Jodi Picoult - Lone Wolf

Her eyes met mine, and she’d nodded, a nonverbal contract. “Tell Walter to give you Zazigoda,” she said. “He’s the one we take to schools. Once, when he got spooked, Dad kept him from jumping through a window.”

My mother shook her head. “Edward. How are you going to-”

“And he has to ride in the front seat,” Cara interrupted. “He gets carsick.”

I had zipped up my coat. “In case you were even wondering,” I told her, “Dad’s condition is the same as it was last night.”

Cara smiled at me then. It was the first real smile she’d offered me since I came home. “But not for long,” she had said.

Redmond’s Trading Post is a sorry anachronism from a time before 3D and Sony PlayStations-a poor man’s Disney World. In the winter, it’s even more depressing than it is during its high season. Closed to everyone but a few animal caretakers, it feels like the land that time forgot. This was only reinforced by the sight that greeted me the minute I hopped over the turnstiles and let myself into the park: a faded animatronic dinosaur with icicles dripping off its chin that roared at me and tried to swing a massive tail mired in snowdrifts.

It felt strange to walk up the hill to the wolf enclosures, as if I were peeling back years with each footstep, until I was a kid again. As I passed by one of the pens, a pair of timber wolves trotted along the fence line with me, watching to see if I might lob a rabbit over the chain-links as a treat. My father’s old trailer stood at the crest of the hill, above the enclosures. A curl of smoke pumped from the woodstove vent in the trailer, although when I knocked no one answered.

“Walter?” I called out. “It’s Edward. Luke’s son.” The door swung open at my touch, and I found myself knocked backward by a memory. Nothing had changed in this trailer. There was the sofa with foam cushions that had been ripped by the teeth of countless wolf pups, where I had read dozens of books while my father gave the daily wolf talk to the trading post visitors. There was the bathroom with a toilet flushed by a foot pump.

There was the narrow bed, where everything had gone to hell.

This was a bad idea; I never should have listened to Cara; I should just go back to the hospital… I slammed my way out of the trailer, and heard a whistle of bluegrass coming from the wooden shack where the fresh meat brought in for the wolves was refrigerated. I poked my head inside and found Walter in a butcher’s apron, quartering a deer with a gigantic knife. Half Abenaki, Walter is six foot four and bald, with spirals of tattoos up both arms. As a kid, I’d been alternately mesmerized and terrified by him.

Walter looked up at me as if he was seeing a ghost.

“It’s me,” I said. “Edward.”

At that, he dropped the knife and folded me into a bear hug. “Edward,” he said. “If you’re not the spitting image…” He stepped back, frowning. “Did he-?”

“No,” I said quickly. “Nothing’s changed.”

I glanced outside the abattoir, where a trio of wolves were staring at me from behind a fence. My father used to talk about the wisdom in a wolf’s eyes; even a layperson who comes in contact with the species will often feel unnerved the first time he is face-to-face with a wolf. They don’t just look at you; they look into you. Maybe, I thought, Cara had a point.

I’d called Walter last night from my father’s house and had explained his condition, but now I told Walter why I’d come here today-namely, what Cara felt a wolf encounter would do for my father. He listened quietly, his mouth twisting, as if he could chew on the plan and spit out the bits he didn’t like. When I finished speaking, he folded his arms. “So you want to bring a wolf into the hospital.”

“Yeah,” I said, ducking my head. “I know it sounds ridiculous.”

“The thing is, you don’t know how to handle a wolf. Just cause it looks like a dog don’t mean it is one. You want me to come along?”

For a moment I gave this serious consideration. “It’s better if I’m alone,” I said finally. That way only one of us would get in trouble.

I followed Walter out of the abattoir, down the hill to the enclosures. As we approached one fence, a pair of gray wolves bounded toward him. The smaller one only had three legs. “Morning, boys,” he said and pointed to the one that was racing back and forth in front of the fence, completely unimpeded by his lack of a limb. His gaze slipped like a splinter under my skin. “That’s Zazigoda,” Walter told me. “His name means lazy. Your dad, he’s got a sense of humor.”

Walter reached into the game pouch of his jacket and tossed a frozen squirrel into the woods at the rear of the enclosure. The other wolf trotted off to claim it as Zazigoda waited for his own reward. But instead of taking another squirrel from his jacket, Walter extracted a brick of Philadelphia cream cheese. He tore off a corner, and Zazi began to lick it. “Milk products calm ’em down,” he explained.

I vaguely remembered my father telling me how an alpha female who knows she’s going to give birth soon might direct her pack to kill the lactating doe in a herd of deer, simply because she knows the hormones running through the prey animal’s system will take the edge off the emotions of those that eat it. Then, by the time the pups are born, the rest of the pack will be more mellow and likely to accept them.

“We rescued Zazi,” Walter said, moving into the enclosure without any hesitation. “A hunter found him when he was about a year old. His leg had gotten caught in a bear trap, and he chewed it off. Your dad played nursemaid. The vet said he was a goner; he was too weak; his wound was infected; he’d be gone before the end of the week. But Zazi, he blew those odds away. You know how in life, there are people, and then there are people ? Well, there are wolves, and then there are wolves. Zazi’s one of those. You tell him he ain’t going to make it, and he’ll prove you wrong.”

I wondered if this was why Cara wanted me to bring Zazi, in particular. Because his story so closely mirrored what she wanted to happen to my father.

Walter looked up at me. “Since your dad nursed him, he’s always been more comfortable around humans than a wolf ought to be. Great with kids, great with film crews. That’s why we’ve always used him for community outreach.” He dragged a crate into the pen and easily loaded the wolf inside. “One day we were at a school with Zazi. Your dad, he likes to pick a couple of kids from a class to come up and touch the fur of a wolf, hands on, if you get what I mean. To make them curious but not terrified about wolves. But he eyeballs the kids to make sure he’s not picking the class clowns, and before he does this, he lays down the rules-mostly to keep the wolf safe from the kids. If a kid moves a certain way, or comes up too fast, or just doesn’t pay attention, all hell can break loose.”

Walter leaned down to the mesh wire at the front of the crate and let Zazigoda lick his knuckles. “One day an aide brought a kid with special needs up to the front of the room. Kid was maybe ten years old and had never spoken a word; he was in a wheelchair and had profound disabilities. The aide asked if the boy could touch the wolf. Now, your dad, he didn’t know what to say. On the one hand, he didn’t want to turn the kid away; on the other hand, he knew that Zazi could easily read anxiety and could turn on the boy quickly, thinking he had to defend himself. Zazi’s not a hybrid; he’s a wild animal. So your dad asked the aide if the boy could communicate any signs of fear or distress, and the aide said no, he couldn’t communicate at all. Against his better judgment, your father lifted Zazi up to the table, where he could be eye level with the boy’s wheelchair. Zazi looked at the boy, then leaned forward and started licking around his lips. Your dad leaned forward to intervene, figuring Zazi had smelled food, and that the boy was going to freak out and push Zazi away. But before your dad could pull Zazi back, the boy’s mouth started working. It was garbled, and it was hard to hear, but that boy said his first word right in front of us: wolf. ”