The Wolf Path

by Judith Van GIeson

  “Sure,” I said.

  “Your car at Perla’s?” he asked.

  “Yup.”

  “She know you took her horse?”

  “She does now.”

  “You know Perla and Don are good folk. Not the big bad welfare ranchers you folks up north would like to believe. Perla’s family’s ranch was taken by the federal government in the thirties to make White Sands and they were never compensated for it. She’s gonna feel doubly scorned to see the wolf put on land that once belonged to her family.”

  “She mentioned that.”

  “It’s not something you’d ever forget if it happened to you. Ranchers are just people trying to stay alive, reproduce and make a living just like you and me.”

  “I can’t speak for you, but I’m not trying to reproduce,” I said.

  “You sure? Copulation biology can sneak up on you,” he smiled. “The wolf is operating from the same biological drives as we are: to eat and reproduce. It’s just an animal, but a wild animal. It’s not a pet. I don’t like to see people trying to turn it into a dog. A wolf’s never gonna follow you around and ask for your approval or a pat on the head. A wolf’s a hell of a lot smarter, more efficient and stronger than any dog will ever be. It’s a powerful predator, but that doesn’t make it the devil or the bogeyman either. It’s just an animal.” He turned his head around and looked at the drugged fur ball in the back of his truck. “But it’s a beauty, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  We bumped along the Phillips ranch roads. They say the return trip always seems faster that the going out, but I could have sworn we were going at a slower pace than I had on Chili. Bartel had a wolf to watch out for. When we reached the Nissan, he said, “I’m going to take the wolf to the Soledad Zoo and he’ll be kept there until the charges against Juan and the cattle kill issue are settled. I ought to be the one to tell Juan that, if you don’t mind. If you get back to Jayne’s before I do, I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t say anything.”

  “No problem.” I had something I wanted to ask him before he got away. “What happened with Buddy and the cougar?”

  “We’d radio-collared some mountain lions at White Sands and were doing studies on ’em. When we radio-collar an animal we give the frequency to other government agencies in the neighborhood. The idea is that we can keep an eye on each other’s collars. The lion wandered off the range and started going after a rancher’s sheep. Without notifying us Buddy took it upon himself to use our frequency to track and kill it. He got the lion, gave us back the collar.”

  “That’s a rotten thing to do.”

  “We called it unethical,” Bartel said. “But if I ever catch Buddy doing a thing like that again I’m going to see that he loses his job.”

  ******

  I stopped at the Galaxy Deli on my way back to the ranch to kill time and quench my thirst, and stood still inside the doorway for a minute while my eyes made the adjustment from too much light to too little. The blind man at the counter was quiet as a predator, listening, using invisible antennae to size me up. It’s unnerving to think you can reveal your identity in the dark just by standing still. Once my eyes had adjusted enough so I could pick out details in the shadows, I saw that he had turned in my direction with a curious expression on his long face. “Hi,” I said, telling him before he had a chance to tell me. “I’m Neil Hamel, the lawyer from Albuquerque. I stopped by here a few days ago. Remember?”

  “Ernesto Sandoval. Buenas tardes,” he said.

  “Buenas tardes.”

  He thought for a moment. “You like the Papaya Punches, is that right?”

  “You have a good memory.”

  “They’re over there in the cooler.”

  “Gracias.”

  “Por nada. ”

  I picked out my drink, came back to the counter and gave him fifty cents, which clinked as he dropped it in the drawer.

  “Heard any more wolves?” I asked him.

  “Last night, but it was only one, near El Puerto. They say it is the moon that the wolves howl at, but they come out anyway, even when there is no moon. He howled because he was lonely. ‘I’m looking for a mate,’ he said. I could hear him. Do you have a mate?” he asked me.

  “Not exactly. And you?”

  “Oh, yes, Yolanda, and she’s an excellent woman, too. I couldn’t live one day without her.”

