Wolf Stalker

by Gloria Skurzynski

  Not till the thin edge of the morning sun cleared the mountaintop did the fire’s last embers turn to gray ash. Jack awoke feeling chilly, but not chilled to the bone. Troy’s face, though, looked pale from cold, and he shivered hard. Then his eyelids flickered open.

  “I’ll start up the fire again,” Jack whispered.

  “Is he alive? Silver? I didn’t mean to fall asleep.” As though it hurt to straighten himself, Troy unwound and crawled onto his knees. He put his cheek right next to the wolf’s nose. With wide eyes, he told Jack, “Hey! He’s still breathing.”

  “That’s great, Troy,” Jack told him.

  Instead of being wound up in a tight ball like Troy, Ashley slept curved in a question mark, her face resting against her pressed-together hands. The goose-down parka, good for temperatures as low as –20 degrees, had kept her warm enough that her cheeks were pink, not pinched like Troy’s.

  Jack reached for Troy’s torn sneakers, which had sat close to the fire all night long. “They’re dry now,” he said. “You better put them on.” The socks he’d given Troy were made of heavy ragg wool, but with no shoes on, Troy’s feet must be like ice cubes, even though he’d huddled close to the fire most of the night. “How do your toes feel?” Jack asked. He hoped they weren’t frostbitten.

  “Fine. No—actually, my toes are real cold. But they shouldn’t break off or anything,” he answered with a grin, making it the first time Jack had ever been on the receiving end of a smile from Troy.

  As Troy reached for the shoes, one dropped, sending up a puff of wood ash that separated into feathery white flakes before settling back down. Ashley stirred. “Hi, guys,” she murmured. “Is Mom here yet?”

  “Not yet,” Jack answered. Ashley looked so trusting, as though their mother might appear right that moment out of the trees, carrying a box of Cheerios and three bowls. Or, knowing their mother, with a box of granola and lots of plain yogurt.

  Sitting up and stretching her arms, Ashley asked, “How’s Silver?”

  “Still alive.”

  “Mom’ll fix him up when she gets here.”

  “I know it.”

  They didn’t have long to wait. By the time Jack had rebuilt a small fire and the entire circle of sun had risen to balance on an eastern peak, they heard the first yells in the distance. “Jack! Ashley! Can you hear us?”

  “YEAH!” It was one of those embarrassing times when Jack’s deepening voice broke. His squeak sounded like a rooster hit by a barn door.

  Troy’s voice was all-the-way deep. “Let me,” he told them. “WE’RE OVER HERE!”

  First Olivia and Steven and Mike yelled. Then Jack and Ashley and Troy gave out answering yells. They kept it up while they ran, closing the gap between them as the yells guided them toward one another, with Troy far in the lead. Olivia and Steven had slid off their horses, and ran forward with their arms outstretched.

  “Oh Mommy, I missed you!” Ashley cried as Olivia caught her in a tight hug. “What took you so long?”

  That Ashley! Jack thought. No matter how brave she’d acted, she was only a ten-year-old kid who’d very badly wanted her mother. Jack felt his own eyes tear up when he got hugs from both parents. Relief rose in him, all the way up to his throat, because now he could let go and have the grown-ups take over.

  Troy hung back awkwardly, watching, shifting from foot to foot in a nervous dance. He waited as long as he could before he burst out, “What about my mom?”

  Steven gave Troy a quick hug and said, “No news yet. Maybe we’ll hear something when we get back this time.”

  “At least we found you,” Olivia murmured in a choked voice. “I told them it had to be your fire that Dad saw. I said if the kids are out there, Jack will build a signal fire.”

  “You saw it, Dad?” Jack asked. “You were there in the airplane?”

  “Yep,” Steven answered. “I made them take me. We flew all over this area. We didn’t even spot the fire till three in the morning.”

