Dispatch #1

Peter often felt he knew more about Gray Wolves than he did about people. He fidgeted uncomfortably in the smooth chair they had sat him in. He could tell the camera guy was getting annoyed that he wouldn’t sit still. That only made him more antsy. The interviewer was wrapping up her sentence as he refocused on her.

“...will tell us something more about wolves than we already know?” Peter guessed the front half of her sentence.

“Animal behavior is...” Peter’s brain seemed to stall. The pushy voice in his mind prompted him to make eye contact. He pulled his gaze from the window back to the woman sitting across from him. “...is always changing. Our understanding of it is changing. We used to think of wolves as violent in their dominance structures. But that was because old studies in the 1950s--”

“Is that not true?” The interviewer cut him off. His excited leg bouncing stopped with the interruption. Didn’t she know anything? Hasn’t she done any preparation?

“Well, no. We now know they’re rather docile in established societies. In fact--”

The woman interrupted him again. She was reading straight off her notes now. The smile she had greeted Peter with at the start was now gone. She was done hearing him babble about zoology minutia. The video interview was a complete wash. She just needed to salvage some quotes for the magazine article. “On this solo expedition, you’ll be without human contact for over a month. Possibly more. How do you cope with the loneliness?” Peter felt the energy sag out of him at the interviewer’s apathetic expression.

“I’ll manage.” He said.

The snow was crisp and bright. An endless white blanket of purity only broken apart by the frozen trees. It was so quiet that Peter could feel the pressure of the cold air pushing against his eardrums. The only sound was the faint squeak of snow from him shifting in his boots. He had chosen the snowmobile over sled dogs to get to the small cabin. Dogs were better out here but he feared the smell would interfere with his research. Peter stretched his sore muscles and turned to enter the tiny wooden building that would be his only shelter for the next month. He needed to use the precious few hours of daylight to unload his supplies and equipment. Besides the stove, old bed, and rough desk with a radio on it, there was nothing inside. Peter sighed, sending streams of frozen smoke out of his nostrils. This felt like home.

They had said to check if the radio still worked. He had managed to flick it on and find the right frequency.

“Research outpost PR36. Radio check.”

There was a hissing crackle, then a voice came through. “Good copy PR36. Check in daily. Let us know if you need something or someone to talk to.” Peter knew he wouldn’t be taking them up on that offer.

“Roger.”

His first night was more comfortable than Peter expected. The little stove filled the small room with heat as he went to bed. It was only chilly when he awoke to smoldering coals. Peter stirred the fire back into life and began making breakfast in the dark. It would be several hours until dawn broke. He needed the time beforehand to get ready. He didn’t want to lose a minute of valuable sunlight. After a small breakfast, Peter headed outside with his headlamp to load up the snowmobile with what he would need for the day. The cold air cut into his lungs and forced Peter to catch his breath on the threshold. The cold and dark seemed to push in on him and the small cone of light that extended from his forehead.

A few hours later, streaks of dawn began to sneak into the sky as the darkness faded. Peter pulled the starter on the snowmobile over and over again until the engine coughed to life. It made a low, wet sound as it slowly warmed up. Peter knew little about engines, but the sound this one made worried him. Nevertheless, he secured the last of the equipment before straddling the machine and slowly opening the throttle. It sputtered and bucked but slowly began to pick up speed as Peter slid it across the snow with the rays of sunlight poking out of the horizon behind him.

After a 40-minute cold ride, Peter shut off the engine and gathered everything he would need before setting off into a wooden area. The most recent tracking data pointed to a den nearby. His snowshoes sunk in deep with the weight of the equipment. It didn’t take long for him to begin sweating underneath the many layers of clothing. Each step felt inefficient, slow, and blocking. The frustration that filled him bubbled up into his mouth and escaped into the puffs of white fog that pushed through his scarf. It grabbed hold of his mind and began to fly it around, trying to find something to land on. It didn’t have to look hard.

The frustration gripped onto the thought of the woman sitting across from him at the interview. How her smile had faded into strained toleration. Peter knew that look. He had seen it in his parents' face, then his teachers, then the psychologists they had made him talk to. It was the look the other boys had given him when they were forced to ‘play’ together when grown-ups were around. It gave way to sneers and clenched jaws as they knocked him down when they were they were alone. There was something they all knew, all of them, that Peter did not, which surprised him. Peter knew a great many things. He had known more than the other boys his age did. He was good at schoolwork. That didn’t seem to matter to his teachers. Peter had withdrawn more and more as he grew. He spent more time in the woods or his books.

He had tried to translate their language into the one he knew. He read the books the school counselors gave him about manners and socializing. It sort of worked, but it was exhausting. And it really didn’t matter. They could always tell he was different. Peter could remember his Didus struggling in broken English to order ice cream. No matter how he tried, no matter how many decades he had lived here, Didus could never quite speak the language in the way everyone else did. Peter could remember the look in Didus’ eyes. The frustration at being disconnected had bred spite.

