Summer of the Wolves (27 page)

 

I have a couple of things to say. One is about the impression that I got from your letter that you didn't think staying there would work and how much you looked forward to coming back to California. I was confused, because everything and everyone you talked about sounded wonderful, like good people to be with. So this is my advice, whether you want it or not. If you love a place, it's home. If people love you, they are family. Family can come in many shapes and forms. But first you must open your heart before you can really know how much other people care about you. My feeling is that you've just started to do that. It's tempting, when you have lost as much as you have, to think you have to be perfect for things to go right, to belong, to be loved. I wonder if maybe you have already found what you need?

 

So, enough lecture from your old friend Meg. You know I love you and will always be happy to see you, but my life has changed, too. The doctors say I will be fine, but that I must give up being a foster mom for good. Whenever this makes me sad, which it does, of course, all I have to do is think of each of you off finding lives of your own and how I offered you hugs and a safe place to help you get strong again.

 

You and Randall are welcome to visit anytime. I know your friends will be happy to see you, too.

 

Love, Meg

 

The letter fell to Nika's lap as a rush of air left her lungs. She could never go back to live at Meg's. Ever again. And not one word about Olivia.

The bus seemed to be going faster and faster. Too fast. Her throat ached. What was she doing?

She looked again at the hardened face of the little girl, and at the uneaten cookie on the napkin between them, and with a shock Nika realized what Meg said in her letter was right. She still missed her mom so much, but now she would be missing Randall and Ian and Khan. And she realized that if she was willing, she could trust Ian and work things through. They could become a human pack, a family. It was up to her.

Suddenly nothing about this bus ride was right. Yesterday, it made sense but it didn't make sense anymore. It was just like when Nika lived with Meg. Her foster mom had always been able to say things in few words that helped her see the truth inside. A burst of joyful craziness swept over her as the bus careened down the highway, and she leaped to her feet. She reached into her backpack again and pulled out the brown paper sack. She picked up the uneaten cookie from the seat, put it in with the others, and leaned over. She held out the whole sack of cookies to the girl.

“Thanks,” Nika told her. “You don't know it, but I think you just saved my life. Take these. You might want them later. Don't give up. Take care.” Still scowling the girl looked up at her with a wrinkled forehead, but accepted Nika's gift with both hands.

The motion of the bus made it hard to walk, but Nika zigzagged to the front and tapped the bus driver on the shoulder. She shouted over the motor noise. “Stop! Can you stop, please?”

The driver cut his eyes in her direction but didn't slow the bus. “Next town's twenty miles, I stop there.” He reached over to turn up the volume on his radio.

“I'm going to be sick all over the bus,” Nika said loudly, fixing him with her eyes.

His head snapped around, eyes wide with alarm.

“Really, really sick,” she said as she leaned slightly toward him, wincing, one hand at her throat, one on her stomach. “I do this all the time, get very sick on buses. It's awful. Once I start, I just can't seem to stop. I feel it coming, right now . . .” She gagged and grabbed the railing.

The bus lurched and stuttered and moaned down through the gears, jerking to a stop, pulling onto the shoulder by a driveway. The door wheezed open.

Nika waved at the girl in the back row, hoisted her backpack, and shot out the door.

“How'll you get back?” the irritated driver barked before closing the door.

More she couldn't hear. The door closed with a hiccup, and the bus rumbled away. Tears rivered quietly down her face. Happy tears. Meg would be proud. Mom, too.

As the bus disappeared over the hill in a grind of gears and a trail of exhaust, she wondered how many miles it was back to town. The sun's heat captured in the asphalt radiated up through her feet. She looked at the open blue sky, the tall pines striped with late afternoon light. Even with brush at the roadside drying and brown, and a horsefly dive bombing at her head, it was like a postcard, her postcard. As she squatted to tie her sneaker, she heard the sound of a car. A truck was coming down the highway from Red Pine, a truck moving very, very fast.
The sheriff should give him a ticket,
she thought. But before she could stand up, the truck raced by in a flash of familiar kelly green. Soon it was plummeting over the far hill. A truck hot on the tail of a lumbering bus.

Relief pulled Nika to her feet, a solid feeling like after a long swim when you get close to the shore and suddenly your feet touch the bottom. It didn't even matter if they were mad at her for leaving. Or if they yelled at her. Except that now they were disappearing over a faraway hill.

Nika laughed. She'd finally made her decision, and Ian had raced right by, not even seeing her. Maybe he would chase the bus all the way to Minneapolis. She pictured Ian forcing the bus to stop, then having to listen to a few choice words from the cranky bus driver.

