The Wolf Keepers

by Elise Broach

  “I’ll get it,” she called, striding across the dusty yard and opening the gate for them. “Hi, Lizzie. What are you up to?”

  “I came to help,” Lizzie said, suddenly shy. “With Tamarack.”

  “Oh.” Karen glanced at Mike, and Lizzie felt embarrassed.

  “She won’t get in our way,” Mike said.

  Lizzie’s cheeks grew hot. Of course she wouldn’t get in their way! She’d been helping with animals at the zoo her whole life.

  Karen pursed her lips, then seemed to relent. “Okay, that’s fine. Just don’t touch anything, Lizzie. Whatever it is, it’s contagious.”

  “I know,” Lizzie said. “I’ll be careful.”

  Karen gestured to a metal sink against the wall of the clinic, with a clear plastic dispenser full of pink foaming soap mounted near it. “Wash your hands. We’ll take the truck. Ed is meeting us there.”

  Lizzie stiffened. Had Ed been the one in the wolf pen last night?

  She and Mike silently scrubbed their hands under a stream of hot water while Karen waited. Her big white truck was parked next to the clinic, and when they all climbed into it, Lizzie saw that there was a large metal cage in the back.

  “How will you get Tamarack in there?” she asked. Last night, the wolf hadn’t seemed strong enough to even stand, but she wasn’t in a position to tell Karen how she knew that.

  “She’s pretty weak,” Karen acknowledged, “but you’d be surprised how quickly they rally when they’re scared. If we can’t get her to her feet and herd her in, we’ll carry her.”

  “Have you or Ed been over there this morning?” Mike asked. “How are the others looking?”

  Karen nodded. “I went first thing. The rest of the pack seems fine. Lobo knows something is up. He’s being protective, so watch out.”

  Lizzie thought of last night, when Lobo had lunged at them in the darkness … the terrifying bulk of him, the menacing glimmer of his teeth. She shuddered.

  “You okay?” her father asked.

  “Yes,” she said, steeling herself. “It’s just cool this morning.”

  “It won’t be in another couple of hours,” Karen said. “Temps in the nineties today.”

  She turned the key in the ignition and the truck engine roared. They drove along the gravel access road behind the main exhibit houses, then through the pine grove that bordered Wolf Woods. Karen drove the way she did everything else, Lizzie thought—with a quick, impatient confidence. She knew from Mike that years ago, Karen had worked for something called Nature Justice, an environmental organization that fought to protect various animals and habitats from human destruction, sometimes by breaking the law. Mike jokingly called her a “radical” because of her views—but Karen was nothing like the fiery, violent protesters Lizzie pictured when he said that. Still, it was easy to imagine Karen staying calm in dangerous situations. She always seemed so sure of what she was doing. She was cool and quiet and careful; hard to get to know, in Lizzie’s experience, and though Mike never talked about it, she suspected he thought the same. Even though he and Karen had gone out a few times, they didn’t exactly seem close. The thing they had in common was their total devotion to the animals.

  As they drove up to Wolf Woods, Lizzie scanned the area. Who had been back here the night before? The only way to get there by vehicle was via the access road, which was entirely on zoo property. It didn’t connect to the Lodisto town roads.

  The wolf exhibit consisted of the two-acre enclosure; the concrete building with cages, a small kitchen, and examination room; and a smaller fenced pen adjacent to the building, which was called a secondary containment area. All of the enclosures had one; by zoo regulations, any gate or door opening out of an animal pen had to lead to a second pen, so that if the first gate failed, there was a second barrier that prevented the animals from running loose.

  Karen swiftly backed up the truck to within a few feet of the wolf building. Lizzie knew this was so she could easily move Tamarack from the building to the truck, minimizing time in the open.

  “Get the cage ready,” Karen said, switching off the engine and hopping out.

  Mike climbed down and released the tailgate of the truck, which dropped with a clang. Then he unlatched the door to the cage.

  “Wait here,” he told Lizzie. “We’ll separate the rest of the pack so we can get to Tamarack.”

  “Can I help?” Lizzie asked.