  “I know,” Olivia told them, “We never even got back from our investigation till nearly ten last night—that’s when we reached park headquarters. Park rangers were waiting for us, and when I saw their faces, my heart jumped right into my throat. I’ve never been so panicked in my life,” Olivia said, hugging both her children at the same time. “I prayed and prayed—”

  “I wanted to start searching right away on foot,” Steven said, “but Mike decided we’d do better in the airplane—”

  “Were you cold? You must have been starved—”

  Everyone was talking all at once, including Mike. “Poor Nicole,” he put in, “you know—the ranger who was supposed to meet you? An asphalt truck overturned where they were fixing the road, and she couldn’t get past. When she finally made it to the parking lot, you kids were gone. First she was baffled, then later, after she’d searched all over the place and couldn’t find you anywhere, she just about freaked.”

  “Why did you leave the parking lot? You know you weren’t supposed to—” Steven began, but Olivia squeezed his arm to silence him.

  Slowly, everyone turned to look at Troy.

  In a quiet voice, Olivia asked, “Were you trying to run away, Troy?”

  Troy’s gruff manner came back on him so fast it was as if he’d stepped into a darkened room. “No—is that what you thought?” he demanded. “Is that what you think?”

  “But why did you—”

  Just then, Mike grabbed his horse’s bridle as the mare whinnied and stepped sideways, almost pushing him against a tree. “What is the matter with these horses?” he wondered. “They’re all acting like they’re scared of something.” The other two horses snorted and shook their heads. As one of them backed up, metal poles sticking out from its saddle pack banged against a tree trunk, nicking the bark.

  “Watch out!” Mike shouted. “I don’t want that stretcher to get bent. Whoa, girl. Take it easy. What is with you?”

  Jack knew why the horses were nervous. They smelled wolf. Tugging his mother’s hand, he said, “Come on, Mom and Dad. We have something to show you. Mike, you better tie the horses and leave them here.”

  The sun was bright enough by then that they could catch glimpses of the black wolf, still pacing, but hovering farther away in the shelter of the trees. Now that there were six people coming toward her fallen mate, six humans who talked loudly and made noise as they tramped through the brush, the frightened female abandoned her watch. She turned tail to slink away.

  “Oh, no,” Olivia said as soon as she reached the wounded wolf. She dropped to her knees beside it. Cautiously, she touched the bloody rib cage. “What happened? Do you know?”

  “He got shot,” Troy said stiffly.

  Nodding, Jack added, “Yeah, we saw him get hit. It happened right after you left.”

  “Wait a minute, are you saying someone shot a gun in Yellowstone?” Mike barked. “Shooting any kind of firearm is illegal here. Hitting a wolf, an endangered species—well, that’s big-time bad! Did you see who did it?”

  “No, he was too far away,” Ashley told him. “But Troy followed the wolf because he wanted to save its life. And we followed Troy. That’s why we weren’t waiting for the ranger.” Ashley didn’t mention how hard they’d tried to keep Troy with them, and all the arguing that had gone on before and after the wolf got shot.

  “Oh, Troy,” Olivia murmured, “I’m sorry for what I said.”

  “Forget it,” Troy muttered. “Just fix Silver.”

  Gently parting the animal’s fur with her fingers, Olivia examined the wound. “Ashley, you run back to the horses real quick and get my pack. Jack and Troy, you guys better bring the stretcher that’s strapped to Mike’s saddlebags.”

  “We thought maybe one of you might be hurt and we’d have to carry you out,” Mike explained. “Good thing we brought the stretcher. He’ll need it.” He gestured toward the wolf.

  Steve said, “You kids must be starved. I’ll bring some granola bars, too.”

  Jack alm
ost laughed out loud when he heard that. Granola!

  Just what he’d expected.

  “And juice,” Steve added. “We brought some juice, too.”

  That sounded better. Jack realized thirst was bothering him more than hunger. The night before, whenever they got thirsty, they’d eaten snow. Although not a lot of snow had fallen before it stopped altogether, they had managed to scoop some where wind had blown small mounds of it against the trees. But after a night spent breathing wood smoke, Jack’s throat felt dry and scratchy.

  When all of them returned with the supplies, Olivia, still bent over the wolf, murmured, “You kids did a great job. The coldness made the wolf’s bleeding nearly stop, yet the fire kept him from freezing. It couldn’t have worked any better if I’d had him in the clinic.” From her pack she took a syringe, filled it, spurted out a little of the liquid, and injected the needle into the wolf’s haunch.

