The Legend of Safehaven (4 page)

Now the big male edged forward, a four-legged chess piece whose movements were choreographed by Nature. She prepared to lunge for his neck when he stopped and sat on his haunches again. She sensed no fear or aggression.

Casting wary eyes on both of the dogs, she sat likewise. Canine Kabuki.

“It looks like Mrs. Wolf is confused by our two Lotharios, kids. If this had been a wolf-to-wolf confrontation, one of them would be lying on the ground, maybe with its throat ripped out.”

Galen felt excited. He thought this might be the beginning of a fascinating interplay of wild-versus-domestic response. Could the female accept the other two? The humans watched the big dog crouch down and inch forward on all fours toward the seated wolf.

Finally their muzzles touched. The female let out a quiet snarl then stopped, as the big dog nuzzled her. She stood up, turned, and calmly moved back into the den. The two dogs followed her.

“It’s working!” Galen exclaimed.

He noticed the three kids were casting wondering looks his way, so he smiled at them.

“Nature always finds a way!”

They did not understand his cryptic reply.

Winter struck with a vengeance. The wind pierced the mountain retreat with banshee shrieks, the tympani of cracking, ice-laden tree limbs a percussive accompaniment. Galen had anticipated the hard winter from the comments in the “Old Farmer’s Almanac,” so he and Edison had made some advance preparations.

Edison was not a naturalist, but he enthusiastically designed remote monitoring units—self-contained and weatherproof audio and visual sensors to transmit data from the territory surrounding the canine den. Nancy, more practical than either of the two men, had stocked a separate freezer with meat byproducts, which the frequent observers would leave near the den in case the three animals were unsuccessful in their daily hunts.

The kids’ contribution was to assist in the observations and sensor placement. They also named their “doggies.” As they shinnied up trees and reached sensor sites inaccessible to the two duffer scientists, Freddie would tease Carmelita by asking her who the female wolf loved more: Zeus, the big mixed shepherd, or Mercury, the younger, grey-brown dog. But Carmelita wouldn’t be baited. She was thirteen now, and her Tia Nancy had instructed her well in the ways of womanly wisdom.

“Athena will make up her own mind, Freddie,” she replied curtly.

“Tio Eddie, flip to infrared. Maybe we can watch them during their night hunt.”

Freddie was the first to suggest multi-spectrum sensors, and now he played the controls like a pro, as he cycled through the different sensor sites and panned and tilted the cameras with his thumbstick looking for his quarry. Edison, beaming with pride at his remarkably young protégé, sat at the keyboard in support of Freddie, while the others watched the shifting scenes on the big, central video monitor. The darkness took on the moonscape color of the night sensors, and then they saw them: three canines, two dogs and one wolf, beginning their nocturnal prowl. The big shepherd had assumed the role of alpha male, and the female wolf stayed side by side with the younger dog, as they proceeded to flush out their evening dinner: a large jackrabbit.

Eating their fill—the alpha first, then the female, then the lowly dog—they suddenly turned simultaneously toward the camera and stared at it, as though the three pairs of canine eyes were trying to bridge the divide between themselves and those who watched.

Tonio reached over his brother’s shoulder and hit the transmit button. Slowly, he spoke into the microphone.

“Good dogs! Good Athena, good Zeus, good Mercury!”

The animals perked up their ears then responded in trio voice, their harmony a salute to their unseen benefactors.

Now it was mid-March, still cold and snowing as expected in the central highlands of Pennsylvania. Warm and comfortable inside the house, Galen had tuned his computer to WBJC on Internet radio, and the haunting tones of Borodin’s “In the Steppes of Asia” permeated his small room. A knock on the door snapped him out of his reverie.

It opened, and Edison and Nancy stood there, smiling.

“Come on, Grandpa, we just got us a litter of grandkids!” Edison laughed, as he took his friend’s arm, and the three hustled back to the monitor station. The children already were watching in front of the screen and listening to the faint yips of the newly arrived litter on the audio speaker.

“Good girl, Athena,” Carmelita whispered to herself.