  ******

  I hung around the beginning of Jayne’s road waiting for Bob Bartel. I had no desire to get to Jayne’s first knowing Juan’s good news and bad but not being able to tell. It was too hot to sit in an nonmoving, non-air-conditioned car, so I got out, leaned against the trunk, fanned my shirt and drank my Papaya Punch wishing I had six more. It was drier than dust out here. A hawk circled over the Soledads’ spine, brown birds sang in the chamisa. Even in the desert, drab birds sing a happy song. I closed my eyes and listened to the sounds of the other world, the parallel universe that only occasionally intersects with ours. A wolf howling in the Soledads would be part of that world. I opened my eyes and saw a juniper not far from the road with bark as scaly as alligator hide. The forks in its branches were shaped like jagged lightning. Some cactusy type of plant with long, skinny arms had yellow blossoms for fingertips. A spiny yucca was getting ready to bloom. It was late afternoon but still as dusk. Did that mean a storm was coming? It was too early for me to tell, but maybe the cactus knew. Desert vegetation always seems unnaturally still, anyway, like it’s waiting, watching, reaching deep for water. In the distance the hawk hovered over a break in the spine. I stared at that spot and saw a road coming out of it, an old road, almost grown over with mesquite and rabbitbrush, but the scar it had made on the desert’s skin remained. La puerta, feminine, means door, I knew, but el puerto, masculine, means the mountain pass, the place you could cross from east of the Soledad peaks to west. I wondered if that was the puerto Ernesto had talked about. I looked away for a minute to be sure I hadn’t imagined it, but when I looked back it was still there, just a trace, the memory of a road, winding down the mountain and across Jayne’s property.

  8

  A CLOUD OF dust let me know that Bob Bartel’s pickup was coming. I got back into the Nissan and rolled up the window in anticipation. I didn’t have one of those windshield screens that has a picture of sunglasses on one side of it and says NEED HELP CALL POLICE on the other. The car had gotten so hot that you needed a glove to get it into first gear. Bartel slowed down when he approached, smiled and waved, but didn’t stop. He probably didn’t want to give his dust devil time to catch up to him. I sat in the hot car waiting for the dust to settle, wondering which was worse, eating road dust or getting crisped in your automobile. Every summer people forget how hot a car can get, leave a pet inside, come back to find the animal dead from heatstroke and end up hating themselves for their stupidity and carelessness. As soon as Bartel’s dust began to settle, I rolled down the window a few inches and followed him to Jayne’s.

  Juan Sololobo was sitting under the portal when we arrived. He wore jeans and his trademark Levi’s jacket with the sleeves cut off. His own cloud—a black one—hung over him. He was drinking something from a dark blue glass. As I had been staying at the ranch, my return was expected. But there was no reason for Bartel to come here unless he had news (good or bad) and a wave of expressions surged across Sololobo’s face when he saw him, ending in a kind of hopeful grin. “You found Siri?” he yelled the minute Bartel stepped from the truck.

  “Yes.” Bartel said for the good news.

  “Where? Is he all right? Is he alive?” Juan put his glass down, left the shade of the portal and hurried over to us.

  “He’s all right. Buddy Ohles set a trap and caught him near the calf carcass.”

  “A trap? That bastard. Did he break his leg, too?”

  “There were no teeth in the trap; it looks like the leg will be all right,” Bartel said. “You ought to give thanks to your lawyer here; she made sure Buddy Ohles didn’t hurt your wolf.”


  It wasn’t the kind of thing you could bill a client for. I got a big hug instead from Juan’s sweaty arms, and felt like I’d been licked by a dog with a large and sloppy tongue.

  “I had to tranquilize him to get him out of the trap,” Bartel moved on to the worse news.

  “You tranquilized him?” Juan was a bowlful of emotion and it was starting to quiver.

  “Take it easy, Juan,” I said, “Siri’s all right. I saw the whole thing.”

  “If he’s all right, then why isn’t he here?”

  “I took him to the Soledad Zoo for a thorough examination,” Bartel said.

  Juan’s watery interior wobbled back toward equilibrium. “Okay. Well, then, when do I get him back?”

  “I can’t give him back to you until the charges of not securing a wild animal are settled and until we establish whether he killed the calf.”

  Juan turned toward me and his angry establishment-baiting past bubbled to the surface. “Why don’t you do something? You’re my lawyer,” he demanded. When all else fails, blame your lawyer, who, no matter how far out of the mainstream, will always appear establishment to someone.

