Once There Were Wolves

by Charlotte McConaghy

  I had never seen a place like this, and would never see another like it.

  Aggie reached us, breathless. She managed an “Oh,” and then she too fell silent.

  “Will we see animals?” Gus asked eventually.

  “Maybe,” I said. “If we’re lucky. Let’s set up camp.”

  Later we told stories around a little fire. Aggie told Gus with relish of the times we swapped places as children to see if anyone would notice. No teachers or friends. Only Mum.

  “Did you swap a lot?” Gus asked.

  “No,” I said.

  “All the time,” Aggie said. “It embarrasses Inti how much she liked it.”

  I flushed, glad for the dusky light.

  “What did you like?” Gus asked me.

  I thought about it, remembering those days vividly. The truth was simple: Aggie was the one who lived more, who connected more. When I draped her upon me I felt more alive than I ever did as myself.

  To Gus I said, “It was just a challenge. Just fun, I guess.”

  “How did you do it? ’Cause you guys are pretty different…”

  “It’s called acting, darling,” Aggie said.

  “She’s as familiar to me as I am to myself,” I said. “Becoming Aggie is easy.”

  Gus seemed to be enjoying this topic. “If I had a twin there’d be no end to the shit I’d do to people.”

  “That’s nice to know,” Aggie muttered.

  “Have you ever swapped with me?” he asked.

  We fell quiet because this was a land we didn’t approach.

  “You know we haven’t,” Aggie said. “Not intentionally.”

  “How would I know?”

  “You just would.”

  “I didn’t know the first time,” he said.

  Bullshit.

  Something moved in the dark. I shot to my feet.

  Scuffling footsteps approaching from the bottom of the hill.

  “What the fuck is that?” Gus hissed.

  I grabbed my torch and shined it down the incline. “Relax,” I said. “It’s just people.”

  “Hi!” Aggie greeted the hikers, who stopped by our fire for a chat.

  Two middle-aged men who sounded American. “You’re Aussies?” one of them asked.

  “True blue,” Aggie replied, which was laying it on a bit thick, but she always enjoyed broadening her accent when we traveled.

  “We’re from Colorado.” As it turned out they were on a hunting trip.

  I saw the shapes at their backs, the long narrow barrels of hunting rifles. “What are you hunting?”

  “Wolves.”

  “Why?” Aggie demanded.

  “’Cause this is the only state it’s still legal to hunt them in,” the man replied, like it should be obvious.

  “But why hunt them at all?” she pressed.

  “What’s the alternative? Gunning down poor pathetic antelope, who couldn’t hurt you if their lives depended on it?”

  “It’s true sport,” his friend agreed. “Hunting a predator. More of a challenge than going after its prey, more of an even playing field.”

  “If you want an even playing field maybe you should leave those rifles behind and try to kill a wolf with your bare hands,” Gus suggested.

  They laughed as though he’d made a joke. “Tell you what. We’ll use the tech made by man and they can use the tech at their disposal,” one of them said.

  “You’re disgusting,” Aggie said clearly, her voice so cold it cut through the night and made everything else fall quiet. An awkward shuffle of feet.

  “We’ll be on our way,” said one of the hunters. “Sorry to disturb.”

  “What you’re actually disturbing is this entire ecosystem,” my sister said and I loved her so much.

  “Plenty of wolves up here,” the other guy said. “They’re not endangered.”

  “And with men like you around, how long do you think that’ll last?”

  “All right, we’re off. You folks enjoy your night.” And with that they left, and I hated them for their politeness, hated that they seemed perfectly nice and yet they were out here doing this heinous thing, hunting for the sake of it, not to survive, not to eat, only to feel power over another creature.

  I walked down the slope toward the lake.

  “Inti?”

  “Give me a minute.”

  It was proper dark now, but the stars were so many, the gibbous moon a dazzling white orb. The sky lit my way over the tangled shrubs, the dips and rises and little burrows of rabbits. I walked all the way down to the edge of the water, stars glittering upon its surface, and I sank to the ground beneath the glowing mountain.

  Time passed and a body moved to join mine; I was expecting Aggie but it was Gus.

  “They probably won’t get any,” he offered.

  “Some of the wolves out here are ones I raised myself,” I said. “We raised them from birth. I held them and fed them and played with them. And then we set them free to be hunted and shot.” And not just by hunters but by us. By me.

  Gus didn’t say anything for a while, then, “Everything dies.”

  “Not everything gets killed.”

  Without warning he said, “I killed someone.”

  “What?”

  “In my first year. I was repairing a brain bleed. My hand slipped. I killed a woman.”

  I didn’t know what to say, turning this over in my head.

  “I never told Aggie,” he admitted.

  “Why not?”

  “A woman doesn’t need to know that about her husband.”

  I frowned and looked at him in the starlight. “The truth?”

  “That he can make mistakes.”

  “Um. I hate to break it to you but she definitely knows you make mistakes.”

  “I can at least try to protect her from that.”

  “Do you think about what happened a lot?” I asked.

  “Nope,” Gus said. “Never.”

  “Why not?”

  “I can’t let myself or I’d never go back into the operating room.”

