Summer of the Wolves (6 page)

The way he said it, I just knew. It had happened to him, too.

“It happened to me in fifth grade. The year Mom died.”

“Your mom died?”

“Car wreck.”

“Oh! That’s terrible. I’m sorry.” I felt dizzy.

“Thanks.”

The silence stretched between us. Then I said, “Seems like they go after you when you’re down.”

“Yep.” Russell lowered the gate to the back of the truck. Inside were two large dog kennels, side by side. He unlocked both gates. Swung them open.

“Okay,” Russell said. “I’ll put her in now.”

I handed him Waya’s leash.

“Let’s go, girl,” he said. He tossed a dog treat into the back of the kennel. Waya jumped onto the truck bed and walked into the narrow crate. I heard her
crunching the dog biscuit. Russell slammed the door behind her. The kennel was just big enough for her to turn around and she did, keeping her eyes on Russell and me. Then he threw a treat for Oginali. She hesitated, looking fearfully up at Waya and then at Russell. Finally, she jumped up and slunk into her kennel. I didn’t hear her crunching the dog biscuit.

“She won’t eat until she’s sure Waya’s finished,” Russell explained. He slammed the gate of the truck. “Thanks. See ya later.”

“Wait … um, could I come visit Waya this week?”

Russell shook his head. “Not a good idea. Dad doesn’t like people seeing where he keeps them.”

I opened my mouth to tell Russell it was too late for that now, but quickly closed it again. He’d think I was a snoop. I didn’t let anything show on my face. Through the wire mesh of the kennel gate, I met Waya’s eyes. Again, in my mind, I saw her leaping to freedom. And I wondered, was it possible to exchange thoughts with an animal?

A
s darkness fell, the air cooled, and the sky turned deep purple. Nick went to a movie with his folks. He’d wanted to invite me, but his parents said no. It was family time. Daddy had stopped at the front desk to ask about white-water rafting, and Diana was helping Russell put the wolves back in their cages in the truck.

Diana acted all weird with those wolves, like she was obsessed with them or something, asking all those questions and running her hands over that one wolf’s
head. I can’t believe she was touching it like that! Was she crazy?

The path to our cabin was dark and kind of spooky, so I ran to catch up with Lynn. She stopped and waited for me, and when I reached her, she brushed hair from my forehead with her fingertips, real gently, just like Mama did sometimes.

“I wanted to ask you something,” Lynn said. “The horses scare you, don’t they?”

“Well … a little.”

Lynn slid her arm over my shoulder. “Would you like me to talk to your dad, get him to take the pressure off?” The pine needles on the path were quiet and springy under our feet. The flashlight beam caught a toad the size of an acorn hopping into the damp grass. A cricket chirped.

I took a deep breath. “You’d do that?”

“Sure.” We climbed the steps to the cabin, and Lynn fished the key from her back pocket. “I’ll talk with him tonight.”

“Wow, that would be great.” At that very minute I felt really relieved. Then, for some reason, I started to not feel so good about it. It felt like I was giving up. Not the kind of girl Daddy wanted me to be. Not perfect. But then I thought, why should I keep trying to be so perfect for Daddy? He’s already disappointed in me, so why bother?

I followed Lynn into the cabin living room. Lynn laid the flashlight on the kitchen counter, switched on a lamp, and headed back to the room she shared with Daddy.

“Hey, want to put on some music?” Lynn went into the bedroom, half-shutting the door. “And maybe we can play a family game when your dad and Diana get back.”

“Okay.” I lined up the CDs, glancing over when I saw Lynn pass across the half-open door to the bedroom. I used to follow Mama back into her room, lie on the bed, and watch her get ready to go places. Mama let me play with her jeweled glass perfume bottles and try on her lipsticks and blushes. Once, when I was about seven or eight, Mama let me wear her makeup to the grocery store. Daddy had gotten mad about that.

I didn’t go in Daddy and Lynn’s room now. I didn’t think Lynn was a person who wore perfume—I couldn’t smell it the way I could with Mama. I knew from just seeing a glimpse now and then that Lynn wore plain white underwear. She wore the same silver hoops in her ears every day, and had only one ring other than the one Daddy had given her. Lynn was a physician’s assistant, so she didn’t even dress up to go to work. She just wore a white jacket with her name on the pocket.

