Читать книгу The Legend of Safehaven - R. A. Comunale M.D. - Страница 5

“Bob, where’s Galen? Didn’t the two of you come home together?”

The men had headed out at the crack of the autumn dawn, her Bob to play with his beloved old locomotives at Steamtown National Historic Site in Scranton, and Galen to one of the city’s free clinics where he “kept his hand in,” as he called it, by volunteering medical care for the indigent locals. The work had helped to lift the dark clouds that still seemed to take hold of him periodically in the six years since he had joined his friends on the mountain. He felt useful again. With the three kids progressing so well in school now, Nancy also kept busy volunteering for the Red Cross.

“He’s somewhere in the woods,” Edison said. “He asked to get out of the kidmobile on the way up. Said he was carrying out some observational experiment with the forest animals. I gave him one of the phones, so we can call him when the school bus drops the kids off. Better he keeps his mind active. I don’t want to see him slip into another depression.”

Nancy nodded and returned to the kitchen and her dinner preparations. Three adults and three preteens could scarf down a lot of food.

Galen sat in the blind he had set up as his observation post, quietly waiting and watching. He had trained his binoculars on an opening in the rocky hillside, upwind from the blind, and he mentally reviewed his notes. He still couldn’t believe it—Canis lupus, the gray wolf! Actually two of them, male and female. What were they doing this far south? He had always thought them to be northern predators.

Must be the ever-encroaching developments forcing wildlife closer to the cities and suburbs.

He had read that even his beloved Northern Virginia was seeing an influx of coyotes. Deer were overwhelming the subdivisions, and traffic incidents involving the animals had become near-daily occurrences. One poor black bear paid with his life for wandering into a hospital.

There! He saw the movement. The male, must be a good eighty to ninety pounds, carrying a dead rabbit in its mouth to the den opening. Then he saw the reason why: The smaller female was limping—she couldn’t hunt. He adjusted the binoculars and saw the healing wounds of buckshot.

Oh, no, Mrs. Wolf. You don’t want to fall into the sights of any of our local brave hunters!

The male put the dead rabbit down and sat on his haunches, while the female hobbled to the prey and ate her meal.

Slowly, slowly, Mrs. Wolf, don’t wolf it down.

He chuckled softly to himself at the absurdity of the thought.

The male nuzzled the female, and they both entered the den. It was still a bit early for mating. That would happen in a few months, probably sometime in January, and the cycle of life would start over.

Galen sighed as he watched the lupine couple.

Leni, Cathy, June. You all shared my life so briefly, only to be snatched from me, leaving me no family, no one to share my later years.

He felt the clouds gathering and caught himself.

Yet, here I am living on a mountain in the middle of Pennsylvania caring for three orphans.

He noticed a blurred reflection of his likeness in a rain puddle at his feet.

No, old wolf, your time isn’t quite past. You still have pups to raise.

He glanced at his watch then quietly slipped out of the blind and walked the half-mile down to the bus stop to wait for the kids, thinking about how at dinner he would tell Carmelita, Freddie, and Tonio about the new guests on the mountain.

The dog felt the pain from the kick radiate up his abdomen to his back. It was not the first time the two-legged one had done this. Usually he would just slink away to a corner of the yard at the end of his run, tail between his legs, to show the big one he understood who was dominant.

Not this time.

Maybe it was because he was old now. Or maybe in his dog’s soul he felt the urge to try at least once for dominance. So instead of retreating, he turned his head toward the large one, mouth muscles pulled back along his long jaw line in a snarl. He felt the satisfying penetration in his teeth, as they pierced the large one’s pain-making leg. His tall pointed ears heard the cry of agony that only he had vocalized in the past. Now his attacker felt the pain.

“You damned sonofabitch, I’m gonna blow yer brains out!”

Lem Caddler clutched his right leg to staunch the flow of blood. He backed away slowly from Clyde, or as he usually called the big, German Shepherd-Labrador mix, his “good ol’ huntin’ dawg.” This had never happened before. For one thing, he had been raised believing a dog was an animal, not a member of the family. For another, he had learned from his father that you gotta show a dog who’s boss, which was what he had done—often. And now the bastard had turned on him. He held his hand on the wound as he hobbled toward the farmhouse to grab his shotgun. No way he’d let that dog get away with this.

