“It had nothing to do with me, he said. He still loved me. And he loved Mama. I didn’t believe a word of it, because I’d overheard their arguing. I’d heard him say that he couldn’t stand being near her anymore. That she wasn’t the beautiful woman he’d married. That she was…” she swallowed hard “…deformed.”
The son of a bitch!
Donovan moved closer to Laurel and gazed into clear blue eyes that amazingly held no hatred. How could she forgive such ugliness?
He shook his head in disgust. “Your mother was sick, and he left her to fend for herself.”
Laurel raised her chin. “She wasn’t by herself. She had me.”
Donovan couldn’t believe how wrong he’d been thinking she couldn’t understand his feelings. As for her being part of the all-American family…he hadn’t the vaguest notion of how he could have been so wrong making that assumption.
“And you were how old?” he asked.
“I remember the day very clearly because it was my eleventh birthday.”
“How did you cope?”
“How could I not?” she asked with amazement. “You make it sound like I had a choice. Mama got better for a while. Then it was the hospital again. I was too young to be left on my own, so I had to move in with Grandma. And so did Mama when she was able.”
“Thank God you had someone else.”
The expression in her eyes changed to one of pain.
“Grandma was Daddy’s mother, and she blamed Mama for chasing him off…for her losing a son. Mama was dying but everything was her fault. I hated that old woman with my whole being. And I was certain she hated Mama even while she helped take care of her. I didn’t understand how she could cry when Mama died, not after all the terrible things she’d said about her.”
“People do terrible things to each other,” Donovan said. The reason he preferred his own company. “She was angry at her son and she couldn’t admit he was the one at fault, so she blamed the handiest person.”
Though she remained dry-eyed, Laurel’s soul cried out to him. He could clearly hear its voice, still sad if not bitter after all these years.
In that single moment, he connected with her as he’d never connected with another human being…not even with his own mother.
Filled with a surfeit of foreign emotions he didn’t want to confront, Donovan said, “You didn’t really hate your grandmother, did you?”
She shook her head. “I hated what she did…the horrible things she said…but that’s separate from hating the whole person. She did right by Mama and me through it all, and we clung to each other after her death. I understood then that my grandmother had loved my mother, but she hadn’t been able to say so. Mama went to her grave not knowing my grandmother thought of her as her own daughter. I vowed then that I would never let things I felt for anyone go unsaid.”
The way she was looking at him pierced him to his core.
That he longed for Laurel to cling to him now shocked Donovan. He wanted nothing more than to wrap his arms around her and hold her close. To protect her from any more emotional atrocities.
But as he’d schooled himself into doing for eons, once again, Donovan left his heart’s voice silent… A VISRR TO Andrew Deterline’s farm was Donovan’s first order of business the next morning. While Laurel would have preferred skipping the dead-livestock tour, she didn’t think Donovan’s going alone would be smart, not after Deterline’s not-so-veiled threats. She’d gotten the distinct impression that the farmer would be just as willing to shoot Donovan himself as he would any of the wolves.
Why was Deterline so rabid on the issue?
She decided to ask Donovan about it as they took a back road toward the farm’s south pasture.
“Wouldn’t you think Deterline would be satisfied at getting fair market value for any livestock lost?”
She knew the Department of Natural Resources paid for animals killed by wolves from donations to the Endangered Resources Fund.
“For one, Andrew Deterline is from the old school. No government intervention to tell a man how he’s going to run his place. And then he knows Wisconsin’s recovery program has been real successful. The practice of paying farmers for lost livestock could end if the wolves are taken off the endangered list.”
Laurel knew public hearings were already scheduled on the matter. If the wolves were upgraded from Endangered to Threatened, monies might be withheld and citizens allowed to shoot any wolves caught taking down livestock.
Even as Deterline had already threatened to do.
Though he might have reason to be angry, Laurel couldn’t help disliking the farmer. So, when they arrived at the south pasture gate where he already waited for them, she decided to keep her distance.
