Summer of the Wolves

by Polly Carlson-Voiles

  “Well, sold them, I suppose, if they survived. We know he’s made money on wolf pups before, selling them as pets.” Ian looked serious. At least he didn’t say anything about wire cutters, or kids, or anything like that, Nika thought.

  But she’d heard enough. She wished Ian would stop talking.

  Ian continued. “In jail, Bristo has been muttering about some “wolf bitch’ and how she’d be sorry. When they arrested him, he was leaning against a Dumpster on Main Street, ranting. He was holding an empty rifle and a pair of wire cutters.”

  “It’s too bad,” Pearl said. “He needs help. Many people have tried, but he always runs them off.”

  Wire cutters. Nika felt a squirmy feeling in her stomach. But she couldn’t feel sorry for Bristo.

  A silence fell as they watched the pup pounce and wrestle with Zeus.

  Pearl got up and started into the kitchen, “I brought some special ground meat from the butcher,” she said. “Leftovers from meat cutting with lots of finely ground bone in it. It should be good for Khan’s gruel. We’ll let Zeus have a little, too.”

  “Nika, do you want to try giving him some?” Ian was looking carefully at Nika.

  Suddenly she was on her feet. “I’ll get a bowl. Shall I get some formula, too?” She asked in a chirpy voice. But for a minute, her feet were riveted to the floor.

  “Darling, what is it?” asked Pearl.

  “Nothing,” Nika said quickly and headed toward the kitchen.

  At least Bristo was in jail. Maybe they would keep him there.

  The wolf explored the island, chasing snowshoe hares in brown summer coats as they zigzagged through dense trees. She found bits of fish dropped by eagles. Every day she paced the shoreline, then circled to her lookout rock. She felt constant hunger, but she could wait. The days were warmer. Fingers of cool air slipped down the rock as the late sunset simmered at the horizon. The silvery-tan wolf curled tightly and lost herself in sleep.

  Chapter Ten

  Khan loved the bone-dust meat from the butcher. They mixed it with vitamins and formula in a small plastic bowl. At forty-two days he weighed eighteen pounds. Some days he gained a whole half a pound. Ian told her that it was time to stop giving him a bottle, but she thought that if he still wanted it, why not? She loved the moments when his gangly body stretched across her lap sucking the formula down in a few strong pulls. Would his wild wolf mom have just turned off the taps one day and said, that’s it?

  She did know from her reading that this was the age when wolf parents would bring back partially digested food in their stomachs. Pups licked at their mouths and they would regurgitate. So if Khan had been wild, he would have been eating vomit! “If you think I’m going to eat this first and then throw it up, you’re wrong,” she told him as she offered the gruel. Khan still preferred to eat it from the cup of her hand. He was always careful with his needle teeth, licking and nibbling the food delicately, not missing a single sticky bit.

  One night a thunderstorm shook the island. Nika felt the floor vibrate, watching cords of lightning crisscross the sky. The plastic had been removed from the screen porch, so they lowered the heavy canvas shades. In the morning, however, every item in the porch was damp. Her clothes and her sleeping bag sponged up humidity from the air.

  That morning after feeding, Nika sat watching the pup ferociously shake one paw of the stuffed bear. When Ian came through the barricaded gate from the house, he laughed at Khan. “By the way, it’s about time for our growing pup to try the outside world. Zeus’s small fenced yard will be perfect for his first adventures. Before long we’ll have to build something more secure.” Ian had already put up plywood barricades, leaving the screens open just at the top. The porch was not exactly people-usable anymore, but Pearl didn’t seem to mind.

  It bothered Nika how things were beginning to change. It had been so nice when Khan was tiny and the screen porch had been a snug den for just the three of them.

  “Are you sure it’s not too soon for him to go outside?” she asked.

  “In the wild he would have been outside before now. He’s six weeks old. It’s past time.” Ian turned away.

  She wondered if Ian would miss those first days with Khan as much as she would. Maybe for him it was just a job.

  Nika and Zeus led the way into the small fenced yard. Khan followed cautiously, but when he stepped on a stick and it snapped up and hit him on the nose, he raced back into the porch with his tail tucked.

  “He’s scared,” Nika said.

