Summer of the Wolves (8 page)

 

The silvery-tan wolf patrolled the small pen with cautious steps. The smells of other animals wafted through the air. When the man threw scraps of meat over the fence, his mouth twisted to the side. The wolf hunched and froze behind a pile of lumber. In her corner she began to dig. Each day she dug with new energy. Her large paws became dark with dirt. And in the night, the rich dark smells of earth called her to dig some more. When she slept, her paws moved in her dreams.

For a minute Nika couldn't remember where she was. The moon floated through the tall trees beyond the porch. Moonlight smudged the cloudy plastic sheets fastened over the screen walls. The goosenecked lamp shed a small apron of light. Then she heard tiny moans and groans coming from the sheepskin vest beside her. Short fat legs propelled the small sausage shape a few inches closer to Nika's side, a cold nose bumping her hand in the semidark. The pup was awake. And probably hungry. She scooped the tiny round-bellied body close to her.

“Ian,” she called. A second lamp clicked on, and Ian pulled himself out of his sleeping bag.

“Told you,” he said. He sounded tired. Ian walked barefoot into the kitchen, where he clattered around. In a few moments he came back with a bottle. “We'll try a little more than four ounces this time.” He handed it to her, pulled over a cushion, and sat down on the floor next to her.

Holding the pup as she had before, sitting crosslegged, one hand under his chest, she placed him so his front paws could push against her knee. When she put the bottle next to his mouth, the pup's head wobbled and bumped, knocking the nipple away. His legs flew, pushing himself almost off her lap. She lifted him back and held him in the crook of her arm, offering the milky nipple again by rubbing it over his lips. He quivered, grabbed hold, then drank quickly, noisily pulling, jerking and nosing the bottle, his paws opening and closing. His eyes were still tightly closed.

“When he wants to eat, he doesn't fool around, even when he can't see!” she said, smiling.

After the pup finished, they cleaned his bottom with the washcloth. His moans subsided to tiny short groans, and Nika placed him back in the sheepskin. Ian returned to his bag and clicked out the lamp.

As she stretched out, Nika noticed that her sleeping bag smelled slightly of wood smoke. Maybe from a long-ago campfire. In the distance she heard the low muttering of thunder. Before she fell asleep, she ran some mental movies of Pasadena, thinking of the bottlebrush tree in front of Meg's house. It seemed impossible that just a week ago she had touched the electric red blossoms. How could two places be so different? She imagined telling her mom about the moaning, snuffling wolf pup roughly breathing at her side. It had been more than a year and a half since she'd lost her mom, but Nika could still hear her laugh.

 

In the morning the new leaves glistened from the night rain. Dave came early to check the pup. With him was a volunteer from his office named Lorna. Dave showed them all how to sterilize shoes by stepping into a bleach solution in a dishpan outside the door. He explained it was to prevent the pup from contracting dog diseases while he was tiny and vulnerable. He also brought a baby gate for blocking the doorway into the house. Not that they needed it yet.

Lorna crouched too close to the pup's face, cooing and talking baby talk in a high voice. Immediately, Nika disliked her.

“Hi,” Nika said, forcing a smile. Lorna was probably in her late twenties with streaked blond hair messily clipped on top of her head.

The girl didn't even look at Nika. “Can I hold him?” Lorna asked, smiling at Ian, reaching for the pup.

Nika looked helplessly at her uncle. A volcano of protectiveness welled up from her very center and was threatening to erupt.

Ian stepped in. “For a week or so, we are going to just have Nika, Dave, and me holding and feeding the pup. After his eyes are fully open, and he's getting around, I'm sure we'll be grateful for some extra help.”

“Okay, but here.” Lorna pulled a large stuffed-bear pillow from a shopping bag she'd carried into the porch. “Someone gave it to my brother. I thought the wolf might play with it.”

Nika reached for the bear and said, “Nice.” It seemed ten times the size of the tiny pup. What was Lorna thinking?

But Ian raised his eyebrows. “That bear will come in handy. It's furry. It might offer him some comfort. Thanks, Lorna.”

Lorna gazed at Ian, carefully arranging herself against the wall. “So, Nika, what grade are you in?” she asked, glancing at Nika before beginning a careful inspection of her polished nails.

“Oh, that varies from year to year,” Nika answered, politely smiling but suddenly getting up and heading for the kitchen.

 

She felt better after Dr. Dave and Lorna left. But after a few hours passed and it came to be time for another feeding, Lorna was still on Nika's mind.

“Don't you think it's better for the pup not to have much company when he's so small?” she asked when they were getting the bottle ready. “I mean, like what Dr. Dave said about dog diseases and everything,”

“Well, of course, we need Dave to do checkups. But yeah, I agree.”

“Dave's nice,” she said as she got down on the floor in a cross-legged position and picked up the squealing pup. As she was feeding him, she noticed something wrong with his right eye, like a little hole in the lid. “Ian!”

When he came to inspect, he laughed. “What do you think's happening?”

She looked again more carefully. The pup's right eye was slowly opening, like a tiny zipper, starting from the inside corner. A couple of hours later when she picked him up again, the pup looked at Nika through one milky blue eye. Ian said that the pup's eyesight was quite fuzzy and he couldn't hear yet, but still, seeing her, seeing them, smelling them, he would remember. After a cleaning the pup sat on her lap with one eye open, and she let him suck on her finger. Needle-sharp baby teeth were growing in too—his upper canines and incisors, Ian said. By the next feeding the left eye had started opening as well. Nika gently washed both eyes with a clean cloth. The left one still stayed half shut. The pup wasn't exactly cute. He was stubby, rough like unwashed wool, with button-down ears. But in her mind he was beautiful.