“‘Bout time to break in that new dog, anyway,” he muttered to himself. “This one’s got wuthless for huntin’.”

Clyde trembled as he watched his master enter the house. Instinctively, he knew: Escape now or die!

He looked around the yard and spotted the chain holding the new dog, like himself but younger and sleeker, cowering behind the large maple tree. He loped over to the animal and they faced muzzle to muzzle. The smaller dog, possibly sensing its own future fate with Caddler, rolled over onto his back, exposing his underbelly to Clyde. Then he rose and followed him in a run to the full extent of their restraints. Clyde had expected the usual sharp snap against his neck, as he had felt so many times, but now the leather collar, grown weak and cracked over the years, gave way easily.

Not so with the young dog. He let out a painful yelp, as the stretched chain yanked him back on his rear end.

Just then Caddler emerged from the farmhouse, shoving shells into his gun’s twin barrels.

With all his strength, Clyde bit into the dog’s collar.

“What the…?” Caddler cried out. “I’ll shoot ya! I’ll shoot ya both! Dumb bastards!”

He raised the shotgun and fired. The rain of buckshot struck the two animals like the simultaneous stings of a hundred hornets.

Pumped with fear and pain, Clyde bit through the collar, and he and the other dog lit out for the woods. Before Caddler could load up and get off another round they were gone.

The three children helped clear away the dishes from dinner—a nightly custom—then sat back down at the table. The next activity, also a custom imposed by Nancy, was inviolable. Each evening, they were required to report the happenings of the day at school. What lessons had they learned? What were their homework assignments? Were they having any problems with the schoolwork, the teachers, or their classmates?

The after-dinner time became like a family conference. It was an opportunity for everyone to share newly learned lessons, to vent emotions, to ask questions or receive explanations, to admit lapses in judgment or behavior and, in some cases, for the children to accept the stern words of their elders. The three guardians took their parental role very seriously, and they involved themselves as much as possible in their charges’ lives. Only when they grew older did the children fully appreciate how different their tios and tia were from the modern-day, average American family.

Sometimes, what the adults talked about actually interested the thirteen-year-old girl and the twelve- and eleven-year-old boys—and tonight was just such an occasion.

“Guess what I saw today!”

Galen actually grinned as he looked at the others seated around the table.

“We have some surprise guests on our mountain!”

Freddie rolled his eyes.

Probably another bird, he thought.

Always perceptive, Carmelita caught the unusual degree of excitement in her tio’s voice. Tonio, the youngest, spoke directly to Galen.

“Did you see something from that blind we helped you put up in the woods, Tio?”

“Yes, Tonio. Ladies and gentlemen, we have a strange and wonderful new family living nearby: Mr. and Mrs. Canis lupus!”

“Can us loop us?” Freddie asked, stifling a yawn.

Galen sighed to himself.

Puberty isn’t far off for this one. Hope the three of us can handle it.

Nancy and Edison caught on immediately. Nancy’s voice registered worry.

“Will they be dangerous to us? Don’t they attack people, especially children?”

With that comment, Freddie suddenly became all eyes and ears.

“Shouldn’t we get the game warden to remove them, Galen? I know we agreed to keep the mountain undeveloped as a Nature Conservancy project, but this might be a bit more than we can handle.”

“The wolves are a classic case of ‘don’t bother us and we won’t bother you,’” Galen replied. “I don’t think we need to worry. All they want is shelter and food.”

The after-dinner session ended on a rollicking note, as Edison leered wickedly at the kids.

“Lions and tigers and wolves, oh my!”

He began growling, baring his teeth, and raising his claws like the Big Bad Wolf, and the children responded with giggles and squeals of delight.

He had to find food for his mate. The biological imperative had driven the dark-gray beast farther than usual from the den. It was nighttime now, but his powerful olfactory sense detected the smell of small game. There—over there, the place where the great beasts roamed at running speed over the hard not-grass. He would have to cross it, even though he feared the noise and the strange odors. No sooner had he started across than one of the monsters bore down on him. He felt the terrible pain radiate throughout his body as he was thrown into the air by the impact. He landed in the ditch by the side of the road. His legs twitched briefly, and then his life force departed to run and hunt forever in the Elysian Fields.

The SUV driver had felt the impact, as he rounded the bend on the tortuous mountain road.

