Summer of the Wolves (23 page)

Even if she got sick sometimes, Nika decided this was much more fun.

After getting readings from seven wolves, Elinor signaled to Maki to head back. Nika still didn't love the smelly, churning aircraft, but seeing wild wolves lope across clearings, then melt into heavy forest, made her feel the energy of their freedom in her bones. Of course she couldn't help wishing Khan could be free like his sister.

When they were back in the truck, Elinor asked, “How was that, seeing them where they live?”

There was a mix of sadness and excitement in Elinor's expression. “Cool,” Nika answered, realizing that Elinor loved these animals, not as individuals with names and numbers, but just for being the wild creatures that they were.

Elinor drove quietly, bumping over just one corner when she cut it too close. Then, as if she were finishing an unspoken thought, she said, “The best thing we can do for wolves is to allow them space and leave them alone.” Nika thought that was a strange thing to say for someone whose job was studying wolves. She was about to ask what she meant when Elinor leaned into the steering wheel, made a sharp turn, and pulled up next to the Center. Ian came strolling out, his face lit up like he'd won the lottery. He leaned into the truck window, very close to Elinor, and the two gave each other a lingering smile.

“I've got a surprise,” he said.

 

The tan wolf sniffed and trotted and marked and scratched. She ran a loop next to the fence, cached a deer leg in the trees, waded in the stream, sat high on her rock. People came to the fence. She danced to see them. But still something was missing. She howled in the night and listened for calls in the wind.

“Scoot in back, Nika,” Ian said, sliding into the driver's seat and gently pushing Elinor over. The two of them hadn't stopped smiling. “First we have to stop at the Camerons' house in town and pick up Randall.”

After they picked him up, Randall sat in the jump seat with Nika while they drove out of town. Minutes later they pulled up in front of a small green house.

“Little Otter Lake. Ours if we want it,” Ian announced, making a circle with his hand to include the small house, the dock in front of it, and the lake beyond. What was he talking about? Was this Ian's way of telling them a decision had been made about their future? About their home?

“Wow! Nika, look!” Randall exclaimed as he dove out of the truck and ran toward the house, painted the color of spruce trees.

The house was one story with a giant stone chimney right in front and big windows on both sides.

Ian sounded a little apologetic. “None of the bedrooms are very big.” He opened the door to one bedroom that had a sliding window into the screen porch. Across the living room were two more doors, each opening into a room big enough for a bed and not a whole lot more. “We'll have to find some furniture,” he said, as though he were thinking out loud.

Randall smiled and ran over and grabbed Nika in a bear hug. “Cool!” was all he managed to say in words, but his face said everything else. He took her by the hand and led her to the doorway of a room that was painted bright blue. “Do you like this one?” he asked.

“No, that's okay. You choose, Randall.”

“The blue one,” he said, walking to the center of the small room. His eyes jumped around as though, in his fantasies, he had already moved in.

Nika walked over to the window beside the fireplace. In front of the house was a narrow strip of sand beach with grandfather red pines standing on either side. Across the small lake chubby clouds curled over the horizon. It looked pretty good. Is this what she wanted? It would mean leaving Pasadena and Olivia and Zach and what she knew. She wished someone had asked her what she wanted. Deciding something for herself for once in the last two years would have felt so good.

Ian came up beside Nika. “It's a pretty spot, and it's available for two years. It was a vacation cabin, but it's been winterized. They put a furnace in the basement, a specially insulated roof, indoor plumbing . . .” He spoke with excitement.

“Yeah, it's great,” she said with a shy smile. She did appreciate what he was trying to do. And Randall was over the moon.

 

Returning to town, Ian dropped Elinor and Nika at the Center while he took Randall back to the Camerons'. Nika noticed a brand-new sign. The letters carved in shiny yellow pine were freshly painted dark green and said “Center for the Study of Northern Animals.” It looked so official.

After they entered through the shiny glass doors, Elinor went back to the kitchenette. “Want a Coke?” she called.

“Sure,” Nika answered. She sat down at the big conference table, still thinking about the green house on Little Otter Lake. Everything was all happening so fast. On the table was a memo in Ian's handwriting. She picked it up and started to read:

 

A
TTENTION
: S
TAFF AND
V
OLUNTEERS

R
E
: T
RANSFER
P
LANS FOR
K
HAN AND
L
UNA

1. T
RANSFER
L
UNA FROM THE HOLDING PEN INTO THE LARGE ENCLOSURE TO GET HER USED TO IT.

 

Well, Nika thought, that's done. She read on.

 

2. B
RING
K
HAN ACROSS THE LAKE IN HIS PLASTIC KENNEL, COVERED WITH SLEEPING BAG.

 

Khan would be scared. Someone needed to comfort him. She raced through the rest of the list.

 

3. I
N THE HOLDING PEN, KEEP
K
HAN KENNELED UNTIL SIGNALS ARE GOOD BETWEEN THE TWO WOLVES, THEN LET
K
HAN LOOSE IN THE HOLDING PEN, WHERE THEY CAN MEET THROUGH THE FENCE.

4. A
FTER A FEW DAYS, WHEN THEY SEEM EXCITED ABOUT EACH OTHER, RELEASE
K
HAN INTO THE BIG PEN.

5. T
HERE WILL BE A CERTAIN DANGER FOR
K
HAN, BUT OUR ASSUMPTIONS ARE THAT THINGS WILL GO WELL. AT THIS POINT
E
LINOR AND
I
WILL BE THE ONLY PEOPLE TO GO INTO THE LARGE PEN WITH THE WOLVES.

 

Number five gave Nika chills. Was she really never going to be allowed to have contact with Khan again, except through a fence? This was the first she'd heard that Luna could possibly hurt Khan. How could they put the wolves together if they didn't know for sure Khan would be safe?