  “Wolf pups are all about being scared and fleeing to safety,” Ian explained. “It’s a good way for them to stay alive. That’s why it’s necessary to socialize pups when they’re only a couple of weeks old. If they’re older than that, fear usually wins. But curiosity is strong, too. Give him time.”

  It didn’t take Khan long to creep on bent legs back out of the porch and into the fenced area. He sniffed every inch of bare rock and mossy ground, the sticks, the stumps, and the early grasses. In one corner next to a large white pine, the ground was thick with needles. Khan dug with his front paws and settled beneath this tree. Soon he dug some more, eagerly opening a hole between two outstretched roots until it was big enough to curl down into. Lying in the hole, his woolly black coat filled with dirt and needles, he watched the woods beyond, his ears twitching to small sounds.

  “He likes it,” Nika said from her perch on a stump in the middle of the yard. “Look, Ian, his ears are standing up completely now, wolflike.”

  “His ears are open now, too, so he can hear pretty well.” Ian sat on a taller stump and tapped the ground with a branch of balsam he’d broken off. Khan leaped up, sidestepped, then ran in jerky dashes until he grabbed the branch. Ian released it, and Khan ran with it, shaking and finally throwing it over his shoulder.

  “He looks happy,” Nika said. “Do wolves have emotions?’

  “Not like ours. They seem very emotional with each other, but we don’t really know how animal feelings work. There are some good books on the subject.”

  Nika gently distracted the pup from chewing on her shoes by dragging a mangled piece of hide in front of his nose. She had learned from Ian that shoe-chewing and other biting on humans had to be discouraged. When instructing her, Ian had shown her a moose thighbone as big around as her arm. Then he told her how Khan’s powerful jaws would be able to bite through that thighbone in six to eight bites when he was grown. She got the picture.

  “How come he’s so black?” Nika asked. Before meeting Khan, Nika had always pictured wolves as being mostly gray.

  “Remind me to give you the article for your report, but DNA research suggests the black phase wolves came from being crossed with wild dogs as long as ten to fifteen thousand years ago. Dogs came from wolves, now they say black wolves came from dogs!”

  Ian stood and headed toward the house. “Nika, I forgot to tell you. At the end of the week I’m going down to St. Paul for an important meeting. Pearl will be here with you while I’m gone. I’ve lined up people from the college in Red Pine to take shifts with the pup. Elinor, a new researcher who’s just joined my study, will be in charge.”

  Things were moving too fast. The yard. St. Paul. New people. Someone named Elinor?

  “Remember how we talked about making a large fenced run for Khan? So he can explore and really run?”

  Nika nodded.

  “I’ve been thinking about the clearing up on the ridge, just beyond those trees edging the house.” He turned to point up the hill. “An old cabin used to be there. It burned down a long time ago. Anyway, it would give Khan a pretty open area to run and burn off some energy. The ground is rocky, so we wouldn’t have to worry so much about him digging out along the fences. It’s an easy walk from the house for helpers. It’ll just be temporary . . .”

  And then what? Nika thought but was afraid to ask. She looked at the pup as he curled at her feet, his head resting on her shoe.

  “We can teach him to walk on a lead to go up and back,
” Ian said.

  “He’ll follow.” She felt certain of that.

  “Maybe. Maybe not.” Ian gave her a long look, both hands in his back pockets. “Anyway, on Friday several guys I know from forestry are coming. They’ll make short work of the fencing. Elinor’s coming with a couple of pup volunteers, to get to know you and Khan.” He headed into the porch.

  “Not Lorna, I hope.” Nika scooped up Khan from where he’d fallen asleep and carried him back into the porch, where she placed him in his den box. He groaned and stretched his long legs. She touched his ears and mouth and paws for a few minutes. It was one of the things Ian suggested they do so when the vet needed to handle him when he was older, he could. Now she had to let other people handle him, too.

  She sat beside the den box drenched with Khan’s puppy smells and watched Ian step over the baby gate. He hadn’t really said anything about taking Khan away from here. Her mind clouded at this point. She needed to know more, go to the library, look on the Internet. Maybe she could keep Khan, if she had a special fenced area, even in California? An ache filled her, and she tried to sweep away the inner warnings about not getting her hopes up.

