Lone Wolf A Novel Read online

  This is a unique case. Often when probate court becomes involved in a situation of guardianship, it’s because no one wants to step up to the plate and make the hard decisions. In this case, we have two very different individuals who both want the job. But we also have something that most wards do not have—a written and video testimony by Luke Warren himself. His autobiography and the countless hours of film, both televised and amateur, that show him in his element give us a very strong sense of the kind of man he was and what he would want if someone’s judgment was being substituted for his own. I have been impressed by how far Luke Warren’s children are willing to go for him. I have been impressed by Mr. Warren’s life, and how much he’s accomplished. I’ve been impressed by the adventurous spirit that is packed into the chapters of his book and by the colleagues on camera who never fail to mention that sense of excitement and that constant adrenaline which were part of being around Mr. Warren.

  All of this points to a man who would not relish the thought of being bedridden, at best.

  And yet.

  The Luke Warren that was shown to the world was only one facet of the man. If you read between the lines of his book, you can just make out the shadow of another story. The hero in his autobiography isn’t a hero at all. He’s a failure—someone who couldn’t live with the animals he came to revere, and more important, someone who couldn’t manage to live by their code when he was apart from them. You’ve heard both Cara and Edward say it in their testimonies: to a wolf, family matters most. But Mr. Warren abandoned his family—literally, when he went into the woods of Quebec, and figuratively, when he carried on an extramarital affair that led to a terminated pregnancy.

  I’ve never spoken directly to Mr. Warren. But I think that it probably hurt him to know that his son’s instinct was to leave home when the going got tough. A wolf would have never let his offspring out of his sight.

  On the other hand, Cara’s idealism is based on the very foundation of a family mattering most. The odds are against Mr. Warren’s survival, but the reason she is advocating for it so strongly is simply because she doesn’t want to live without her father. And if Mr. Warren is lucky enough to be one of those medical anomalies who defies science, I think he’d be delighted to get a second chance. Not just at survival but at being a father.

  For this reason, I think Cara’s beliefs dovetail with Mr. Warren’s deepest wishes. I’d urge the court to appoint her as a guardian and to allow Cara to make appropriate arrangements for her father’s treatment.

  LUKE

  After the Animal Planet series, I got a call from a biologist near Yellowstone. A hiker had been found in the woods, his body half devoured by wolves. It had raised fear in a community that had long ago accepted the release of wild wolves into the Rockies.

  Some of the researchers felt that the wolves had killed for sport, but I didn’t believe it. I had never seen wolves behave that way toward a fellow predator, which is how they view man. Nothing in pack behavior suggests that food should be convenient rather than carefully chosen.

  So why had wolves, which I had sworn would never attack a man, done just that?

  I flew out to Yellowstone.

  The area where the hiker had been killed had been stripped for timber. In fact, there was hardly a forest at all anymore. Without the cover and vegetation of the natural woods, the prey animals—deer and elk, mostly—had dwindled. The wolves had started eating salmon from the rivers instead.

  I went back home and followed up on my hunch with one of my captive packs. Instead of giving them meat, I only fed them fish. Unlike with a land-based animal carcass—a food that has emotional value in the chemicals that run through the muscles and internal organs—now everyone was getting the same meal.

  It was socialism among wolves. They were no longer eating in hierarchy, making sure that different ranks got different types of meat. Within a few months, the pack fell apart. There was no discernible alpha or beta rank. There was no discipline. Each wolf to his own, every animal did whatever he or she wanted. Instead of a family, they had become a gang.

  The reason the pack at Yellowstone went after the hiker, I think, is that the natural food supply had dwindled, and the only source left to them was one that inadvertently destroyed the ranks. They killed the poor man because there was no wolf there telling them not to.

  Sometimes, it’s like this for a pack. You have to reach the point of utter chaos before a new leader can emerge.

  CARA

  You would think that having the temporary guardian’s stamp of approval would have me turning cartwheels, but the judge does something no one is expecting.

  He schedules a field trip.

  Which is how I come to be standing beside my brother outside the glass window of my father’s ICU room, watching the judge hold a one-sided private conversation with our unconscious father.

  Joe rode the elevator downstairs with my mother, who’s gone home to pick the twins up from the bus stop. Zirconia is in the lounge, talking to a therapy dog.

  “What do you think LaPierre is saying?” Edward asks.

  “A novena?” I suggest.

  “Maybe he needs to see with his own eyes what a vegetative state looks like.”

  “Or maybe,” I counter, “he’s hoping to see Dad wake up again.”

  “Open his eyes,” Edward corrects.

  “Same difference.”

  “Cara,” he says, towering over me, “it’s not.”

  My mother used to talk about Edward’s growth spurts. I used to think that meant Edward sprouted overnight, like the plants she kept in the kitchen. I worried he would become too big for the house, and then where would we put him?

  Armand LaPierre rises from the chair beside my father’s bed. He steps into the hallway just as Joe comes out of the elevator and Zirconia hurries toward us from the lounge. “Nine A.M.,” he announces, and he walks off.

  Zirconia draws me aside. “You’re in great shape. You’ve done everything you can at this point. Between the fact that LaPierre’s Catholic, and more inclined to err on the side of life, and the endorsement of the temporary guardian, it’s looking very strong, Cara.”

  I hug her. “Thanks. For everything.”

  “My pleasure.” She smiles. “You need a ride back home?”

  “I’ll take her,” Joe says, and I realize that he and my brother have been close enough to hear everything Zirconia said to me. I wanted to win this case. So why does that make me feel so bad?

  “I’m going to stay for a while,” Edward says, nodding toward Dad’s room.

  “You’ll call me—”

  “Yes,” he says. “If anything happens.”

  “If he wakes up again—”

  But Joe is already pushing me toward the elevator. The doors close behind us. The last image I have is of Edward sitting down beside my father’s bed.

  I watch the floor numbers fall as the elevator descends, a rocket’s countdown. “What happens if I lose?” I ask.

  Joe seems surprised. “Your lawyer thinks it’s a lock.”

  “Nothing’s a hundred percent,” I tell him, and he grins.

  “Yes,” he says. “I remember that from today’s testimony.”

  I glance at him sharply. “And I remember today’s cross-exam.”

  At least he has the grace to blush a little. “How about we put that behind us?”

  I hold out my hand to shake on that, but he doesn’t let go. “If you don’t win,” Joe says gently, “then Edward will be your father’s guardian. He’s going to schedule a time to terminate your father’s life support, and to donate his organs. You can be there. And if you want, Cara, I will be right there next to you.”

  My throat gets tight. “Okay,” I say.

  When the elevator doors open in the lobby, what people see is a man holding on to a girl who’s crying, who looks about the right age to be his daughter. What people see is just one of hundreds of sad stories born inside the walls of this building.

  Whe