Chapter 3
The Grey Lady
Rising well before her alarm – and on a Saturday, to boot – meant one of two things: it was either Christmas morning or it was an official ranger trip with her dad. If you asked Amelia which of those two mornings she’d prefer, she’d tell you it wasn’t close – an outing to check on the wolf pack would beat any wrapped gift under a tree.
With her father still asleep, Amelia got to work. She started the coffee before preparing their snacks for this morning’s trip. The drive to reach the Bear Mountain Lodge trailhead only took about forty-five minutes. From there, it was an hour’s hike to reach the observation point. There is an irregularly maintained ranger road available for the forest rangers to use
– it brings you directly to the same spot – but the hike in was an opportunity for Amelia and her dad to hang out. Plus, it gave Amelia a chance to find feathers for her fly-fishing flies.
With her earlier negotiations cementing a stop at Smokey Moses’ for pizza on the way home, Amelia’s prep focused on snacks for the car ride and hike. As she walked around the kitchen, compiling everything on the countertop, she heard her dad’s alarm go off. Shortly thereafter she heard movement and the water running in the bathroom.
“Do I smell fresh coffee?” William yelled from upstairs.
Amelia didn’t answer. She just smiled to herself and continued to pack their hiking bags.
“Now that I know that you know how to make coffee maybe it will become more of a thing,” William said, coming down the stairs. He stopped on the third step up from the bottom, sat down, and put his socks on.
“Or maybe you can just let me join you more often? I’m happy to trade barista services in exchange for more hikes,” Amelia answered. “Especially if it’s on a school day.”
This time it was William’s turn to smile to himself. “Always ready with an angle, aren’t you?”
With his socks on and boots tied, William walked over to the counter to pour his already-made-coffee into his to-go cup.
“So what’s the plan?” he asked.
“We’ve got road snacks ready to go. Packed you some jerky and fruit, filled our water bottles, and made some trail mix for the hike,” Amelia said, proud of herself.
“And did you check the supplies in the hiking bags?” he asked.
If there was only one lesson he could get Amelia to take to heart it was understanding how important it is to be prepared each and every time you head into the outdoors. Things can – and often do – go bad. Fast. No matter how experienced you are.
He’d been the first responder to a countless number of calls where seasoned hikers ended up inexplicably lost in woods they knew well. They always planned on a quick out and back trip. But when you’re out in the wilderness, things are more likely to not go according to plan. Most of the time the hikers were found alive and mostly well – dehydration notwithstanding. However, not all of them were lucky.
“Of course I checked. Safety first. Teamwork second.” Amelia nodded towards her dad. “Each bag is stocked with an emergency kit and blanket. And before you ask, I went through and double checked the kits to make sure the matches and compasses were there, the flashlights worked, and there are extra batteries present and accounted for,” Amelia confirmed. “And I already started Johnny Cash, so the truck is warmed up and ready to go.”
“Johnny Cash” is what the pair called William’s truck. It was “dressed in all black like the man himself” William liked to say. And even though it was May, Sundance still had frosty
mornings.
“Alright. Sounds like we’re in business,” William said in approval of Amelia’s prep work and attention to detail. “I just have to grab my hat from upstairs and I’m ready to go.”
***
One of William’s responsibilities as a Forest Ranger is to keep tabs on the local wolf population. It’s a role that Amelia feels is hers as well. She’s joined her father on these wolf wellness checks for as long as she can remember. A single look through her father’s long-range binoculars was all it took for her to become fascinated with the way of wolves. Watching how the pups played, wrestling with each other against the backdrop of freedom that living in the forest brought left an indelible imprint on her.
As the number of wolves throughout the Bear Lodge Mountain area has grown, the interconnected wildlife ecosystem has flourished in kind. Elk populations are healthier. Streams and rivers are cleaner. It even feels like there are more birds and bugs buzzing around.
But not everyone around Sundance is happy about the wolf resurgence. Ranchers say that the wolves pose a threat to their cattle while hunters dream of the chance to add a wolf to their trophy collection. All it takes is one paw over the protected boundary line for a wolf to immediately find itself in the cross hairs of a rifle.