  I considered this, knowing what he meant. If I wanted to continue to do my job I would have to compartmentalize what I did. But I didn’t know if I could. I thought that might mean forgiving myself.

  “It doesn’t matter, anyway,” Gus said, his voice harder now, as though trying to convince himself. He leaned back on his hands to look up at the mountain looming over us. “It’s all meat. All just fuckin’ meat.”

  I winced. “A butcher after all.”

  “That’s right. And you’d better become the same. I don’t want to see you bruised by life, Inti. You’re my family.”

  18

  The wolves have all begun to howl. They call by night and day, running circuits of their newly established territories, calling to each other to define the boundaries of their pack’s land, calling to other wolves a warning to stay away. They truly are making homes here, creating maps they will pass on for generations.

  I go out daily, sometimes with Fergus in the plane, other times on horseback with the team. Sometimes alone, able to move faster. I track their movements and collect data from their scat and the remains of their kills.

  The pups of Ash’s Abernethy Pack are about three months old, and growing quickly. They are juveniles now, their hair thickening like an adult’s, eyes having shifted to the striking pale amber. They eat meat, but only the rodents they are capable of catching. They howl with confidence. I would spend every waking minute with them if I could. The little white runt of the pack, Number Twenty, whom I held when she was newly born, remains the smallest and palest of them. But she is also the boldest of her brothers and sisters, having caught more than double what they’ve managed. I suspect, despite her size, that she might end up leading this pack one day.

  The Tanar Pack, to the east, has staked out the largest territory and its three yearlings have grown to full size and sexual maturity, meaning they may also leave to find mates of their own. But for the mome
nt the pack of five wolves is intent on hunting together, and have proven themselves the most harmonious pack in this respect, with no challenges to dominance. They give me hope, the Tanar Pack, because they are hunting and growing strong, meaning the conditions of the Scottish Highlands have been good to them.

  And as it has finally turned out, delicate Number Thirteen, left behind in her pen because she was too afraid to leave, might not have been afraid at all. Maybe she was simply waiting. Because yesterday, yearling male Number Twelve, who was circling dangerously close to her pen and worrying us all, moved within its chain-link fence. But he didn’t attack Thirteen, he mated with her.

  * * *

  Most days I wake wondering if this will be the day I get a phone call reporting that a young female wolf has strayed onto private property and been shot. Or found entangled in a trap, and died of her wounds. Fierce Number Ten of the Glenshee Pack ran free of her cage in those very first days and has not returned. Every time I go out into the field and am not specifically looking for a different wolf, I turn my radio to her signal in case I happen to pass near her, but I never do. We’ve lost her completely. But the rest of her pack remain, and have piqued my curiosity.

  I am lying flat on a distant hill, binoculars raised and trying to ignore the ghastly bites of the midges. I need to figure out why the five Glenshee wolves keep congregating in a spot on the southern side of a sloping mountain, alongside a river carved through the range. It’s also right at the heart of their territory, so there’s less chance other wolves will stray close, which makes it the safest spot for them. I hoped, but didn’t dare to assume, this is because they are denning, and watching them now I think I was right. Number Eight, the breeding female of the pack, or the female alpha, seems to be digging a den. It takes all my self-control not to give a great shout of elation, but I do laugh, soft, and my hands shake for the relief of it.

  Without warning a small ding comes from the radio in my pack. I must have left it tuned to one of the pack’s signals, but it dings again, quickly now, to tell me it has locked onto something close. The radio is picking up a signal much closer than the Glenshee wolves on that neighboring mountain.

  This is open country. Wide, windswept mountains and hills. Not much cover. Nowhere to hide. But at the base of my hill is a stretch of marshy moorland, its grass long enough to conceal wild creatures within, if they are particularly good at hiding.

  I wait, eyes scanning below. Grass sways with the wind, disguising any movement. That’s the only way back to the car.

  “Where are you?” I murmur.

  I think I know. I think it must be her.

  I stand up tall and walk with big, loud steps, like you might if you were trying to scare off snakes. If I act like prey, that’s what she will think me. As I stomp, I draw the radio from the pack, switch off the beeping monitor, and begin to download the data from the nearby signal.

  It is a long, hair-raising walk back to my car. My boots squelch in the smelly peat bog and I think this is a terrible place to be attacked, I will have no hope of escaping, and I also know that trying to run would be the worst possible response and think at least she, too, will have trouble in the mud. But let’s not pretend I have anything like her lithe, nimble power. Let’s not pretend I am safe. I know from the signal that wherever she is, she’s close, and she’s not fleeing from me. She is watching me. Bold girl.

  We will need a hide out here, if we want to keep watching this pack. Number Ten has returned and she’s not likely to allow her family to be vulnerable.

  When I reach the car, I don’t want to get in. I realize I have loved every second of this terrifying walk.

  Back at base, the identity of the wolf is confirmed. Female Number Ten. My team and I watch, stunned, as the data streams in, all her GPS pings over the last few months, the thousands of kilometers she has covered, the places she has run, the world she has explored, only to return in time to protect her sister and her pack as they prepare for the impending litter. As if somehow she knew.