An hour of trudging later paid off. Peter caught a glimpse of movement in the distant trees. He tried to crouch as low as his bulky load would allow. Nothing appeared different. He froze there, waiting for something to come into view. Finally, after an eternity, the movement stepped out from behind a distant tree. The low, loping, figure was immediately recognizable. Peter’s tired body was electrified with energy as he tried to keep still. The figure was joined by another. Both headed off towards Peter’s right. He slowly began to move. This was the tricky part. Keeping a safe distance while not losing them. He had done this countless times before, but usually with a team or tracking collars. Then if he had lost sight of them, he could rely on someone else to pick up the trail. Now it was just him.

There were two wolves. At this distance, Peter couldn’t see anything apart from their silhouettes. They moved cautiously, stopping often to check the air for danger. Peter guessed they probably smelled him, but they hadn’t decided on what he was or if he was a threat. He kept his distance. It was difficult to move stealthily in thick snow with a heavy pack. Yet he managed to keep pace with the wolves as they led him across the forest.

One had something in its mouth. When the two reached a small overhang underneath a large evergreen, Peter saw it was a dead rabbit. The wolf dropped it as others came out from the overhang’s shelter. Peter began to set up the camouflage blind he had carried all this way. If this were their den, then he would be here for quite a while. He managed to get set up without drawing too much attention and get his binoculars into focus. This was the endurance part of the job. Hours, sitting as still as possible, trying not to freeze. The whole point of this research was to see if behavior changed in the dark winter months. Peter hunkered down and began making notes.

Later that night, once he had made it back to the cabin, he turned on the radio. Peter didn’t really like the idea of a human voice disturbing the sacred quiet, but he knew that if he didn’t respond, they’d send someone up to check. And he liked that idea even less, so he called in.

“PR36, you okay up there? We didn’t hear you at scheduled check-in.”

“I’m fine. I’ve been busy.” There was a hissing silence on the other end.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” And he flipped the knob off.

Over the next week, Peter would come out to the blind, check the trail cameras he had set up, and spend the few daylight hours watching the den from his blind. In the quiet isolation of the snow, the wolves were the only other thing that seemed alive. There were six in total. The pack's social hierarchy was about what Peter expected. The dominant couple were the leaders and paternal figures. Three looked younger. Not pups but adolescents. They were playful even in the energy-sapping cold. Peter found their hijinks wonderfully entertaining in his long hours of sitting. He nicknamed a lankly male Will and his clumsy brother Carlton. Guess that made the alpha couple Phil and Vivian. And the smaller female Nicky. They took turns hunting. There seemed to be more game in the forest than Peter would have thought. None of them looked particularly thin.

Except for the last wolf. He didn’t seem to fit. He was different. Older than the children but slightly smaller than Phil. His coat was a shade darker. He didn’t engage in social behavior like the rest of them. What food the others caught, he had to snarl and snap for. He was reluctant to share his own kills. Often, he and Phil would growl and bark at each other. Peter could tell the outsider’s presence made the hierarchy uneasy. Yet there was no doubt that this wolf was part of the pack. It was common in wolf behavior for a loner to join a pack to bring down bigger prey. Loners could integrate, finding a place to live in the hierarchy. But sometimes they only orbited the main pack. Contributing, partaking, but never really losing their independence. Without really thinking about it, Peter began to call the loner Outsider in his head.

As the short winter days went by, Peter watched the pack. There were no other humans to talk to. No other living things outside the wolves. In complete isolation, Peter began to conform to the only social system he observed every day. He had talked to himself before. Now, he only snarled went he burned his hand on the stove. He listened to them howl at each other in the long night inside his cabin. He sniffed the air in the morning. He conserved his energy if not doing a task. The books he had brought to the cabin were left unread. He ate his food without any dignity, tearing at it. The wolves were becoming a family in his mind. The only contact with the living world in this frozen wasteland. He gave them voices inside his head. Every tail-wag or teeth-bearing was a sentence to Peter.

The Outsider seemed to be trying to make an effort to join the pack. He was more forthcoming when he caught a rabbit. He bit and snapped less when Will’s or Carlton’s roughhousing got too close. Once, he tried to join in, but the brothers immediately scattered, fearing the Outsider’s teeth. He tried to mate with Nicky once, only to have the smaller female furiously repeal his advances. Her parents joined in the barking and biting and drove the Outsider off. Peter thought he’d seen the last of the retreating wolf, yet the next day, he limped back to the den, keeping his distance for a while. It was strange to Peter that the Outsider didn’t wander off to find a new territory. One he wouldn’t have to share with other wolves. And it was strange that the pack still tolerated him enough to let him near their den.

The nights were getting longer. Peter had gotten used to driving the snowmobile in the dark and using the tracks it left to get him back to his cabin safely. The weather, while cold, had remained mostly calm his entire time here; allowing him to not miss a day of checking in on the den. However, one morning, if it could be called that, Peter awoke to a whistling wind outside his cabin. He went outside to see flakes of snow dropping diagonally from the black sky. What was left of Peter’s rational mind warned of danger. The weather was getting bad. He needed to stay in the cabin and wait it out. Then out of the black world around him broke a howl. It was long and low, piercing through the wind. A reply came from the opposite distance. A repeated, yelping, whine. Other voices joined it in the dark. A hunting party must have gone out from the den and was now trying to find its way back.