  By Thursday Khan was enjoying playing chase with Zeus around their small yard. But by Friday it was already clear he needed more space. He had grown another half pound as well. The crew came early that morning, and the hill pen was finished by dinner, complete with logs holding the bottom of the fencing to keep Khan from digging out.

  Pearl rewarded the volunteers with lunch. Everyone talked at once, and their voices filled the open room. Nika helped serve platters of roast beef and cream cheese sandwiches, fresh salad and raw veggies, cold sweet potato fries, and pitchers of iced tea. When all of the food was on the tables, she headed for the kitchen.

  “Don’t you want to join us?” Ian called after her. Pearl sat down with the crew, sharing in their laughter.

  “That’s okay,” Nika answered, and waved a sandwich in the air.

  Standing in the kitchen, she ate quickly. She didn’t want to carry human food when she went to see Khan.

  Ian came to the kitchen door. “Wait on feeding Khan,” he said. “I want Elinor to give him the meat today, and Will and Abby, the two volunteers from the college, will watch. Elinor is going to give them an orientation about wolf pup development. Okay?”

  Nika turned to look at him and nodded, but he was already heading back to join the others at the table. It was hard to believe, but here it was, turning out just as she feared. Let the kid play with the pup for a while, then the adults take over. She hardly knew what to say. Maybe this Elinor knew stuff from books, but why didn’t Ian ask her to show the college kids how to care for Khan? She knew Khan. Her feelings of trust for Ian had started to sprout small pale roots, but now they felt like they’d been ripped from the ground.

  Avoiding the crowd at the table, Nika went over the gate and through the porch to the screen door leading outside. Khan was lying on the tattered stuffed bear. “C’mon, little one. Let’s go, pup. Hey, puppy, pup . . .”

  The pup looked at her with interest, pulled to his feet, and followed her to the door. She opened it, and they crossed the small dog yard. “Now. Let’s go see the new fence,” she said, quietly, opening the gate out of the yard. She had grabbed a strip of raw deer hide from the freezer and now held it out for him.

  Nika jogged up toward the new hill pen, holding the hide behind her and looking over her shoulder. Khan followed, stopping to sniff the trail a few times, then racing to catch up. A path well packed by the forestry crew led up to the open spot on the hill. She ran through the new gate, then turned to wait for Khan, tossing the hide. He chased, pounced on the hide, shook it fiercely back and forth, then carried it around the new enclosure, running faster than she’d ever seen him run before. After several loops at high speed, he found a large flat rock, jumped up, and settled to chew the hide. Nika closed the gate and fastened the latch. Watching him run was a thrill. She always loved being with him, but watching him run like the wind was a whole new level of happiness. It was as though he already knew inside what it was to be a wolf.

  The new larger pen was about the size of four living rooms and had shade, rocks, and room to run. They’d put a child’s wading pool in one corner, the kind with a pull drain in the bottom. Just outside the fence was a hose with a trigger nozzle. Rocks surrounded the wading pool.

  They could just come up here and find us, Nika decided. She sat down cross-legged inside the pen, leaned against the trunk of a large white pine, and waited.

  Khan’s straight-up ears rotated like satellite receivers. His hearing was definitely online. Nika turned to look toward the path. Ian led the way, walking stiffly, hands fisted in his pockets. Striding behind him was a redheaded woman with a long braid down her back. She was dressed like Ian, all khaki and boots. She decided this must be Elinor. There was a catlike grace about her that reminded Nika of the way Olivia moved. Olivia, whose favorite thing was modern dance. A young man and a young woman followed behind them, grinning like kids happy to be asked along on an adventure. She’d hardly noticed them at lunch, she’d been so eager to get out the door. The young man was tall and loose-jointed and held his head at an angle as if he were waiting for the answer to a question. The young woman was solid, not fat, but looked rooted to the earth by her sturdiness. She had a bush of dark brown curls escaping from a baseball cap that said, “Earth Is Home.” Nika had to admit that they both looked okay.

