Summer of the Wolves (17 page)

Nika didn't want to admit how rubbery and sore her arms were getting. The next portage was rocky, and she tripped and went over on her back like a flipped turtle, her legs waving in the air. Ian took the pack while she got to her feet, then loaded her up again. The portage ended at a beach, and she was relieved to wade in and have Ian unload her pack into the canoe. This lake was called Serpent Lake. On the map it was a long lake with lots of bays and lots of bends. Ian stopped and showed them how to use the compass. Randall held it, and as they paddled between small rock islands crowned with trees, he shouted which way was north.

“It looks like we might have already gone five miles,” Randall said, studying the map.

To Nika, it felt like twenty.

“Randall, see the red dot?” Ian said. “Now see if you can locate the campsite up ahead.”

Randall kept looking down at the map, then pointing excitedly as they got close. Ian aimed the canoe toward a smooth rock point that sloped down into the lake. There was no sign that anyone had ever been here before. After guiding the canoe in sideways, Ian hopped into the water to hold it as they stepped carefully across slippery rocks.

It took just a few minutes to set up the four-person yellow nylon tent with a blue rain fly. As they stood admiring their work, Ian said, “Well, Randall, shall we get ready to catch some dinner?”

Randall raced off.

Ian efficiently tucked bags and personal gear into the tent, opened the valves on the sleeping pads to let them fill, then zipped the door.

In about three minutes Randall was back, ready and waiting, decked out with pole, stringer for the fish, bait box, hat, life jacket, and a grin.

“Are you going to fish with us?” Ian asked Nika.

“Thanks, but I think I'll read for a while.” After he nodded and left, she pulled open the zipper and crawled into the yellow tent, zipping it shut again.

Zeus stood with his nose pressed to the nylon screen for a bit, then she heard the jingle of his collar as he trotted off to join the fishermen down on the shore.

She closed the valve of the sleeping pad that had magically filled with air and stretched out on her bag, shifting for a good position. It was amazingly comfy. She couldn't even feel rocks poking her back. From her pack she pulled
Julie of the Wolves,
which she was reading for the third time. Ian had said that as a wolf biologist he didn't think it very probable that a wolf would regurgitate food for a human. He had also said wolf table manners were pretty rough, since they used their teeth to make decisions about who gets what. Maybe it was unlikely that wolves would share food with a human, but Nika loved the story just the same. How the wolves communicated was great, and so was how the pack members interacted. But probably the best part was how Julie loved Amaroq when she hadn't really had much love in her life before. She turned to one of her favorite parts as she relaxed and listened to Randall shout each time he caught a fish.

 

The pan-fried walleye and bass were the best fish she'd ever eaten. Sweet white flakes broke off at the touch of a fork. Randall went down immediately after dinner to fish off the rocks again. She and Ian washed dishes in a folding dishpan away from the shore, then dried the pots and pans by the fire.

“Want some cocoa?” he asked.

“Sure,” Nika answered.

Randall was shouting to hear his echo bounce back across the lake. Nika thought the echo was cool, too. “Is there anyone else on this lake, except us?” she asked Ian, sitting down on the broad back of the rock and wrapping her arms around her knees.

“Don't think so.” He seemed preoccupied. It was hard for Nika to believe they were so far from everything. For her, life on the island had been extreme, but this roadless forest was a whole new level of wilderness. Probably most of the kids she'd known had never camped like this.

“Think it's going to rain tonight?” Nika searched for words to fill the empty space between them. There were definitely some topics of conversation she wanted to avoid.

“No, I don't think so,” Ian said, handing her a cup of steaming cocoa in a metal cup.

“Does the tent leak?” she asked.

“No. I'm pretty sure it's tight. I haven't used this one for a while, though.” He stood and paced back and forth. “Listen, Nika, I have some things to tell you. I haven't told Randall yet. I wanted to talk to you first.” He poked at the fire in the grate and added several split sticks of wood.

“Okay.” She felt funny in her stomach.
Here comes a lecture,
she thought.

“Well, I got a new job when I was in St. Paul.” He looked at Nika.

With surprise and relief, she walked over to lean against the trunk of a giant tree. Maybe that was what he had been talking to Pearl about.

“Anyway, I'll be the new director and head biologist for a research and education facility they've been building. It's called the Center for the Study of Northern Animals. Right here in Red Pine. Last year they bought the property, formed a board, and began rehabbing an old brick mine building that will be the visitors' center.” Ian continued, “Next week we start fencing the first animal pens. I'll be pretty busy the next few months.”

As she listened to him describe it in detail, Nika couldn't help but think it sounded a bit like Bristo's, wild animals locked up, except this new center would probably have plenty of food.

Ian was so full of this new thing. It was the most she'd ever heard him talk, except about wolves. He talked about how places like this provided education, making a difference for wild lands and animals. “If people don't see them and know about them, how can they care?”

Her cocoa had cooled, and she took a few sips.

“So what about your study?” Nika asked, thinking of all those wolves wandering the woods with collars beeping out their locations.

Ian paused for a moment, pulling out dried apples and chocolate and laying the treats on a rock.

“Elinor will be taking over my old wolf research job.” Offering squares of chocolate, he added, “But there is something else . . .”

Nika accepted several squares and ate them slowly. Then she picked up a stick from the ground and sat down, shredding the partially decayed stick, piece by piece.

Randall shouted from the shore, “Ian! Got another smallmouth!”

“Just a sec,” Ian said to Nika. “I'll just help Randall release this one.”

She waited on the log and tossed sticks into the fire. Ian came back and sat down next to her. She wished he would get to the point.

