Wolftown, Part Five
Wolftown’s wolf response was headquartered in Holy Trinity Lutheran Church and School’s gymnasium, ideal for muddy, wet people. The wolf responders stationed constantly in the gymnasium sandbagged the doorways between the locker rooms and the gymnasium. Expecting Wolftown’s water level to rise another two or three feet, volunteers prepared classrooms for flooded-out families. Somebody monitored the generator. The town plumber, Phil, and a church and school custodian, Gary, bailed out the boys’ locker room.
“What’s wrong with the sewer system?” Wayne asked.
Phil said, “Something blocked it all over town.”
“This didn’t happen last time we had this rainfall,” Gary said.
“I don’t think the sewers were inspected before the storm,” Phil said.
“They should have been,” Gary said.
Phil shrugged. “Try the restroom on the upper floors.”
“We’re muddy,” Wayne said.
“I spread plastic over the carpets,” Gary said.
Wayne changed his clothes and John hung up his foul-weather gear.
The responders napped in classrooms and ate in the combination fellowship hall and school cafeteria. Pastor Virgil Mickelson officiated optional, short church services.
In the gymnasium, Wayne and John sat at a folding table. John plugged his laptop into an extension cord plugged into another orange one, but, at least, Holy Trinity’s wall outlets had surge protectors.
“We don’t have internet access,” Wayne said.
“If you don’t use it, I won’t need to.”
“Why do you have it anyway?”
“Paula thinks computer technology will make conservation easier. I keep notes on floppy disks, write, copy files, and can’t do much more.”
“What about Y2K?”
“Thankfully, she didn’t need to reimburse anyone for wasting $2,000.”
Wayne shuffled through notes and papers left at his folding table seat. “The kid was a missing person.”
“Oh, no,” John said.
“No one said he was when the police asked us to identify him.” Wayne sighed.
“I forgot about the beaver trapper, but I bet he was one of the missing persons Mayor Dwyer mentioned. Search-and-rescue declared him presumed dead today.”
“Condolences,” John said.
“We kept an eye out for him while looking for the wolf.”
“Did a wolf attack him?”
“No idea. I don’t know if we will know because of the flood. The first rabies tests came back negative,” Wayne said.
“Good.” John inserted a floppy disk.
“Here’s a note from Schuster: ‘Megan photographed Zach’s wolf bites, wrote down the measurements, and made a few copies. She said to call if you had questions. Megan can say what she wants. I’m working on Barbara Luben’s evidence. You are authorized to view evidence of Zach and Mrs. Luben’s attacks. I’ll try to bring them to you but can’t guarantee it.’”
“Do you want to look at fatal injures? It’s hard.”
“And harder if you know the people or live in the same town. I need to.”
“Do you want me to start with the hiker or the official first victim?”
“The hiker if it is chronological. I can take notes out-of-order, but I have to put it in order sometime.”
“I know I said I could tell you about the hikers, but I forgot about the police,” Wayne said. “They haven’t found Sergio Vasquez’s body yet, and Miranda Vasquez’s story is a little difficult to understand.”
As one of the most informed people involved in the wolf response, Wayne considered classifying the wolf situation pointless at best and, at worst, prevented an adequate response. He released any data somebody requested; it possibly provoked Mayor Dwyer’s restriction of out-of-town journalism and non-communication with local media.
Wayne suggested the most useful people to contact. Via Sharon Smith, Mayor Dwyer’s secretary, Wayne pestered the mayor for permission to answer the questions or to contact another person. Within half an hour, Mayor Dwyer allowed Wayne to explain details he considered pertinent—except about the wolf which attacked Miranda and Sergio Vasquez. The police continued to investigate Sergio Vasquez’s death. Mayor Dwyer permitted details about how they encountered the wolf, how it attacked, and how it stopped. To John’s surprise, Wayne agreed without argument.
John typed notes and listed evidence to copy.
While Sergio and Miranda Vasquez honeymooned in the woods near Wolftown. On March 6 and 7, they briefly met Peter, a stranger. He warned them about wolves in the area and suggested camping a couple of miles west. However, they stayed at their campsite. They built a fire and bear-proofed their food, which coincidentally deterred wolves.
In the middle of the night, Miranda left the tent to relieve herself. She zipped up the tent, but the hikers woke to a lone wolf inside the tent.
John said, “Sometimes the zipper doesn’t catch the other side of the fabric, but it sounds like it zipped.”
“I asked her. I haven’t had time to find out if a wolf can tear through a tent, but I told her I would,” Wayne said.
Sergio fought the wolf and slashed an escape hole for Miranda. She brandished a burning branch, which ignited the tent. Somehow, Sergio and the wolf struggled out of the tent, as Sergio yelled for Miranda to climb a tree.
Miranda tugged singed, bleeding Sergio from the tent, while the smoldering wolf rolled on the ground. The wolf retreated slightly, giving Sergio time to boost Miranda into a sugar maple tree. She hauled him up, but the wolf dragged him down. While Sergio stopped screaming, the wolf bit Miranda’s leg. The wolf’s teeth shredded her left leg, but Miranda tugged her leg out of the wolf’s mouth.
“How?” John asked.
“Adrenaline,” Wayne said. “But I’m surprised her the bone didn’t break, and he didn’t bite an artery or a vein.”
Wayne continued the chronological order, moving to the wolves entering Wolftown on March 8. Each wolf entered Wolftown on a different side of town by 2:00 PM, March 8. People treated them as a curiosity because sometimes wild animals passed the city limits.
Later, Wayne named the wolves Abel, Barker, and Charlie, although he initially thought Barker and Charlie were the same. Wayne said, “Abel looks like an overweight male, Barker is underweight, and Charlie is average. I don’t know Barker and Charlie’s sexes, but if the wolves are a pack, they are probably females. The wolves are about the same size, but people said Abel was big. Locals have a better idea of a wolf’s size than tourists have, but a wolf looks bigger in real life.”
“Probably more when you think it’s dangerous,” John said.
“And he was fat, and people called him fat.”
“He is.”
“At first, I thought the wolf was pregnant, but he is a male. I think he is bigger than Barker, but not unusually big.”