“Can’t stop now,” he said, out loud. “Have to be in Pittsburgh by mid-morning.”

She grew weaker. Powerful hunger stirred her, but her injuries kept her from roaming outside the den. Where was her mate?

“Tio Galen, something must be wrong. We haven’t seen the male wolf in three days.”

“Yes, Tonio, I agree. That’s not like him. I have a bad feeling he’s been injured or killed. Around here, it’s either hunters or cars. And the female can’t travel to hunt. She must be starving.”

He stroked his jaw line a moment, pondering the dilemma.

“Go up to the house and ask Tia Nancy if she has any raw meat we could leave near the den opening.”

As Tonio raced back to the house, the old man marveled at the boy’s speed and agility. He felt … proud.

Tonio returned about ten minutes later carrying a paper bag. Then man and boy quietly approached within a few steps of the den and placed the chopped beef, which Nancy had provided, on the ground, being careful to hold only the wax paper wrapping to avoid scenting the meat with their hands.

They retreated as quietly as they had come, waiting and watching from the blind, until the female caught the smell and dragged herself to the opening. She saw the meat then looked around for her mate. Who else could have brought it? But his scent was not there. Something else was—something she had not experienced before. Her hunger quickly overpowered her fear, and she grabbed as much of the food as she could in one bite and slipped back into the den.

They had bonded, the old dog and the younger one. They had escaped from the two-legged pain-giver, and now they roamed the countryside as their distant ancestors once did, living off small game and the occasional, unsealed garbage can.

Slowly, the wounds of that day had healed, as little by little the buckshot fell from the pits it had made in their bodies. They would not have comprehended it, but when Caddler had let loose with both barrels, he was standing outside the shotgun’s effective range. He had injured both animals, but their fear-driven adrenaline was enough to power their flight to safety, and now they had regained their full strength. The big tan dog and the smaller-but-swifter, gray-brown mixed breed made a good team, as they hunted and wandered.

They had begun to feel the change in season, as the temperatures slowly dropped day to day. By instinct they knew they would need shelter soon.

Their roaming carried them higher and higher up in the mountains, and the rocky outcroppings became more clustered, some forming good protection from the rain—but nothing enclosed enough to ward off the impending cold.

The younger dog sensed it first: a strange mixture of messenger scents—food, female, two-legged ones—coming from the same direction. He ran ahead of the older dog and approached a large stone ledge. As they moved closer, the scent grew stronger: female. They reached the den opening and found food remnants scattered about.

The older dog felt a stirring within, and for the first time in his life he let out a howl, his ancestral memory taking over. The younger dog watched his pack leader and let out his own, piercing warble. Then, from within the stone cave, came an even higher-pitched, solitary reply.

“Tio Galen, are those more wolves?”

The three children crowded the blind with the bear-sized man.

“No, those are dogs, but from the looks of them, they must be wilding. I bet they ran away from wherever they lived and now roam free. Let’s see what Mrs. Wolf does. The food we’ve been leaving seems to have given her strength, but she’s still listless. She must miss her mate.”

Galen stood mute as the impact of his own words struck him.

Her muzzle twitched, as the male scent hit her olfactory system. No, this was not her mate, and so she felt the tensing of the fight-or-flight reflex building in her muscles. She inched toward the den opening, and then she saw them: two males, sitting there, watching her, not moving. She let out a warning snarl, but they didn’t respond. She moved out farther, tail stiff in the aggressive posture, front legs apart, ready to run or lunge.

Now the big male edged forward, a four-legged chess piece whose movements were choreographed by Nature. She prepared to lunge for his neck when he stopped and sat on his haunches again. She sensed no fear or aggression.

Casting wary eyes on both of the dogs, she sat likewise. Canine Kabuki.

“It looks like Mrs. Wolf is confused by our two Lotharios, kids. If this had been a wolf-to-wolf confrontation, one of them would be lying on the ground, maybe with its throat ripped out.”

Galen felt excited. He thought this might be the beginning of a fascinating interplay of wild-versus-domestic response. Could the female accept the other two? The humans watched the big dog crouch down and inch forward on all fours toward the seated wolf.

Finally their muzzles touched. The female let out a quiet snarl then stopped, as the big dog nuzzled her. She stood up, turned, and calmly moved back into the den. The two dogs followed her.

“It’s working!” Galen exclaimed.

