Wolves, Boys and Other Things That Might Kill Me

 

 

 

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First published in the U.S.A. by Viking, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 2010

a cognizant original v5 release october 23 2010
 

Copyright © Kristen Chandler, 2010

All rights reserved

 

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Chandler, Kristen.
Wolves, boys, and other things that might kill me / by Kristen Chandler.
p. cm.
Summary: Two teenagers become close as the citizens of their town fight over the
packs of wolves that have been reintroduced into the nearby Yellowstone National Park.

eISBN : 978-1-101-40458-4

[1. Wolves—Fiction. 2. Interpersonal relations—Fiction. 3. Survival—Fiction. 4. Yellowstone
National Park—Fiction. 5. National parks and reserves—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.C359625Wo 2010
[Fic]—dc22
2009030179

 

 

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The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination
or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events,
or locales is entirely coincidental.

who taught me to treasure
what I can’t tame

SUMMER SCHOOL

WOLVES DON’T ACTUALLY howl at the moon. Mostly they howl at each other. I’m a girl, so I get that.

When I hear the first howl, I’m standing knee-deep in Yellowstone meadow grass, loaded up like a packhorse, being assaulted by the first shards of an August hailstorm, listening to the couple we are guiding argue. Over the rumbling clouds and upperclass bickering I hear the wolf’s howl. It is low and kind of whiny. The call of the bothered. I get that, too.

I’m out in front of our foursome. My dad calls from the back, “KJ, go left, to the trees.” I take a few steps and then hear him call loudly, “Your
other
left.”

I stop walking and let the couple pass me. Dad holds out his hand as he walks past. “How’s that left doing? Maybe you should tie a string around your finger.” This might be funny if I hadn’t been hearing it my whole life. The man and his stuck-up wife turn and hear my dad’s big joke. The woman looks down her pointy nose at me. I turn away and look out into Hayden Valley. I search the weather-bent grass. If I get to see a wolf today I can put up with some harassment.

I hear more howling. Competing wails. Then barks. The tourists, both doctors with advanced degrees in know-it-all-ness, freeze in their tracks.

“I heard something,” says the woman.

“No kidding,” says her husband.

“I thought these things only howled at night.”

My dad clears his throat. “Canids howl when they need to. This sounds like a discussion about territory.”

The afternoon sky has gone dark in that sullen, angry way it does in the Yellowstone caldera. The hail and the heavy sky make it difficult to see. But poor visibility usually means more wildlife. I don’t use my binoculars so I can scan for movement.

After a moment I make out two coyotes. Then I see the wolf. The hail lessens and I see the wolf is three times the size of the coyotes, light gray to their tan and orange outlines. We are less than a hundred yards away. I whip out my binoculars and focus until they look like they are practically at my feet.

“What is it? Is it a wolf?” the woman says. Her two-hundred-dollar hat is soaked. She waves her manicured hand at me. “Get out the scope.”

“Where do you see it?” her husband says, lifting his binoculars into the freezing hail. I stop watching the wolf so I can put up their scope. That is what I’m here for, after all. To be the Girly Sherpa
.
The maid in hiking boots.

The woman explained to me before we left the shop that she was “outdoorsy” and that she could handle her own equipment. Apparently her idea of outdoorsy means she takes a guided fishing trip once a year, and her idea of handling her own equipment is having my dad and me carry the cameras, the scope, the tackle, and the lunches so she can carry her featherweight, collapsible graphite rod without messing up her hair. The woman grabs her scope and starts swinging it around trying to sight the wolf.

Dad knows more about the wildlife in this country than most people know about their own children, but he says nothing.

We stand there like that for a minute and then the yapping of the coyotes fills the valley. I blow into my hands, listening, trying to keep warm. The sounds come from two places, one in the meadow and one higher up in the trees.

Finally Dad says, “They have a den.”

I say, “But it’s so late in the year.”

“Yep,” he says.

“Where?” the woman says, salivating. “Wolves or coyotes? I can’t see a thing in this hail.”

“If you’d be quiet maybe Samuel would tell us,” her husband says.

“I’ll be quiet when I want to be quiet.”

“Let me know when that happens.”

The wolf moves in and out of the coyotes’ nips. I think for sure the wolf will tear into one of the little runts, but it doesn’t. Instead the wolf spins and runs, reaching back with its teeth to defend itself, but not chasing the coyotes off.

I say, “How come it doesn’t go after them?”

The woman snaps at me. “I’d like to know where the hell you’re even looking.”

Dad raises his eyebrows and then points for the woman. She goes obediently back to her scope.

The man follows Dad’s finger with his binoculars. “Oh. Oh,” he says. “He’s huge. Can’t you see him, honey? He’s right there. And the coyotes are biting him. This is very exciting.”

I guess doctors miss blood when they’re away from the office.

The woman swings her scope more violently. “I still can’t see them.”

Dad’s voice is low. “That’s because you need to calm down.”

Why can’t my dad act like the rest of the guides and just suck up to his clients? His tip is in the toilet now for sure.

“I’m perfectly calm.” Her head shakes when she says this.

Her husband looks like Dad just slapped his wife. “I think she can manage.”

“Good,” says Dad. “Now how about I line up that lens so you can both get a good look?”

I go back to watching the wolf and coyotes. My eyes strain to catch every detail of the animals. Through the spattering hail I see the coyotes working the tag team defense. The pups go silent, but their parents keep up the bursts of barking. I can’t believe we’re seeing this. People think it’s so easy to see a wild wolf now that they’ve been back in the park a few years, like they’re big fat grazing buffalo or something. But just because you can buy a T-shirt with a wolf on it doesn’t mean I’ve seen many of them.

Then things happen fast. The hail stops, like someone has flipped a switch. The air seems to freeze and everything goes silent. Five other wolves appear out of the grass, like they just grew there. Without two seconds passing, the coyotes disappear into the trees, leaving the solitary wolf alone with the new pack. It seems to me that the wolves have saved their friend from harassment; maybe they have even come to help him kill the coyotes and rout the den. But that is not what happens.