Around 3:00, Abel loped down Main Street into Holy Trinity Church and School’s playground. Barking and growling, he trotted, then cantered, then galloped. Kids scattered, and adults hustled children indoors, into cars, on top of the jungle gym, or down the street. Witnesses said fleeing felt like a natural response and thought the wolf could not chase everybody at once.
Playing hopscotch, Mallory Vaughn stood on one leg. Abel knocked her down; his paw left a smudged print on her pink jacket. Her older brother, Raymond, swung his stuffed backpack at Abel. He scooped up winded Mallory and dashed to the nurse’s office. On the way to the nurse’s office, Mallory accused Raymond of shoving her, even though Raymond babysat her. She merely skinned her knees, palms, and chin, and bumped her nose.
The wolf galloped out of the playground under a barrage of textbooks, lunch boxes, a ball, a copy of An Explanation of the Small Catechism, and a Furby. The playground monitor, Cindy Brown, slammed the gate shut and locked it.
As Abel wove through traffic, Maurice Williams nearly crashed into him; days later, he told Wayne he wished he totaled his car and killed Abel. The wolf caused erratic driving and two minor accidents. School-hour traffic and pulling over for the police cars complicated matters.
The wolf bounded through the grounds of the Sun ‘n’ Rain Childcare Center and the Giggling Forward Preschool. He circled the blocks and bounded again. Steve Taylor considered shooting the wolf, but the children were too close.
Throughout the town, people called 911 or Happy Howlers to report sightings. The wolves often left before anybody arrived—everybody focused on the schoolchildren. But the number of calls and the locations indicated two or three wolves roamed Wolftown.
Chief of Police Dennis Laufenberg was out of town. Until he arrived, Deputy Chief of Police Kurt Phelps oversaw the police’s response. He told officers to carry tranquilizers and fire a gun as a last resort.
Because a wolf could easily jump Holy Trinity, the daycare, or the preschools’ fences, Wayne recommended that the staff keep children indoors until their parents arrived. To his relief, quite a few adults and children came to the same conclusion. The staff and parents arranged impromptu carpools and pickups. Officer Jones watched for wolves and staff or parents walked the children to the cars.
Police officers patrolled for unaccompanied walking children and drove them home, and they offered rides to accompanied children. Officer Matthews escorted the school bus and officers or parents walked children to their doors.
Around 4:30 PM, one wolf disappeared, probably into the woods, while two others continued prowling Wolftown. Wayne still wondered which wolf fled and which wolf remained.
Raymond and the adults’ reactions scared Mallory more than a wolf running her over. Just as a precaution, Dr. Groves ordered a rabies vaccine. Wayne examined Mallory’s jacket and collected wolf hairs from Raymond’s backpack.
The police unjammed traffic, despite Barker’s presence.
While Abel wreaked havoc, black-and-white security footage tracked Barker and Charlie, either of whom could have also chased the school bus. The wolf walked and loped, stopping to howl or bark. If somebody tried chasing him away, he cantered or galloped. He loitered around Main Street, but neither entered the school grounds nor threatened the parking lot. Wayne supposed the cars scared him.
Calvin, a Happy Howlers’ employee, tracked down Barker or Charlie at approximately 5:00. The wolf saw the car, turned around, and hid in a residential area. Suzanne backed up Calvin, and they almost cornered him. He jumped a fence at 6:00, but they tranquilized him. He headed for the woods and the Happy Howlers employees followed on foot at 6:10, plenty of time for the wolf to pass out. Neither wanted to chase the wolf on foot or search thoroughly for a trail, so they gave up a couple of minutes later. The wolf escaped. Wayne defended Calvin and Suzanne’s decision.
Around 6:30 PM, a wolf mauled Jill Vogel’s off-leash dachshund-Yorkie-miscellaneous mix. The wolf picked up Button and bolted out of the park. Button’s death eventually indicated Charlie existed.
Sightings halted after the attack.
The Happy Howlers administrative assistant, Rebecca Austin, sent information to the local media, which reported the wolf sightings for the evening news or morning paper. Other people heard rumors or they told their friends.
Happy Howlers intended to tranquilize the wolves and ask Dr. Jodi Richardson to examine them. If she declared the wolves healthy, Happy Howlers would tag, vaccinate, and release them. Employees nursed ill or dying wolves, except for rabid ones.
John disagreed with euthanizing animals for any reason but understood the reasons behind killing a rabid animal. Paula and the Nature Protection Society thought rabies and other diseases justified euthanasia. Because of that and Wolftown’s sensitive situation, he felt uncomfortable mentioning his opinion. He thought Wayne guessed, but they did not discuss it.
Wolftown’s nightlife consisted of McDonald's, the Old Wolftown Restaurant, and the Wunderbar, but they were quieter than normal.
“What’s the Wunder Bar?” John asked.
“It’s the only bar in town. One word, W-U-N-D-E-R-B-A-R.”
“Thanks.”
Mayor Dwyer made town officials, his family, and close friends to eat out, buy gas at the BP Gas Station, and play in the park.
“I told him it was a stupid decision,” Wayne said.
“Did something happen to him?” John asked.
“No, but it’s like living in Jaws! Would you have gone outside?”
“I’m a homebody.”
“And you already got into a wolf situation.”
“I had an escape route.”
Wayne sighed.
“You do it,” John said.
“I’m armed and keeping an eye out for the wolf. I don’t want to kill the wolf, but I want to survive.”
Seven businesses and the police station had security cameras. Four businesses had taped over their footage before police requested copies, and two showed barely any wolf. The police refused to turn over their videotaped footage but copied the low-quality time-lapse tapes. Wayne borrowed the school’s TV and paused the footage when necessary.
The security footage showed the wolf returned to downtown Wolftown at approximately 8:30 PM.
A couple of anonymous teenagers snuck out of their houses to buy junk food at the BP Gas Station and eat it in Sugar Maple Park. They noticed wolf tracks in the playground sand. Button died on the opposite side of the park, so Wayne suspected they found the first overnight tracks. The teenagers looked for the wolves because wolves would deter tourism, which their families depended on.
