Wolves, Boys and Other Things That Might Kill Me (16 page)

“I thought you liked wolves.”

“For crying out loud, I’m not talking about what I
like
.” His tone is razor sharp. “I
like
a lot of things. I
like
being able to hear out of both ears. I
like
having you in one piece. I
like
not making enemies of every hunter from here to Chicago. Because I
like
being a guide and paying my bills. This is about reality. And the reality is that wolves make people crazy, including you.”

I know better than to prolong an argument with Samuel Manning Carson, especially when he’s been on the wrong end of a fist. I go to the kitchen and make him a sandwich. I put the stool under his feet. I turn on the TV. I put my hands in my pockets.

“Oh, get out of here, would you! Tell Virgil I thought his sculpture was . . . well . . . it was beautiful. Stupid as hell, but beautiful.”

I know it costs him something to say anything nice about Virgil. Part of him probably wishes he’d been the one shooting. He wouldn’t have missed. I hug his shoulders gently.

“Thanks, Dad.”

He pulls away from me. “Get.”

“Don’t drink all that beer before I get back, you might have a concussion or something.”

He throws me a dirty look and I bolt for the door.

 

I speed across town in Dad’s truck, spinning over the ice. All I can think about is the look on Virgil’s face right before and after the shot. The two images flash back and forth appearing to almost blend together in a nightmarish composite. I feel numb.

I knock at the door. No one answers. I lean against the door and yell, “It’s KJ.”

Eloise’s steady voice calls back, “In here, honey.”

Virgil and Eloise are at the kitchen table. There is a first aid kit sprawled everywhere. Eloise is cleaning Virgil’s blood off his face with gauze. My feet freeze to the floor.

“Virgil,” I whisper. “I would have come sooner. My dad got punched in the ear.” It sounds funny when I say it, but nobody laughs.

Eloise says sharply, “Town is full of rotten drunks. How’s he doing?”

“His ear’s torn up. We’ll have to see in the morning.” I can’t stop staring at the holes in Virgil’s face. I’ve seen my dad hurt before. I’ve seen my own face bloody and bruised. But blood doesn’t belong on Virgil’s face. “Virgil . . . are you . . . I’m so sorry.”

“Could you come stand over here by this kid,” says Eloise. “I think he’d like a little distraction.”

Virgil smiles at me and I unfreeze. “Hey,” he says, and winces.

I stand next to his shoulder. I can see the puncture wounds from the pellets: three swollen pinpricks in the shape of a triangle. Even as I look at the holes, I can’t believe Virgil has been shot. By someone I know, in the middle of the Christmas parade. He reaches and grabs my hand.

Eloise puts on a large ugly bandage. “We called his dad, and after he got done telling me I’m a bad mother, he said there isn’t anything else we can do tonight. He said to get X-rays of his chest in the morning to make sure nothing’s in there we’ve missed.” She glares at Virgil. “I’ve checked every inch of your parka and there wasn’t any sign of a hole. Except the one you must have in your head to enrage a city full of drunk, armed elk hunters and ranchers. Haven’t you ever heard of writing your congressman?”

“Does that work?” I say.

“I’m fine,” he says.

She nods. “I’ve got an errand to do now. Can you watch him for me, KJ? And Aunt Jean, if she wakes up? She was pretty shook.”

“Where are you going?” I say.

“To the police station,” she says.

I think about what my dad said. “What are you going to do?”

She looks at me fiercely. “I don’t own any firearms, so don’t worry. Of course that doesn’t mean I couldn’t do it with my bare hands.”

“Mom,” says Virgil, with a tenderness that startles me. “Be careful.”

“Don’t worry about me. You just rest now,” she says, and walks out of the kitchen without looking back at her injured son.

As soon as Eloise is gone, Virgil slumps in his chair and relaxes. “Weird, huh?” he says.

“It’s insane. You look really tough though.” My mind goes back to his story about breaking his best friend’s nose. “But are you . . . mad? You know?”

He sighs. “No. But I want to lie down.”