I put on a mixed CD. Lynn came out wearing a gray sweatshirt just as Daddy came in, carrying a couple of white-water-rafting brochures.

“So?” said Lynn. “What’d you find out?” They spread the brochures on the kitchen counter and sat on the tall stools there. Daddy massaged the back of Lynn’s neck. I crawled onto the stool beside Lynn and craned to see the pictures on the brochures of families in yellow rafts, wearing orange life vests and helmets, roaring down a river, screaming their fool heads off.

“Okay, we can go down the Big Pigeon or the Nantahala,” Daddy said. “Both of them have class three and four rapids. The Nantahala has one class five. The Nantahala is also much colder, apparently.”

“I went down the Nantahala in college and had a blast,” said Lynn. “But since you’re a city slicker, Norm, we probably ought to do the Big Pigeon. You know, very calm. Sort of like rafting in a warm bathtub. The city slicker river.” Lynn raised her eyebrows and smiled at Daddy in a real flirty way.

“I vote for the Big Pigeon,” I said. But nobody was paying any attention to me.

“You think I’m too chicken to go down the Nantahala?” Daddy was nose to nose with Lynn, half-smiling. He didn’t even look at me, but I started wondering, Is he trying to make it dangerous just to make me suck it up?

“I do,” said Lynn. Hooking her thumbs under her arms, she did an imitation of a chicken, flapping her elbows. “Brraak! Brrraaak!”

“Oh, yeah? I happen to be an excellent swimmer. I was a lifeguard in college.”

“Some shallow suburban gene pool, right?” Lynn teased. “You sat on a lifeguard stand and twirled a whistle to the right … then twirled your whistle to the left.” Lynn pantomimed whistle twirling. “Norm Verra … expert whistle twirler.”

Lynn pantomimed one last time, and Daddy tickled her ribcage. Lynn screamed and tried to get away. “Help, Stephanie!” she said, laughing, and she tried to get around the couch to dodge Daddy, but he caught up to her and tickled her without mercy. “Stephanie, tickle him, tickle him!” Lynn yelped.

I hesitated a minute, then ran up behind Daddy and started tickling him under the arms.

“Whoa!” Daddy turned around so fast I almost got an elbow in the head. And then both Daddy and Lynn started tickling me at the same time. I screamed and wriggled, and we all lost our balance and fell on the sofa. I was breathless and laughing, and my legs and arms were all tangled up with Daddy’s and Lynn’s. For a minute I forgot about how mad I felt and let happiness flow everywhere in my body like a warm wave.

“We are going down the Nantahala, folks, and that’s my final answer,” Daddy said with a chuckle. “Nobody calls me a chicken.”

“What about a pigeon? Has anybody ever called you a pigeon?” said Lynn.

I took a deep breath. The music on the CD went weaving all around us like a silk ribbon. I wanted Daddy to see the good parts of me, not just the parts that were scared.

The screen door squeaked and then slammed. Diana was standing in the doorway with an annoyed expression on her face.

“What are you guys doing?” Diana’s voice sounded mad.

“Nothing,” Daddy said. “Just a little family tickle-fest. Come on and join us.”

“No way,” said Diana. “You guys look ridiculous.” She headed on up to the loft.

“Hey, we’re going on a family white-water rafting trip day after tomorrow. Norm’s going to sign us up,” Lynn said to her. “Won’t that be fun?”

“I’m not going,” said Diana from the top of the stairs. “I’m riding every day.”

“No, this is going to be a family thing, sweetie; we’re all going,” said Lynn.

“Not me,” came Diana’s voice from deep in the loft bedroom.

“Just a minute, young lady; you stop right there,” said Lynn. She untangled her arm from around me and sat up, looking upstairs.

“What?” said Diana, looking down at us over the loft railing.

“When I want to talk to you, you don’t just walk away. Come back downstairs,” Lynn said, and this time she said it louder.

“No!”

Lynn stood up with her hands on her hips. “Diana, let’s not get in a big argument about this. This is a family vacation and our whole family is going to go white-water rafting. Including you. You’ll get to ride plenty.”

