Theft (32 page)

“
Tell
,” I say, to him, using his own, forceful word.

He takes a deep breath and says, “She was stunned. Badly stunned,” and Brenda adds, “By me.” She takes over then, tells of leaving her cabin on the mountain, driving here, her confusion. Then she says, “I'm responsible.”

“We're all responsible, Bren,” Raymond says. “I thought Ciela reinjured her bad leg at first,” he continues. “But I finally got a chance to look at that thing up close.” He nods with certainty. “That limp she's had—it's an old injury. Probably a four-and-a-half trap, but either way, it was some kind of trap. No two ways about that. My guess is, that's the reason she wasn't able to skedaddle as fast across the highway as Hector. But this new wound, it's not going to cripple her. And as far as I can tell, this wolf got confused and ran headlong into the truck after
Brenda had stopped, not the other way around. She stunned herself good. Gave herself a concussion, a few scrapes.”

“She's healed for sure?” I ask again.

“If you ever quit jawing on and asking questions, we can take her out where she belongs, and you can see for yourself.”

He gestures to Christina and Brenda. “Take a corner. We're lifting this crate, as gently and quietly as we can, into that truck.” He points to the semi sitting in front of his place.

The four of us move together as smoothly as possible. We lift Ciela's crate into the trailer of the truck.

Brenda's the only one who can drive this monster, so Christina, Raymond, and I sit in the trailer with Ciela while Brenda drives. Raymond sighs. “It gets to me, you know, seeing these animals, any animals, injured.” He nods his head, staring at Ciela's crate.

I let his words sink in a little. Then I take a chance. “You ever shoot one of these wolves, Raymond?” I ask.

His eyes turn too quickly toward me. There's a momentary stare, and he stutters and says, “Yes.” Then more directly, “Yes, I did that.” I can see the words sinking into him, owning him in a way that becomes more comfortable as he says them out loud. “Complex thing,” he says. And then he starts telling a story I need to hear so badly. He speaks with his eyes glazed, staring blankly. He says, “I was bringing in animals to rewild on my own, me and a group of people. You know all about that. We wanted to restore the plains and desert, you know, to how this land was before civilization even walked here. Before people of any nation caused this devastation. But I got caught, like you almost always get caught when you're doing something
that
stupid. It was when Brenda was here, living with me.” He points with his head toward where Brenda sits, driving the rig. “The cops gave me a choice. Do time away from Brenda, or help control the wolves. Community service, they called it.” He says, “Brenda was with me then. It was after she'd come back, when she was a teenager, and before she left again.” He thinks on it. “I only did it once. It killed me to shoot a wolf; I mean, it left some part of me dead.”

“You were on the management team?” I say to him, after a while.

He nods. “I was ‘controlling' the wolves. Taking the lives of the ones they deemed unfit to live in the wild.” His eyes are glazed and empty. “I didn't have a choice. If they put me away, I'd lose my daughter again.”

He quits looking at me now, goes back to staring blankly. I take in what he says. I know operations like this go on all the time. It's the paradoxical part of any rehab plan, one I have never supported. After I've had enough time to filter what he's saying, I reach over and rest my hand on his. He looks at me then. Nothing more or less than that.

The truck rumbles on, and we can't see where we're going. Like Ciela, we're blocked in on all sides, no views to anything or cues to where we might be on the land. I understand now why they transport scared animals this way. There
is
something calming about it. We're crowded in by plastic containers stacked behind us in the trailer. I tap one. “So what's this?”

Raymond glances up. “Brenda took Zeb's route,” he says. “But after we're done here, she's driving this rig back to Colorado and telling Mike he can shove it up his ass.” He looks satisfied, even proud. “After that, she's coming back here to live. We'll get her a place. She wants to stay.”

“I thought she couldn't come back after she left the reservation?”

“Yeah,” Raymond laughs. “We're rewilding her.”

“So what's in the crates?” Christina asks.

“Oh.” Raymond hesitates. “Body parts.”

Christina gives me a look. I give Raymond a look.

“Yeah, she was hauling the this-and-that's left over after glamorous folks have sucked and clipped themselves to bodily perfection.” He slaps the side of a carton.

I punch his arm like a high school kid ribbing a friend. “You're shitting me.”

“I would not shit you about human flesh.”

“So she's going to tell Mike to shove someone else's ass up his own ass,” Christina says.

“Many someone else's asses. Yup.”