The men greeted each other without shaking hands. Then the farmer led the way to the slaughtered cow. Laurel followed behind and was glad of the gap between them when they came upon the bloody carcass. One quick look was all it took to turn her stomach.
“There she is,” the farmer said.
Donovan inspected the tracks around the dead animal. Then he crouched over the carcass and checked it carefully.
Laurel took a few deep breaths of early-morning frosty air to settle her stomach. Thankfully, she hadn’t been in the mood for a big breakfast.
Donovan rose and shook his head. “Sorry, Deterline. No go on this one.”
“What do you mean, no go? You’re not going to approve payment?”
“Coyotes have been at this cow, not wolves.”
“Bull hockey!”
“Wolves strip a carcass tail to ears,” Donovan told him. “Coyotes, ears to tail. Take a look.”
“I don’t need your fancy explanations. No coyote’s got jaws big enough to do that,” he said, pointing to the dead cow’s throat.
“That is some serious damage,” Donovan agreed. “But large dogs have pretty good-size jaws, too.”
“My dogs don’t do cows!”
“I didn’t suggest it was one of your dogs. Could be feral. Could be that coyotes took over when the dog had its fill. If a wolf brought that cow down, why would he abandon it?”
“Maybe it wasn’t hungry. Maybe it was plain ornery.”
“Wolves kill to eat.” Donovan turned to go. “C’mon, Laurel, we’re through here.”
“You’ll be sorry!” Deterline yelled after them as they headed back for the truck. “Maybe I won’t wait until I lose another animal. Maybe I’ll shoot any damned wolf I see!”
Once inside, Laurel softly said, “Not a happy farmer.” Not that Donovan’s scowl made him look any happier.
“Damn, he’s going to cause trouble!”
“If he hasn’t already.”
A point that Donovan didn’t argue.
THE WEATHER HAD finally turned. By the time they got out in the field, the sun had heated the air enough that the trail was turning to slush beneath their snowshoes. And Laurel regretted wearing the borrowed jacket rather than her own. Thinking she might as well be in a sauna, she unzipped it and let it hang open.
Even so, she was too warm even before they reached the first trap, which proved to be untouched.
And when Donovan led her off-trail, struggling with the rugged terrain overheated her.
“Where are we going?”
“I thought you might like to see this,” he said mysteriously.
“How much farther?”
He glanced back, his expression surprised at her complaint “Just over there.”
Laurel followed the pointing finger. Her eyes widened, and she rushed to the area he’d indicated. Crouching to get a better look, all she could see was a narrow opening set in the hillside. Still, knowing what he’d brought her to see, she was thrilled.
“Omigod, a real wolf den?”
“No, I’m just pulling your leg.”
Unsure now, she gazed up at him suspiciously. “Have you gone and developed a sense of humor on me?”
“Isn’t it allowed?”
“Cha
nge is good. So, which is true—this is a wolf den or you’re pulling my leg?”
“If I were pulling your leg…you’d know it.”
Laurel took a mental gulp and whipped her face away from him so he wouldn’t see the color rise. He spoiled it, though, by hunkering down next to her so close he couldn’t miss it. How was she supposed to keep her equilibrium with him close enough to breathe down her neck?
Damn the jacket!
“This is the Iron Lake pack’s first den,” he said, “used last year.”
“Anyone home?”
“Long abandoned. The female moves her pups out when they’re six to eight weeks old.”
“Won’t she come back here this year?”
“She might have to if the weather doesn’t keep improving. The pups are due in less than a month. Usually the female starts digging a few weeks before they’re born, but as you can tell, the earth’s just beginning to cooperate. The ground’s still frozen. Alternative sites would be a cave or hollow log. And she might clean out this one, anyway, for emergency use—say if the new den floods during the spring rains.”
Laurel rose and stripped off the jacket. “So, how big is the den?”