Peter looked back at the golden glow of the cabin, then the swirling snow coming out of the black. He pulled his scarf tight across his face as he grabbed the starting cord on the snowmobile and yanked it.

Peter had gotten used to the deep ruts the snowmobile had left in his daily trips out to the woods. As the wind and snow picked up, his past tracks faded, making the path vaguer. His headlight only cut a small cone of visibility into the falling snow that got smaller as he went on. Over the grinding buzz of the engine, Peter could hear the howling wolves calling back and forth to one another. He didn’t know why he had gone out, only that it had been foolish. A blast of wind hit him from the side. It was strong enough to stab icy sleet through his thick parka. The whole snowmobile veered off to the left. Peter tried to correct and pushed the handlebars back towards the right. He was crawling through the snow; barely keeping the engine above idle. He kept looking for the trail but couldn’t find it. The wind and cold were making it hard to think. Several minutes passed. He must have missed the trail in the swirling snow. Finally, he let go of the throttle and admitted that he was lost. The dark sky had no stars or moon. Only blackness that shrieking wind and snow flew out of. It was a blizzard. Peter needed to get back to the cabin. He pulled the handlebars to the side until they wouldn’t go any further and started to roll the throttle. Suddenly, the buzz of the engine became low and chunky. The whole machine bucked, there was a sickening crunch, then it was dead.

Peter didn’t have the wherewithal to be afraid. He was too cold, too stunned, to think. Instead, he dismounted and began to walk on instinct. He had no light, no direction. He found the tracks of his moronic expedition had left behind only for them to disappear into the blank white after a few steps. There was no way to know if he was going in the right direction. He knew that in a blizzard like this, only a few degrees off course would mean he would walk and walk until the storm took him. What else was there to do? So, he walked.

The cold had cut through his boots and burned his feet. Now, he couldn't feel anything below his ankles. His body had been caved in on itself to preserve warmth. Now it had none left to preserve. Peter no longer had a mind or even the instincts of an animal. He walked forward like an automaton. The wind shrieked into his ears. The snow congested on his goggles. He was starting to feel warm again. Yes, he was warm. Hot. Too hot. His mittened hand reached for the zipper somewhere near his chin. He couldn’t find it. He fumbled around, frustrated with his clothing, while limping forward. His foot came down wrong on the next step and Peter fell into the deep snow. Deprived of its forward momentum, his body gave up and lay still as the snow started to collect.

Peter could feel himself drifting into the peace of sleep. Giving up the burden of consciousness. A gray shroud began to grow from the edges of his vision. Then there was something in front of him. Peter tried to move his head. The unconsciousness begged him to let go. Peter felt like his neck was made of granite, but he managed to pull his eyes up to see what was above him. The giant, yellow eyes of a wolf stared down at him. Their faces nearly touched.

The Outsider peered at the crumpled man as the wind whipped both of them in the dark. Peter didn’t move.

Then the wolf spoke, “You have to get up.”

Peter stared into the yellow eyes. “Get up and go where?”

“Go back to them.”

“Them.” Peter knew who he meant.

“I’m so tired. Aren’t you tired of them too?” He asked the wolf.

“Yes.” The Outsider replied.

“Then why do you always come back?” Peter asked.

“Because I need them.” The fur around his mouth was starting to form ice.

“Why are they afraid of being alone?” Peter asked. “Why can’t we be alone?”

“Peter.” The wolf said over the wind. “It is no good that you’re alone.”

He stared up into the canine face.

“You need them. It's worth it.” The wolf turned and walked into the howling darkness.

Peter lay there for a moment. Then he slowly pulled himself out of the snowy grave the blizzard had been burying him in. He struggled to his feet. He didn’t know how far or how long he walked through the snow. He remembered the knock against his forehead as he walked into the cabin wall. He remembered tugging at the door until it finally opened enough for him to tumble inside.

Peter woke up on his cot, fully dressed. There was a dull, grey light coming from the small window. He had never felt so cold. He managed to crawl over to the stove. He had to rub and beat enough feeling into his numb hands for them to open the latch. Clumsily fumbling the matches, Peter managed to get a small bundle of tinder to light. He fed the little flame, careful not to smother it in too much fuel. It slowly grew until the heat and light from it filled the cabin. As Peter pulled at his boots to check his numb toes, his gaze fell onto the radio that sat on the desk.

He remembered. He remembered the big yellow eyes above him.

Peter limped over to the desk, powered the radio on, and tuned in the frequency.

“PR36 to base.” The hissing crackle came back. He tried again “Base, do you read me?” The seconds of silence seemed to stretch out for years.

“PR36, PR36, hey you still up there? You haven’t talked in days.”

“Yeah.” Peter managed. He wasn’t sure what to say next. Had to say something. “I need you.”

There was a long pause. “PR36, do you need someone to come out there?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay. With the storm last night, it might be a day or two until we can make it out. Will you be okay until then?”

“Yeah, I think so,” Peter said. Then, after a pause. “What’s your name?”

“Me? I’m Mackie.”

“Nice to meet you, Mackie,” Peter replied. “Is it okay if we talk for a while?”