“First of all, we are not a ‘family,’” Diana said, holding her hands and making air quotations. “Second of all, I’m not arguing. I’m just not going.” She glared at all of us and turned away.

I didn’t care whether Diana went rafting. I wanted out myself. But I couldn’t imagine saying all that stuff that Diana was saying.

“Diana, your mother told you to come downstairs.” Daddy’s voice was louder than usual.

“You have nothing to do with me!” Diana said.

I glanced at Daddy’s face and saw it turn all red. I curled into a tight ball in the corner of the couch.

“Diana!” Daddy was shouting now. “Come downstairs
right this minute and apologize to your mother for being disrespectful.”

“I’m not doing anything!” Diana’s mad face showed above the railing again.

Daddy got white spots on his cheeks and he pointed his finger at her. I could only remember one time he’d gotten this mad before, and that was at Mama. “And you WILL go rafting with the rest of this family day after tomorrow.”

“I will not!”

“You will come down here now!”

“You can’t tell me what to do!” Diana yelled.

“Norm, calm down, let me talk to her,” Lynn said, touching Daddy’s arm.

Daddy yanked his arm away from Lynn. “I won’t put up with this kind of behavior!” he told her, then shouted upstairs. “That’s it, you won’t set foot in that barn for the rest of the week!”

“No! I hate you!” Diana screamed and ran back into the bedroom.

Lynn ran her fingers through her hair and whispered to Daddy. “Norm, calm down.”

Daddy glared at Lynn. “You don’t think she needs to be punished after talking to us like that?”

“No, of course she needs to be punished, but grounding her from the barn for the rest of our vacation is just extreme. That’s all she lives for.”

Daddy used his regular voice. “Well, give me a minute to calm down. I realize I lost my temper. We should always act with love, I realize that.”

I tried to be silent and invisible as I slid off the couch and climbed the stairs.

“Listen, Norm, she’s a difficult child. It’s hard to deal with her.”

“Fine, I won’t. I’m going for a walk.”

“We can’t be fighting about these things in front of the kids.”

“Fine. Come with me.”

Lynn glanced up at the loft, and then followed Daddy to the door. The screen door slammed behind them, and their voices got fainter as they headed down the pine needle path. From the top of the stairs I watched the flashlight bob through the trees, shooting beams every which way as Daddy waved his hands around, complaining to Lynn. Daddy and Mama never fought like this. They just didn’t talk, period. I didn’t know which was worse.

I wanted to leave. Go outside and crawl into a hole somewhere. I knelt on my bed, watching Diana cry her eyes out.

“I hate him, I hate him, I hate him! All I want to do is ride! I wish Mom had never met him!”

I felt heat in the back of my skull, hearing Diana say that about Daddy, but I couldn’t help thinking that I kind of hated him right now, too.

And just that very minute, I realized I’d also wished Mama had never met Barry, only I’d never dared to say it out loud. There was something really true about a lot of what Diana said. I felt like I should tell her.

“You know,” I said to Diana. “I know what you mean. I used to feel so sure about Mama’s love before she got married to Barry, and ever since then I sometimes wonder if now I come in second to him.”

She blinked and looked at me for a second, then rolled away from me.

I sat on the edge of Diana’s bed and watched her cry. I wanted to pat her on the back or touch her hair, but Diana was so mad I was almost afraid she might bite or scratch me. Finally I reached out my hand and stroked Diana’s arm. It felt hot and damp.

“I don’t think he should try to make you go,” I said, and my voice sounded all scared and teeny, which made me madder at myself. “It’s a vacation.” I pulled my hand back but swallowed and went on. “I bet Daddy’ll change his mind. Lynn’ll talk him out of it.”

Diana didn’t answer.

I heaved a sigh. Downstairs, the music played, and a woman’s sad voice sang about a girl on her own for the first time, making breakfast by herself. I wiped my wet face but tears just kept sliding out of the corners of my eyes.

I
slid out from under the thick comforter, yanked jeans and a sweatshirt over my pajamas. I glanced at Stephanie, asleep in the next bed. Carrying my shoes, I tiptoed down the stairs past Mom and Norm’s closed door. In the kitchen, I grabbed the flashlight from the counter and went out onto the front porch.

