Lone Wolf Read online

  Some people believe that wolves kill everything they encounter.

  In reality, they only kill to eat. Even when they attack a herd, they don't slaughter every animal. The alpha wolf very specifically directs which member of the herd should be brought down.

  Some people believe that wolves will decimate the deer population.

  In reality, for every ten times they hunt, they'll make a single kill.

  Some people believe they infiltrate farms and kill livestock.

  In reality, this happens so infrequently, biologists don't even count them as a category of predatorial risk.

  Some people believe wolves are harmful to humans.

  In reality, of the twenty or so recorded cases, the encounter between wolf and man was brought on by the person. And there's not a single documented case of a healthy, wild wolf killing a human.

  You can imagine that I'm not too fond of the three little pigs, either.

  CARA

  I'm sitting at one of the outdoor tables at the trading post, wrapped up in my down jacket and a woolly blanket. There's no one here because it's February and the park is officially closed, but the signature attraction--the animatronic dinosaurs that you can't miss the minute you walk through the gates--runs year-round. It's some weird computerized wiring glitch--you can't turn off the T. rex without cutting power to the whole facility, and that of course would affect the skeleton crew that manages the animal habitats on the off-season. So every now and then, when I need to get away, I come to the part of the park that's a ghost town and watch the triceratops shake his plastic head every hour on the hour, dislodging last night's snowfall. I watch the raptor get into a mock fight with the T. rex, both of them thigh-high in drifts. It's creepy. It feels like I'm watching the end of the world. Sometimes, because it's so quiet, their canned roars get the gibbons all riled up, and they start hollering, too.

  It's because of the gibbons, actually, that I don't hear my father calling my name until he's nearly standing right in front of me. "Cara? Cara!" He is wearing his winter coveralls--the ones that hang outside the trailer on a tree branch and never get washed because the wolves recognize him by scent. I can tell he's been in with the pack sharing a meal, because there's a little bit of blood on the ends of the long hair framing his face. He usually plays the diffuser, which means he gets right between the beta and the alpha rank on the carcass. It's crazy to watch, actually. Feeding time, for the pack, is like a gladiator sport. Everyone's got a set position around the carcass and feeds at a specific time on a specific part of the animal. There's growling and snarling and gnashing as each wolf--my dad included--protects his piece of the kill. He used to eat the raw meat, like the wolves, but when it started messing too much with his digestive system, he began to cook up bits of kidney and liver and hide it inside his coveralls, in a little plastic bag. He somehow manages to transfer this into the slit belly of the calf and eat like the wolves without them noticing anything's been doctored.

  My father's face collapses with relief. "Cara," he says again. "I thought I'd lost you."

  I try to stand up, to tell him that I've been here the whole time, but I can't move. The blanket's gotten caught, and my arms are trapped. Then I realize it's not a blanket, it's a bandage. And it's not my father who's been calling my name, it's my mother. "You're awake," she says. She's looking down at me, trying to smile.

  My shoulder feels like there's an elephant sitting on it. There's something I want to ask, but the words taste like they're covered in clouds. Suddenly there's another face, a woman's face, soft as dough. "When it hurts," she says, "press this." She curls my hand around a little button. My thumb pushes down.

  I want to ask where my father is, but I'm already falling asleep.

  I am dreaming again, and this is how I know:

  My father's in the room, but it's not my father. This is someone I've only seen in photographs--three pictures, actually, that my mother keeps inside her underwear drawer, beneath the velvet liner of the box that holds her grandmother's pearls. In all three pictures, he's got his arm around my mother. He looks younger, leaner, short-haired.

  This current version of my father is staring at me as if he's just as surprised to see me looking this way as I am to see him. "Don't leave," I say, but my voice is barely a voice.

  That makes him smile.

  This is the second reason I know I am dreaming. In those old photographs, my dad always looks happy. In fact, he and my mother both always look happy, which is again something I've only seen in pictures.

  I'm awake, but I'm pretending not to be. The two police officers that are standing at the foot of the bed are talking to my mother. "It's critical that we speak to your daughter," the taller one says, "to piece together what happened."

  I wonder what my father has told them. My mouth goes dry.

  "Clearly Cara isn't fit for interrogation." My mother's voice is stiff. I can feel the eyes of all three of them touching me like flame on paper.

  "Ma'am, we understand that her health is the primary concern."

  "If you understood, then you wouldn't be here," my mother says.

  I watch Law & Order. I know all about how a microscopic paint chip can put away a lying criminal for life. Is their visit a routine one, part of every car crash? Or do they know something?

  I break out in a sweat, and my heart starts beating harder. And then I realize that's something I can't hide. My pulse is right there on a monitor next to the headboard for everyone to see. Knowing that just makes it worse. I imagine the numbers rising, everyone staring.

  "Do you really believe her father was trying intentionally to crash the car?" my mother asks.

  There is a pause. "No," one policeman replies.

  My heart's hammering so hard that, any minute now, a nurse is going to burst in and call a code blue.

  "Then why are you even here?" my mother asks.

  I hear one of the policemen rustle through his clothing. Through slitted eyes I see him give my mother a card. "If you could just give us a call when she's awake?"

  Their footsteps echo on the floor.

  I count to fifty. Slowly, with a Mississippi after each number. And then I open my eyes. "Mom?" I say. My voice is full of scrapes and angles.

  She immediately sits next to me on the bed. "How do you feel?"

  There's still pain in my shoulder, but it's not what it was before. I touch my forehead with my free hand and feel swelling, stitches. "Sore," I say.

  My mother reaches for that hand. There's a little clip on one of my fingers, with a red light glowing through the flesh. Like E.T. "You fractured your shoulder blade in the car accident," she tells me. "You had surgery on Thursday night."

  "What day is it now?"

  "Saturday," she tells me.

  I have entirely lost Friday.

  I struggle to sit up, but that turns out to be impossible with one arm wrapped up mummy-tight against my body. "Where's Dad?"

  Something flickers across her face. "I should tell the nurse that you're awake . . ."

  "Is he okay?" My eyes fill with tears. "I saw the paramedics with him, and then they . . . then they . . ." I can't finish the sentence, because I am starting to put together all the secrecy and the look on my mother's face and that hallucination I had of my father as a much younger man. "He's dead," I whisper. "You just don't want to tell me."

  She grips my hand more tightly. "Your father is not dead."

  "Then I want to see him," I demand.

  "Cara, you're in no condition to--"

  "Goddammit, let me see him!" I scream.

  That, at least, gets some attention. A woman wearing hospital ID--but not nurse whites--hurries into the room. "Cara, you've got to relax--"

  She is small and bird-boned, with black ringlets that bounce with every syllable. "Who are you?"

  "My name is Trina. I'm the social worker assigned to your case. I understand that you've got some questions--"

  "Yeah, like how about this one: I'm wrapped up