This tension between wolf-supporters and wolf-detractors has been getting hotter in recent years. Those who want to see the wolves gone are pushing for more hunting and less regulation. While those who want to protect the packs work to extend the protected boundaries within which the wolves can live safely.
However, on this perfect spring morning, none of this tension is present. It’s only Amelia and her dad, driving down the back roads. The windows cracked just enough to fill the cab with the crisp Wyoming morning air. But it was enough fuel to get Amelia fired up.
“I can’t wait to see how much Titan has grown!” Amelia told her dad. “Do you think Rhea is still being mean to her brothers? That poor Artemis – picked on because he’s the runt.”
Amelia’s discovery of astrophotography in turn led to an interest in all things outer space. So when the latest litter of wolf pups were born, and the two went out to check on them, Amelia naturally gave each pup a space-related name. The bigger wolf-pups were named Titan and Rhea after Saturn’s largest moons (after all, Saturn was her favorite planet). And then there was Apollo, named after the NASA program that sent humans to the Moon in the 1960s and 70s. Amelia called a similar looking pup “13” in homage to one of her favorite movies “Apollo 13” (she can practically recite the entire movie, line for line). And last but not least was Artemis, the runt of the litter. Artemis was named after NASA’s program to return humans to the Moon.
As William drove, gratefully sipping on coffee in between munching on the prepared snacks, Amelia continued her speculation on the family dynamics. She couldn’t wait to see the pack.
***
“There’s the Grey Lady,” Amelia whispered in awe.
The Grey Lady was born in one of the first litters Amelia observed with her father. Right from the start, Amelia could tell that she would be a pack leader. There was something about her that was just...majestic. It was like the Grey Lady possessed a kind of ancient wisdom. Amelia couldn’t quite put it into words but felt it in her bones.
Having hiked in to their observation point, Amelia and William were now running down the checklist of items William needed to report back to the office. On this morning, the Grey Lady was casually laying by the den entrance, her tail lazily swatting back and forth as she watched the pups play. She let the pups explore the area, but made sure to keep them in both eye and earshot.
Amelia scanned the area around the den with her binoculars, getting a set of eyes on each of the pups. By this point, she could make them out individually based on their color and their size. Titan was the big brother – literally – he towered over the rest. He was off by himself, tentatively probing the boundary lines of just how far he could wander before his mother called him back. Rhea, the largest female pup of the group, was sticking close to her mother watching the other three pups wrestle. Actually, the better way to describe it is that Apollo and 13 were teaming up on the runt of the litter. Amelia knew that in Greek mythology, Artemis was a goddess, but her little runt turned out to be a boy. And the way his siblings picked on him made Amelia feel sorry for him.
Every once in a while, she’d hear the squawk of a crow and then pan the tree line to see where it came from. As her dad explained it, wolves and crows had a relationship that went back as long as wolves and crows existed. By sticking close to the pack, the crows knew there’d be food. In exchange, the wolves had a team of air sentinels, alerting them on the ground if anything was afoul. It was a relationship that worked well for both parties.
For Amelia, this was as good as it gets. She could watch the pups play for hours. She got lost in their world. Closing her eyes she could hear their grunts and growls as they wrestled. And if she really focused, she could feel their hot puppy breath as they panted in between the rounds of play.
Eventually, the pups tired themselves out. One by one, they settled down, preparing for a mid-morning nap. Amelia took another headcount, jumping from pup to pup before bringing the binoculars back to the entrance of the den. Her heart stopped.
The Grey Lady was staring directly at her. Not simply staring in Amelia’s general direction, but staring directly at Amelia herself. The Grey Lady’s eyes locked into Amelia’s. She felt this stare come right through the binoculars and reach all the way through to her soul — like some kind of primal recognition. It was too weird to explain. Even Veyla wouldn’t get it, she thought to herself.
“Time to pack up and head back for some pizza,” William whispered.
His voice broke the trance Amelia was in. She’d been in another world — so far gone that William’s whisper made her jump out of her skin. If the binoculars weren’t secured around her neck, they’d now be smashed on the rocks beneath her.
She’d completely forgotten about William, about pizza, about everything.
“Okay, just a sec,” Amelia told him, recovering from the jolt.
She fumbled around to get the binoculars back up to her eyes. But when she looked again, the Grey Lady and the pups had disappeared into the den.