Outside, the near-full moon shone like a silver coin in the dark sky. The mountain air felt unbelievably cold for July. I sat in one of the ancient rocking chairs
to put my shoes on, but it squeaked. I lowered myself to the edge of the porch. I tied my shoes, then hurried, shivering in the clammy darkness, across the gravel parking lot toward the lodge.

I’d been so mad! So freaking mad! Almost like little sparks going off behind my eyes. Everything seemed sharp and bright and hard. And I felt a mean, hard dullness in the pit of my stomach.

A definite nine point seven five on the Moronic Mood-o-Meter. Dr. Shrink would be so proud that I stopped to figure that out, wouldn’t she?

The bad part wasn’t Norm yelling at me. It was that Mom hadn’t even stood up for me. For all of my life, it had been me and Mom against the world. Now everything felt hopeless, like Mom was never going to be on my side again. So, I was going to do this one thing. Then I was running away to Dad’s house in Florida. And never coming back.

As I headed toward the lodge, the wind in my face felt cold. A full moon slid from behind the clouds and lit up the high valley nestled in the pine-forested peaks. Moonlight hit the roofs of the barn and the cabins. It spilled like milk across the sloped grazing pastures, highlighting the white salt blocks that the cows and horses licked. I could swipe a bike from the front of the lodge and ride it almost the whole way to the wolves’
pen. I’d only have to climb on foot over a rock formation the last twenty yards or so.

I grabbed the handlebars of one of the bikes, and gravel crunched under the tires as I backed it out of the rack.

“Diana! Wait!”

I turned around and saw Stephanie, hurrying to close the thirty yards between us.

“What the heck are you doing?” Anger raced through me like the wick on a stick of dynamite.

“You can’t do this! You can’t! Please!” Stephanie had on only her pajamas and a pair of flip-flops. What an idiot. She was going to freeze. She grabbed another one of the bikes.

“You don’t even know what I’m doing!” I turned away. Pushed off. I couldn’t believe this. Maybe, if I rode fast enough, I could lose her.

Icy wind stung my cheeks as I raced downhill toward the ranch entrance and took a hard right, ignoring Stephanie’s shouts. But as I headed up the trail I’d found this afternoon, now lit with patches of bluish moonlight, I started having doubts. If Stephanie ended up lost and scared on the side of the mountain somewhere, guess who Mom and Norm would blame. Duh. I skidded to a stop. Straddled the bike. “What do you want?”

“Let me come with you.” Stephanie peddled up the trail, then dropped one foot to the ground. Her whole body shivered in the thin pajamas.

“You have no idea what I’m doing.”

“Yes, I do. You’re runnin’ away.”

“What do you care? Once I leave, you could have Mom and Norm all to yourself.”

Stephanie’s mouth dropped open, like this was all totally news to her. “What are you talkin’ about? Come on, let me come. I feel like I know how you feel about things.”

“You don’t even know me. We barely know each other at all.”

“Hey, I really felt sorry for you after Daddy yelled at you tonight. I mean, I knew what you were talkin’ about. I was on your side.”

I had one foot up on the bicycle pedal. Now I put it back down. “So what. That doesn’t change anything.”

“If you run away, where would you stay? What are you gonna eat? How are you gonna get around?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.” I started pushing my bike up the hill. “Before I go, I have something else to do first.”

“What?” Stephanie pushed her bike up behind me.

“None of your business.”

“If you don’t let me come, I’ll tell ‘em you sneaked out tonight.”

“Yeah, but so did you!”

“But I’m followin’ you, tryin’ to get you to come home.”

“Home. That’s a laugh.”

Suddenly a wolf howled. Another one joined in the singing, the two sad voices lacing their way through the treetops to the scattered stars.

I lifted my head and listened and caught a sudden glitter in Stephanie’s eyes.

“You’re gonna let the wolves go, aren’t you?” Stephanie whispered.

I waited a minute too long before saying, “What are you talking about?”

Stephanie pushed her bike up beside me. “You think Russell’s daddy mistreats them. I saw the way he yanked the chain.”

I met Stephanie’s gaze. Stephanie’s entire body shook with the cold, but somehow she kept steady eye contact.

“Well, I’m not waiting for you.”

“I’ll keep up.”

“And don’t get in my way.”

“I won’t.”