  It wasn’t the first time I wished I were nobody’s lawyer, especially with the kind of clients I get. My job was to represent his best interests. It was in his best interest to shut up but I couldn’t think of any way to tell him that without getting wet.

  “Just give Siri back to me. I’ll take him out of Soledad County and we’ll never come back. That’s a promise,” Juan pleaded. His words were submissive but his voice was loud and his posture aggressive. His arms got bigger, his Levi’s jacket smaller. He moved in close, violating Bartel’s space.

  Bartel stood his ground. “I can’t do that,” he replied.

  The liquid wobbled precariously at the lip of Juan’s bowl, broke its surface tension and slopped over. “Goddamn it, Siri is my wolf,” he yelled. “You gotta give him back to me now, man, you gotta.” He grabbed Bartel, placed his L-O-V-E and W-O-L-F fingers near the throat and began to shake. The physical attack caught Bartel by surprise, he’d probably expected only verbal abuse. He didn’t respond at first and stared at Juan with startled eyes. I wondered if I’d have to step into the middle of another fruckus, but there wasn’t any room between these two.

  Bartel grabbed Juan’s forearms with his wiry fingers and the two of them clutched each other and danced around like boxers who couldn’t get unstuck until the moment Bartel tripped and lost his balance. As he struggled to regain it he relinquished his grip on Juan’s arms. Juan got his hands around Bartel’s throat. Bartel began to gag, his eyes bugged out.

  “Let go of him, Juan,” I demanded.

  Jayne ran out of the house wearing a pink warmup suit, her blond hair flying, her face made up, her eyes bright. “Stop it, Billie,” she cried, reverting to an earlier name in the excitement. She wrapped her arms around Juan’s muscular back and pulled at him. “C’mon baby,” she coaxed, “it’ll be all right. I’ll take care of you.”

  Pouring off the excess emotion had left some room in Juan for reason. I saw it flash quick as lightning in his pale eyes. “Oh, man, I’m sorry,” he said, releasing Bartel. “You were just doin’ your job, I know. Everybody’s got to do their job. I lost control and I’m sorry.”

  “C’mon, baby, let’s go inside.” Jayne kept her arms around Juan and led him toward the door. I couldn’t help wondering how much she had witnessed before she came running out and whether she’d taken the time to put her makeup on first and/or waited till she was really needed.

  Bob Bartel brushed at the spot on his throat where Sololobo’s big hands had held him. “Whew,” he said.

  “I’m sorry,” said I. I didn’t much enjoy having to apologize for an out-of-control client.

  “Not your fault,” Bartel replied.

  “You all right?” I asked.

  He shook everything to see if it still worked. “Looks like it.” He smiled the rueful smile that got him through the wolf-loving, animal-protecting day. “Guess it means I’m doin’ my job anyway,” he said. “Now that everybody in Soledad County is ready to kill me.”

  ******

  Juan felt sorry all over again at dinnertime and he apologized some more by cooking chicken burritos with onions and red peppers. He went to the trouble to char the peppers on top of the stove and peel the blackened skin off. They taste better that way, but it was more effort than I’d be willing to make. While Juan cooked, I remembered that an almost new bottle of Cuervo Gold was waiting in the duffle bag in my room.

  After a day like this I was ready for it, but I let sleeping bottles lie, as this appeared to be a nondrinking household. Not even a cooking sherry in the cupboard. Maybe Jayne was too fit to drink herself, maybe she was trying to keep temptation away from Juan.

  Whatever anger he was still carrying around, he didn’t dump it in the food. The burritos were a little tame for my taste but not bad. We ate in silence. When dinner was over Jayne wrapped her arm around Juan’s and leaned her head on his shoulder.

  “Maybe they’ll let me go to the zoo and visit him anyway,” Juan said.

  “Maybe,” said Jayne.

  I had nothing to add and I turned in after dinner, thinking if I got up early I could make it back to Albuquerque by noon. When I got to the guest room, I reached into my duffle bag and felt around for my old friend. My hand came up empty, felt some more until my fingers settled around the top of a bottle that was not where I remembered having left it. I pulled it out and came up near empty again. An almost full fifth of Cuervo Gold was gone. So that had been the liquid in Juan’s glass and the fluid sloshing around inside him as well. The big questions were—had he drunk all of it and what had inspired him to look here?

