“And it worked?”
“Two of them began to approach me when I didn’t have food, sniffing. Nipping. But not the rest. The leader, who I called Brutus, was always growling at me. Teeth bared, fur puffed up. Wolves are like people. Different ones have different ideas about things.”
We’ve gotten to a shallow part of the river. Kiro uses the paddle to shove us out of a muddy patch and back into clear water.
“Then came the first cold snap of winter. It was so cold—far below freezing after being warm for all those months. And there was no snow for tracks—just the bone-chilling cold. I tried and tried to catch anything, but it was too cold and windy for me to move around outside. I knew where the wolves stayed—it was this dry place near a rock under a mammoth fallen tree, but I didn’t dare go there. I’d moved to a cave by then, so I would sit in there and wait out the night, shivering, covered by the coats and sleeping bags I’d stolen. I’d make fires, but they kept being blown out by the howling wind—it had shifted for the winter. At one point, the cinders burnt my warmest blanket. All of the lighters I’d stolen were out of fuel. No more campers came around.”
I’m stunned that an eight-year-old boy could keep himself alive even that long. He’d been out there for months by then.
“Two of the wolves came by. They were used to me feeding them, and I thought for sure that when I didn’t have food for them, they would kill me. And I was curled up, so cold, I almost didn’t care. They sniffed around for food, and I just cried, ashamed.” He pauses, and I wonder whether he’s feeling shame now. “And then the brownish one who was the first to let me feed him from my hand came to me and sniffed me. I thought he would bite my hand—I really did. I was willing to let him. I was pretty fucked up by then.”
He pauses for a long time. I can tell by Kiro’s eyes that he’s back there, thinking.
“I waited. He smelled my hand, and I saw this flash of teeth. Then he curled up next to me with his big warm body partly on me…” His voice drops to a whisper. “It might sound like a fairy tale, but it’s what he did—he kept me warm. And the other one curled up next to him. They were just so warm. I shivered there, crying and talking to them. Petting them. They were kind to me even though I had nothing to offer them. It was the most amazing experience of my life.”
Shivers come over me.
“I never told this to anybody.”
“It means a lot that you would tell me.” Does he believe me? I want badly for him to believe me.
“You’re my mate now. You should know these things.”
I don’t reply.
“Snow came, and it aided in my hunting. I would play with the brown wolf—Brownie, I called him. My first friend. The other, Beardy, would play, too. I would get wounded a lot—wolves aren’t like dogs; they are really rough. But I got strong fast. There were seven in the pack, and they would disappear sometimes, and I’d feel so sad, thinking they wouldn’t come back, but they always would. Off hunting—that’s where they were. I worked harder on being a help to them after that. It was getting colder, and it wasn’t even winter. I understood then that I’d die if they wouldn’t let me stay into their den. I started making traps—mostly pit traps. That’s what the professor called them. He’d show me pictures, trying to get me to talk. Wanting us to share a vocabulary about the wilderness—that’s what he always said.”
“But you didn’t talk to him.”
“No. I only ever wanted to kill him,” he says. “I would wait so silently at my pit traps. I was so small then, but I knew how to wait. One night I had five rabbits, and I made my move—I brought them to the den. The wolves ate the meat. And I stayed the night, curled up at the edge, right up against the rock, making myself as small as I could. Brutus, would snap at me when I’d get near the group, so I shivered by myself. It wasn’t so cold as that one night I almost died. The next night I did the same thing—I brought two rabbits and stayed. But I was so cold in the middle of the night, I approached the group. I knew it was dangerous, but I figured that if I was dead, at least I wouldn’t be cold anymore. Brutus was on me immediately. He had me on my back, snarling, jaws on my throat. I whimpered. I thought he would kill me. And then he licked my face.” Kiro looks down at me with a happy light in his eyes. He looks so young. “That was the first time I really felt…like I belonged.”
“It must have been amazing.”
“It was the best feeling in the world. Brutus never liked me, I think. But he didn’t kill me. But with the other wolves, things were good. It was…amazing.”
Amazing. He’s using my language, trying not to be the savage.
He looks out at the trees like he sometimes does. “I’d always been fast and clever, strong for my age. Active. Energetic. It was something the family that adopted me hated about me. It saved my life with the wolves, though. They saw me as a fellow hunter.”
“Your family hated that you were strong and energetic?”
“They liked to sit and watch TV, and I had so much wildness and savagery in me—I never liked to sit still.”
“That’s normal boy behavior—notsavagery.”
He gives me a look. “You say it because you don’t know.”
I do know—I know he’s wrong, but it’s not an argument to start now. “So they didn’t like your…energy.”
“Out in the wilderness, nobody hated me for being what I was. The wolves never let me actually hunt with them—they were too fast. Too good. But they would bring me food. You can’t imagine how it made me feel. They moved for summer. I didn’t understand that’s what they were doing. I thought they’d abandoned me. But I followed their voices and found them. They accepted me right away.”
“So that’s what you’d eat? Just…flesh?”
“There’s a lot to eat out here. Raspberries, seeds. Walnuts. Some plants have sweet leaves. Fish. I started growing things in our summer place—potatoes and beets. Those I got from the campers. It got even easier as the pups came. The pups saw me as one of their own from the start. I was there for over two generations. Sometimes when the wolves left for hunting and I sensed it would be a long, lonely time before they were back, I’d trek out to the camping areas and take clothes. Or food. I’d talk to the campers sometimes and make up stories that my family was nearby. I’d steal comic books. I still remembered how to read. As I grew older, I took books. Sometimes they’d invite me to smoke and drink and fuck, and I would happily do that.”
An unpleasant feeling fires up my spine. “Yeah?”
“I stole radios sometimes. When I started roaming farther, I’d steal cars. ATVs sometimes.”