Schuster spotted their flashlights. He told them that Laufenberg ordered the police to send children and teenagers home, regardless of their parents’ usual rules, if the children walked or rode bikes alone after dark. Apparently, the teenagers had sneaked out. They could either go to the police station and give a statement about the wolf or go home without any mention of the wolf. The wolf howled behind the teenagers, too close. Schuster hustled them into the car, but the teenagers went voluntarily.
“I bet the parents found out anyway,” Wayne said.
“I won’t identify them,” John said.
(Part Five coming on August 9 or 16, 2024.)
Essie Strikes Back!
This chapter is part of "The Small Town Magic Arc." Links for prior chapters in this storyline can be found here: https://www.theprose.com/post/746871/the-small-town-magic-arc
"You won't lay a finger on him!" Essie yelled angrily as Rick and the ice that held him disappeared from Cyclo's approaching fist, immediately reappearing by her side.
"Ha ha ha ha, wanna bet?" Cyclo sneered. "Maybe it's time for me to head over there and see how you are all doing on that side of the field!"
"Not going to happen, Cyclo." Essie smiled sweetly, gaining her composure back. She pointed at the ground, and four skeletal arms popped out around Cyclo, gripping his arms and legs.
"Ha ha ha ha! These scrawny things won't be enough to keep me from visiting you, little lady!" Cyclo laughed. His guffawing stopped when his attempts to break the grip of the skeletal hands were unsuccessful.
"I will admit that I am almost impressed, but I already feel the strength of these things weakening. Hope you have another trick handy, young one."
"Oh, I sure do." Essie retorted, still smiling. If Rick hadn't been unconscious within his ice prison, Essie's beaming face would have likely been enough to melt the encasement.
Essie continued pointing at the ground, and a skeletal fist flew out and punched Cyclo in the face. Unfazed by the blow, he looked at the fist that lay on the ground with amusement.
"Cute. Maybe you should have worked for a kiddie haunted house. Unfortunately, any career options you might have had will fall to pieces once I break loose and return the favor."
"Who said I was off the clock yet?" Essie replied, still grinning. Swarms of skeletal fists then flew out of the ground and relentless struck Cyclo all over his body. Cyclo flailed back and forth helplessly as the fists mercilessly assaulted him, giving him no chance to breathe or react to anything except for the pain that he certainly no longer considered adorable. After what no doubt felt like an eternity for Cyclo, the fists retired and made room for swarms of skeletal arms that came out of the ground, the hands of each grabbing the cyclops until all that was visible was a mass of skeletal limbs.
"Hang in there Rick." Essie said tenderly. "I will thaw and heal you after I end this right here and now!"
To be continued....
The Land of Perpetual Misery
I look down at these lands with my all-seeing eyes. This town had once been my home, before I died. Before I found peace. Before I saved my town, if only for a handful of years. Before I poisoned myself and the one who most wronged me. Before I went though unimaginable pain. Before my life and my freedom and my personhood were ripped from me. Before all of that I was a poor farmer. This place had once been the place where I worked and worried and fell asleep in the arms of my mother. This place had once been somewhere I could love. This place had always been a place of unimaginable misery though. And now it was no different.
The moon glows pale through my skin, casting only half a shadow. I float soundlessly though the narrow, decrepid dirt streets. They hadn't changed much since I was a young girl toiling on the farm. If anything they'd gotten worse. Much worse.
I stop before a ramshackle hut, made of walls too thin to keep out the cold or the heat and a roof too full of holes to keep out the rain. Many of the houses are like this. I hear the familiar sounds of a woman in labour, of a midwife and neighbours encouraging her on. I look in, ready to bless the mother and her new child with my protection.
The mother is beautiful. She has dark hair and warm skin and angular features. Her name is Maia. Her mother is not here. Her mother lives in a distant town. The girl came here looking for work when she was sixteen and she also found love. She did not however find a way out of the crippling poverty that enveloped so many. Her child takes after her. She is a little baby girl with deep brown eyes and ebony black hair. I can already tell she'll grow up to be the type of girl men write books and poetry about. The type of girl I was.
This is not even remotely a good thing.
I add her to the list of the infinite people who I keep my eye on.
It used to be that I looked after the town. But now I look after whoever needs me to look after them, wherever they're from. There is misery in all the corners of the Earth.
They name her Mikali. I give her my protection.
She grows up dirt poor. She knows intimately what hunger feels like. She knows how the weather can rip at you while you have no protection. She knows what it's like to have to make a bucket of water stretch the whole day between ten people. She know what it feels like to be sick with no hope of medicine. She knows what it feels like to toil in a factory until your arms and legs and mind and heart are nothing but constant screaming. She knows what it feels like to watch neighbours and friends die.
She knows what it feels like to love. She's the oldest daughter of the block, all the other children being younger than her. She has her baby sister, Violia, her even younger sister Kiani, her neighbour's sons Tomnio and Julio and Ehano and Jaziko. She has her other neighbour's children Tami and Lina and Bei and Alissi. She has the children who live across the alley from her, Dialo, Amali, Laia, Aveno, Biko, Tiena, Aria, Joan and Amir. She has her cousins Bailia and Sienna. And she has an unending love and protectiveness for her people and her land.
All the children do. Every single one of them. They are all born into misery and toil, into dehumanization and danger. They are all as strong as they can be. They take care of each other however they can. They are a new generation of young gods, crushed under the heel of oppression just as I was. They have my blessing. Every single one of them.
I watch over them. I look after them. They are children of my town. They are children of my world. They are my children.
Tragedy follows poverty like a shadow because they are two parts of the same whole. When Mika is ten a plague sweeps through. It kills her parents. And the parents of her next-door neighbours. She barely has time to let her grief flow through and out of her. She has to take on extra shifts at the factory, and hold on her pain until it grows and grows into something that tears her apart from the inside. But she has no choice. She has to provide for her family. She has to keep them alive. Even if it kills her. She once again reminds me of myself. They all do.
Time goes past and soon enough Mika is fourteen. She blooms into an extraordinarily beautiful fourteen-year-old girl, face full of angles and eyes darker than the night and larger than the moon. She doesn't look a bit like me. I have a round face and thick curls. But we both hold the same beauty. I fear for her. But I know I would've always feared for her. No matter what. She was born into the shadow of death as it was. That's what poverty is.