  Nika stayed braced against the tree. Khan ran and stood beside her, his eyes on the newcomers. They entered, and Ian closed the gate. Then he bent down and called, “Here, Khan-boy, here, pup.” Khan twisted his small black body and ran to him, his tail circling, his head low. He rolled in front of Ian and got a proper belly rub. Standing, the pup cast uncertain glances toward the three who squatted down against the fence. Then, he ran a circle toward the others and returned to energetically cover Ian’s face and ears with toothy licks. Elinor called Khan’s name. Before long he walked over to investigate, sniffing one person at a time. He licked Elinor’s face, then poked behind her for the bowl of meatball treats. She held one out to him. He stretched his body, took a meatball, dropped it, then raced across the enclosure to Nika again. Hah! Nika thought. So much for the fancy research assistant and her meatballs.

  But Elinor didn’t give up. She crooned, “Here, Khan, come here, boy, good boy, here, pup. Here, Khan-boy.” She held out her hand again. Khan made a second approach. This time he gently slid the meatball from her hand, then took a few steps away before gulping it down. Elinor smiled and laughed. “What a cautious little wolf you are.” Reminding the two volunteers to let Khan approach them, she handed the bowl of meatballs to the young man. Soon Khan had taken treats from everyone until he’d had enough and went off to watch them from his new rock throne.

  Ian got up from where he had been sitting and walked over to Nika. For a moment he just looked at her, his brows pushed together in a question. She stood.

  “So how did it go, coming up here?” he asked.

  She tried to decide if he was mad or not. It was hard to tell. He wasn’t smiling, though. “Oh, perfect.” She brushed off her jeans. “He came right along with me. He was great.”

  “Well, good, and at his age, following is natural.” Ian folded his arms over his chest. “But just be sure two people are on a shift when he’s transferred back and forth from now on. Use a leash. Carrying still works. We wouldn’t want to lose him after all of our hard work.”

  So it was shifts now, like at a fast food place. But she knew Khan would stay with her. She wouldn’t lose him, ever. Besides, they were on an island. “Yeah, okay,” she said, watching the volunteers admire Khan as he dragged the chunk of deer hide around the pen.

  The next morning Nika awoke in the screen porch as she heard Ian getting ready in the kitchen. She peeked at the clock they’d hung high on the wall. Five-thirty a.m. She shut her eyes again. Ian whispered goodbye to her, and then the sounds o
f his footsteps drummed across the living room.

  Khan was still asleep under the stuffed bear. After she knew Ian was gone, Nika got up and went into the kitchen. A note was taped to the counter: YOU KNOW THE DRILL WITH THE PUP. BE SURE TO VISIT RANDALL.TELL PEARL WHERE YOU ARE GOING. START TYPING THE PUP HOMEWORK PROJECT ON THE COMPUTER. TAKE CARE MOVING THE PUP TO THE HILL PEN. I MADE A SCHEDULE FOR VOLUNTEERS, 2 PEOPLE AT A TIME, 8 HOURS ON. ELINOR HAS 4 MORE VOLUNTEERS FROM THE COLLEGE. HAVE FUN. SEE YOU SOON. IAN.

  Not exactly a warm and fuzzy note. But studying the details and the neatly written schedule posted on the kitchen cabinet, Nika realized that volunteers were lined up for the evenings and Elinor was only coming every other day. On the opposite days, Nika and Pearl would be completely in charge. That started Nika thinking about an outing she’d begun to dream about. Something that maybe now she could really do.

  The silvery-tan wolf ate, but it was never enough. Emptiness kept her moving. Always before with the woman, and then the man, food had come to her. Now her instincts sharpened and she hunted mice and voles. Stiff-legged, the wolf pounced at small fish in the shallows.

  Chapter Eleven

  Two days after Ian left for St. Paul, Nika decided that today was the day to take Khan for a run on the Big Island. The night before she imagined how it would be, like Julie and Amaroq in Julie of the Wolves. The way Ian talked, the pup would never be able to live like a wild wolf. But she wanted Khan to smell and feel the spaces and freedom of the forest.

  After a restless night, Nika took Khan from the porch to the hill pen and gave him his meat mixture. Then she came back down to find Pearl. Pearl had said that she was fine with Nika spending today alone with Khan, but still Nika was nervous about her plan. Two new volunteers were lined up to stay tonight with the pup, and she didn’t know exactly what time they were coming. She would have to be home before anyone found her and Khan Missing in Action.