  “Not with this part. Just give us a few minutes.”

  Quietly, Lizzie climbed out of the truck and wandered closer to the fence.

  Along one side of the smaller fenced yard was a metal trough, a feeding station. The wolves, hearing activity behind the building, were now gathered within view, pacing nervously, watching Karen and Mike. Lizzie counted four, and then saw Lobo standing at a distance from the others. That made five. Tamarack was lying down somewhere … which made six … and Athena was gone. Lizzie thought of all the times during the summer that she had watched and counted the pack of seven. What if Tamarack died, too? She couldn’t bear to think about it.

  “Ed’s here with the blow darts,” Karen said as she and Mike disappeared inside the building. The keepers carried blow pipes into the cages so they could immediately tranquilize an animal that threatened them. But in the case of the wolves, the thought still made Lizzie nervous. A blow dart didn’t seem like much protection against a wolf as big as Lobo.

  The wolves circled by the gate that opened into the small yard. Like all the zoo animals, they knew the keepers’ routines. There was food in the building. Lizzie saw that only Lobo held back, but he too seemed agitated.

  Karen emerged into the little yard with two packages of hamburger meat, which she unwrapped and dumped into the trough, pulling the meat apart with her hands and spreading it along the bottom of the metal bin. The wolves were even more excited now, trotting back and forth on the other side of the fence. Mike stood ready to unlock the inner gate into the wolf enclosure.

  Lizzie had seen her father enter animal compounds many, many times, but it always struck her anew what a complicated procedure it was. The goal was always to keep the zookeepers or animal handlers separate and safe from the animals … especially predators. But that could be difficult when some kind of direct interaction was necessary—for instance, with a sick animal, like Tamarack.

  Karen waited in the doorway of the wolf building with a large blanket under one arm and a blue plastic bag in her hand. With her was the lanky graduate student, Ed. Lizzie watched him suspiciously.

  “What about Lobo?” Mike asked. “He’s staying away.”

  “I have a piece of steak for him,” Karen said, holding up the blue bag. “But we may have to tranquilize him.”

  “Why?” Lizzie cried. She had assumed the blow dart was meant for Tamarack.

  “If he interferes,” Karen said.

  “Okay, ready?” Mike asked.

  “Yep,” Karen said.

  They all disappeared into the wolf building and a minute later, the metal gate to the small yard opened.

  Four of the wolves rushed in. They scrambled over one another to get to the trough, and in a fit of growling and whining, began to devour the meat. Lizzie could hear the wet, greedy sounds of them gulping it down, then the clicks of their teeth against the empty food bin.

  She could see that Lobo was keeping his distance, watching the others.

  A minute later, from the safety of the building, Mike closed the gate, separating the four wolves from Lobo and Tamarack, who remained in the large pen.

  Lizzie hurried around the side of the building to have a better view of Lobo and Tamarack. She immediately saw Tamarack’s white form lying in the dirt, her legs twitching. Lobo was trotting back and forth near her, his hackles raised.

  Now Mike and Karen were going to have to enter the pen with Lobo still inside. Lizzie caught her breath. Ed stood in the doorway of the building with the blow pipe raised, dart ready.

  “Give me the steak,” Mike said to Karen in a
low voice.

  She handed him the bag, and Mike broke off from the other two, walking in the opposite direction, toward the far side of the enclosure. Lizzie saw that he had a blow pipe in his belt. “Lobo,” he called.

  The wolf stood still, sniffing the air.

  Lizzie felt a thin, ice-cold prick of fear. There was nothing between the wolf and her father.

  “Lobo,” Mike called again. He tore off a piece of steak and tossed it to a spot about twenty yards from Lobo.

  The wolf began to pace back and forth, his eyes glued on Mike, but he stayed near Tamarack.

  Karen edged closer, with Ed behind her. The big wolf trotted in a tight circle around Tamarack, ears pricked forward, body tense.

  Then he saw Lizzie approaching the fence. He stopped. His silver eyes fixed on her. Lizzie lifted her fingers and curled them around the chain link, staring back at him.

  “Now!” Karen said softly.