Spring weather did not arrive until early May. The three adult canines guided the seven, newly weaned pups out into the forest. Schoolmarm Athena herded them, directing their attention to the actions of Zeus and Mercury during a hunt. They sat and watched in fascination as the younger dog flushed out the prey—a young, white-tailed fawn—into the path of the alpha, which seized its neck in his powerful jaws and administered the coup de grace.

After the pack had completed its meal, the adults again herded the littermates to the site of the camera and made them sit in a semicircle facing it. Tonio and Freddie took turns with the microphone, calling them all good dogs and laughing as the young pups’ ears pricked up at the boys’ voices.

Carmelita snatched the microphone away from her brothers and softly spoke the names of the adults. Their ears stiffened in apparent understanding. She began to sing a Cuban lullaby, long buried in her memory, and even the boys became quiet. As she finished, Athena began a soft moaning howl and a choir of ten erupted in doggy vocalization.

Freddie opened his mouth in an attempt to imitate the pack, when he felt his younger brother’s grip on his shoulder and heard his sibling’s whispered “Don’t!” He remained quiet.

Summer sunlight filtered through the leafy canopy of the forest, and time continued its growth work on both kids and pups. Carmelita, now fourteen, had reached that precarious age between childishness and self-awareness. Freddie, on the verge of thirteen, was all legs, and the feral look of incipient manhood had begun to lengthen his face. Even Tonio, soon to turn twelve, was more serious and focused. Meanwhile, the pups were engaging in the full activity of the hunt.

Nancy, Edison, and Galen were feeling the passage of time, too, but for them it was the encroachment of morning aches, difficulties with bowel regulation, and increasing awareness of entropy. They knew what awaited them at the end of life’s corridor, so they savored the warm breezes of summer even more.

“Tonio, look, the pack is reforming its social structure.”

Galen sat in the blind with his faithful shadow, though it had become unnecessary now. All the canines were aware of their presence, and they treated the two-legged ones as part of the pack posing no harm.

Amity or not, Galen was trying to avoid interfering in the wolf-dog social evolution. He kept his distance and insisted the children do the same.

“There, see that, boy? There’s already an alpha male in the litter.”

They watched, as one of the pups, under the vigilant eyes of Zeus, appeared to guide the others. But Galen was surprised to see something else happening as well. The young alpha, bigger than his littermates and easily able to beat them at games, selected two others to pair off with him: a lighter-weight, dark-grey male and a reddish-brown female. It was like a high school clique with the three calling the shots for the other four. This was not typical wolf behavior.

Even stranger was what happened next: The clique members approached the blind together, sat down, and stared at it. Tonio stood up, even as Galen tried to stop him, and stepped out of the shelter to face the three directly. He crouched down and looked into the three pairs of green eyes, softly whispering “good dogs” over and over.

The alpha pup stood up, cautiously approached the boy, and sniffed at him. Slowly the other two followed suit. Tonio remained still except for his continued whispering, until the trio turned and trotted back to the others. Only once did they turn and look back, when Galen stepped from the blind. They stared intently at him for a few seconds then walked away.

“That could have gotten you hurt, boy.”

Galen stared at Tonio intently.

“No, Tio, they’re my friends.”

Man and boy turned and began their ascent to the mountain house, side by side, bear and cub.

It was an apple-butter fall. The air was laden with the tart-sweet smell of multicolored leaves, their shades of red, yellow, and brown replacing the verdant greens of summer. Another school year was underway, and the children, the boys a little taller and all entering the emotionally wrenching teen years, were as busy as humanly possible with homework and school activities.

Edison and Nancy sat in the picture-windowed living room during their afternoon tea break. Edison took a long sip of his favorite Jasmine tea, now served hot to ward off the change in temperature. Nancy had been thinking quietly. When she spoke, her voice, gentle as always, eased her husband out of his own reverie.

“Bob, hunting season starts in two weeks. How are we going to protect the pack from all those Nimrods who think killing animals makes them manly?”

Edison savored his tea a moment longer before setting the cup on the side table.

“Galen and I have been talking about that. The ground is posted, but that won’t stop the clowns who think they’re Daniel Boone and have the right of passage anywhere. A few of them in town are just itching to come up here. They know it’s untouched territory, and they imagine it’s crawling with game. They keep asking permission to hunt. I keep telling them it’s out of our hands, that the property belongs to the Nature Conservancy trust, and that even I couldn’t hunt on it, God forbid I’d ever want to.”

