Akela and Raksha have to say about it.” Then, they fell to talking of other things. I recorded everything, even the belches.
Who were Akela and Raksha? I filed the names away for future reference.
The next morning Sam couldn’t wait to get rid of me. I took my pack and equipment and started back east over the ridge. Goldie took off and soared above me about sixty or seventy feet. Sam seemed to think Jack wouldn’t let me get lost or maybe he just didn’t care.
I kept walking. Near an outcropping of granite a voice behind me said: “Be very still.”
I stopped dead and didn’t move. A wolf the mixed color of wheat and iron appeared in front of me as quickly and suddenly as if it had been excreted from the earth. I had no idea where it came from.
This was no coyote or dog, but a big shouldered, deep-chested animal that had to be well over a hundred pounds. Its mouth was open and it panted slightly. I could see the bright white teeth below the heavy skull. Its eyes were yellow and watched me without any fear whatsoever. It glanced occasionally away from me-checking on Jack, perhaps. It didn’t have the half-myopic look of a dog; I could tell there was nothing wrong with its eyesight.
I was surprised it didn’t sniff me to find out who I was. I half started to hold out my hand to be sniffed as I would to a dog and its behavior changed totally. Gone was the easy appraisal to be replaced by a closed-mouth, no-nonsense menace. I lowered my hand back to my side very, very carefully.
This seemed to be enough and it made a low huffing sound. Behind me, I heard a similar sound as a reply. The wolf turned and trotted away.
I slowly relaxed and Jack put a hand on my shoulder. “Looks like you can stay for a while.”
“Was that Akela or Raksha?”
“Raksha, Akela’s mate. Akela is the alpha wolf. Raksha’s pups are behind the rock so she had to approve you before you could stay. Akela is off hunting somewhere but he’ll check you out when he gets back.” He started walking away. “I’ll show you where you can set up camp. We’ll be staying here another month or so before we head up north with the rest of the pack. If Akela approves, you can stay.”
Goldie came down and landed on my shoulder. I hoped she had caught some good footage. Something occurred to me. “Is my bird going to be all right?”
Jack stopped and turned back to me. “I think so. We’re all eating pretty well right now, though Akela might try to catch it just for sport if it gets too close. There are other hawks all around here but they don’t get close to the wolves. Why did you bring your pet along?”
“It’s my camera.”
“Ah.”
Jack led me to a spot that I thought was ridiculously close to where I knew the pups were but I figured he knew what he was doing. Then, he started walking away.
“Jack. I’ll need to talk to you at some point.”
He stopped and considered that. “Some kind of interview, I expect.”
“Yes.”
“Not now. I have to help Raksha.”
“When?”
“We’ll see.” He pointed to the top of the rock.
“You can watch from there, if you like.”
“Won’t that make Raksha nervous?”
Jack laughed shortly. “She knows you’re no threat.”
“Are you the one who named them?”
He nodded. “They sure don’t need them.”
Setting up camp consisted of pulling the ripcord on the tent and tossing it about six feet away. The tent took care of the rest. Human-interest stories usually happen at interfaces of conflict. Wilderness/civilization, suburbs/city, neighboring tribes. I had been out into the bush before. I had a lovely little tent with an active skin. Tiny engines moved air through the pores, warming or cooling as needed, storing power from the sun. My jacket was similarly designed and kept itself clean. Active cloth is a bit stiff so, like most people, I didn’t wear it. I had a nice shirt and pants that kept me warm at night and cool in the heat of day and would have fooled an Arab into thinking they were made of the finest cotton. The tent had a bag that if I left my clothes in it they would be magically fresh and soft the next morning. I knew where it was in the dark; it was right next to the water condenser. I had a food dispenser that would make nutritious bread from grass or any other source of cellulose, but that was for emergencies. I had brought a collection of freeze-dried meals. They made up most of the weight in my pack; the tent and sleeping bag took up no more space than a shoebox. Less, actually, since I had left out the entertainment unit. I find it distracting.
I climbed up on the rock to set the scene.
I knew where I was from several instruments: my locators, the map section of interface to the feeds, from my phone. I was north of Forsyth and south of the Fort Peck Lake. To the west of me the Rockies curved away towards Canada. The Missouri River started carving through the Dakota and Nebraska plains to the east of me. I could even bring a little piece of civilization here with a phone call or a request to the feeds.
But it was small tinder as I stood there on the rock and looked around.
Here, the world was huge.
On the slow rolling plain there were no trees and it felt as if I could touch the edge of the world. The sky was such a broad and featureless blue I became disoriented and had to look away before I fell down. The colors of the land were as diverse as the sky’s were singular: russets, purples, grays, yellows, ambers-an infinite impressionist palette.
Good stuff, I thought. I made notes and made sure Goldie was getting good panorama shots.
Below me, Raksha and Jack were doing a strange sort of skip-jump in the grass. Raksha would move slowly for a bit, then stop, frozen. After a moment, she inched forward, then pounced. She flipped some nondescript piece of fur into the air and caught it, chewed it a moment, and swallowed it down. After twenty or thirty of these, she trotted back towards me-or, rather, to the rock I was standing on. The pups spilled out onto the grass and she gently regurgitated some food for them.
I knew immediately what sort of thing was going to end up on the cutting-room floor.
Jack, for his part, was doing the same thing. He stalked these things carefully and snatched them out of the grass with his hands. I could see them more clearly when he picked them up. They were rodents of some kind. He was a bit less flamboyant when he ate them. Instead of tossing them in the air, he broke their necks with his fingers and then munched them down like they were chicken legs.
After she made sure her puppies had cleaned their plates, Raksha trotted back to the grass and rejoined Jack. The puppies played in front of the den. Apparently, Jack had eaten enough and as she sat and watched him, he caught rodent after rodent and tossed them to her, all in complete silence. Even the puppies’ enthusiastic cries were muted.
After perhaps an hour, Jack finished and walked over a small hummock and lay down. Raksha made herself comfortable lying next to him and leaned her head on his shoulder. He rested his hand on her shoulder. The two of them looked intimate, like a long married couple lying together. I felt curiously intrusive.
I checked on Goldie. She had been shooting the whole thing.
I waved to him and he ignored me for a moment. Then, he waved me away.
I would have to be patient.
That night, as I sat drinking tea in front of my tent, I listened to the crickets and frogs sing. I had sort of expected Jack to join me at my tent. For a lot of isolated people, a man drinking tea in front of a tent, symbolizing as it does an outpost of what they had left behind, was an irresistible lure. Not Jack. He paid no more attention to me than he did the rock. I didn’t even know where he was sleeping. Not in Raksha’s den-it was much too small. The heat unit put out a glow all around, looking for all the world like a campfire.
I had cooked a little curry, a little bacon, some brownies. A few things to tempt a person in the wild living exclusively on raw rodent. Nothing.
This might be trickier than I had thought.