He noticed the three kids were casting wondering looks his way, so he smiled at them.

“Nature always finds a way!”

They did not understand his cryptic reply.

Winter struck with a vengeance. The wind pierced the mountain retreat with banshee shrieks, the tympani of cracking, ice-laden tree limbs a percussive accompaniment. Galen had anticipated the hard winter from the comments in the “Old Farmer’s Almanac,” so he and Edison had made some advance preparations.

Edison was not a naturalist, but he enthusiastically designed remote monitoring units—self-contained and weatherproof audio and visual sensors to transmit data from the territory surrounding the canine den. Nancy, more practical than either of the two men, had stocked a separate freezer with meat byproducts, which the frequent observers would leave near the den in case the three animals were unsuccessful in their daily hunts.

The kids’ contribution was to assist in the observations and sensor placement. They also named their “doggies.” As they shinnied up trees and reached sensor sites inaccessible to the two duffer scientists, Freddie would tease Carmelita by asking her who the female wolf loved more: Zeus, the big mixed shepherd, or Mercury, the younger, grey-brown dog. But Carmelita wouldn’t be baited. She was thirteen now, and her Tia Nancy had instructed her well in the ways of womanly wisdom.

“Athena will make up her own mind, Freddie,” she replied curtly.

“Tio Eddie, flip to infrared. Maybe we can watch them during their night hunt.”

Freddie was the first to suggest multi-spectrum sensors, and now he played the controls like a pro, as he cycled through the different sensor sites and panned and tilted the cameras with his thumbstick looking for his quarry. Edison, beaming with pride at his remarkably young protégé, sat at the keyboard in support of Freddie, while the others watched the shifting scenes on the big, central video monitor. The darkness took on the moonscape color of the night sensors, and then they saw them: three canines, two dogs and one wolf, beginning their nocturnal prowl. The big shepherd had assumed the role of alpha male, and the female wolf stayed side by side with the younger dog, as they proceeded to flush out their evening dinner: a large jackrabbit.

Eating their fill—the alpha first, then the female, then the lowly dog—they suddenly turned simultaneously toward the camera and stared at it, as though the three pairs of canine eyes were trying to bridge the divide between themselves and those who watched.

Tonio reached over his brother’s shoulder and hit the transmit button. Slowly, he spoke into the microphone.

“Good dogs! Good Athena, good Zeus, good Mercury!”

The animals perked up their ears then responded in trio voice, their harmony a salute to their unseen benefactors.

Now it was mid-March, still cold and snowing as expected in the central highlands of Pennsylvania. Warm and comfortable inside the house, Galen had tuned his computer to WBJC on Internet radio, and the haunting tones of Borodin’s “In the Steppes of Asia” permeated his small room. A knock on the door snapped him out of his reverie.

It opened, and Edison and Nancy stood there, smiling.

“Come on, Grandpa, we just got us a litter of grandkids!” Edison laughed, as he took his friend’s arm, and the three hustled back to the monitor station. The children already were watching in front of the screen and listening to the faint yips of the newly arrived litter on the audio speaker.

“Good girl, Athena,” Carmelita whispered to herself.

Spring weather did not arrive until early May. The three adult canines guided the seven, newly weaned pups out into the forest. Schoolmarm Athena herded them, directing their attention to the actions of Zeus and Mercury during a hunt. They sat and watched in fascination as the younger dog flushed out the prey—a young, white-tailed fawn—into the path of the alpha, which seized its neck in his powerful jaws and administered the coup de grace.

After the pack had completed its meal, the adults again herded the littermates to the site of the camera and made them sit in a semicircle facing it. Tonio and Freddie took turns with the microphone, calling them all good dogs and laughing as the young pups’ ears pricked up at the boys’ voices.

Carmelita snatched the microphone away from her brothers and softly spoke the names of the adults. Their ears stiffened in apparent understanding. She began to sing a Cuban lullaby, long buried in her memory, and even the boys became quiet. As she finished, Athena began a soft moaning howl and a choir of ten erupted in doggy vocalization.

Freddie opened his mouth in an attempt to imitate the pack, when he felt his younger brother’s grip on his shoulder and heard his sibling’s whispered “Don’t!” He remained quiet.