  I sit on the front step of the cabin and watch the thunderheads roll in.

  The infinite mystery of wolves.

  Niels joins me with an offered mug of tea. In his mid-fifties, he still cuts a tall, athletic figure, is almost militaristic about his health regimens. “Congratulations,” he says. “Female Number Ten, safe and well. It was a good day.”

  “It was a good day,” I agree.

  “You said she would come back.”

  I shrug. “I figured she’d turn up at some point.” Feared she wouldn’t.

  We sip our tea in silence for a while.

  “I’m sorry I got so angry about Six and her den.”

  “There’s no need. You were right about her capabilities. I apologize for going against you,” he replies. “And for calling you timid. You know I have immense respect for your work. I have never known anyone with a superior instinct for the animals.”

  I look at him, astonished. I didn’t know that. In fact I’d thought he found me frustrating. “Thank you, Niels. Honestly? Maybe I have been timid. I don’t know, I just can’t reconcile our role in all this and I’ve started questioning it more and more. How much action is too much, and when is it not enough?”

  “The difficulty of working with wild animals,” he agrees. “I often ponder how their fear of us is not a natural state for them. They are not born with it, it is a learned habit, taught to them by us. My family had a wildlife park when I was growing up, and in it there was a small pack of three wolves.”

  He has never told me this. I know he grew up in the very far north of Norway, way up in the Arctic Circle, and he has spoken to me before of his memories of the ’80s, when wild wolves returned to Norway. Debate immediately turned to the conservation of these wolves versus the desire to cull them and protect Norway’s agricultural industry. It caused a division among the people, and passionate conflict, because wolves, as Niels said, have an unrivaled ability to make humans feel.

  Now he says, “The wolves we kept were born in our park and acclimated to our presence, our touch. Most wolves I have known in parks remain hidden from visitors but these three would rush over to the fence, and they were just as fascinated with the people as the people were with them. When the visitors left, the wolves would follow them as far as they could and watch for their return. There was no fear, but a mutual curiosity.”

  I smile.

  “And have you not heard the tales of those lucky men and women who have raised wolves and set them free, only to come upon them somewhere in the wild, years later, and be shown affection by the creatures?”

  I nod, though I’ve never been sure if I believe these stories, or suspect them to be made of longing. “Do you believe them?” I ask Niels, expecting his certainty in the unambiguous scientific.

  But he says, “Of course. Many animals are capable of this, we see it time and again. I believe they are more inherently loyal than we are and that connections are built deep within, where instinct lives. With the disappearance of that man there is anger brewing here, and there are those who would fight to destroy the wolves, and those whose apathy would see them destroyed. And so we must be the ones who fight for them. That will always be the right action to take.”

  His words stir my protective instinct, my certainty.

  All creatures know love, Dad used to say. All creatures.

  * * *

  Summer has begun and the land has turned its face to the sun, blooming under its warmth. The canopy and the earth are green, luminous above and below. The Scottish heather has overrun the fields and hills, turning the ground brilliant lilac and burnt red. But even in summer the sky seems not to notice; still it leans more to gray, to white, still it rains most of the time, still there is an eerie fog that settles over everything. I am reminded of how Duncan sees this place, as big enough to dwarf you, as so beautiful and desolate you can go mad if you aren’t built for it. I can feel it getting inside me.

  Hunting is harder now, for the de
er are healthier, they have more to eat and so they grow strong and fast, challenging not only the speed but the endurance of the wolves.

  I hope with each day that Stuart’s disappearance fades into memory. I hope the rumors about his death cease. It’s been two months now. But with every mention I overhear, with every wary look I am flashed in the supermarket, I know they haven’t, and that Niels was right. The concern is only growing.

  And always, there is the little one within. A cherry, signs Aggie. Then, A plum. Time ticks by. My body changes. My organs shift. I feel alien, but I don’t make any move toward my initial decision.

  Some part of me must be hoping it just goes away.

  Mostly I don’t think about it. I can’t afford to.

  * * *

  What I think of is Duncan. And though I feel a great ache for him at the thought of what he went through, I also understand what violence does to people, what it makes us capable of, and know I need the truth, one way or another.

  * * *

  This evening, as I’ve been doing for the last few nights, I duck out early from work and wait down the street from the police station to follow Duncan when he leaves his office. He never goes straight home. He picks up food or tools and goes to visit people. Tonight I follow him as he checks in on old Mrs. Doyle who works in the pharmacy and lives by herself. She’s seventy-six and has arthritis, but she refuses to give up work. They have tea in the sunroom before he does chores around the house; yesterday he cleaned out her gutters, today he digs the weeds from her garden bed. Next he takes food around to a woman who is raising five kids alone, just some bread and milk, and meat from the butcher. He kicks the soccer ball with her boys in the front yard. Then I follow him to Fergus’s house, and from the end of the street I watch the two of them drink beer in the garden while the sun goes down. I’ve watched him enough days now to know that these are his regulars but there are others he fits in too, people who need help, or perhaps simply some company. He cares deeply; it is the fabric of his life here. I think he must be a good man. But nobody is only one thing.