Time stopped. Then after forever, the kelly green truck came crawling slowly back over the hill. She waved and jumped, and waved again and jumped some more. The truck sped up, then looped in a U-turn, spitting up dust as it pulled onto the sandy shoulder behind her. Ian leaped out almost before the truck stopped. Elinor's red hair flashed as she threw open her door. Randall struggled out from the cramped second seat.

Nika walked, then ran toward the truck. Running toward now, not running away. When you only had a few pieces left in a puzzle, once you saw those last pieces, you knew exactly where they fit.

It was deep winter, tree shadows inked by moonlight on fresh snow. The silvery-tan wolf lifted her nose. Coming to the fence were the girl-like-the-woman and the smaller boy, the tall man who talked calmly, the woman who gave meat. The tan wolf leaped to stand on the greeting rock, her tail at ease.

When the girl-like-the-woman and the tall man clanged through the gate into the enclosure, the almost full-grown black pup bounced across the snow to greet them, his tall body twisting, his tail loose and circling.

After the humans went back through the gate, the tan wolf heard a low and rising sound, then another. The black pup ran to lick the tan wolf's lips, to bow before her. They stood, shoulders touching, ears pricked forward. Now all four humans blended their voices in a howl, a little like wolves, but not the same.

In the light of the moon-fired snow, the young black wolf lifted his muzzle to answer, to howl with a throaty fullness that could sail for miles. At last the tan wolf could sing side by side with the young black wolf in tones that tunneled up through time. She shaped her howl deep in her chest and let it braid together with his. The two wolves sang into the treetops, sang across the frozen lake, celebrating what they knew deep within their blood and in their bones.

I have so much gratitude to express, all straight from my heart: to Houghton Mifflin Harcourt editor Ann Rider, whose wisdom and grace made my experience so positive as
Summer of the Wolves
grew into its adulthood after a lingering adolescence. My readers helped me more than I can say with their many thoughtful questions and helpful catches: to Judith Bernie Strommen for her multiple readings over many years, her razor-sharp questions, and her belief in Nika as a character; to Beckie Prange and Consie and Roger Powell for their woods-wise insights; to Jess Edberg from the International Wolf Center, who sniffed out wolf facts for correctness; to Johnnie Hyde for her trust in me as an author and her support for this story; and to Claude and Laurel Riedel for their insights into child development and children seeking new families. I am grateful to Lisa Pekuri for her thorough, insightful proofreading; and to Juanita Havill for her many early manuscript readings, her warm encouragement, her professional knowledge and advice. Warm thanks to Jim and Judy Brandenburg for sharing the histories of our local wolves and for their encouragement and support; and to Judy for her eagle eye for facts and language. Heartfelt thanks to Steve Foss for his wonderful cover, a fine photo of a wild black wolf from our local forest. Many thanks to Marion Dane Bauer, Sandy Benitez, Susan Ray, and all of the Tuesday night writers for their encouragement as I began this book many years ago. It all started with Emile Buchwald's class and the commitment and time of Saturday-Morning-at-Ridgedale writers as we all began to write for children.

I am especially appreciative for the International Wolf Center and the excellent job they do teaching the world about wolves. Volunteering with the International Wolf Center and the Carlos Avery Game Farm allowed me unforgettable experiences up close with captive wolves and pups. My thanks, as well, to the many individual wolves with numbers and names who taught me so much: to wolves in my neighborhood who occasionally grace us with a glimpse; to Nyssa, Grizz, Maya, Aidan, and Denali, wolves from the IWC I have, in a small way, helped socialize, and who honored me with naps in my lap. A special thank you to my high school English teacher, Barbara Callender Olson, who showed me the joy of literature and planted a seed for my love of writing and a belief in myself. To all of my former students and the inspiration of sharing bits of their lives, to the Community of Ely, the inspiring people I have met there, and to its residents who live with wolves, struggling sometimes with the closeness yet benefiting from the wilderness that is their shared home. I thank my close friends, my husband Steve, and my children, Nick and Anna, for their patience when I have disappeared into my writing.

Finally, I am thankful for the memories of three strong women: my aunt, Charlotte Gill; my mother, Alice McNear Carlson; and her dear friend Elinor Watson Bell, owner and lover of the actual Little Berry Island, where, as a child, I first set my foot in a northern wild place and fell in love.

P
OLLY
C
ARLSON
-V
OILES
says this novel, her first, grew out of several things: her longtime love of the wilderness country in northern Minnesota, her experiences with wolves at the International Wolf Center, and her career of working with lost and found children as a secondary special ed/English teacher in inner-city Minneapolis. She lives with her husband and dog near Ely, Minnesota, high on a ridge across the lake from the Boundary Waters Canoe Area, where on lucky nights they listen to the music of the wolves.