I started back up the hill. This might be a huge mistake. But what could I do? It was too late now. I couldn’t take Stephanie back. I stood up on the bike pedals as the path got steeper. Stephanie’s breath behind me was coming in high-pitched bursts. Man, she irritated me.

I thought back to the time I’d hung out with Russell back at the lodge. With animals, he was the way I’d always wanted to be. Like a magnet. The wolves trusted him, stood close to him, lay down at his feet. I hadn’t wanted to leave.

At one point I’d crouched very low on the ground and moved very slowly and, at last, Oginali allowed me to touch her head with the tips of my fingers.

Would you like to go free, girl? Would you?

One of the adults had asked Russell if Oginali and Waya ever tried to escape.

“Every day,” Russell had said.

The path got narrower. The straight trunks of pines closed in more tightly on either side. Not far away, an owl screeched. Something—probably a bat—flew too close to my head with an eerie, muted fluttering. I shivered.

And then, again, I heard the howls. Two voices, long and high and lonesome. I stopped. Glanced up at the moon, which was half hidden by a single gray cloud. Russell had said that wolves’ howling at the moon was a myth and that they hardly howled at all. He’d said sometimes people heard coyotes and thought they were wolves. But that sure seemed like it came from the direction of the wolf pen.

“Diana?” Stephanie’s voice behind me sounded scared. I ignored her.

The trail got so steep I had to walk the bike the last twenty yards to the foot of the rock face. Then I laid it on its side. I could see the gleam of the metal mesh fence just over the rock’s summit. My ears and the tip of my nose were so cold they hurt. I cupped my fingers over my mouth. Blew on them.

“I’m so cold.” Stephanie’s whining was driving me batty. Her teeth were chattering and I wanted to knock them out. She dropped her bike on the path. I found hand and footholds, pulled myself up to a narrow ledge on the rock face. Stephanie was never going to get a foothold wearing flip-flops.

“Just stay at the bottom,” I said. “If you try to climb you’ll fall.”

“No,” said Stephanie. “I want to come.”

I gritted my teeth. Let out a howl of frustration. Then, finally, I crouched on the ledge. “Put your right foot there, on that little place that sticks out.” She actually did it. “Now put your hand on that bump and pull up. Good. Okay, now take my hand.”

I reached down, clasped Stephanie’s cold fingers, and pulled. I felt my weight start to pitch forward. For a second I thought I was going to fall. I scrambled backward, pulling Stephanie halfway up, then sat down hard. I grabbed Stephanie’s wrists. “Can you get up now? Move your feet around and find somewhere to put your toes.”

Stephanie flailed with her legs. She finally found a place for her foot, and scrambled, on her stomach, until she was lying halfway on the ledge. “I think my toes are bleeding,” she said. She wedged one knee up over the edge, pulled herself into a sitting position. “Omigosh, I can’t look down.”

“Then don’t.” I started up the narrow rocky path, reached upward. If I said another thing to her I might shake her teeth out. Hooked my fingers through the icy metal diamonds of the chain link fence. “Hold on to the fence,” I told Stephanie. “The electric part is only those wires on top.”

The blue moonlight caught the fence’s diamond-shaped pattern. A sound separated itself into a low growl.

“What’s that?” Stephanie’s voice held panic.

“The wolves, duh.”

Stephanie made a frightened sound. “Keep climbing,” I said. Using the bottom of the fence for handholds, we were able to climb sideways the rest of the way up the slope. The growling got louder.

I stood, finally on level ground, and scanned the darkness inside the pen. Would the wolves’ eyes glow in the dark, like a cat’s? Stephanie came up behind me, grabbed me by the elbow. She was shaking so much and standing so close that her knees were bumping my calves.

“Where are they? Can you see them?” The growling stopped.

I unpeeled Stephanie’s fingers from my elbow. “Not yet. Let’s walk around the edge and find the gate.” We started around the pen. There was a tree inside, and a few rocks, but none close to the fence. Russell had said the wolves could climb anything close to the fence and get out.

Stephanie pointed to a shadowed structure back in the woods about forty yards away. “Is that Mr. Morgan’s cabin?”

I looked through the woods at the darkened cabin. “Oh! Yeah, it must be.”