 

After the next feeding, Ian said, “This might be a good time to go see Randall for a while. Tell him and the boys about the pup. It will give you a little break.”

“He'll want to come see.”

“They all will. But not yet. I'll stay with the pup. Try to think of a name while you're walking. Go on, take a hike,” he insisted, laughing. “When you come back, I have some stuff to show you. Ms. Fish sent a few more materials from your school, to complete this year's credits. Also, I had an idea. You could do a project about the pup—do some reading and write a log with notes about his development. How many kids would have something like that to turn in?”

Nika went to the outdoor basin to wash, then up to the loft for some fresh clothes. When she followed the path Ian had showed her down past his cabin and across the sand spit up onto the Big Island, all she could think about was the pup. She didn't like leaving him. Maybe his other eye would open completely and he would look at Ian and like Ian better by the time she came back. That was stupid, she knew, especially since Ian had said the pup wouldn't see very well. But she remembered what she'd learned about how important those first days were, the days when a pup bonded with his pack.

On the other side of the sand spit, Nika followed the trail up a rocky hill. The air was spring cool, the sun hidden in a dishwater sky. As she entered the tall trees, the forest surrounded her like an army. A few days ago the smells of damp earth and pine needles in the sun had been new to her. Today she felt like she knew this place. Low branches touched her face. A jungle-sounding bird squawked, drumming rhythms far off in the trees. The hushed buzz of tiny leaf life enlivened her senses, and she was alert to every sound.

 

In a little more than fifteen minutes of walking, she saw green roofs through the trees. She hoped Randall hadn't been too sad without her. The six months after Mom had died, before they were finally sent to Meg's, had been a time of endless waiting. For people to pick them up to give them rides. For social workers. For adults to make decisions. During that time Randall would never go to sleep unless she sat beside his bed. At school, too, she had stood up for him. Now she could hardly wait to tell him about the pup.

The boys' bunkhouse shook with shouts and pounding. It sounded like a whole troop of boys, not just four. She knocked, and Randall exploded out of the door. Two small boys streaked around him.

“Neeks!” he shouted. “There was a bear last night, trying to get the bird food! Thomas's dad said it'll probably come back. Tonight we're going to watch with our flashlights!”

Nika hugged Randall's skinny body. “Really, Randall?” Her little brother seemed so sure of himself, so caught up in his new life with these strangers.

He pulled away. “You don't believe me? Just ask Thomas!” Then he ran back into the bunkhouse, letting the wooden screen door smack shut behind him. Nika followed him in.

Standing on one side of the room were three sets of bunk beds, and on the other a couple of old stuffed chairs faced a shiny green metal wood stove. Boy stuff littered the floor: clothes, flashlights and shoes, comics, pop cans, and not-so-clean plates. A smell of wet socks hung in the air. There was a whole city of action figures and cards and some colorful books in the center of the floor. Over by the door was a heap of wet swimsuits, towels, socks, and life jackets. Fishing poles leaned against the wall by the door. Randall heaven.

“Okay, Thomas, what about this bear?” Nika asked of the oldest boy, who was on one of the top bunks reading.

Thomas looked at her with certainty in his steady gaze. She wondered if he was in her grade. He seemed comfortable in his role of being the oldest.

“Yeah, there was,” he said, then returned to his book as if it were no big deal. “Once in a while one comes around . . .” He cut another glance at Nika, perhaps wondering whether she would react in some shrieking-girl way.

“See!” Randall said, practically shouting.

“So Randall, besides that, how are you?” she asked, pulling out the Twins cap he'd left in Pearl's loft and handing it to him.

“Great! Wow, my hat!” Randall took the hat from her and put it on his bunk. He was not exactly in a talkative mood. Nika settled into the chair. Randall kept looking at Nika as if he didn't quite know what to do with her in his new world.

After a while the two younger boys ran back into the cabin and started sorting out their stuff. “Mom says clean up before we go,” one of them said. In a flurry they jammed game pieces onto shelves next to the wood stove.

Then they grabbed their suits and towels and raced back out, shouting, “Lunch is ready, and then we can go out in the boat after—”

“Yeah, okay!” Randall shouted back, hurrying to gather what was left from the floor.

“Randall,” Nika said slowly, “did anyone tell you about the wolf pup?”

“Yeah, Claire did. Can we see it?”

“Not quite yet. When he settles in a bit and he's more used to people. So you're okay then?”

“Well, yeah,” he said, as if she should know. “Want to go fishing?”

“No. I gotta get back to the pup.”

“That's okay,” he answered brightly, almost seeming relieved.

After how much he'd once needed her, it pinched a little to see him so happy without her.

“Let's go eat.” Nika jumped up from the chair and wrestled with Randall, enjoying for a minute the once-familiar closeness of her brother. His wiry strength surprised her as he broke free, shouted for his friends, and ran from the cabin.

 

One morning the man staggered toward the pen barking out harsh words. He had a metal stick in his hands and waved it around. The wolf hid in her corner, then clawed her way deeper into the hole she'd dug, frantic and afraid. Her strong paws flew. Suddenly, air rushed into the tunnel. She slipped her body through, out into the sweet sharp smells of freedom.

As the silvery-tan wolf left the road and felt the forest ground beneath her feet, something tore through the leaves, followed by a boom. She ran faster.

Claire Cameron was like one of those moms from Nika's old school, neatly dressed in clean jeans and a trim plaid shirt, blond hair cut in a short bob, confident in the way she moved and smiled.

“Welcome, Nika. How was the walk over?” she asked, putting a plate of turkey and cheese sandwiches on the table with a large glass pitcher of juice. Everyone plopped into chairs and began speed-eating. Claire Cameron could probably feed four boys in her sleep.

“Okay,” Nika answered.