I LANDED ON JACKSON’S WEATHER vane with a hammering heart. One second I’d been a goner, fox food, and now here I was, sitting on top of the barn. I took long, slow sips of the still evening air. The western sky was the color of a ripe peach. In the east a nearly full moon was on the rise. The vast space in between was a deep, mysterious blue. Even if there wasn’t a bird in the world who cared if I was alive or dead, I was glad to be alive.
Hardly a leaf was stirring on the cottonwood, but the hens were stirring in the henhouse, which was odd at this hour. Soon the cattle were lowing noisily in the pen with the electric fence, and horses whinnied in the paddock. A screen door banged. Earflaps came striding out across the yard. I didn’t realize he had a rifle till the crack rang out. The cattle and hens and horses went crazy. The screen door banged again, and out bolted Red Cap and his sister. Earflaps’s rifle erupted again. It went off four or five times before the humans trooped back toward the house.
“You really think it was a wolf, Dad?” asked Red Cap.
“Had to be,” said Earflaps.
“Think you got him?”
“We’ll have a look-see in the morning. If we didn’t, we’ll put the word out.”
The humans went back inside. Soon the livestock settled down. Did that mean the wolf was dead? I hoped not, since I hadn’t even had a chance to thank him for saving my life. But after the double traumas of Jackson’s death and—nearly—my own, I was too exhausted to go searching, barely having the energy to flutter down to the hayloft for the night.
I woke when the cock crowed. The sky had flip-flopped. Now the moon was way over in the west, and the eastern horizon had a peachy glow. I went off to look for the wolf, dead or alive. As I wheeled around the ranch in widening circles, I passed over a steer skeleton, but no wolf carcass. My circling expanded beyond the ranch. The landscape was pretty baked out, but about a mile north of the Triple Bar T’s gate I spotted the wolf sleeping on a swath of green in a creek bed. There wasn’t much left of the creek at this time of the year. There wasn’t much left of the fox either. I landed in an elderberry bush near its remains.
Though this was the first wolf I’d ever gotten a good look at, I could just tell he was a big one. As the sky brightened, I noticed he had a collar around his neck, like the dogs on the ranch, though the wolf’s was thicker, with a lump on it. And I noticed that his glossy gray coat had a blue tinge to it.
His legs twitched, and then his eyes flickered open. They had a yellow gleam. When he stood up and shook himself, I almost felt sorry for the fox. This wolf, with his massive hindquarters, his sinewy neck and shoulders, and his long, powerful jaw, was clearly built for killing. He gave the fox remnants a disdainful sniff and took a slurp from the creek. As he started to trot away, I called after him:
“Hey. Thank you.”
He looked back over his shoulder. The menacing glint in his eyes had me crouching in takeoff position.
“For what?” he growled.
I pointed my beak at the fox. “He was about to kill me when you grabbed him.”
“You’re welcome to him,” the wolf said, and turned and trotted off to the north.
In fact, I was famished, and once the wolf was out of sight, I flew down and sampled the fox. He wasn’t quite as good as the doe, but the meat was still fresh, and there was a certain satisfaction in eating someone who’d almost eaten me.
I was just finishing my breakfast when I heard rifle shots. The wolf came bounding back down the creek bed. I darted to the top of the elderberry bush. The wolf stopped nearby and crouched, the muscles tense on his back.
“The rancher at the Triple Bar T spread the word about you,” I said, glad to see he hadn’t been wounded.
He looked up suspiciously. I asked where he’d come from, and he pointed his snout to the south.
“I think you’re supposed to stay there,” I said, figuring he meant Yellowstone Park. “The ranchers up here don’t like wolves.”
Ignoring my advice, he set out to the north again, keeping lower to the ground this time. I stayed put. In a few minutes there were more rifle shots, and the wolf came running back down the creek bed.
“They’re out for your hide,” I told him. “Go back to Yellowstone. I don’t think they’ll shoot you there.”
“I have to get home,” he said.
“Where’s that?”
He pointed his snout to the north.
“Canada?” I said. “Then how’d you get to Yellowstone?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “One minute I was hunting with my brother. The next, we’re locked in a pen.”
“Where’s your brother?”
“Don’t talk to me about that miserable cur.”
“Well, what’s so great about Canada?”
“I have five pups to feed.”
“In that case, your best bet would probably be to go back to the Beartooth Mountains,” I said, pointing south. “You could follow them to the west. There’s another range over that way, in Idaho. I saw it with my own eyes. You might be able to follow those mountains into Canada.”
He looked doubtful and headed off to the north again. Another volley of rifle shots brought him racing back. But he was nothing if not stubborn. He kept going back again and again all morning, till finally an all-terrain-vehicle with a pair of hunters in it came bouncing along in his wake. When the shooting started, I lit out of the creek bed, afraid the humans, who didn’t seem very accurate with their bullets, would hit me by mistake.
As I neared the gate to the Triple Bar T, I heard something and glanced back to see the wolf sprinting after me. A ways behind him was a dust cloud: the ATV, no doubt. Since I owed the wolf my life, the least I could do was try to help him, so I squawked and veered west. He followed. I led him to the ravine I’d flown over when I’d gone after Trilby.
The ravine was too rugged and thickly wooded for the humans’ vehicle, but the wolf had no trouble negotiating the rocks and trees. He worked his way south. When he came to the end of the ravine, I warned him that there were ranches between there and the foothills of the Beartooth Mountains.
“Catch a nap,” I suggested, “and head out after dark.”
“I’m hungry,” he said. “But thanks for the help.”
He sloped off into the ravine, and I headed back to the Triple Bar T. Only when the barn and silos came into view did it occur to me that there was nothing for me there. Jackson was gone, and I’d alienated Dan and the kids. Perched on the split-rail fence, I stared bleakly at the weather vane, remembering what Jackson had said about being loyal to your own nature. I had a foreboding that it was my nature to go through life without a family, alone in the world.
A few minutes later a guttural, blood-chilling cry at my back awakened another foreboding. The wolf must have ventured out of the ravine, must be in his death throes—though I hadn’t heard any more rifle shots. I flew back to check and spotted the wolf on the east side of the ravine.
He wasn’t dying. In fact, he was moving at a speed that impressed even me. He didn’t make a sound as he zigzagged through the scrub pines on the trail of a ten-point buck. Then he made an astonishing leap and landed on the deer’s shoulder. Before I could beat my wings three more times, he’d brought the buck to his knees and ripped out his windpipe.
I sat in one of the stubby pines watching the wolf tear into the deer. His ravenousness was terrifying. But I have to admit the speed and ferocity with which he’d made his kill had been breathtaking. I’d never seen anything like it. Soulless and earthbound though he was, he inspired a bit of awe in me.
Once he’d gorged himself, he sat back and started cleaning the blood off his snout with his long tongue. Most of the buck’s carcass remained. It smelled delicious.
“You’re quite the hunter,” I said.
He lifted his head, looking surprised to see me. “We do better in packs,” he said.
“Would you mind . . .”
“Help yourself,” he grunted.
He was within striking distance of the remains, but I felt only mild nervousness about hopping down and digging in. Why would he want a mouthful of feathers with all that lovely meat around? And the fresh venison truly was delicious.
As I pecked away, the wolf yawned and looked up. The ravine had gotten dark, but there was still light in the sky.
“Maybe I will catch that nap,” he said.
He circled a couple of times and lay down in the pine needles. It didn’t take him long to fall asleep—hardly surprising after his skirmishes with the humans and chasing down a deer. After eating my fill, I returned to the stubby pine and looked down drowsily at the sleeping wolf, trying to think why I shouldn’t accompany this amazing meal ticket on his journey.