  “Cortisone,” she explained. “To reduce swelling. There’s been a lot of bleeding here.” She pointed. “See, it’s a grazing wound in the ribs along the chest wall. Good thing it didn’t puncture the lung. Ribs will heal, but a penetrating lung wound would have killed him.”

  “Look at those teeth,” Steven exclaimed, pointing to the wolf’s partly open mouth. “They’re not worn down at all. You can tell he’s a young wolf, probably just starting to establish his own pack.”

  “And strong,” Mike said. “That’s how he could survive this. He’s in beautiful condition.”

  “Dad, Troy noticed something weird,” Jack said. “There’s a bullet fragment in the radio collar. Check the battery pack.”

  Steven leaned over, but Mike got down on all fours to get a closer look. “So he was shot head-on. Looks like an exploding bullet hit the battery pack from the front,” Mike said. “Then how did he get wounded in the ribs?”

  “Obviously there had to be two shots, one from the front and one from the back. See?” With her finger, Olivia traced the bloody path the bullet had taken, back to front, along the rib cage.

  “No, Mom, there was only one shot,” Ashley insisted. “Ask Jack. Ask Troy.”

  Frowning, Mike took off his cap and rubbed his forehead. “Steve, you better take a lot of close-up photographs of the collar and the wound on his side. There’s something screwy here.”

  While Steven photographed the unconscious animal from several angles, Olivia pulled another syringe from her pack. She frowned, shook her head a little, and announced, “I have to tell you, this one scares me. It’s a tough call.”

  “What, Mom?” Jack and Ashley both asked.

  “Whether or not I should give him a tranquilizer. If I don’t, he might wake up when we move him onto the stretcher, and if he panics he could savage himself and hurt us, too. If I do tranquilize him—and he’s already so weak—it might—”

  She didn’t finish, but Jack knew what she meant. It might kill him.

  “You make the call, Olivia,” Mike told her. When he saw how worried she looked, he added, “We could tie a bandanna around his muzzle so if he does wake up, he can’t bite.”

  “Yeah, we ought to do that too,” Olivia said, “but that part bothers me least. If he wakes up and goes ballistic, he’ll start to bleed again.” She took a deep breath. “I better do it.” After she administered the tranquilizer, she rubbed the wolf’s side, then leaned back on her heels.

  Mike waited a minute or so before he asked, “Is he out now?”

  “He’s been pretty much unconscious all along,” Olivia answered. “Now he’s deeply unconscious. He won’t feel a thing when we move him.”

  “Then I’m gonna pop that radio collar off him. I want to take a better look at it.” Mike clicked out the blade of a big hunting knife and used it to unscrew two fasteners that held together the overlapping ends of the collar. When he tugged it, the collar snapped open. He must have done that before, Jack thought, because it looked like he knew what he was doing.

  The edges of the rectangular battery pack stuck out in uneven shards. “That had to be one powerful bullet,” Mike said. “It’s the kind that bursts into fragments on impact.” He reached out as though to pull something off the rough edge, then abruptly jerked back his hand.

  Troy had been watching the whole procedure closely, as though daring Mike to handle Silver with anything less than the utmost care. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “There’s something stuck on his collar. Right here, where the edge is shredded. It’s hair.”

  “So?” Troy asked.

  “It’s not wolf hair.”

  All of them crowded around to see, but Mike made them move back. “Get me one of those big plastic bags, Olivia,” he said. “The kind you can seal. We need to examine this and see what kind of animal it came from.”

  “Probably a deer,” Steven suggested. “Or maybe a moose calf—whatever the wolf had for lunch.”

  “I don’t think so. Wrong color hair. We’ll check it out when we get back.” Mike dropped the whole collar into the bag, then sealed it shut.

  “OK, time to move him,” Olivia decided. She stood up, brushing dirt and pine needles from her jeans. “We need four strong people to carry the stretcher—we’ll be going over some rough terrain so it’s got to stay as steady as possible.”

  “I want the stretcher,” Troy declared.

  “Good—Mike and Steve and Troy and I,” Olivia said. “Ashley and Jack, you bring the horses. But before we start—did all you kids get something to eat?”