“So. Well. When I was in St. Paul, I met with Ms. Nordstrom. We worked it out so you guys could stay for the rest of the summer.”

So this was the news. Not that she wanted to go back to California right away. But it would have been nice if someone had asked
her
if she wanted to stay. She was about to mention this when Ian continued.

“Anyway, since you will be staying longer, we need to talk about Khan.”

She went over to get some birch bark and a log for the fire. Down on the shore, she saw the black silhouette of Randall casting against the rose-and-orange-colored brush strokes of sunset. The fire flared up.

“I understand you let him run with you on the Big Island.” He gave her a steady look.

“He's not going to run off. He always . . . Well, he follows me. Except that one time.”

Ian sat motionless on the log, his arms resting on his knees. He said slowly, “We've spent a lot of time and energy raising that pup, all of us.”

“I just wanted him to know what it felt like to be free,” she said, her voice edged with emotion.

She saw Randall turn and lower his pole.

“Forget it,” she said quietly. “I'm going to bed.”

Behind her she heard Ian say, “Nika . . .” but then he was silent again.

She unzipped the door so fast, it got stuck, and a squad of mosquitoes streamed in before she could get the zipper moving again. She smashed as many as she could against the walls of the tent, hoping to thin out the ranks waiting for their nightly blood donations.

As she curled into her sleeping bag, she listened to the papery sound of the nylon rain fly flapping in the breeze. She was glad she'd made a run for the tent before Ian actually said the words
never ever do that again.
Was it possible that no one had told him about the skunk? No doubt, if he knew about her trips with Thomas to see Luna, he would be even less happy with her. To say nothing of Bristo's animals.

By the time Ian and Randall came to bed later, she was asleep. In the middle of the night it rained, and a small river flowed beneath the floor of their tent, seeping into their bags. As she awoke and tried to get used to the damp sleeping bag, she couldn't help thinking that Ian had said it wouldn't rain.

 

For several days the young human with the silver box came alone and sat quietly while the sun moved the shadows of trees. The wolf stretched out on a large flat rock and watched, smelling food. She paced back into the forest in her loose-limbed way, returning later to a new position on the ledge. There she stayed until a cloud at the horizon sliced across the sun. As usual, after the human was gone, the wolf sniffed the area where he'd been. On these days, across the hill beyond the eagle's nest, on a tapered wedge of rock, she found food.

Nika thought if she stayed in the warm soggy bag much longer, her skin would wrinkle up like her fingers did when she stayed in the bath too long. Randall and Ian had already gotten up. She finally crawled out and searched the tent for something to wear that wasn't wet. After shimmying into clammy jeans that stuck to her skin and an almost-dry T-shirt, she headed back to the wonderful wooden box with a hole in it that took the place of an outhouse.

When she came back, she announced, “I have a new name for the biffy. Not the outhouse, but the outbox.” Randall laughed.

Ian said, with mock seriousness, “From now on, the outbox it is.”

She plunked oatmeal into her plastic bowl, adorned it with dried cranberries and brown sugar, and sat on a log beside Randall. When she looked sideways at her brother, he was smiling at her, with that irresistible grin he had. She punched him in the arm and smiled back.

Ian seemed upbeat this morning, too. Nika hoped that meant talk about Khan was history.

“After we get the dishes done and put the wet bags and clothes out to dry in the sun, I want to show you guys something.” He scraped the last bite of oatmeal from his bowl and licked the spoon. Then he pulled the hot water pot from the fire and gave it a squirt of dish soap. It took just a few minutes for the three of them to get the dishes washed and upside down on rocks to dry.

Their campsite was on a sheet of granite as big as two backyards, extending from the fire grate down to the lake. Soon socks were lined up, jeans draped over bushes, and the sleeping bags laid open on rocks in the sun.

“Better than a clothesline.” Ian glanced at the neat rows of wet things.

Next he pulled several aluminum pots and cups from the food pack and started up a path toward a hill flanked by a wall of trees. Over his shoulder he asked, “Ready?” Randall scampered after him. Ian didn't even wait to see if Nika would come but crashed back through the trees out of sight. When Zeus circled back to jump on her and whine, Nika decided to follow.

The path became steep past the first trees. They climbed higher and higher until they were on a ridge where they could see down the blue distance to faraway shores of the lake. She smelled that sweet herbal smell again, the one she'd smelled on the Big Island. Ian bent down, grinned, and pointed. He picked a handful for both of them to see. Blueberries. Small ones. These were like the green berries she had seen on the Big Island, except they were blue. A whole hillside of blue. Nika put one in her mouth. The taste was sharp and sweet, better than the fat puffy blueberries from the store. Ian laughed as he watched her face. The three of them went to work. For a long time there was no sound except the drumming of blueberries onto the bottoms of aluminum pots.

“Wow,” said Randall, looking at an inch of blueberries at the bottom of his pot.

“Look over here, Randall! These are big ones!” Ian exclaimed.

Nika moved to a new patch of little bushes heavy with berries, eating most of what she picked. Ian looked her way as she stuffed another handful in her mouth, as though she were unwrapping a gift he'd given her. He smiled, then returned to picking. She was blown away that the blueberries just grew here. Nobody planted them. Maybe they had been growing here for a thousand years. Or more. Eagerly she began filling her own pot.

For the next two days they stuffed themselves with blueberries, putting them in pancakes and oatmeal or just eating them by the handful. Randall's favorite was blueberries in hot pudding after dinner. Ian had brought a special hard plastic box to protect the berries in the pack, so they could bring some back to Pearl.