Who Fears the Wolf?

Inky black night blindfolded me as my conscious mind struggled to break free from the depths of the dream that had awakened me. I could still feel the intensity of the wolf’s eyes glowing yellow in her age-grizzled black face. She had been watching me through the squares of a hog wire fence that stretched into the trees on either side of me. I didn’t know whether she was fenced in, or out. She blinked a warning just before the rifle shot boomed in my ears and startled me awake. As I surfaced from a sound sleep, I knew she had fled into the forest on the other side of the fence.

I tried to sit up, thrashing against my confining sleeping bag, banging my elbow on the log wall next to my cot. I thought I could still hear the echoes of the rifle’s blast bouncing off the canyon walls to the west. Did the sound exist only in my dream, or was there someone out there in the night poaching deer? My breathing and racing heart finally quieted, and I listened. The only sounds were of the river gurgling over rocks and the quiet skittering of mice foraging around the wood stove for dinner crumbs. An owl softly whooed, and I burrowed back into the warm down bag to try to get a few more hours’ sleep before dawn.

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Chapter 1

My parents have a difficult time believing that I am a member of the McIntyre clan; I never have fit into the family mold. If it weren't for my dad's dimples in my chipmunk cheeks, there would be no question that somebody else’s bundle of joy was slipped into Mom’s arms the day she left the hospital. My auburn hair and green eyes further separate me from my two brothers, who reflect our mother’s black hair and grey eyes. They are tall and lanky; I am short and what my dad calls built like a quarter horse.

You're going to do what? my mother shrieked when I called her a few years back to tell her I was going to learn to fly. Don't you know you could be killed? Small airplanes are dangerous, especially in the mountains!

Mom, driving Highway 93 is riskier than flying an airplane. I'll be fine, don't worry.

From the first moment I took the controls in the little Cessna trainer, I knew that I was born to fly. The dreams I had as a child were coming true, only instead of breathlessly flapping my arms to stay above the treetops, all I had to do was push the throttle forward. After 40 hours of bumping through practice landings and learning the fine art of cross-country navigation, ground reference maneuvers, stalls, and spins, I passed my checkride and became a fledgling pilot.

I moved on to larger airplanes and longer trips, adding hours to my logbook any way I could. My job at the university library had to finance my passion -- that was the only reason I stayed on there. I started adding ratings to my license: instrument, commercial, flight instructor. I bought my own airplane, learning to fly the little taildragger, and maneuvering it into high mountain landing strips my mother would have called suicidal. Somewhere along the way, the passion for flying replaced the passion I once had for my husband. By the time I recognized the damage my neglect had done, it was too late for reconciliation; we parted company. I got custody of the airplane and my long-in-the-tooth Ford pickup.

One sunny day in June, a friend called and said, Hey, Leigh, there's a guy here at the airport looking for volunteer pilots for some environmental group. If you're interested, why don't you come on out?

Nobody has to issue me an engraved invitation to fly. I was out there as soon as I could find my keys and ask my boss for the afternoon off. He knew better than to say No.

Bob Michaels worked for a fledgling organization called Peregrine. The non-profit had formed a few years earlier, in 1986, when the environmental movement was just beginning to kick into high gear. Michaels was building a cadre of pilots willing to volunteer their piloting skills and airplanes to give politicians, media representatives, researchers, and people on both sides of environmental issues a new perspective on the earth we usually only see at ground level. He checked my logbook for experience, asked me about insurance on my airplane, and said, Let's go for a ride.

We took off in my 1948 Aeronca Sedan, and flew into a nearby valley. He asked me to fly as slowly as I could, show him some stalls, and then follow the valley's contours, in and out of canyons, turning with trees just off the wingtips. Like most experienced flight instructors, he seemed able to quickly assess a pilot's skills, and I felt good when I saw him relax and begin to enjoy the flight in my reliable old boat of an airplane. She rode the waves and ripples of turbulence as if she had a lead keel under her.

Wow, he said, you could see a wolf's eyeballs from here! How ‘bout volunteering to track wolves for a researcher up in the North Fork area? I took the next three days off. My boss was not happy.

That same summer evening, I took off for the North Fork, 150 miles away, almost to the Canadian border. I held my aeronautical chart on my lap. The airstrip I was looking for was not printed on it, but I had penciled an X where Bob told me it was located, a half mile south of the border station.