My fears prove to be well-founded. One day she is out buying groceries. A shiny black limousine is driving by, its shaded windows drawn closed against the smells of the slums. It bears the unmistakable polish of the bourgeoisie who rule from the fine mansions of the garden district. Everyone turns and stares at it in fear.
A young man in a fine silk suit and coiffed brown hair steps out. He holds himself like a king. He practically is one. He has no business to be in a place like this.
Everyone waits to hear what he had to say.
He asks if a Miss Mikali Sarin is here. She steps forwards, expression carefully blanked. I follow them, keeping invisible. I follow the anxious murmur of the crowd as well. They all know Mika fondly. They all worry for her. When I was alive my community was like this as well. When I died they grieved me but they were relieved that I was finally free. Will it go the same way this time around as well?
Meanwhile in the car he tells her that he will pay for her loved ones' expenses, he will take care of them. But only if she comes to live with him. It's not a choice. Not really. Let your loved ones suffer and die or do as I say. That is not a choice. It just isn't.
She doesn't even get to say goodbye as she is whisked far away from her home, from her people, from all the people who see her as a person.
It's far too familiar. She is not able to cry. I was not able to cry when it was my time. So I cry for her as I float alongside the car.
She gets to see her family once every few months. It is not nearly enough. But it's all she has. For the vast majority of the time, she smiles and laughs and lies and hides and plays pretend that she's the perfect doll for him.
I know that it's eating her up inside. It eventually ended up killing me after all.
I fucking died.
She bites her tongue as they eat pastries and cakes, while she knows that most people can barely scrape by on beans and rice if even that. She bites her tongue when they do renovations to add another level onto their already huge house, while she knows people who died living on the streets. She bites her tongue as she's forced into silk dress after silk dress after silk dress while she remembers the children who don't have winter coats or shoes. She acts loyal and loving and reverent.
And she lets him do whatever he wants to her.
She owes him after all, is what he says.
It's something I've heard before. It's something that's never said with sincerity. Even if he believes his own lies. It doesn't change the fact that they're lies. There is no benevolent capitalist any more than there is a benevolent king or a benevolent empire or a benevolent master. They're all the same thing after all.
I follow her still. Give her the bits of strength and protection I can. Being a god doesn't mean you have ultimate power. I desperately wish I could do more.
One day I follow her to the bridge. She leans down. Gazes intently at the water below. It's icy. Rushing. Is she going to kill herself? Can she no longer live like this? I understand. I reach out to give her one last hug. So that she might die feeling loved.
She gasps and turns around. Her face is full of surprise yet she looks calmer than she has in a while. And the calm is genuine. After a bit of searching her eyes land on me.
"I ... are ... are you a god?" Her eyes are wide and reverent and more than a bit startled.
"I am. Do you know about Mihu the farmer's daughter? That's me." I keep my voice as soft as I can to calm her down.
I did not think it possible but her eyes go even wider.
"I'm sorry my Lady. It's an honour. Beyond an honour. To meet you. I'm ... sorry. My Lady." She quickly moves to kneel down, as she speaks these words, despite the dirty ground beneath us, her face one of pure reverence. As she starts bowing her head, I catch her face in my hands and gently pull her up.
"No, my child. Don't kneel. You do not need to kneel in my presence."
"But ... my Lady ... really?"
"Yes really. Stand. Let us talk eye-to-eye."
"My Lady." She still bows her head before I lift her chin up. "What can I do for you?"
"It's more about what I can do for you, my child. I've been with you since you were but a baby cradled in your mother's arms. I have seen your life. And I cannot help but weep."
Her face goes carefully blank at that.
"My Lady I have wronged you. I'm sorry. How can I ever make it up?" she says solemnly, before moving a hand to cover her mouth.
"No. No you haven't wronged me. Not at all. You've been wronged. You've been wronged just as I have been. Just as your friends and family have been and just as oppressed people across all of time and space have been. We have all been wronged by inequality and hierarchy. And the way you have been wronged specifically reminds me so much of how I've been wronged."
"My Lady. I am not worthy to compare myself to you."
"None of that," I cut her off, "you are my cherished one. As are all your siblings, both biological and adopted. As are all those in the slums of this town. As are the oppressed people the world over. You have no need to doubt yourself."
I hold her softly, gently by the shoulders. And I look at her. Her eyes are filled with so much grief. So much repression. I know very intimately what it feels like to have eyes like that. I cry. She reaches out to gingerly brush her fingers over my face. When she pulls them back they are stained red.
"I'm so sorry for all that you've gone though," I sob quietly. Her resolve breaks. She starts crying too. Tear after tear after tear flowing down her face. I take her into my arms and she hugs me tight back. We stay like this for a while. Holding each other. Crying into each other's shoulders. Crying for ourselves. For each other. For the world. Finally, as the sun is painting the sky orange, she pulls back.
"Are you still afraid, child?" I ask, holding her shoulder softly and stroking her cheek in the way that her mother used to do.
"No, my Lady. But it's still ... it's still an honour."
"It's an honour for me as well. Now tell me, do you remember my story?"
"Yes. Everyone does. My mother told us the version of the story that was passed down in her hometown. The authorities do not allow people to speak of gods and spirits there. They say it's mere superstition and foolishness. But the people still tell each other. They still pass it down. Not just your story. Countless others." I nod. This is information I already know but she needs to talk about her mother. The thought warms her.
"And my aunts. They told us of your story too. And the stories of the other gods and spirits and heroes. Their tales were, well they were much the same. But they were always insistent that you all were still fighting on our side. That you hated the system still and you were fighting for the workers however you could. See, though I think you know, the authorities here never deny the existence of the spirits. But they declare that after your deification, you all moved to create the modern world. They claim that you created the modern world in the way that was to your liking. That you approve of the status quo. My aunts always vehemently denied that. They said that gods could not meddle too much with the affairs of the humans but they could give us the strength and inspiration to change the world ourselves, when the time comes. They said that there is no way the gods could be alright with this hierarchical mess of a society." I notice that she is speaking her mind much more freely now, yet all the reverence in her tone remains. If anything it is stronger, as she thinks about her mother and her aunts and the family she left behind.
