Weekend of the Wolf

CHAPTER 2

Had he known better, Paul would never have lined up an interview for ten in the morning. After the all-nighter in the tracking van, he barely had enough time to shower and shave back at the lodge, then race on into town. Fortunately, the rain had stopped, and weak sunshine was working its way through the gray.

Paul sat with his subject on the porch of the old man’s house. It was an antique structure compared with what Paul was used to in Los Angeles, but fairly typical for the area. Perhaps it had been brown at one time, but now it could best be described as blending. Its most remarkable feature was how it was almost completely devoured by the surrounding forest, which brought trees to within a few feet of its walls and concealed it from the main road.

From trackers to trappers. Norm Dillman had trapped and hunted the woods of Minnesota for most of his life, which Paul estimated to be well over seventy years. He certainly looked the part. He wore a thick red and black Pendleton jacket, with a red vinyl cap and camouflage pants. He chewed on an unlit cigar, which he pulled out for an occasional spit onto the dirt.

“I’m tellin’ ya,” said Dillman. “Since they went’n protected them damn things back in Seventy-three, there aren’t hardly any deer left in the state. Why I can recall back before when a man had no problem gettin’ his buck, or even a moose. But now, hell, ya don’t find much of either.”

“Environmentalists would say deer stocks might be down because of hunters, not wolves,” Paul said, not quite certain of the statistics pertaining to the whitetail deer population of Northern Minnesota. When in doubt, quote the opposition, especially when the opposition included environmentalists. It guaranteed an animated response.

“And I’ve got a hound that flies,” chuckled Dillman. “Them damn environmentalists don’t know s**t about what really goes on in the woods. Hunters is what keeps the deer population honest.”

“And you think short supplies might be because of the wolves,” said Paul.

“Damn right it’s the wolves,” said Dillman. “We all know they’s nothin’ but killin’ machines. They kill everything out there. We should just trap ‘em all and shoot ‘em all and be done with it. Then there’d be some deer left for the hunters.”

Admittedly, Paul wasn’t completely up to date on the wilderness situation of northern Minnesota, but he did know ecosystems. At least, he knew the theory of how they operated best. Human intervention of any kind was rarely part of a formula for a healthy ecosystem.

“But how about all those thousands of years before the wolves were bounty hunted and destroyed in the first place?” asked Paul. “The deer populations did just fine back then. The wolves didn’t kill them all off.”

“That was before there was hunters,” said Dillman. “But now we have hunters, so there’s no place left for the wolf. In my opinion, the only good wolf is a dead wolf.”

Paul nodded as he reached over and shut off the recorder on his phone. A perfect quote. He was just about to stand up and thank Dillman for his time when he suddenly remembered his episode in the dark.

“Oh, one more thing. Last night, well, actually about three this morning I was out near Bear Island Lake, and I came upon these two men walking quietly through the woods,” said Paul. “They seemed to be on some sort of mission. You ever seen anything like that?”

“The wolf men,” said Dillman. “Seen ‘em all the time, going way back.”

“Wolf men?” asked Paul, reaching back to restart his recorder. “Who are they?”

“Can’t say much about ‘em, other than I seen ‘em out there for thirty, maybe forty years. They don’t have much to say, but hell, I don’t either. They like to keep their distance. I just let ‘em be, and they leave me be.”

“Why did you call them wolf men?” asked Paul.

“‘Cause they act like wolves,” said the trapper.

“Like how?”

“Well, I guess I can’t really say I seen ‘em kill anything,” said Dillman. “So, I guess they aren’t that much like wolves. But hell, they act like ‘em in every other way. I guess I’d just say they’s sneaky.”

“Sneaky? Why would they need to be sneaky?”

“Hell, why don’t you ask one of ‘em? There’s a guy in town who used to be one. I seen him all the time for years. He’s old what’s his name. Runs a souvenir store.”

It took a minute, but the trapper finally remembered the name of the store. Paul jotted the information into his notepad, then stood up to leave.

“A little advice about dealing with wolves,” said Dillman, as Paul shook his hand. “Don’t get caught like a deer in the headlights.”