  “I don’t want anything.” Troy hovered over the wolf until Olivia made him move away. The muscle relaxant and tranquilizer had both started to take effect: the wolf was a floppy, dead weight as they carefully lifted him onto the stretcher. His tongue hung out, long and pink.

  When the campfire had been thoroughly extinguished, Jack and Ashley ran down to get the horses. Jack tied the reins of one horse to the saddle horn of another so he could lead two at the same time. Ashley followed with the third.

  It was slow going with the wolf, and Jack and Ashley often found themselves far ahead of the others, which was just as well, because the horses were still skittery from the wolf scent. While they waited for the stretcher-bearers to catch up, Jack watched Troy, surprised how sure-footed he was for a city kid, even with those worn-out sneakers. Since the whole trek was downhill and bumpy, maneuvering the stretcher to keep it level was tricky, but Troy managed.

  Every so often they stopped so that Olivia could listen to the wolf’s heartbeat with a stethoscope, to make sure he was breathing. Each time, from her expression, Jack knew it was OK. So far the wolf was still alive.

  When they reached the flat, grassy meadow next to the creek, a helicopter waited, its rotors turning slowly. Not till then did Jack realize how tired he was. Soon they’d be going home, and he could sleep in his own bed. Would home seem the same as it always had? He didn’t think so. Not after all that had happened in the past 24 hours.

  Then his mother surprised him by saying, “This wolf shooting has complicated things. I’m afraid you kids will have to miss a school day tomorrow. We’re going to stay here a little longer to sort things out.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  It was past nine in the morning when they reached the tourist cabins at Mammoth Hot Springs. Their gear had already been stowed into two adjoining rooms with a connecting door between.

  “Guys in one room; girls in the other,” Steven announced, pointing Jack and Troy toward the narrow beds. Jack didn’t need much persuasion; he zoned out like a broken circuit the minute his head hit the pillow.

  Much later, Troy’s prowling awakened him. Groggy, Jack mumbled, “What time is it?”

  “Goin’ on four,” Troy answered. “Your mom’s in there waiting for your sister to wake up. Your mom promised I could go see Silver.”

  “Where’s my dad?” Jack asked.

  “I dunno. He left with Mike. They kept asking me a lot of questions about the gunshot—saying there had to be two shots. I told them they were wrong.�
�

  Still pacing, Troy made a quick turn and knocked over a chair. When it hit the bare wooden floor with a clatter, Olivia cried out from the next room, “What was that?” In a sleepy voice, Ashley echoed, “Yeah. What happened?”

  “A chair fell over,” Troy called out. From the slight grin that curled Troy’s lips, Jack realized it had been no accident. “Did I wake Ashley? Hey, I’m sorry! So can we go see Silver now?”

  Jack sat up on the side of the bed and began to pull on his boots. “I’ll be ready right away,” he said.

  Looking a bit apologetic, Olivia came into the room. “Sorry, not this time,” she told Jack. “Too many visitors at once would spook the wolf. Even though he’s conscious now, he’s still pretty much traumatized.” Smoothing Jack’s tousled hair, she added softly, “I already promised Troy he could be the first one to visit. You and Ashley will get your turns; you’ll just have to wait.”

  Jack might have been more disappointed if his father hadn’t arrived just at that moment, shoving open the cabin door. He’d been waiting for a chance to tell his dad about the wolf pictures.

  “You’re up, Jack. Good!” Steven said. “Mike wants to ask you something.”

  “About the rifle shot? I’ll tell him the same thing Troy did. There was only one shot.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah. And Dad, I didn’t tell you this before, but I took some pictures of where the guy was standing. The guy with the gun. I mean, I didn’t take pictures of him, because I couldn’t really see him. He was too far away and I only had my little point-and-shoot camera and anyway he was hiding in the trees. But at least it will show where he was.”

  “Mmmmm.” Steven frowned. “I’ll let Mike know.”

  “But Dad,” Jack continued, “this is even more important. I think I got some really great pictures of the wolf. When are we going home so you can develop the film for me?”

  Steven was still thinking hard. “We’ll be here at least till early tomorrow morning,” he said. “But I think there’s a working photo lab in the park administration building. Maybe we ought to develop your film right here, right now.”