"They were right," I say softly yet strongly. "They were all right. They were all very wise to share the stories with you. Your mother was taught that the gods were not real. But she was right to follow her heart and keep believing. She was right to tell you we were real. Your aunts were taught that the gods were on the side of their oppressors. But they were right to have faith in themselves. They were right to teach you that the gods are on the side of the have-nots."
"Thank you. I ... I spent so long among the bourgeoisie, nodding along at their entitledness and attending their church services and being told I was nothing that ... that I was beginning to forget."
"That's understandable. You need not feel ashamed of that. I'm on the side of the poor. Of the powerless. I always have been. I always will be. So is every other divine being. But let me tell you something else."
"Yes my Lady?"
I smile at her, cupping her cheeks in my hands.
"What you must realize is that you are part of our story. That you all are part of our story. The story of the gods, of the world, is about people surviving through and struggling against oppression. It is the story of people fighting for equality. It's the story of those who have been stripped of their rights and dehumanized. You can probably easily see how my story parallels your own, no?"
"Yes my Lady." We exchange sad, knowing looks.
"Yes. But I also see myself in all the factory workers and the farmers and the unemployed people. They have all been stripped of their humanity and their power, forced to work, and suffer, and miss their loved ones, and be who they don't want to be. I'm sure Amina from the mining town or Imiko the orphan or Ala the child would see themselves so easily in all the people who are held down by the system. In all the people who have to either kill themselves working or starve, who have to grieve loved one after loved one, who have to smile and pretend everything is okay. Haynen the thief and Amia the teenaged girl would relate to the resourcefulness of the poor and the way you bend or even outright break rules to keep each other safe. I sure relate. I poisoned my abuser. Amia gave me a high five for that, once I reached the Otherworld. Your stories mirror our stories and our stories mirror yours. The fight is for universal equality and liberation. Not to trade old masters for new ones."
"So what do I do?" Her voice has more hope in it than I've heard from her in a long while.
"You tell people what I told you. That you met me. You talked to me. That the gods are definitely on their side. You talk to different gods. And we will tell you how we see ourselves in the people. How the people should see themselves in us. How we are supporting and encouraging them to find liberation. They already know this. Of course they already know this. It's undeniable. But hearing it from the mouth of a prophet will give them so much strength, so much power. Because now, who are the elites to say that the gods are on their side? Their argument holds no strength at all. Not against the word of a prophet. Do you understand?"
"I do. They will no longer be able to deny it, the bourgeoisie, that the gods are on our side."
"Yes. And are you willing?"
"Of course I am. I'll teach your truths, and the truths of the other gods. And all of us together, the gods and the workers and everyone who's downtrodden. We'll create a new future. A good future. Free of wealth inequality and power hierarchies. Where we take care of and love each other and the Land and the Water, where we are truly free and truly together."
She looks so full of life and hope and energy in the orange light of the sunset. She almost seems to glow with it. Of course the sadness is still there. It will always be there. But she has hope now. And that's a victory.
"Yes my daughter. Now dry your tears and don't let him see your pain. We'll talk more tonight."
"Yes my Lady."
We hug one last time. I bring my fingers through her hair and kiss her cheek. And then she bows and walks off into the blazing sunset.
Wolftown, Part Four
Mayor Dwyer granted John permission to observe the wolf hunt if he rode along with Wayne McDowell, who agreed with the idea. Also, the mayor authorized John to view Wayne’s scientific data.
The Nature Protection Society was founded in 1985, and Paula hired John in 1997. Over the past three years, he worked hard, gaining real experience, participating in training, and independently studying. He accompanied Paula on the last trip to Wolftown, which went well, and he developed a good business acquaintanceship with Happy Howlers, the wolf sanctuary. Paula sent John to Wolftown alone, despite his newness, because he functioned as an observer, simply giving Wolftown people a good general impression of the Nature Protection Society. Since Wolftown was his first opportunity to represent the Nature Protection Society Wisconsin branch single-handedly, Paula supervised him closely. Neither he nor she expected such a serious situation.
John opted to tell Paula about his and Kevin’s böxenwolf conversations later; something so private and wild required Kevin’s permission. He summarized other events since his last update.
Paula said, “Well, Wayne suggests he hire you for a while. I told him it was your decision.”
“Mayor Dwyer said if I snuck around, I would have to leave town,” John said.
“Finding useful, official information seems difficult.”
“Wayne feels the authorization should be unnecessary. In my opinion, the way he said it was a little suspicious.”
The thunderstorm disrupted the phone lines, but eventually, John heard Paula say: “I’m concerned you might get into trouble with the police, possibly unjustifiably.”
My lawyer says he was a werewolf, and a public defender can’t get here until the flood stops, John thought. As the phone lines went down, he said, “They let an attorney be present and I didn’t feel threatened.”
John hesitated to spend the satellite phone’s battery—he fully updated Paula. If she worried, she would call him. The Nature Protection Society owned the satellite phone but required each employee to bring a satellite phone into the field. Paula and John thought a wolf hunt called for wilderness preparation. The wolves roamed and hunted inside city limits but lived in the woods.
Then John called Paula. “I’m using the satellite phone. About your last concern, so far, I’m not worried.”
“I was going to say leave if you become worried, but can you?”
“If I walked, yeah, but I know better.”
“Oh, good Lord! Don’t!”
“From what I’ve seen, I can’t imagine a worse problem than hiking through a flood.”
“Be careful!”
Because Wayne had a legal question for Kevin, preferably asked in person, Kevin and John watched for him through City Hall lobby windows. They barely saw the street.
“I’m thinking about how other people might look at a böx—transfor—wol—”
“I know who you mean. Böxenwolves.”
“Good. Why do you think people fear them?”
“It is possible the stories about losing control of oneself came from a person’s temperament. A person might feel freer or more primal in wolf form and take advantage of it. I could think of a reason that doesn’t assume böxenwolves exist. How would other people look at it?”