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The group assembled in the living room of a wooden cabin near the lake. It was cozy with well used furniture and a small kitchenette off to the side. For the six visitors from other parts of the country who were volunteering their time to the project, it was home for the week. The living room served as operation control for the tracking organization, a conference room for meetings and lectures, and a place to relax when nothing else was going on.

The room was lit only with the indirect window light of two enormous panes, which offered scant light from the overcast outside. There might have been a view of the lake if not for the thousands of aspens and Indian paintbrush, and various other species of foliage surrounding the shores. It was a beautiful view regardless, despite the grayness of the skies.

Paul had wanted to go directly to the store owned by the man mentioned by Norm Dillman, but his presence was required back at the lodge for a mandatory debriefing of the tracking session.

There wasn’t much to talk about, since the wolf in question slept through most of the night. But despite his desire to interview the former ‘wolf man,’ Paul was quite happy to return. The reason was Shannon Mottler.

In the two days since their arrival in Ely, Shannon had been a major distraction. She was a high school teacher from Atlanta, but nothing like any teacher Paul had ever attended class with. She was in her early thirties, close to Paul’s age, and just possibly as stunning as anyone he had ever seen. Her elegant face and dark eyes were framed with long black hair done with the slightest hint of something wild.

She sat across from him at the large wooden table. The curator of the project was speaking, and as always, Paul asked lots of questions, but somehow his gaze seemed to continue drifting in her direction. On more than one occasion, the look was returned.

Of the five others in the volunteer group, Paul found Shannon to be the only one of interest. Three of the others, all of them women, were hardcore environmentalists, the kind Paul did not care for. They seemed the type far more comfortable on a protest march, carrying ridiculous banners and making too much noise, than on a wilderness trip in Northern Minnesota. Paul found the tactics of such people ludicrous, since they effectively did more harm to their cause than good.

The other was a car salesman from Des Moines who seemed more interested in a week away from his wife than tracking wild animals.

The project curator stood up and announced a break for lunch. Max Falkoski was trying to make a name for himself in wolf research. The tall, muscular man with the dark hair and mustache was about to finally put the doctoral letters beside his name, which, together with this project, would hopefully launch him into the arena of big-name wolf biologists. At the age of thirty-one, it was his only dream.

“I have a few questions about numbers,” said Paul, as the group began moving toward the kitchen.

“Sure,” said Max. “I was never great in math, but I’ll give it a shot.”

“I spoke with an old trapper this morning,” said Paul. As with the trapper, it was time to present the opposition’s point of view. “He says since the wolves have been protected, there’s hardly anything left out there to hunt.”

“Maybe I can help you with numbers,” chuckled Max. “Minnesota has the largest population of timber wolves in the Continental United States, which currently is about seventeen hundred. It takes about twenty deer to support a single wolf over the course of a year.”

Paul was never great with math either, but he was able to calculate the equation on his phone within moments.

“Thirty-four thousand deer a year get eaten by wolves,” said Paul.

“Right,” said Max. “But the Department of Natural Resources estimates the state’s white-tail deer population at about one million.”

“Which leaves the hunters about nine hundred and sixty-six thousand deer,” said Paul.

“Right again,” said Max. “Which is up, incidentally, from about four hundred thousand back in seventy-three, before the wolves were protected.”

“So, the wolves help increase the deer population?” Paul asked doubtfully.

“Probably not,” said Max. “All animal populations have large swings from time to time. It just happens to be the high end of a cycle at the moment. And as for the tracker not seeing any deer, well . . . why don’t you just go for a walk in the woods and see how many you can count in an hour. They’re everywhere.”

Paul smiled and finished writing numbers on his tablet. He glanced at Shannon, who was also smiling. Another side to the story. Whoever had coined the phrase of two sides to every story had obviously never covered one. Most complex news items, such as this one, had at least ten.

“I have another question for you,” said Paul. “On a different subject. Last night while I was on my tracking session with Allison, I ran into a couple of guys who were walking through the woods.”

“Yeah, Allison told me,” said Max said with a squirm, apparently a bit uncomfortable.

Paul explained the circumstances, again leaving out the issue of firearms. He was happy to see Shannon paying close attention as he spoke. The other women, all carrying sandwiches, sat down at the table and also listened intently. The car salesman stepped outside for a cigarette.

“What do you know about these guys?” asked Paul.

