temple of nature, and my mother threw religion at me like a bucket of paint, but none of it ever stuck.
I find myself thinking of the first week I was in Thailand, when I noticed little decorative houses on pedestals in front of hotels, in the corners of restaurants, in front of local bars, in the middle of the woods, and in the yard of every house. Some were permanent, made of brick and wood. Some were temporary. Each house was filled with statues, furniture, figures of people or animals. On the balconies were incense holders, candlesticks, flower vases.
Most Thai are Buddhists, but bits of the old beliefs still creep through every now and then, like these spirit houses. Even now, the Thai feel that spirits need shelter when they aren’t in the heavens, in caves, or trees, or waterfalls. The Guardian Spirits of the Land offer different types of protection: from helping in business affairs to safeguarding the home, from protecting animals, forests, water, and barns to watching over temples and forts. In the six years I’ve been in Thailand, I’ve seen spirit house offerings ranging from flowers and bananas and rice to cigarettes and live chickens.
Here’s the interesting thing about spirit houses: when a family moves, there’s a special ceremony to transfer the spirit from its original spirit house to its new place of residence. Only after that can you get rid of the place the spirit used to call its home.
Looking at the husk of my father in his hospital bed, I wonder if he’s already moved on.
I hated college. There were too many buildings, too much concrete. It seemed counterintuitive to be studying zoology from textbooks instead of sitting quietly for hours in the woods, experiencing animals firsthand. I had my fair share of women and parties, but you’d be just as likely to find me hiking the Presidential Range, or camping in the White Mountains. It got to the point where I could pick out the distinctive voices of a great gray owl or a bohemian waxwing, a pine grosbeak or black-throated blue warbler. I tracked black bear and white-tailed deer and moose.
When I graduated with a degree in zoology, I got hired as a keeper at the only zoo in New Hampshire, down in the Manchester area. Wigglesworth Animal Park was a privately owned establishment that was half petting zoo with a handful of wild animals thrown into the mix. I worked my way up from the alpacas to the fisher cats to the red fox and finally to the wolves. The pack of five was kept in a small double-fenced enclosure with thick trees and a ridged rise that the wolves would sit on during the daytime hours. Every three days one of the keepers would bring in food-the carcass of a calf purchased from an abattoir. Anyone who entered would carry a ski pole-and it wasn’t just the wolf keepers who did this but also those who worked with the cougars or the black bear or any other big animal. I don’t know what damage any of us could really have inflicted with a ski pole, but it wasn’t necessary, anyway. The wolves were far more scared of us than we were of them. The minute they heard the lock on the double gate being opened, they would rush through the thickest part of the wooded area to the den at the far northeast corner of the enclosure. We’d leave the carcass, and only long after we were out of the enclosure would they venture back to eat.
The day I first went in without a ski pole, I was checking the fence-part of the routine of a keeper. But instead of doing my duty and hightailing it out of the enclosure, I decided to sit and stay. Unarmed and uneasy, my blood racing with adrenaline, I sat down on the ridge where I’d seen the wolves settle daily, and I waited.
I was thinking that, like the deer and the moose I’d encountered as a child, these animals might eventually feel comfortable enough with me to go about their business as usual.
I was thinking wrong.
After five days of my sitting in the wolf enclosure, with the other keepers convinced I had a screw loose, not a single animal had approached me.
I have been asked so many times what made me choose this path in life. I think part of it was that animals have always been straight with me, but humans haven’t. But the other part is that I don’t take no for an answer very easily. So instead of giving up and going back to animal care with a ski pole, I thought about what I might be doing wrong.
And then I realized that I might not have a ski pole with me but I still had the advantage. When I’d been a boy, I’d sneak out at dusk and dawn to see the animals-but they made themselves scarce midday. If I wanted to put the wolves at ease, I had to approach them when they had the upper hand. So I went to my boss and asked for permission to stay in the wolf enclosure overnight.
Mind you, once the park closed its gates, at 6:00 P.M., the keepers all went home. There was a skeleton staff in place overnight, but only for emergencies. My boss told me I could do what I wanted, but I could see from the look on his face he thought he’d be hiring a new keeper after this one died of his injuries.
It’s hard for me to describe what it was like, locking myself inside the enclosure that first time. At the beginning, all that existed was pure panic. The dark had a heartbeat, and I couldn’t see well enough to know where the roots of the trees were sticking up. I could hear the movement of the wolves, but I also knew they had the ability to stalk silently if they were so inclined. I tripped my way to my usual spot-the ridge-and sat down. Unfamiliar sounds from all over the wildlife park pinned me in place. This is what you wanted, I told myself.
I tried to close my eyes and sleep, but I couldn’t relax. Instead, I began counting stars, and before I knew it, the yolk of the sun was breaking on the horizon.
It was great to work with the wolves during the day, but I was really there to keep the people who came to the park from doing stupid things, like throwing them food or leaning too close to the fence. In the nighttime, though, I was alone with these magnificent animals, these kings and queens of the half-light. At the end of their day they weren’t worrying about paying the bills, or what they were going to eat for breakfast, or what to do about the crack in the concrete, man-made pond. All that mattered was that they were together, and that they were safe.
For the next four nights, I locked myself into the wolf pen after the last zookeeper had gone home. And every night, the wolves stayed as far away from me as possible. On the fifth night, just after midnight, I got up and moved from the ridge to the rear of the fenced area. Two of the wolves bounded toward the spot where I’d been sitting. They sniffed the ground and one of them urinated. Then they moved away from the ridge, and spent the rest of their night staring at me with their yellow eyes.
On the sixth night, the wolf we called Arlo approached me. He moved in a slow circle, sniffing, before moving away.
He did the same thing on the seventh and eighth nights, too.
On the ninth night, he sniffed and circled and turned as if he were going to walk away but then whipped around and bit me on the knee.
It wasn’t a painful bite. He could have easily gone for my throat if he’d wanted to. It was just a nip, and it scared me more than it hurt me.
The real power of a wolf isn’t in its fearsome jaws, which can clench with fifteen hundred pounds of pressure per square inch. The real power of a wolf is having that strength, and knowing when not to use it.
I didn’t move. I figured if I tried to get up and leave the enclosure, Arlo might take me down and deliver a lot worse than a nip. Paralyzed by fear, I waited for Arlo to trot away. I didn’t move until the sunrise.
Much later I would learn that this terror probably is what kept me alive that night. When a new member comes to a pack-a lone wolf, for example, filling a vacancy-he’s tested to prove that he’s capable of holding the position, and that he will not threaten the others in the family. This test takes the form of a bite. If the new wolf doesn’t expose his throat to highlight his vulnerability and ask for trust, the wolves already in the pack will do what they must to teach him a lesson. If I’d flinched when Arlo nipped me, or gotten up and run out of the enclosure, I could have been killed.
The next night, Arlo bit me again. After two weeks, my knees, calves, and ankles were covered