  Lizzie heard the soft, percussive sound of the blow dart. She covered her mouth in horror.

  Lobo leapt forward, whether from the sound or the dart hitting him, Lizzie couldn’t tell. Then he staggered.

  A moment later, he collapsed on the ground. With that thud, Lizzie could feel the full weight of her betrayal.

  Now Karen and Mike hurried over to Tamarack, who was struggling on the ground, trying to rise. She seemed unable to get her rear feet underneath her.

  “Hurry,” Karen said. “We may not have long before he’s up again.”

  They spread the blanket next to Tamarack. Lizzie could see her writhing away from them. Within minutes they had muzzled her and moved her onto the blanket. Then Ed and Mike carried her into the building, heaving the large, sagging bundle between them.

  “Lizzie,” Karen called. “Can you get the back door for them? I’m going to check on Lobo.”

  “Not on your own—” Mike started to warn, but Karen was already walking toward the spot where Lobo lay.

  “Sure,” Lizzie said as Mike yelled, “Lizzie! Open the back door!”

  Lizzie ran around to the back of the building and opened the heavy door.

  “Watch out,” Mike said as he and Ed hoisted the blanketed bundle onto the tailgate of the truck, then into the cage. Tamarack thrashed and squirmed, snarling at them. Lizzie could see the wolf’s wild, frightened eyes.

  “She’s still got some fight in her,” Mike said. He pushed the cage toward the center of the big truck bed, then slammed the tailgate. “Maybe she’s going to be okay.”

  “Really? Do you think so?” Lizzie asked.

  But her father had already stepped back into the building. “Ed, is Karen in there alone?” he demanded.

  Just then, Karen called to them from the other side of the small feeding yard, where the wolves had long since finished their meal and were circling nervously.

  “Ed and I will come back to release the others,” she said. “Let’s get Tamarack out of here.”

  “Karen, what the heck?” Mike snapped. “You just violated about six AZA protocols. You’ll get us all fired.”

  Lizzie looked at her father in surprise. It was rare that Mike lost his temper, but he sounded genuinely mad. She knew that nobody was supposed to be in the zoo enclosures alone, but Karen was the vet. If anyone should know how to handle the animals, it was Karen.

  Karen seemed to be thinking the same thing, because she frowned at him. “Come on, help me close up.”

  Lizzie leaned over the side of the truck, watching Tamarack. She was lying quietly on the blanket inside the cage, but her legs twitched and jerked, and her eyes had a panicked look. What was wrong with her? Please be all right, Lizzie thought.

  Chapter 13

  A HIDDEN PICTURE

  WHEN THEY GOT back to the clinic, Lizzie wanted to help unload Tamarack, but she could tell that none of the grown-ups were in the mood to be tolerant. Her father was still annoyed about the breach of rules; Karen was preoccupied with the sick wolf; and Ed immediately busied himself disinfecting the examination room before Tamarack was transferred out of the cage.

  Mike lowered the tailgate. “I think we should call Dave Minowski in San Diego,” he said. “They have a gray wolf there. Maybe he knows something about this illness.”

  “I already talked to him,” Karen said, her voice curt. “I’ve got a call in to Woodland Park in Seattle.”

  Lizzie touched Mike’s elbow. “I’m going back to the house,” she said.

  He barely glanced at her. “Okay, see you later.”

  She left them still arguing over what to do next.

  * * *

  As she walked up her driveway, Lizzie scanned the apartment windows and saw the curtains rustle behind one of them. Tyler greeted her at the bottom of the stairs, yanking the door open.

  “What are you doing?” she demanded. “I could see the curtains moving! You have to be more careful.”

  “Whoa, take it easy,” he said. “I saw it was just you. Besides, you said nobody comes back here during the day.”

  “Still,” Lizzie chided. “You’re not supposed to be looking out the windows at all.”

  “I got bored!” he protested. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, I slept late in that puffy bed. It’s, like, the best bed I ever slept in! But then you didn’t come over. What happened?”

  Lizzie followed him up the stairs into the sunny apartment. “We moved Tamarack to the clinic. She seems really sick.”

