Sister Wolf Read Free Page B

years for acceptance in their new country. Swan grew fat, and weighed a hundred and sixty pounds. Old George developed mange scabs, which no medicine had cured. From boredom, not adjustment to captivity, Swan and Lakona had mated and bred two live wolf pups. For a while the pups were taken away from Lakona. She had been grooming them compulsively, licking and nipping until there were raw spots on their skin. The wolves slept most of the day, although visitors tried to tease them into action. Young girls would cling to their boyfriends’ arms, begging them not to get close to the cage, while the brave swains bayed and barked at the indolent animals.
    One day Marit had walked, on an impulse, into the office of Harrison Feitler, the zoo’s director, who had encouraged her to make her land into a wildlife refuge, and had offered her the zoo’s resources to help her start it. Feitler had just put down the telephone. The wolves in their atrophy haunted him. He was trying to work out an exchange with Basel, the cageless zoo, but Basel was more interested in the white Siberian wolf than in the North American gray wolf. Forthwith and outright, Feitler had given his wolves to Marit, warning her only of their hostility to the lynx.
    Now, as she watched them in the beam of her flashlight, shivering and uncertain, she knew how far their wildness had been compromised. Was she a stouter guardian than the iron bars of their cage? She had rescued them from humiliation, but she could not guarantee their safety. She had put up a fence, but the fence might be too low, or the lock too easy. The zoo had a squad of keepers; she was the only warden of her preserve. In order to protect the wolves, she must harbor them in secret. She had already lied to the Wildlife Registrar by omitting any mention of them in the list of animals that her land would shelter.
    Marit was used to keeping secrets. She guarded herself closely, since she did not like people well enough to give them any rope to hang her. Wolves are the most important northern predator upon the larger mammals; people are the only predators of wolves. In the zoo the wolves were prisoners; behind bars they could be mistaken for big lazy dogs. Roaming unlicensed on her estate, they would be outlaws. They already had a legendary criminal record. Every right-thinking person knew that wolves attacked homesteads, ravaged herds, relished a child as much as a calf, cheated the hunter out of his yearly kill, loomed against the moonlight with red eyes and rabid jaws. They looked the part, with their deep chests and tapering skulls, and evil self-sharpening flesh teeth. The power of their bite was supernormal; they could leap on the rump of a bull moose and tear to a depth of four inches through the finely packed hair and hide. In fact, they were shy and private; they mated for life and stayed in a jealous family circle. They were as frail as Marit—even frailer, for they pulled hatred the way magnets pull metal filings.
    Marit loved wolves more than any other animal, because they were the most reclusive and least valued. They tallied with her image of herself, but she did not try to scale them to her size. They were creatures and she was human, and she cherished the difference more than any likeness. When she was close to the wolves, she would learn what they could teach her: loyalty, endurance, stoicism, and courage, the traits that made them symbols of survival.
    She heard a thump and saw Joe leaning into the van. He took out a burlap sack and threw it into the woods. It was full of mice, and the bag was soaked with meat blood. The elder wolves regrouped and consulted in low growls. Swan took off after the lure, but the young wolves balked and whimpered until Lakona nudged them rudely from behind.
    Joe shut the doors and locked the back end of the van.
    “They’ve gone,” he called. “They’ll be safe now.”
    Marit shook her head, but he could not see her. The van backed out and she fastened