Summer sunlight filtered through the leafy canopy of the forest, and time continued its growth work on both kids and pups. Carmelita, now fourteen, had reached that precarious age between childishness and self-awareness. Freddie, on the verge of thirteen, was all legs, and the feral look of incipient manhood had begun to lengthen his face. Even Tonio, soon to turn twelve, was more serious and focused. Meanwhile, the pups were engaging in the full activity of the hunt.

Nancy, Edison, and Galen were feeling the passage of time, too, but for them it was the encroachment of morning aches, difficulties with bowel regulation, and increasing awareness of entropy. They knew what awaited them at the end of life’s corridor, so they savored the warm breezes of summer even more.

“Tonio, look, the pack is reforming its social structure.”

Galen sat in the blind with his faithful shadow, though it had become unnecessary now. All the canines were aware of their presence, and they treated the two-legged ones as part of the pack posing no harm.

Amity or not, Galen was trying to avoid interfering in the wolf-dog social evolution. He kept his distance and insisted the children do the same.

“There, see that, boy? There’s already an alpha male in the litter.”

They watched, as one of the pups, under the vigilant eyes of Zeus, appeared to guide the others. But Galen was surprised to see something else happening as well. The young alpha, bigger than his littermates and easily able to beat them at games, selected two others to pair off with him: a lighter-weight, dark-grey male and a reddish-brown female. It was like a high school clique with the three calling the shots for the other four. This was not typical wolf behavior.

Even stranger was what happened next: The clique members approached the blind together, sat down, and stared at it. Tonio stood up, even as Galen tried to stop him, and stepped out of the shelter to face the three directly. He crouched down and looked into the three pairs of green eyes, softly whispering “good dogs” over and over.

The alpha pup stood up, cautiously approached the boy, and sniffed at him. Slowly the other two followed suit. Tonio remained still except for his continued whispering, until the trio turned and trotted back to the others. Only once did they turn and look back, when Galen stepped from the blind. They stared intently at him for a few seconds then walked away.

“That could have gotten you hurt, boy.”

Galen stared at Tonio intently.

“No, Tio, they’re my friends.”

Man and boy turned and began their ascent to the mountain house, side by side, bear and cub.

It was an apple-butter fall. The air was laden with the tart-sweet smell of multicolored leaves, their shades of red, yellow, and brown replacing the verdant greens of summer. Another school year was underway, and the children, the boys a little taller and all entering the emotionally wrenching teen years, were as busy as humanly possible with homework and school activities.

Edison and Nancy sat in the picture-windowed living room during their afternoon tea break. Edison took a long sip of his favorite Jasmine tea, now served hot to ward off the change in temperature. Nancy had been thinking quietly. When she spoke, her voice, gentle as always, eased her husband out of his own reverie.

“Bob, hunting season starts in two weeks. How are we going to protect the pack from all those Nimrods who think killing animals makes them manly?”

Edison savored his tea a moment longer before setting the cup on the side table.

“Galen and I have been talking about that. The ground is posted, but that won’t stop the clowns who think they’re Daniel Boone and have the right of passage anywhere. A few of them in town are just itching to come up here. They know it’s untouched territory, and they imagine it’s crawling with game. They keep asking permission to hunt. I keep telling them it’s out of our hands, that the property belongs to the Nature Conservancy trust, and that even I couldn’t hunt on it, God forbid I’d ever want to.”

Nancy smiled at her man. Instinctively she knew that the only time her Bob would consider hurting another living creature would be if she or the kids or Galen were threatened. But they had to do something—and soon.

Galen sat in the blind, dictating his observations of the wolf pack into a small digital recorder Edison had given him. He, too, worried about their safety.

“Will that be all, Mr. Caddler?”

The clerk handed him his change and stepped back from the wave of alcohol-laden breath emanating from the broken-blood-vesseled face that stared back across the counter.

“Ya sure ya put what I wanted in there?”

Caddler pointed at the box on the counter.

“Yes, sir, four boxes of double-ought-eight shells and two boxes of ammo for your rifle. Anything else?”

The weather-beaten man grunted, picked up the box, and walked out grinning to himself.

Got some unfinished business to settle. Ain’t no one keepin’ me offa huntin’ land. Been huntin’ there since I ‘as a boy. Let’s see what them damn city folks think ‘bout stoppin’ a load o’ buckshot!