“Hard to say since I’ve never been inside. It would be kind of a tight squeeze for me.” He stood, his gaze sweeping down her narrow body. “But you might be the right size.”
She grew even hotter. “I’ll pass.”
Just her luck—she’d burrow in to satisfy her curiosity and come nose to nose with some wolf seeking shelter. While she did want to see one, that might be a bit too up close and personal for her taste.
“The tunnel could be as long as ten feet,” Donovan told her. “And there’ll be an enlarged chamber at the other end. That’s where the pups would’ve been born and spent the first weeks of their lives.”
“Sounds cozy and safe.”
“It hasn’t always been that way, though. In the not too distant past, trappers would go into dens to get the pups, either to sell them or collect bounties on their litdtl heads.”
The reminder of the dedicated extirpation of the timber wolf throughout the country made Laurel shudder. She’d seen the horrible photographs of proud trappers standing next to innocent animals dead and strung up on a line.
“What would the female do when someone tried stealing her pups? Or the other wolves?”
“They let the humans master them. A wolf might attack if cornered, but it knows when it’s trapped and becomes surprisingly submissive. It’s almost like they’re ashamed of getting themselves into the situation and feel they deserve whatever is coming.”
Laurel saw proof of that theory a while later, when she got her second thrill of the day—a wolf caught in one of Donovan’s traps.
Still a few yards away, he put an arm out to stay her and stood quietly for a few moments. He shrugged free of the knapsack and let it slide to the ground.
Fear shone from the trapped animal’s eyes and bunched its muscles tight. Yet it lay, head down, unmoving, as if it had already given up any thoughts of fight.
“It’s one of the juveniles,” Donovan murmured. “A male.”
“He’s scared, poor beast,” she whispered in return.
“Everything will be all right, won’t it, fella?” Donovan suggested in a soft voice. His movements slow and nonthreatening, he approached the cowed wolf. “Because no one here is going to do anything to harm you.”
Awed, not wanting to alarm the animal further, Laurel remained where she was, hands fisting tightly to the jacket she still carried. As he continued to speak to the wolf in low tones, Donovan became a mesmerizing presence. His voice remained soft. Compassionate. His words reassuring. As if he internally understood its fear and its shame.
“Nothing bad’s going to happen to you.” Donovan hunkered down next to him and held out a relaxed hand. “You’re safe with me.”
To Laurel’s further amazement, the wolf underwent a transformation. The fear left his eyes and his muscles uncoiled. He crawled on his belly several inches toward the proffered hand. When he made a strange sound deep in his throat, Laurel took it to be one of acceptance. Donovan gently stroked the beast’s head, and in a repeat of what she’d seen when she’d followed him into the night, the wolf moved forward to lick at the human’s lips.
Only then did the wolfman reach into his jacket pocket and withdraw a jab stick, which she knew to hold a mild tranquilizing drug.
“This is going to pinch a little, but it won’t hurt you. Honest.”
The wolf didn’t so much as protest at the careful handling.
And Laurel was reminded of Aileen’s story about her cat, whose paw the young Donovan had fixed. His little sister had fallen in love with him then…
And at this very moment, Laurel felt as if she had, as well…
Of course that was crazy. She was merely responding to Donovan’s compassion and the fact that he’d sacrificed a “normal” life for the betterment of something beyond himself. Talk about a rescuer—he was the epitome.
She couldn’t help but admire that about him.
Shortly after the drug was injected, the wolf’s trusting expression began to dim. His head lowered to the ground once more, and his shaggy body gradually went limp.
Donovan thoroughly checked over the wolf. Nodding in satisfaction, he looked back and waved her over to join him.
“You can come as close as you like. He’ll be under the influence, so to speak, for about ninety minutes.”
Never having been this close to a wolf before—no matter that he wasn’t awake—a thrill of alarm mixed with pleasure whirled through her stomach.
At least she assumed the wolf rather than the wolfman was the cause.