“Nothing,” said Max. “We just see them. Like Allison said, we thought they were poachers, but it doesn’t seem to fit. Based on the conversation you heard, it sounds like they’re smugglers, which would make sense.”

“The trapper I talked with this morning said they act like wolves,” said Paul.

“Off hand I’d say they don’t,” said Max. “At least the way they travel. Wolves are pack animals, and these guys are usually in pairs. Other than that, it’s hard to say. I guess I’ve never thought about it in those terms. Let me think about it a little.”

“Have you ever spoken with any of them?” asked Paul.

“Just once,” said Max. “It was quite by accident, really. We were out in the field looking for more sights for our tracking procedures. We just happened to stumble onto them while they were eating lunch. I think they were more startled than we were.”

“What happened?” asked Paul.

“At first we thought they were deer hunters,” said Max. “It was autumn, and they looked the part. They were dressed in red vests. It was the only time we’ve seen them not wearing the gray or black they usually wear.”

“Then how do you know it was them?” asked Paul.

“They weren’t carrying deer rifles,” said Max with a shrug. “And then, they were on their feet the minute they saw us. They said a quick ‘good afternoon,’ and pretty much took off before we could find out who they were.”

“Have you ever gone to the police?” asked Paul.

“And say what?” asked Max. “We’ve never seen them doing anything wrong. And then, we see them so rarely. The few law enforcement we have around here would never be able to find them. We’re talking about millions of acres of wilderness out there, from the Boundary Waters all through the Superior National Forest.”

“Sounds like they don’t want to be found,” said Shannon, speaking for the first time.

Paul looked in her direction and smiled.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Shannon walked up the dirt road toward the lodge office and country store. Others from the group walked before her, on their way to check out the supply of wolf t-shirts and other souvenirs. But Shannon had no intention of following them inside. Her eyes were on the pay phone to the left of the front door.

Most of the cabins were quite a distance from the gnarled cedar structure. Shannon watched the others step inside, then veered over to the corner where the phone held firm to faded, rustic paint. There was no cell phone service this far out in the boonies, making the antique pay phone a prized commodity.

An old English pointer, collapsed up against the wall and snapping at mosquitoes, offered a miserable glance as Shannon picked up the phone. She ignored him, dialing the area code and number by heart.

“Yeah,” came the man’s voice at the other end.

“Hi, it’s me,” in a very sweet voice, more for the benefit of any stray passerby than for the man on the phone.

“Hello. How may I be of assistance?”

Shannon grinned. His voice and manner always became so formal when dealing with her. She had a feeling things would change in the very near future.

“I have news,” she said.

“You always do.”

“Real news. There’s a guy here, one of the volunteers, who works for the Associated Press. He says he’s here doing a story about wolves . . . timber wolves.”

“And?”

“Last night he stumbled across two of the runners.”

She heard his long sigh and wanted to do the same. She instead glanced across the muddy, dirt parking lot to make certain there were no new arrivals who might overhear the conversation.

“He mentioned it today,” Shannon continued. “Just a little while ago. He asked the curator if he knew anything about them. Apparently, he asked an old trapper the same thing this morning.”

“What did they say?”

“The curator didn’t know much. He said he’d seen them before, but never doing anything illegal. The trapper said they acted like wolves.”

“Wonderful.”

“But are you sitting down?” asked Shannon. “Apparently one of the runners mentioned a rumor about something big coming up.”

“He what?!” the man almost shouted into the phone. Shannon glanced off into the trees. She hadn’t expected his formality to disappear this quickly.

what“Anyway, I think this reporter is into much more than just timber wolves,” she suggested.

“Great. Just what we need, a bunch of rumors and a scum of the earth reporter snooping around.”

“I’ve got some info on him. His business card and driver’s license number. I took the liberty of taking a peek at his wallet while he was taking a shower. See if you can find out if he’s who he says he is, and what his assignment really is.”

“You’re positively evil, as usual.”

“That’s not all,” smiled Shannon. “We’re going shopping in town together. I think he’s got an interview lined up with someone he thinks is associated with the project.”

“This guy sounds like he could get into lots of trouble.”

“Oh, you don’t know the half,” said Shannon. “On top of everything else, I think he has the hots for me.”

“God help him.”