I pull him up to standing and walk him back to the room I haven’t seen since I insulted him. He’s added more photos. His blankets are still swirled up with clothes. I shove the clothes onto the floor and organize the blankets. He climbs in the bed. I sit down next to him. His closes his eyes.

“Your dad hates me now,” he mumbles.

“He said he thought the sculpture was beautiful.”

Virgil opens his eyes. “Does that mean I’m forgiven?”

“I don’t know what it means. Not any of it.” He smells like bandages and medicine. He breathes quietly. I say, “That was the most amazing sculpture I’ve ever seen.”

“Did you like it?” he says, drifting.

“I loved it. You’re a genius.”

“Don’t go anywhere for a while, okay?”

I think, in a blurred way, of my dad at home alone, surrounded by old blankets and beer. I wonder if he’ll fall asleep with the TV on. I promise myself I will leave as soon as Eloise gets back. “Okay.” I put my head down at the foot of the bed. “Just till your mom gets back.”

 

I wake up when I hear the phone ring. Virgil’s feet are in my face. The sun is coming through the window. I look up and see Virgil sound asleep, lying crosswise from me, buried in his hair. This might be a romantic moment if I wasn’t about to be flayed alive by my father. I can’t believe I just fell asleep and then snoozed until morning. I hear another ring. Dead. I am completely dead.

I bolt to the kitchen. I hear Eloise say, “Thank you. He’s doing fine. How’s your ear?”

Eloise looks up at me and shoos me with her hand. “She’s on her way. I asked her to watch Virgil and Jean while I went to the police station. I’m sorry about that.”

Eloise’s face narrows as she listens to the receiver. Her mouth shrinks to a bitter pucker. Finally she says, “I hated to wake her.”

After another ugly pause she says, “Oh, please. You knew exactly where she was.”

Eloise waves me toward the door again. I step slowly, unable to turn away from the approaching disaster. Wait for it.

Eloise shouts, “So what if they did sleep in the same room. I gave him enough valium to tranquilize a polar bear.”

Eloise is many things but diplomatic isn’t one of them.

As I step through the screen door I hear Eloise say, “Hope you get feeling better, Samuel. You might try some valium yourself. And maybe your doctor could prescribe something for being a pain in the ass.”

 

When I get home Dad does not speak to me when I talk to him. He is watching the news. His face has puffed up and the bruises are getting their color. I am overwhelmed with BDG (Bad Daughter Guilt) but I don’t know what to do. Feeling guilty makes me mad, and being mad just makes me feel more guilty. I go into the kitchen and bang around some pots and pans while I pretend to clean. Finally I storm into the other room and say, “I fell asleep. It was an accident.”

He looks at me in total disgust. He stands up and leans on the chair. Here it comes. “You’re not like them, KJ.” His voice is low and deliberate. He’s been thinking about this. “You don’t have a rich dad or a PhD mother. You don’t have a ticket to travel around the world. You aren’t going to get a free ride to a fancy university. If you piss off the whole town you can’t make a phone call and leave. If you get pregnant, or just get your heart ripped out, that’ll be your problem, not his. In a few months, he’s leaving.”

“Dad, nothing happened,” I blurt out.

My dad sighs. “Katherine Jean, around here you have to clean up your own messes. And you’re making one with him.”

He goes to his room with an ice pack and doesn’t come out until Mr. Muir calls and offers to drive us into Bozeman to see Mr. Muir’s ear doctor.

“No thanks,” says Dad. “I’ll live.”

Mr. Muir shows up about ten minutes later. “Most dads with a teenage daughter might be grateful for a bad ear, but I think you’d better think about the long term here, Samuel. You want to be able to hear her apologize later in life, right, KJ?”

“Yes,” I say.

My dad eventually agrees to go, but tells me to stay behind and clean up the house. “I hate a mess on Christmas,” he says.

“I’ll have it done by the time you get back.”

Mr. Muir says, “We’ll be gone most the day, so don’t worry if we’re late.”

“She won’t,” says my dad as he climbs in the truck.