“It’s my personal opinion. Monsters sometimes look like real animals. If people think the real animal is scary, sometimes they are scared of monsters that look like animals. Could people be scared of böxenwolves because people are scared of wolves?”
“Possibly.”
“Do you mind if I ask alike are böxenwolves and wolves?” John asked.
Kevin said, “A böxenwolf looks just like a regular wolf. You can tell the difference when we move, though.”
“Why?”
“It takes practice. I couldn’t figure out my ears and tail.”
“Sometimes people thought one thing caused an effect, but something else did. I’m not saying you are wrong. Do you know what paralytic rabies is?”
“I felt calm and friendly, not at all rabid.”
“With paralytic rabies, an animal can be rabid and non-aggressive. It causes paralysis and sometimes animals act tame. So, could a wolf with paralytic rabies look like a böxenwolf?”
“Swallowing and folding up my tongue was difficult. I’m more willing to believe rabid wolves attacked our town than that violent böxenwolves did,” Kevin said.
“Other people have very different opinions and experiences than mine.”
“I’m here to learn about them,” John said.
Several minutes later, Wayne rushed indoors, and squelched over, as tablespoon-worths of water puddled on the floor. He, John, and Kevin said hello. Wayne said Suzanne Giese (his employee and a wolf attack victim) was stable but showed few signs of recovery. Because of the attack, Calvin Kowalski quit, between the attacks and the flood, and Glenn Malone stayed home.
“What can John know without getting into legal trouble?” Wayne asked.
Kevin said, “If you or someone else accesses a government office’s evidence or data without permission, you would have broken policy and could have broken the law. If the person gives it to someone else, he breaks the law. The person you gave it to may not have had authorization.”
“Great, I’m not going to learn anything,” John said.
“You might not want to get information from Billy Schuster,” Wayne said.
“I believe Billy knows where the line is,” Kevin said.
The conversation answered Wayne’s legal question, so Kevin said goodbye.
“Do you want a job?” Wayne asked.
“If I worked for Happy Howlers, I’d be working for an organization that tries to capture a wolf on behalf of a government that intends to kill it. I can’t work for you,” John said.
“Then I’m going to call Sharon, the mayor’s secretary, every time you ask a question, and tell her I need approval to answer it. I bet after about twenty or twenty-five questions he will let me say anything.”
“They might think the Nature Protection Society is annoying,” John said.
“I’ll take the blame. And weren’t you arrested?”
“The police had questions about the wolf sighting and why I was in town. I felt uncomfortable answering without a lawyer present.”
“I’m glad you and Billy Schuster survived.”
“If I was in a wolf attack again, I would chase it away or tranquilize it. I can’t think of a way to make the wolf attack me, instead of somebody else, without hurting it, though.”
“We have enough tranquilizers for Jurassic Park, and I have an extra tranquilizer gun. I confiscated it from a patroller who tranquilized a wolfjäger.”
“Oh no!”
“The wolfjäger is fine.”
“Good. I don’t want my behavior to cause an unresolvable conflict between us or someone else,” John said.
“Same here. I’m armed, and we won’t get close to the wolf.”
“My first aid kit plans for wolf bites.”
“The tranquilizer might work before someone bleeds to death. I would pick you over most people I have been working with, and I’m including a policeman. Can you be around armed werewolf hunters?”
“Sure,” John said.
“I bet we can’t stop the patrollers but try if you want.” Wayne sighed. “You know, Mayor Dwyer only allows the wolves to be killed because they have killed and injured so many people.”
“Many people would agree with him,” John said.
“I’d like an alternative to killing the wolf. We have a nice, cozy enclosure set up for the wolves. Maybe capturing them will change his mind.”
Inside the Happy Howler’s animal transport van, Wayne began explaining Wolftown’s situation to John. The lack of communication between the teams baffled Wayne and the authorities’ attitudes frustrated him. He considered the combination ridiculously hazardous.
“I’m pretty sure only Mayor Dwyer puts together the information, and he holds a lot of it back. The rest of us guess and work on our own,” Wayne said.
“He probably just releases the most important things,” John said.
“Nothing has worked, so you’d think he would want us to review everything and come up with new ideas.”
Wayne sighed and unfolded a crinkled and marked-up map. He traced Wolftown’s sectors with his finger: one and two fenced in, three open, four being fenced in, and five open. The town center—City Hall, Holy Trinity Lutheran Church and School, Wolftown Bank, Schultz’s Country Store, space for a farmer’s market, and various businesses in old-fashioned buildings—formed the fifth sector. If responders fenced in the first four sectors, the fences naturally formed chokepoints, also sealable. The defenses withstood Wayne’s ambassador wolves in 1983.
Wayne had increased the wolf count to three, and people reported wolves in every sector. The wolf response teams found no wolves or wolf dens in sectors one and two and fenced them off—and then somebody filmed a wolf inside it. The wolf disappeared before Wayne reached the house. Sector three’s four-inch deep running water deterred most activities. Because of awful weather, the authorities called off the search.
“Ready to go?” Wayne asked.
“Sure,” John said.
“I think the wolves left town. If we find them, we will be lucky. Our other attempts didn’t work. Ruby Klug trains some of her wolfjägers to track wolves. Do you know her?”
“I met her last time I visited. She trains them traditionally with legal wolf fur?”
“Right. But they can’t practice on live wolves,” Wayne said. “The search-and-rescue dogs and county K-9 unit track the wolves better than the wolfjägers, but they aren’t trained for wolves, either. No idea why. The wolves are untagged. We haven’t seen the wolves on trail camera footage yet, but we can’t even retrieve the most recent film.”
John and Wayne passed a pair of patrollers hunched in a doorway.
The woods supported a stable wolf population, which ate well throughout the winter. Wolves could find comfortable, rural high ground, even in minor floods. Humans hardly encroached on wolf territory over the past several years, and the region could support many new wolf packs. Police fined people who interacted with wild wolves and Happy Howlers discouraged the practice, so Wayne doubted the wolves were habituated to people. Dr. Groves tested the wolf attack victims for rabies. However, Wayne thought every idea insufficiently explained the wolves’ behaviors.