Be sure to drag the strip before you land. There are usually a few deer grazing on it, and sometimes a moose, he advised. They'll leave if you come in low enough. Land to the north. It's uphill that way, and expect the grass to be long. Be careful you don't flip your plane on its back. I'll be waiting for you there. The cabin is right next to the strip. You'll see the Peregrine plane tied down there.

I stopped in Whitetail, to top off the fuel tanks at the last place available before reaching the North Fork, and the light was fading before I finally reached the border. I almost missed the airstrip in the shadows of the trees towering west of it. A grassy buzz-cut through the timber marked the boundary between the U.S. and Canada. It still glowed pale green in the dusk. I quickly turned south, hoping there was enough light left to drag the strip and land. I circled once to lose some altitude, and set up for a run to the north. I could see that a standard rectangular approach was out of the question. There were trees on the south end, too tall to clear and still make a landing on the short strip. I had to come in over the river, and make a quick turn just before touchdown. No landing this time, though, just a pass ten feet above the grass, which was especially tall and lush on the south end. A deer flashed by on my left, bounding toward the timber.

It's now or never, I thought, as the sun disappeared completely behind the ridge. My eyes adjusted to the lower light level, and I flew the twisting pattern again, my heart pounding as I reduced power for the final approach. Slipping turn to final, no flaps on the Sedan to help fly a steeper descent…flare just above the grass, bringing the nose up higher to slow down, trees looming ahead, large in the windshield. The grass cushioned my touchdown, and the Sedan rolled sedately to a stop. I kept the control wheel back against my belly and added some power to taxi up to where Bob waited. My heart rate began to slow.

Hey, nice landing, Bob grinned. Pretty exciting, huh? Wait till we take off tomorrow morning with me and Hannah on board, if you think that was fun. I didn't want to think too much about it at the moment, even though Bob's wiry trim figure wouldn't put us anywhere near gross weight. I tied down the Sedan, unloaded my sleeping bag and pack, and followed Bob to the cabin. A kerosene lantern glowed through the window.

Hannah, this is Leigh, the new volunteer I recruited today. How 'bout some dinner? We have a barbecued elk steak left over, don't we, or did Duke steal it? Duke wagged his tail and licked my hand. He admitted to nothing.

Hannah was tall and slender, with tanned face and hands, muscles lean and taut, obviously in excellent physical condition. Her tawny hair was gathered into a single thick braid down her back. She wore a T-shirt with a blue denim shirt over it, jeans, and low cut hiking boots. Bob had told me she'd spent the last ten years living mostly alone on the North Fork to study the wolf packs that wandered south out of Canada. No roads to follow, just trails along the river and its tributaries. Hiking in summer, snowshoeing or skiing in the winter, she set snares to catch wolves so she could attach radio collars around their necks. Silver duct tape worked well to secure them, and gradually deteriorated at the right rate as young wolves grew, so the collars would drop off before they strangled the animals.

Hannah said a quiet Hi, and asked if I wanted some salad too – no fresh lettuce out here, but instead, sliced oranges and onions that turned out to be surprisingly tasty. After fixing up a plate for me, she excused herself and headed for her tent.

I get up pretty early in the morning. Just leave your plate there on the bench inside the door. The mice may have a party tonight in the cabin, so don't be surprised by the noise. The outhouse is 'round the back there to the north. If you didn't bring a flashlight, there's one on the wood stove inside. See you tomorrow.

I settled down on a chunk of upended tree trunk by the small campfire, and started gnawing on the piece of elk steak. It was cold, and a bit chewy, but I was hungry enough to enjoy it. Duke rested his black nose on my knee, eyes pleading for a bite. You can have the last bite, Duke, just be patient, okay? He wagged his tail, sweeping an arc in the dirt. Mosquitoes began to buzz around my ears, looking for their evening meal.

How much do you know about Hannah's research, besides what you told me this afternoon? I asked Bob while I flailed away at the mosquitoes. Do you know what we'll do or where we'll go tomorrow?