 

I call Sondra for sympathy. Sondra’s mom says that Sondra is “visiting” Dennis.

“Not sure what that’s about,” says her mom, her voice low and grainy. “He always struck me as a ninny.”

“Ninnies don’t draw fire in a local parade,” I say, trying to keep my voice even.

“Yeah, I guess he’s got that going for him. I had a soft spot for outlaws in my youth. All it ever got me was Sondra and a jack squat credit rating.”

No wonder Sondra needs a pet.

Finally I call Addie but not for sympathy. From Addie I want answers. I start out fine, but I’m up to rant speed before I can stop myself.

“I mean someone fires shots into a crowd and nobody even cares. Somebody has to know who did it, right?” I hear a baby fussing near the phone.

“It wasn’t Kenner or William, if that’s what you mean,” she says. Her voice is bouncy. The baby stops crying, but I hear gurgling sounds.

“Are you sure? I mean did you see them not shoot at the float?”

“No, but . . .”

“They both hate wolves and Kenner hates Virgil.”

Addie’s voice gets more shrill. “That doesn’t mean he did it.”

“Somebody did it. And somebody saw who did it.”

“Well, at least you’re right about that much. But don’t hold your breath for people to turn in someone they know, for someone who doesn’t even live here.”

“Dennis and Virgil live here.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I guess I don’t,” I try to slow down. I know this isn’t helping. “Would you tell me if you knew?”

“KJ, you’ve got an attitude problem. You think everyone is immoral just because they don’t agree with you.”

“I don’t like people who shoot at my friends.”

“So you just automatically assume that it’s Kenner or William. They’re ranchers so they’re bad guys.” The baby cries into the phone. Addie says, “All right, little guy. Hey, I have to go.”

“Whoever shot that gun broke the law.”

“There are all kinds of laws, KJ. And around here, taking care of your own is at the top of the list.”

I hang up the phone feeling worse that I can remember. I have enough guilt and anger in my veins to boil off my skin. I need to work.

I trudge to the grocery store and try to avoid eye contact with anyone, since I hate my whole town today, even the snowmobilers, who are just cold tourists. I keep my head down in the checkout aisle except to say hello to Harmony, the woman at the register. I wander slowly toward the street but dread going back into the cold. I look up at the bulletin board that Mr. Gardner, the owner, keeps for public announcements. What I see nearly makes me drop my bags.

Fourteen people have signed the petition. Kenner’s mom is at the top of the list.

I turn back to Harmony. “How long has this been up?”

“I think somebody put it up this morning. What does it say?”

I walk out of the store into the snow without answering. It says something bad just got worse.

All the way home I tell myself one angry ranching family can’t destroy the Wolf Recovery Project. You can’t just overturn the Endangered Species Act because it makes some people mad. This case has been argued in courts for years before the wolves were reintroduced. On the other hand, there were fourteen signatures in one morning. Apparently there’s a lot more than one angry ranching family. I’ve read enough to know that history isn’t on the side of the wolf.

It takes a skin-peeling shower to heat me back up. I mop the floor, make dinner, wrap our pathetic Christmas presents, including my own, do the dishes and six loads of laundry. Still no dad. I put the dinner in Tupperware and start on the bathroom. The house is silent except for running appliances. I don’t call Virgil. He doesn’t call me. I go to sleep on the couch, waiting for my dad to come home. Christmas is in two days.

Fa la la la la.

GIFTS

ON CHRISTMAS MORNING I get hiking boots from Dad and an orange in my stocking that I put in myself. It’s goofy, but oranges are one of my favorite traditions. Eating big fruit always makes me feel like the sun is shining somewhere. I make cranberry pancakes. I put on Christmas music. I give Dad books and new gloves. He barely talks.

At noon the doorbell rings. It’s Sondra.

“Alleluia,” I say. “Come in.”

“Can’t,” she says. “Mom’s a psycho on Christmas. Not to be left alone. But I have something for you.” She winks.

I don’t have anything for her. I run into the house and bring her back my hulking orange. I put it in her hand. “I wrapped it myself.”