  ******

  I didn’t ask. Juan was still in apology mode when I got to the kitchen the next morning, dressed, packed and ready to go. He was drinking coffee and frying up huevos rancheros. He flipped the eggs over, turned around and gave me a shamefaced, I’m-sorry look, but I wasn’t in the mood for apologies or forgiveness. All I wanted was a cup of coffee and to hit the road. “No eggs for me, thanks, just coffee.”

  “You sure? I make the best huevos rancheros in California.”

  We weren’t in California but I didn’t feel like telling him that either. Maybe Juan thought I hadn’t discovered the missing tequila yet or maybe my silence allowed him to pretend to himself that he hadn’t even taken it. In any case, he started acting like he’d been let off the hook, smiling happily and pouring me some coffee. His moods shifted faster than tumbleweeds in an April wind.

  A phone rang somewhere in the house. We heard Jayne answer it and then we heard her hang up. “Those little bastards,” she said loudly as she slammed the receiver down. She came into the kitchen wearing her workout clothes and her power makeup. “That was Ohweiler,” she said. “Would you believe it? The Upward Bound kids were the ones who cut Siri’s chain, the two that argued with me. They parked their car down the road and snuck up here during the storm. Ohweiler stopped them for a moving violation last night, searched the car, looking for drugs, probably, and found the wire cutters. He fingerprinted them and the prints matched the ones on the chain.”

  Juan shook his head. “Why would kids do something like that? Kids love wolves.”

  “They were pissed because I wouldn’t let them swim here, remember?”

  “Jaynie, what difference would it make if they did swim here? They’re just kids.”

  “Just kids? Sure, Juan. Look at all the trouble they’ve caused already.”

  Bill at night was Juan in the morning and someone else maybe by midafternoon.

  “It’s still my property. No one’s taken it away from me yet,” Jayne said, reminding Juan of the property that had been taken away from him.

  He turned to his lawyer. “Can Bob Bartel give Siri back now? They can’t go on charging me for not securing a vicious animal when those kids cut the chain, can they?”

  They could
but I didn’t tell him that yet.

  “Will you call him?” Juan asked me.

  I looked over his shoulder at the clock on the stove. Eight o’clock, early enough for the sheriff but not for a federal employee or for me either. “When I get back to Albuquerque,” I said.

  ******

  It wasn’t supposed to rain until afternoon, but not long after I reached I-25 it began to pour so hard drops pummeled the Nissan like pellets. The windshield wipers were working overtime trying to keep up when the one on the driver’s side went into a crazy little dance, fell over and died. Visibility decreased from poor to zero and I was swimming underwater with my eyes open and the current against me. I slowed to a crawl, leaned over and peered out through the passenger’s side of the windshield. After a few near-blind miles I saw a state police car pulled off on the shoulder and I pulled off behind it. It was still pouring, but at least when I stopped moving I was able to see. A cop stood beside the car wearing a Smokey the Bear hat wrapped in plastic. The rain dripped off the brim and trickled down his shoulders but it kept his face dry. A small, dark man in the back seat turned around and stared at me through the rear window with trapped, helpless eyes. An illegal alien, I figured, who had found some path across the border and was about to be sent back home again.

  The trooper walked over to the Nissan and I rolled down my window a few inches. “I’ve got a problem,” I said.

  He was young, clean shaven and, except for his face, soaking wet. “Me, too,” he replied. “You first.”

  “My windshield wiper is broken. I was wondering if you had a screwdriver or something I could fix it with.”

  “Well, ma’am, I’d sure like to help you, but my tools are in the car, and, um…” He smiled an embarrassed smile, as well he might. “I saw that wetback running across the road there and I stopped to catch him. Those Mexicans are damn dumb about cars; it’s lucky I didn’t run him over. They’re like animals, you know, you’re not even aware they’re livin’ in your country and all of a sudden they dart out in the road and you damn near hit ’em. After I locked him up I needed to relieve myself and I, well, I, uh, locked myself out.” He tapped the radio on his hip. “I’ve radioed for help but it’s gonna be a while before anyone gets here.”