Wayne parked in standing water next to a meadow and looked through a pair of binoculars. “Do you see the steer in the pollinator habitat?” He handed the binoculars to John.
The steer stood several inches deep in mud. The shelter of plastic tarps and PVC pipe offered little protection, especially considering the wind had half-collapsed it. Hay floated in an aluminum feeder and the water trough overflowed.
“You want to fix the shelter, don’t you?” Wayne asked.
“Yeah, it is annoying me,” John said.
“You should know we want the wolf to eat the steer instead of people. Bring your tranquilizer gun.”
“Most wolves need meat to survive, but the steer looks miserable,” John disagreed with rearing domesticated animals, but he treated them compassionately.
Belatedly, Wayne warned John about a pothole, but his fishing waders protected him. He and John skidded and slipped in the mud. Between heavy breathing, cracking, popping, and oof noises, Wayne told John about the steer.
Every time the wolf killed somebody, other people transferred the victims to the doctor or funeral home. Because the wolf could not return and feed, it hunted somebody else—but the wolf abandoned the site, and the other wolves never approached it. That increased Wayne’s doubts about surplus killing or ordinary hunting.
Wayne thought the wolves might prefer beef, and Wolftown bought four Angus cattle from a nearby farmer, Mike Davis. In various places near the woods, he made the Angus cattle as comfortable as possible. When a wolf charged the nicely marbled, juicy, unprotected steer, a camouflaged hunter intended to tranquilize the wolf, notify Wayne, and if necessary, euthanize the steer and track the wolf.
And to Wayne’s extreme exasperation, the wolves were totally uninterested in cattle.
Wayne and John spread stained but clean towels on the van seats.
“Let’s get out of here before the shelter falls apart again,” Wayne said, turning up the heater.
“What do you think of the suspect who kills like a wolf or a large dog?” John asked.
“I’ve advised the police about the suspect, so I have to be careful. I keep thinking about ways it could work, but I don’t think they would happen in real life. My best-trained ambassador wolf ever is Daisy. Do you remember her?”
“A car ran over her mother before she was born?”
“I raised Daisy from a pup, and I love her.”
“She is really sweet and cute,” John said.
“But Daisy could kill me in a few seconds because she is still a wolf. If she got confused about human behavior, or I provoked her, she would attack. Training a wolf is possible, and it’s possible to train multiple wolves over a few years.” As Wayne spoke, he turned a corner and crawled down the sloping street. A car floated at the end. Wayne reversed and chose another street, saying, “This intersection always floods, but I always try anyway. If the trained wolf hypothesis is true, and the wild wolf pack hypothesis is true, they could have happened at the same time. It’s very unlikely. It’s worse if someone trained a pack of wolves and let them loose. I wouldn’t leave a wolf somewhere and expect it to attack or not.”
“Don’t wolves and dogs respond differently to training?” John asked.
“Training dogs is very easy compared to wolves. The wolf domesticators must have been crazy. A well-trained wolf might not obey commands. I wouldn’t feel safe training a dog to kill a person.”
“He might figure out you are a person?”
“Right. I’m not talking about the police theories because I don’t know their ideas. I definitely wouldn’t leave a wolf somewhere and expect it to attack, even if it heard the command word somewhere.”
Wayne rolled down his window and argued with a patroller, who refused to let him drive through the fenced-off zone, especially because of John, an outsider. Apparently, the alternative routes flooded while he and John wrestled the steer’s so-called shelter. The storm interfered with walkie-talkies and phone connections. However, Wayne made the patroller write a permission slip for the gate guard on the opposite side.
“You probably can’t answer if I asked what happened during the murders,” John asked.
“The wolf response communication sucks, so I don’t know anything about them for sure. I’ll try to get you the evidence legally. But I’ve worked out different theories with the police, and none of them make sense.”
“Do you think the missing persons have something to do with the wolf attacks?”
“We live in a tourist town, so kids get lost, or a stranger commits a crime, and the police ask for the public’s assistance. We’ve had kidnappings and lost hikers, and we find them pretty quickly. Our last murder was about thirty years ago.”
“The police asked me if I saw the naked man,” John said, unsure if Wayne wanted to answer his question.
“I hope he isn’t a drug addict or having a mental breakdown.”
“If he is, someone needs to find him quickly.”
“Right. I think that’s why the police keep mentioning him. If he is only a streaker, I have no idea why he picked a thunderstorm and quiet streets. We don’t have a good picture of his face, but his height, weight, and profile match Dennis Laufenberg’s. But a lot of men look like them.”
“Officer Schuster and…Foster accused him of corruption?” John said.
“I think if Billy Schuster and Zach Foster’s allegations are true, Dennis Laufenberg could have run away. You can get everything else I know from the police, but you won’t learn much from the news.”
“Aren’t Wisconsin chiefs-of-police appointed?”
“A lot of people knew he was a bad cop, but if it was worse than we thought, we have a bigger problem than him.”
“I can’t believe so many problems began at the same time,” John said.
“It gets in the way of catching the wolves. Why would the wolves keep attacking during a flood?” Wayne asked.
“I can think about it, as a scientist talking to another scientist.”
“We’ve been asking outdoors folks if they have seen anything weird in the woods, like uneaten prey or something.”
“I think wolves kill for survival. Hunting gives them the best opportunity to feed. They always attack for a reason, but maybe we can’t figure it out yet. Maybe we need more data, or we need to learn more about wolves,” John said.
“A lot of victims were hamstrung, so it doesn’t look like playing,” Wayne said.
“Really?”
“Yeah. Wolf Alpha, the fat wolf, is the most dangerous one. I’m not convinced the other wolves have attacked people, but I think one ate a little boy’s pet bunny.”
“How is he?” John asked, as Wayne said:
“He will be fine. I talked to him about wolves.”
Wayne convinced another patroller to let him and John exit sector two, then said, “I think the wolves might have killed more people than the police say. If I’m right, the wolf attacks began earlier than the police say.”
“Really?” John asked.
“A hiker said a wolf attacked her and her husband. We found her while looking for the wolf, but we couldn’t find her husband. I’ll tell you about it when we get to the school. I’m not sure if I’m supposed to tell people this, but I bet people will know about it soon.”