What a perfect specimen.
Up close, she could see that the gray coloring of the animal’s pelage actually was produced by white, black, chestnut and gray guard hairs mixed together. Black-tipped hairs adorned his shoulders, and a band of black marched along his spine and through his tail.
“His eyes are still open.”
Half-open, actually. Slits she was certain he could still see through. They were a pale yellow-brown, not so different from Donovan’s. She looked his way and her stomach did another whirligig as they made contact.
“He’s not knocked out all the way,” he told her. “Just enough so that I can do what’s necessary. If I gave him more, it would take too long for him to pull out and he could get himself into trouble.”
He fetched his knapsack and dropped it to the ground next to the animal. From it, he pulled a bundle wrapped in hide that he spread out. Inside were some of his tools.
Then he opened a journal and made some notes, muttering, “Hmm…he needs a name.”
“Uh-oh. My grandmother used to say, ‘You name an animal and he’s yours forever.’ Judging by the number of furry critters filling my house, she was right.”
Perfectly deadpan, Donovan said, “You have experience, then. You name him.”
“Me? Does that mean I can take him home?”
He gave her a look that would make a more timid woman quake in her snowshoes. However, having just experienced his gentle side, she couldn’t even pretend to be chastened.
“Sorry, wolves don’t make good pets,” he stated. Then added, “But maybe you can work out some kind of visitation rights.”
Laurel snickered. Change was good, she decided, wondering how long this lightened mood of his was going to last.
Grinning, she said, “Hopeful.” And when he didn’t seem to get it, she clarified. “That’s the name—Hopeful. You don’t like it?”
“Actually, I approve.” He scribbled into his journal. “Hopeful it is.”
After removing the trap from the wolf’s paw, Donovan showed her a distinctive feature.
“He has an extra toe on his left front foot. Makes him easy to track.”
First he took blood samples for genetic and disease testing. Then, with her help, he measured and weighed the animal.
“If I weren’t already familiar with him, I could figure out his age by pulling a tooth and splitting it open.”
Never having been thrilled by the dentist’s chair herself, Laurel was just as glad that wouldn’t be necessary.
He tagged one of Hopeful’s ears with a numbered I.D. “This will help keep track of him in the future, no matter what might happen to the radio collar.” Which he then pulled from the knapsack. Fitting it to the wolf’s neck, Donovan pointed to the metal tube attached to the webbing and explained, “The device has a battery-powered transmitter that sends out a radio signal. That way, I’ll be able to follow his movements using an antenna and receiver.”
“How many of the wolves are collared?” she asked.
“Statewide, around half.”
“What about the Iron Lake Pack?”
“This guy makes number four of seven. I first collared one of the other juveniles—a sister to him. Then their mother, the alpha female. And a few weeks ago, I trapped and collared the omega, who’s new to the pack. That leaves two more juveniles and the alpha male.”
“The alpha male wouldn’t be a particularly large black wolf, would it?”
Obviously startled, he asked, “Why? What makes you ask?”
“I saw you together, howling at the moon.” She could envision the scene in her mind’s eye. Another thrilling sight. “Why didn’t you take the opportunity to collar the guy?” she asked.
He didn’t seem as if he were going to say.
And before she could push the issue, Hopeful distracted her by trying to raise his head.
“Uh-oh, he’s coming to.”
And appearing a little like he’d been on a drunken binge.
Donovan focused his attention on the wolf. “Take it easy, fella.” Then to Laurel, he said, “I’m going to move him to friendlier territory where he’ll feel safer. He’ll be confused for a while, but he’ll be all right.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“We’ll start telemetry tracking him tomorrow.” Donovan scooped the still-limp body up into his arms. “Could you wait here, maybe gather up everything? I won’t be gone long.”
“No problem.”
Actually, she was relieved by his temporary absence. Give her hormones a rest already. Wishing she could ease her mind, as well, she slipped back into her jacket.
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