“We don’t want to wake him up.”

“Thanks, Sherlock.” No wonder she makes straight A’s.

“So, are you just going to open the gate, or what?”

“I don’t know. Russell said his dad had to put a couple of locks on there. I don’t know if I can get it open. He said once these scientists did this experiment to see who was smarter, a wolf or a dog. They left each one in a closed garage and left a garage door opener on the floor. After four hours, the German shepherd was asleep in the garage, waiting for someone to come let him out. Guess how long it took the wolf to figure out how to work the garage door opener.”

“I don’t know. An hour?”

“Try ninety seconds.”

“No, really? Did you make that up?”

“No, I swear, Russell said it was a real experiment. Wolves are smart.”

“That is amazing,” Stephanie said. She looked into the dark pen, more curious now.

I looked, too. Was something moving?

“What’s gonna happen when they get out?” Stephanie asked.

“I don’t know.” I wished she would quit asking stupid questions. “No one will ever see them again.”

“Won’t Russell and Maggie miss them?”

I stopped and stared at Stephanie, opened my mouth to answer, then closed it and kept walking. “He wanted me to do this. He’d do it himself if he could, I know it.”

“What if they attack us when they get out?”

“NO! They’ll just run away.”

“Are you sure?”

“No!” Halfway around the pen, we found the gate, which was secured with two combination locks and a length of thick chain. I yanked on them both. Neither gave. I glanced over at the cabin in the woods. Still dark.

The growling started up again. Two shadows melted out of the darkness. Oginali was flat on the ground and
Waya sat nearly motionless, watching us. They could have been statues.

Then Waya stepped forward. Moonlight painted the tips of her fur a milky blue. Her eyes gleamed a translucent greenish-orange. The moment spun out slowly as I met her narrowed eyes. I knelt, curling my fingers through the fence.

“Hey, Waya. Hey, girl. It’s me, Diana,” I said to the darkness. “Come on over.” I stuck my hand through the enclosure.

“Diana! Are you crazy?”

“I don’t think they’ll bite me.” I held my hand still, remembering Waya’s nose touching it earlier tonight, and I held it out for Waya to sniff.

Waya took one step closer. Changed her mind and started to pace. Her ears, eyes, and nostrils seemed like a living computer, collecting information with lightning speed.

I started thinking out loud. “We could dig a hole under the fence. If we dug a small hole, maybe the wolves would even finish the job.”

“Wouldn’t we need a shovel?” Stephanie crossed her arms and clamped her hands under her armpits to warm them.

I glanced at the wolves. Waya was still pacing, kind of growling. Oginali slunk into the shadows.

“What about a log?” said Stephanie. “We could lean it up against the fence. They could walk up it.”

I stared at Stephanie. Could she have actually come up with a decent idea?

“Not bad. C’mon, help me look for a log.”

“Seriously?” Stephanie hesitantly followed me into the woods.

I scanned the dark ground with the narrow beam of the flashlight. I found one log, but it fell apart when I tried to move it.

“Diana, I’m so cold, I can’t feel my hands or feet,” Stephanie said. Whined is more like it.

“It was your idea to look for a log.”

After another minute of searching I found a skinny tree leaning at an angle. It had fallen and been caught by the branches of another tree. It had a narrow trunk, only about four inches across. I worried it wouldn’t be wide enough, but at least we could carry it.

I hoisted up the lower end. Propped it on my hip. “C’mon, lift the other end.”

“It might have splinters,” said Stephanie. “Or bugs.”

I glared at her.

Stephanie sighed. She put her hands on the trunk and quickly removed them. “There’s something slimy on there.”

“Stephanie!” I hissed. Then I don’t know why, I just started laughing.

Stephanie looked at me wide-eyed, then she started laughing, too. “Fine, I’m prissy, I admit it.” With that she took both palms and slapped them firmly on the trunk. “Okay, go.” She groaned and then staggered backward when she tried to lift the tree, but finally managed to get it balanced, and we worked our way out of the woods. We made a huge amount of noise, crashing through leaves, fighting branches, snapping sticks. I double-checked again to make sure the cabin was still dark. So far so good.

At last we got the trunk out onto the path. Panting and sweating now even in the cold, we lugged the tree back to the fence.