  “Well, are they doing anything about it? Did they give her medicine?” Tyler asked, flopping on the couch.

  Lizzie shrugged miserably. “I’m not sure. I don’t think anyone knows what’s wrong with her, so they’re trying to figure out how to treat it. The vet, Karen, was talking to my dad about calling other zoos for help.”

  Tyler looked dissatisfied. “They should do a blood test or something.”

  Lizzie rolled her eyes at him.

  “Well, at least I have some ideas. If another wolf dies, that would be, like, a third of them gone.”

  Lizzie sighed. “I know.”

  Tyler bounced up from the couch. “Hey! I have something to show you.” He opened the bottom cupboard of the bookcase and took out a faded blue folder.

  “What are you doing poking around in there?” Lizzie asked, startled. “That’s Grandma May’s stuff.”

  “Nah, it’s nothing of hers,” Tyler answered.

  “How can you be sure? You shouldn’t be looking at things that don’t belong to you.”

  Tyler seemed genuinely puzzled. “If that’s the rule, then I can’t look at anything. Nothing belongs to me.”

  Lizzie started to contradict him; he had his backpack and clothing, didn’t he? But, she realized, if those were his only possessions, they didn’t amount to much. And she suspected they came from his foster family, so they probably didn’t really feel like his, either.

  “Don’t you want to see what I found?” Tyler asked impatiently.

  “Okay,” she relented. They sat on the floor and Tyler opened the blue folder between them. There were some old, yellowed newspaper clippings—little articles about Yosemite, mostly—and some letters written in swirly, dense cursive, with drops of dark ink spotting the pages. Lizzie could barely decipher the words.

  “Who are they from?” she asked.

  “Clare Hodges! The park ranger. To your Grandma May,” Tyler said triumphantly. “See how they’re signed CMH? Remember how you said her middle name was Marie?”

  Lizzie was impressed that he remembered that. “They must be old, then,” she said. “What do they say?”

  “I don’t know,” Tyler admitted. “They’re really hard to read. But that’s not even the best part.” He shuffled through the file of letters and clippings until he came to a fragile photograph that was a soft brown color. It was a picture of two women standing near a stream, with a dense forest rising around them.

  Lizzie lifted it carefully and held it in the sunlight, squinting at the image. “This looks like…”

  Tyler nodde
d. “It is! It’s the park ranger lady again, same as in the other picture.” He scrambled to his feet and took the framed photograph from the bookshelf. “See?”

  Lizzie saw that, indeed, the dark-haired, serious-faced young woman by the stream was the same as the one on the horse, though she looked younger in the picture by the creek.

  “You’re right,” she said. “I wonder who the other woman is.” The other woman was smaller-boned and older, with curly hair, a high-necked, frilly blouse, and a long dark skirt. She didn’t look like she was dressed for a sojourn in the wilderness, which made the picture seem even odder.

  “Who knows,” Tyler said. “It doesn’t say on the picture, but there’s a date on the back … 1916. That’s a hundred years ago!”

  “Wow,” Lizzie said. “I wonder if Grandma May remembers anything about this.”

  “Look closer,” Tyler insisted, taking the sepia-toned photo and waving it under Lizzie’s nose. “Do you see anything else interesting?”

  Lizzie scanned the faded image. Mostly she saw the two women standing in front of a stream, and the wilderness crowding close. But when she peered at it more closely, she did see something else … some kind of structure on the far right side of the photo, half hidden by vegetation.

  “What is it?” she asked Tyler, touching it lightly with her fingertip.

  “Don’t you know?” he asked.

  Lizzie stared harder. It appeared to have more than one level, with a pointy little roof at the top. “Wait,” she said slowly. “Is it…?”

  Her eyes grew wide.

  “Yes!” Tyler cried jubilantly. “It’s John Muir’s lost cabin.”

  Chapter 14

  FAMILY HISTORY

  “SO CLARE HODGES knew where it was? And went there?” Lizzie asked in amazement. “Into that canyon with the curse on it? She found the lost cabin!”

  “It sure looks like it,” Tyler said. “Do you think she ever told your grandma about it?”