School had let out early for a teacher workday, so when the bus dropped the kids off, instead of walking up the lane to the mountain house, as they normally would, the three ran to the blind to watch their canine friends. Only they didn’t stay inside the blind anymore—something they hadn’t told the elders. They had been accepted by the pack and could stand openly and marvel at how the young ones played at being adults, while the adults patiently watched and corrected only when a pup grew too aggressive.

Today, Athena minded the pups alone.

“Zeus and Mercury must be out hunting prey,” Freddie said.

Carmelita winced at the word “prey.” Nancy had taught her that predators such as wolves played a necessary part in Nature’s cycle of life, but even so she didn’t like the idea. She tried not to think about it, as she watched Athena boxing a wayward pup now bigger than herself.

She’s so much like Tia Nancy—gentle yet firm.

Suddenly the quiet of the forest was shattered by the echo of double-barrel shotgun blasts, which startled both canines and children. The three elders up at the house also heard the shots, just when they were discussing how to keep the hunters at bay. Edison and Galen rose immediately and headed out the front door.

“Nancy,” Edison yelled back. “Call the state police. Tell them we have poachers on the mountain!”

He ran to catch up with Galen, who was moving like a locomotive toward the blind area.

The kids heard thrashing approaching them in the underbrush, and soon Zeus rushed into the small clearing in front of the den, closely followed by Mercury. Trailing them, still some distance away, was the sound of unsteady human feet, accompanied by an angry but barely discernable voice.

“Don’t remember this path. Damned rocks and branches! Ain’t no one been here. Better huntin’ fer me!”

He paused, staring through alcohol-clouded eyes.

“Wha’ the hell’s that? Don’ remember no damned cave!”

Carmelita moved to the pack and shooed them toward the den. The adult animals obeyed, herding their young ones inside then standing guard near the opening.

A few moments later the children saw the shotgun-carrying man enter the clearing, attempting to reload while moving—a dangerous practice.

“So this is where them goddamn varmints ‘a’ been hidin’. Well, they ain’t gonna hide no more!”

Caddler shouted at the two boys and girl standing a few yards from the den opening, “Get outta my way! I’m gonna shoot those sons o’ bitches!”

Finally reloaded, he snapped shut the twin barrels and had the gun pointed in the general direction of the kids just as Galen and Edison arrived.

“Caddler, didn’t I tell you that this is a no-hunting area?” Edison yelled.

As he turned to face Edison, Galen stepped in on his flank and served up a roundhouse right directly to the man’s jaw. He moaned and promptly collapsed, his shotgun falling away to the ground.

“Sergeant, why are we driving up here? It’s hunting season, for crying out loud. We gonna chase down every dumb sonofabitch who strays onto posted land?”

Pennsylvania State Police Sergeant Ben Castle looked at the younger man sitting in the passenger seat of the patrol car and let out a snort. He was what they called a newbie, fresh out of police academy, so he had been paired up with the experienced older man to learn what couldn’t be taught in a classroom.

God! This kid hardly has more than peach fuzz on his face!

“Douglass, every state cop, no matter where he or she is assigned…”

Castle mentally sighed at the thought that females actually were state troopers now—but some of them were damned good ones!

“Every cop should be acquainted with the neighborhood he—or she—patrols and the people in it. Sometimes the routine calls can be the most dangerous.”

Just as he spoke, he spotted Caddler’s old pickup truck parked by the road near the entrance to the lane up to the top of the mountain.

“Shoulda known,” Castle muttered.

Just then the radio squawked out, “Sixteen-oh-eight, sixteen-oh-eight.”

Ben grabbed the microphone.

“Central, sixteen-oh-eight. Go ahead.”

“We have a ten-fifty-seven, vicinity of Mountain Vista Lane. See Mrs. Edison.”

“Central, sixteen-oh-eight, approaching scene,” Ben replied and gunned the big Ford’s motor as they shot up the driveway.

“What’s the story, Sarge?”

Douglass was fully alert now—nervous even.

Castle kept his eyes on the winding road, as they approached the summit.

“Here’s a classic example, Lachlan.”

The younger man relaxed at his superior’s use of his first name.

“See, down at the bottom of the road I spotted Lem Caddler’s truck. He’s a born troublemaker and a drunk to boot. Gets mean when he’s had a few. Now, some pretty good people live up here, three retired folks, a doctor and an electronics guru and his wife who’s big on Red Cross work. Got three adopted children, too.”