Somehow, the absurdity of it all makes us laugh harder than we should. We laugh, trying to keep the sound quiet on account of Ciela, and that just makes it harder to keep it in. We laugh till we're holding our guts and physically worn out and tired. We still have no idea where we are or what time of day it's getting to be. And in the aftermath of our levity, all three of us are silent, a little stunned, I think. In this odd place, life begins to feel comfortable again.

We can feel the truck slowing down now, heading off the highway onto a dirt road. A few minutes later, Brenda opens the doors to a dusky desert evening just beginning to come down.

Brenda hasn't taken us to the wolf reserve. These wolves, Raymond says, have found their way back to this land that is close to his home and a good distance from the WWA designated area in Días de Ojos. He had argued all along that they had never left here, and now, this is where Ciela and Hector's pack has returned. It makes sense to release them here, whether it's legal or not. We know the risks and the rewards.

Now, there's no laughter, no talk. We work together. We lower Ciela's crate from the truck and onto the ground. She scuffles inside it, and it rocks the balance, but the four of us hang on. From here, we have a short trek to the release spot Raymond has picked out. He saw the pack here last month, he says, and has monitored them off and on since then. He knows this is part of their territory. He knows they're thriving on this land.

By the time we get to the spot Raymond has picked out, the muscles in my legs burn, and my gloved hands are creased from the crate and cramped from holding one position. I'm grateful for it all. With these crates, once we loosen the latches, we can step back and pull on two heavy ropes to break the entire contraption apart. There's no way for a wolf to retreat back inside, and we're far enough away for our own safety and for the safety of the wolf.

It's grueling work, every muscle of your body tight with emotion and physical strain. It also feels like prayer, this quiet work we do, but it's a type of prayer that's neither dependent on an answer
or a god. It's deeply holy. With the release cage set up, the latches loosened, the ropes in our hands, and our positions taken, we're ready. Raymond gives the word. We pull. The crate breaks apart, and Ciela runs. Her long legs stretch out as far as they can, a wide open gait, and then she is gone.

That trapped bird in my ribcage—it flies every time we do this. It flies again and again, and there's a soreness from the release and an emptiness in my chest, and I'm filled to the brim with it all.

C
IELA IS OUT OF sight now. It's past twilight, the crepuscular hour when great horned owls start up and coyotes yip and the pinon and sage turn to silhouettes and shadows. The horizon softens, then fades away completely. Soon, we'll only be able to see a few feet in front of our faces—no city lights here, no street lamps. Just stars and a crescent moon that's already high in the sky, made more visible by the darkness.

We gather the pieces of the crate and haul them, one by one, back to the truck. We can't help looking back to see if she is anywhere in sight. The biggest part of me wants to see her as she runs away. But I know it's best if I don't. I pray for her safety in this territory. There's always the chance that Hector will have already chosen a new mate, that Ciela will be rejected. If that happens, I know she has only a small chance of survival.

These are the things I'm thinking as we pack up. They layer with the events of the past week. This twilight, this time in-between, it seems like a gap between two worlds, as if we—all of us—are walking on that seam now, and sometimes it opens to us, and we see something beyond what we thought was possible, and we enter it, and we know. Because in the end,
this
is possible:

Across the land, one wolf howls. There is a gap of time when there is nothing. And then, another wolf answers. They go back
and forth like this, the howls like brushstrokes hollowing out the night with sound.

No one moves. The four of us stand silently, together. Even our own breathing nearly stops.

The wolves, though, they move. You can hear them growing closer together, their howls closing that empty gap, Ciela's howl working its way farther and farther away from us, the distant howl waiting for her to arrive.

THE MEXICAN GREY WOLF is the most endangered mammal in North America. For more information about their natural history and conservation, visit the following websites:

For more information on Parkinson's, please visit the following foundations' websites:

F
IRST ON MY LIST of people to thank is Lisa Cech. I'll get back to this.

Huge thanks to Doreen and Joe Piellucci for your unwavering love and support. It is, as they say, simply beyond.

Special thanks to Liz Darhansoff, who keeps it simple, direct, honest, and compassionate. To me, that's the pinnacle of agenting.

To Kelly Dwyer, the Fairy Godmother of the book: Your insights and intelligence offered a clear turning point twice. Next year in Iowa, the drinks are on me. And huge thanks to Sarah Saffian, Peggy Lawless, Monica Mesa, the Professor of the Canine College, and Loml, who have all read sections of this book and offered essential insights throughout the process.

I also need to gratefully acknowledge the best friend I've never met, the writer-biologist Harry Greene for his vast knowledge and meaningful conversation.