“Okay, so when's this happening?” Nika asked, waving the paper, when Elinor came in with the Coke. Elinor took the paper from her. As if they hadn't wanted her to see it.

“As you know, Luna has already been transferred. We plan to move Khan next week. Depending on the weather, maybe Wednesday or Friday.”

“A week from now!” Nika stood up. “That's too soon!”

“Actually, the timing's just right. Khan will be just over forty pounds, small enough for Luna to think of him as a pup, big enough to stand up to rough play.”

Just then Ian came through the door and walked directly to his desk, where he grabbed a ringing phone. While talking, he shuffled through some papers. His movements were quick and businesslike. He seemed preoccupied.

Elinor leaned closer to Nika, saying, “It's really best for Khan and Luna. You'll see.”

For a minute Nika felt her throat tighten. She gave Elinor a weak smile, then went out the back door to the pens.

Luna was stretched on the ground in the large enclosure. The tan wolf looked bigger in her new space. Nika plopped against the fence. Never being able to be with Khan, to touch him, to rub his feet, to run with him? Tears filled her eyes to the rims, but she wiped them away. She felt exactly the way she'd never wanted to feel again in her life. Losing a beautiful picture of how things could be. A gentle nibbling on her hair distracted her. She turned to find Luna pressed against the fence behind her, her eyes on Nika, as though she understood.

 

That night was very hot. Ian wasn't back from town, and Pearl invited Nika to go down with her for a sleepover in the coolness of the screen house by the dock. They carried snacks and blankets, a gas lantern, and books to read. Even on a night like this, they brought hot tea in a thermos. They made their beds on the cots built into the walls of the screen house, unrolling the mattresses that were kept covered when no one was using them.

As they got ready for a swim, with a faraway look Pearl said, “I've been doing this every summer since I can remember. Taking a cooling dip and sleeping in the screen house on hot nights.”

When they slipped off the dock, the water seemed cold at first because the air was so hot, but soon it was like no temperature at all. As Nika was treading water, pillows of cold surprised her feet and stars reflected in the glassy water around her. She lay in a back float, amazed by the stillness.

They watched the moon come up like a giant pumpkin, washing out the stars. Moonlight rippled and scattered as they splashed. After they got out and went up to the screen house, the moon climbed the sky, shrinking as it rose.

Soon they settled down on their cots, sharing the wavering light of the gas lamp to read. Nika put down her book and thought for a minute. Pearl had known Ian for a long time.

“Pearl,” she said, “do you think Ian is really going to settle down?” After all that had happened, she could easily imagine Ian hitting the road again, given his his tory.

Pearl answered, “Oh, well. Yes, I think that's what he wants to do.”

“Does he really like Elinor?” Nika asked, thinking if he married Elinor, wouldn't they want their own kids?

“I think he does, don't you?”

“Um . . .” It was so complicated.

Just then they heard Ian's boat pull up to the dock, then the creaking sounds of the boatlift, and then soft footsteps coming up the path.

Ian stood by the door of the screen house for a minute. “A perfect night for a moonlight swim. I think I'll take a dip myself.”

“How's Luna doing?” Nika asked of his profile in the silvery light of the moon.

“She still likes her new pen, I think. And her shoulder is recovering nicely.” Ian took a few steps, then stopped.

He turned and said, “Oh, Nika. One more thing. Sheriff Dunn says he wants to meet with us in the morning. With Thomas and his dad, too.” His voice was stone steady, as if he were giving a weather report.

“Okay.” She swallowed hard and waited for more. But there wasn't any more. He turned and left. She heard his steps start down the path. In spite of the warm night, she began to shiver.

A minute later she heard the squeak and bang of Ian's cabin door. Soon came another bang, then splashes in the water.

She lay quietly in the light of the hissing lamp, wrapped up tight in her sleeping bag to stop the shivers. The rising and falling notes of a blues guitar coming from Ian's cabin mixed with a riot of loon calls from the lake. Water lapped soft percussion against the rocks.

But the questions started swirling and wouldn't stop. Now what? Would she and Thomas have to go to court? What would happen then?

 

The next morning, as the big boat cut through the waves, Nika and Thomas sat in the back giving each other brief looks. Randall perched on the edge of Ian's pilot's chair, looking straight ahead, except once when he smirked back at Nika. She found this new side of Randall irritating—he seemed pleased that she was in trouble.

After Ian pulled into his official boat slip in town, Nika and Thomas helped him tie up, then waited for directions. “Now you two go up to the sheriff's office and wait for us.” Ian was looking into Nika's eyes. “Jake's coming over from his office at about nine-thirty.”

Side by side Nika and Thomas trudged slowly up the hill. When they were out of Ian's hearing, she turned to him. “What do you think will happen?”

“I don't know.” Thomas seemed to be thinking. It was one of the things she liked best about him. He was calm and always thought things through his own way. Like when Nika heard about hunters baiting bears with piles of food, she thought it was very unsportsmanlike. But Thomas said he thought it was okay because fewer bears were wounded that way. It helped her think in a new way. Thomas was like that.

“Mom said someone saw us leaving Bristo's that day,” said Thomas.

Inside the sheriff's office was a row of wooden chairs beneath a bulletin board bristling with notices tacked up with colored pins. A woman behind a glass shield nodded toward the chairs. They sat down, as keyboards clicked and printers whirred.

It seemed like an hour before the door opened and Thomas's dad, Jake, and Ian came in, talking comfortably together, even laughing. They stopped talking the minute they saw Thomas and Nika on the chairs. Did Ian and Jake know yet what they'd done?