She's a loner, and doesn't say much about her work to non-scientists. I've read some of her papers, though, and she probably knows more about gray wolf behavior than anyone else in this part of the country. She's spent time in Minnesota, too, working with researchers in the Isle Royale area. You'll never hear her give an opinion about whether wolves should be re-introduced in the lower forty-eight. I suspect she secretly cheers, though, whenever it looks like a pack will establish itself in this area. So far, all the den sites have been up across the border. He waved his arm toward the north. There was still a glow over the ridge where the sun had set.

Will we be flying into Canada, then, in the morning? I asked. How will she arrange that with Customs?

Oh, she crosses the border all the time, on foot, in her pick-up, and by air. They even let her carry her rifle across ‘cause she never knows when she's going to meet up with a grizzly with a bad attitude. She went up to the border station this afternoon and told them that we'd be flying tomorrow. She used the radio telephone to call Glacier Park to let them know we'd be doing some low level flying down by Long Lake, too.

I gave the ever-hopeful Duke my plate, and he went to work noisily cleaning off the meat juices. Won't have to wash that now, I commented.

We'll get up by six tomorrow. It’ll take a while to rig up the antennae on your wing struts. I think I have some clamps that will work. Then we string the wires through the window and door to the direction finder. Hannah sits in the back with a headset to monitor the box. She'll tell you how she plans to signal you for which way she wants you to turn the plane as we fly. Probably tap you on the right shoulder for a right turn, left for a left turn. Just turn ninety degrees, then fly a straight line again until she signals you. It really works slick. We can usually find a collared animal in just a few minutes, once we start hearing the chirp. We fly pretty low, so we're usually in the right drainage before we even pick up the signal. It's line-of-sight reception.

How do you know which animal you're tracking?

Each radio collar sends out a different frequency signal. She has a list of frequencies, and just tunes in the one for the animal she's looking for. The signal sounds different when the transmitter doesn't register any motion for an extended time. Then we know that either the animal is dead, or the collar has fallen off. We pinpoint the location, then use a portable direction finder to search for the collar on the ground.

How often does that happen?

Bob shook his head slowly. Too often. Every year Hannah loses some wolves to hunters or trappers. It's legal to kill wolves in Canada, but of course they're protected as an endangered species here. It hits her pretty hard, like losing old friends. She's supposed to assign only numbers to the wolves, but she still gets to know each of them as individuals, name or no name. He poked at the fire with a stick, then threw on another chunk of pine. Sparks swirled up into the darkness.

I've had a busy day. I think I'll hit the sack. Where do we brush our teeth?

Bob pointed to a trail leading from the circle of firelight toward the river. Just go down over the river bank. You can dip some water in a cup. There's one hanging on that post by the door. I'm going to stay here awhile until the fire dies down again.

I found the cup, got my toothbrush and a towel, and decided to try the trail without a flashlight. When I left the campfire, I couldn't see a thing. I slid my feet along, finding the trail by banging my toes against the rocks that were along the edge of it. By the time I reached the riverbank, my eyes had adjusted enough to keep me from stumbling into the gurgling water. I could smell wild roses and mint that grew along the bank. I stooped down and scooped up water. It flowed icy across my hand.

To heck with giardia, I thought, and took a long cold drink. Better than wine, no hangover in the morning, and if luck was with me, no gastric distress from that little organism known as backpacker's delight.

I brushed my teeth, away from the edge of the river, and washed down the rocks with more clear water. I paused to look downriver at the starlight sparkling on the ripples. The hair on the back of my neck stood up as my ears tuned in to a snuffling sound that came from the riverbank above me. Bear? Grizzly bear?? I turned around, ever so slowly, ready to leap into the river if necessary, and saw a dark shape on the bank. Too small for a bear. Wolf? The shape clambered down the trail toward me, and I could see a tail wagging. Duke!

Don't do that to me again, you big oaf! Scared five years off my life. I scratched his furry head, and we climbed back toward the cabin and the safe circle of firelight waiting there.

Bob was grinning as we approached. Wondered what you'd think when you met up with him out there in the dark. Got the old adrenalin going, did he?

I tried to be nonchalant. Oh, I figured it was him when he didn't come crashing down on me right away. See you in the morning. I have an alarm on my watch, so I should be up on time. Thanks for asking me to come. What an experience so far!

G'night, Leigh. Don't let the mice attack you!

I rolled out my sleeping bag on a cot in the corner of the cabin, pulled off my boots and jeans,