“So, Private Lachlan Douglass, you understand now why Caddler’s truck at the bottom of their driveway spells trouble? Add to that the gunshots report and we’re maybe walking into a real problem!”

The younger man nodded sheepishly, as they slid to a stop in front of the house. Nancy ran out to meet them.

Galen’s face was flushed with anger. He stood over the man he had flattened, who still lay spread-eagled on the ground.

“This is protected property, Caddler,” Edison said. “No hunting allowed. It never will be on this mountain!”

“Remember that the next time you get drunk,” Galen added. “This is a safe haven for animals.”

Before the man could mutter a response, Nancy appeared in the clearing leading the two state troopers. They promptly stood Caddler upright, searched and handcuffed him, read him his rights, and led him back to the car.

The three children remained silent, stunned by the suddenness and violence of the event.When the troopers and their prisoner disappeared from sight, Zeus poked his head out of the den and crept toward the three adults, followed by Mercury and Athena. The canines faced the humans. Zeus stepped up to Galen and licked his hand. Mercury followed suit with Edison. Athena, wild by birth, hesitated at first then approached Nancy and rested her head against the woman.

Then the young dog-wolves ventured out and, seeing their elders with the adults, ran toward the children, who took turns stroking their heads and muzzles.

“I think that’s enough excitement for one day,” Galen quipped, and Edison and Nancy let out sighs of relief in agreement.

Freddie was rolling on the ground, rough-housing with one of the pups, when he sat up suddenly and yelled, “Yeah, I guess it’s old man Caddler who’s in the dog house now!”

The others laughed at the attempted pun, and the wolf-dogs yipped and barked even louder.

“Carmelita, would you hand me the serving tray?”

Nancy had just taken a fresh batch of brownies from the oven, and the aroma was beginning to circulate through the house. She knew everyone would soon be gravitating to the living room for their share of the treats. Carmelita retrieved the tray from its place leaning on the countertop against the refrigerator.

“Tia Nancy, do you think the wolves really understand what we did? They seem so tame, so attached to us now.”

Nancy stacked the brownies on the tray and glanced at Carmelita.

Is this how my daughter would have been?

“I don’t know for sure, Carmelita, but the adult animals seem to have bonded with us. Only time will tell if the next generation follows their lead.”

The weather turned mountain-cold again. Gusts of the north wind swept the remaining leaves from their branches, presaging the first snow of the season. Galen’s arthritic right knee, which had been worsening since the summer, drove him to spend more time in the living room in front of the fireplace. Books and diagrams and photos crowded the coffee table, where he went over and over his notes about the wolf pack. The social structure fit no known pattern of prior observations by researchers in the field. Zeus, the alpha, was actually teaching his heir apparent. Mercury and Athena were instructing the younger grey male and red-brown female. It seemed like an ordained succession was being established, but it would take another wolf generation or two to see if the pattern held true.

Galen looked up as Tonio entered the room and peered over his shoulder at the pages of graphs and notes in his lap.

“What’s this about, Tio?”

Galen motioned him to sit, and he explained his conclusions to his eager protégé.

“Tio Eddie, can I come in?”

Freddie had heard the cutting and grinding noises coming from Edison’s wood shop.

“Sure, Freddie. Here, take a look at this.”

“What is it, Tio?”

“It’s a gift, a gift for the mountain. Something Tio Galen said to Mr. Caddler that day struck me as appropriate. Think the old goat will like it?”

He held up a three-foot-long wooden sign. On it, in large letters deeply engraved into the heavy solid oak wood, he had fashioned one word: SAFEHAVEN.

They sat on their haunches, facing the house in the distance and the two-legged pack inside it that was of them and not of them. Their eyes reflected the amber, winter-solstice moonlight in luminescent green.

The three in front kept ears and muzzles on full alert. The alpha male, a full one-hundred pounds, let out a solitary howl of unwavering tone. The male next to him, not as large but sleeker and more streamlined, joined in, their canine bodies taking in large gasping breaths to produce the contrapuntal vibrations of their vocal chords. The female, smaller but even more alert, added the second harmonic. The younger members of the pack sat in quiet respect, observing the ways that would govern their future lives and those of their pups.

They were the Moonsingers of the mountain.