Did you follow him home?” I ask. “Is she gonna be okay?”
Duncan doesn’t reply.
“He was really angry tonight, Duncan.”
“Yeah. Perhaps consider the wisdom of antagonizing him.”
My mouth opens but the words dissolve. He’s right, and it’s easier to see that with my anger cooled. He’s right, and also not. A man’s anger, his violence, is no one’s responsibility but his own. “When does it end?” I ask. “If no one ever says anything, for fear of him, then when does it end.”
Duncan is silent a long while, then admits, “I’ve got someone out there.”
Relief swells.
“I want him to know I can see him.”
We reach the turnoff to our road. “I’ll walk from your place,” I say. Because I need the cold air on my burning cheeks. He pulls down his driveway and parks outside his house. It’s like mine, but its stone is gray not blue, and has a dog bounding from the steps to meet us in the dark. As Duncan greets the black-and-white collie I turn for the road.
“Night.”
“Wolves out there,” Duncan warns.
I nod.
He considers me. “Piece of advice, from a local to a visitor.”
“I’m not a visitor.”
“You’ll be leaving again, one of these days, when your animals are dead.”
The casual way he says it, a slap.
“This is remote country,” Duncan tells me. “You’re gonna need people. We all do, out here. You can go mad being too alone in a place this big.”
Once There Were Wolves Page 6