Nancy smiled at her man. Instinctively she knew that the only time her Bob would consider hurting another living creature would be if she or the kids or Galen were threatened. But they had to do something—and soon.

Galen sat in the blind, dictating his observations of the wolf pack into a small digital recorder Edison had given him. He, too, worried about their safety.

“Will that be all, Mr. Caddler?”

The clerk handed him his change and stepped back from the wave of alcohol-laden breath emanating from the broken-blood-vesseled face that stared back across the counter.

“Ya sure ya put what I wanted in there?”

Caddler pointed at the box on the counter.

“Yes, sir, four boxes of double-ought-eight shells and two boxes of ammo for your rifle. Anything else?”

The weather-beaten man grunted, picked up the box, and walked out grinning to himself.

Got some unfinished business to settle. Ain’t no one keepin’ me offa huntin’ land. Been huntin’ there since I ‘as a boy. Let’s see what them damn city folks think ‘bout stoppin’ a load o’ buckshot!

School had let out early for a teacher workday, so when the bus dropped the kids off, instead of walking up the lane to the mountain house, as they normally would, the three ran to the blind to watch their canine friends. Only they didn’t stay inside the blind anymore—something they hadn’t told the elders. They had been accepted by the pack and could stand openly and marvel at how the young ones played at being adults, while the adults patiently watched and corrected only when a pup grew too aggressive.

Today, Athena minded the pups alone.

“Zeus and Mercury must be out hunting prey,” Freddie said.

Carmelita winced at the word “prey.” Nancy had taught her that predators such as wolves played a necessary part in Nature’s cycle of life, but even so she didn’t like the idea. She tried not to think about it, as she watched Athena boxing a wayward pup now bigger than herself.

She’s so much like Tia Nancy—gentle yet firm
.

Suddenly the quiet of the forest was shattered by the echo of double-barrel shotgun blasts, which startled both canines and children. The three elders up at the house also heard the shots, just when they were discussing how to keep the hunters at bay. Edison and Galen rose immediately and headed out the front door.

“Nancy,” Edison yelled back. “Call the state police. Tell them we have poachers on the mountain!”

He ran to catch up with Galen, who was moving like a locomotive toward the blind area.

The kids heard thrashing approaching them in the underbrush, and soon Zeus rushed into the small clearing in front of the den, closely followed by Mercury. Trailing them, still some distance away, was the sound of unsteady human feet, accompanied by an angry but barely discernable voice.

“Don’t remember this path. Damned rocks and branches! Ain’t no one been here. Better huntin’ fer me!”

He paused, staring through alcohol-clouded eyes.

“Wha’ the hell’s that? Don’ remember no damned cave!”

Carmelita moved to the pack and shooed them toward the den. The adult animals obeyed, herding their young ones inside then standing guard near the opening.

A few moments later the children saw the shotgun-carrying man enter the clearing, attempting to reload while moving—a dangerous practice.

“So this is where them goddamn varmints ‘a’ been hidin’. Well, they ain’t gonna hide no more!”

Caddler shouted at the two boys and girl standing a few yards from the den opening, “Get outta my way! I’m gonna shoot those sons o’ bitches!”

Finally reloaded, he snapped shut the twin barrels and had the gun pointed in the general direction of the kids just as Galen and Edison arrived.

“Caddler, didn’t I tell you that this is a no-hunting area?” Edison yelled.

As he turned to face Edison, Galen stepped in on his flank and served up a roundhouse right directly to the man’s jaw. He moaned and promptly collapsed, his shotgun falling away to the ground.

“Sergeant, why are we driving up here? It’s hunting season, for crying out loud. We gonna chase down every dumb sonofabitch who strays onto posted land?”

Pennsylvania State Police Sergeant Ben Castle looked at the younger man sitting in the passenger seat of the patrol car and let out a snort. He was what they called a newbie, fresh out of police academy, so he had been paired up with the experienced older man to learn what couldn’t be taught in a classroom.