“But we had to identify a body. I don’t think he matched the hiker’s description. I’ve looked at the victims or photos of everyone’s injuries, but not him. He looked too young to drink.”
“It’s terrible,” John said.
“I really don’t think a wolf attacked the kid.”
“Wolftown has been through enough.”
“It’s only bad timing. The flood is a very small problem, and Billy Schuster and Zachary Foster needed to speak up about Chief Laufenberg. No one thought the wolves would act like this, including me. The kid only made a bad few days worse.”
Sorry about the delayed posting. Though I can write while sick, I felt too sick to finish part four in time. The next part will be posted on Friday, July 5, 2024.
Wolftown, Part Three
As John hung up the pay phone, police officers carried a hollering man into the jail. John returned to the office area.
“The police brought in a guy yelling about the Constitution and yelling for you,” he told Kevin, a lawyer.
“Not surprising. Thanks for telling me.” Kevin stood up.
“Mr. Dalton,” Lang called.
John went to Lang’s full, tidy police desk.
“The mayor wants to see you in about five minutes,” Lang said.
“Do I have a chance of staying?”
“All the other outsiders haven’t been allowed to search, and now, with the weather, we can’t exactly send them out of town again.” Lang wrote down directions to the mayor’s office, also in City Hall, and said, “Please come back here when you finish.”
Wolftown’s police station’s doors and windows had been modernized, and it had electricity and plumbing, but most of City Hall resembled the 1800s construction. Portraits, photographs, and historical artifacts lined the walls; none included wolves.
Several people sat on benches and chairs through the Wolftown City Hall lobby. They seemed prepared to stay for hours, with things to do, like books, homework, knitting, a card game, coloring, and a happy apple toy. Volunteers set up lunch in a conference room.
John walked up the spiral staircase and down the hall, both wooden and squeaky, to the mayor’s office.
Mayor Dwyer hesitated to allow John to observe the wolf hunt. He assured Mayor Dwyer the Nature Protection Society had no intention of ridiculing Wolftown, inciting trouble, or actively discouraging tourism. If necessary, only John’s boss, Paula, would see the report and notes for months—they could release it when Wolftown’s investigation ended. He also offered to help.
Because regarding wolf matters, everybody consulted Wayne McDowell, who ran a wolf sanctuary, Mayor Dwyer argued that Wolftown did not need John's assistance. Mayor Dwyer reviewed Wayne’s humane wolf capture methods, hoping John had any other ideas, but Wayne thought of them all. Therefore, John could not assist with the wolf response.
The police investigated crimes while hunting the wolf, two potentially connected problems. John may mistake temporary stress and tension with behavior which provoked the police corruption accusations; John pointed out he had absolutely no interest in local law enforcement problems until they affected the wolf. Because he would not have authorization to view police evidence or government findings, his presence was unnecessary and a huge waste of time. Mayor Dwyer thought that John might be in the way, even if he remained in the background, or give responders yet another thing to worry about during a wolf attack.
However, Mayor Dwyer understood why John requested information about the wolf and worried about people’s reactions to the wolf. He agreed asking in person seemed more trustworthy than phoning or emailing.
The flood, wolf, murders, missing person cases, and police corruption investigation stretched Wolftown’s resources so thin that dependable civilians volunteered to help. People adapted their usual lives to the flood and sometimes the wolf; few tourists stayed in town. The police corruption investigation, missing persons, and murders were abnormal, but affected law enforcement and local government, instead of the people in general. The response was normal. Everything else about Wolftown was as usual. John thought Mayor Dwyer phrased the normalcy oddly but could not identify how or why—the ordinariness stretched over multiple sentences and popped up here and there.
John suggested understanding Wolftown’s history might help him predict people’s reactions to the wolves, so Mayor Dwyer explained.
Native Americans lived in Wolftown’s vicinity for thousands of years. European settlers arrived in 1816. Dozens of German families migrated from Wolfberg, Germany, to Wolftown in the 1800s, the first of which founded Wolftown in 1825. Nazis provoked the a major wave in the 1930s. Wolftown supported post-war Wolfberg, and in 1957, the cities twinned.
In Wolfberg, the Wolf Guard protected locals from wolves, which they continued in North America. However, North American wolves posed less of a threat than European wolves, and conservation movements began. So, the Wolf Guard hunted wolves to protect pioneers and farmers if necessary but leaned towards conserving wolves. Their presence proved to be unnecessary, but traditional. When Wayne founded Happy Howlers in 1963, many Wolf Guard members supported the organization. The Endangered Species Act of 1973 banned wolf hunting, restricting the Wolf Guard to activism. Now the handful of Wolf Guards hardly did anything other than wear the traditional costumes for the 4th of July Parade. And John suspected the remaining Wolf Guards were the patrollers, or, at least, the patrollers fulfilled the Wolf Guard’s traditional purpose.
Out-of-town reporters attempted to observe Wolftown, and Mayor Dwyer refused them. Police escorted one to the city limits. Still, Mayor Dwyer decided to consult other people and give John an answer as soon as possible; sneaking information would ruin John’s chances.
The thunderstorm had worsened through the morning. John liked thunderstorms and rainy weather, but something bothered him. He figured he was worried about the flood. As an introvert, John was annoyed by an unexpectedly extended stay in a different city than his own.
Kevin worked at a police desk. Lang gave John the internet password and permission to plug in his laptop but forbade John from using a desk with a computer or answering the phone.
John typed up everything he remembered, in any order, and then sifted through the notes. Of the Wolftown residents John spoke to, he noticed Wayne mentioned the böxenwolf first (to discredit it), Kevin described them, and Lang’s wolf hides (called “evidence”) implied the legend, if John assumed the wolf hides were wolf straps. Mayor Dwyer never mentioned them; neither did John.
A clap of thunder shook the windows and pictures of former police chiefs. Multiple lightning bolts struck simultaneously, so John unplugged his laptop.
John typed, Does Kevin think the böxenwolf myth makes people scared of wolves? Ask Kevin: How does the böxenwolf legend affect people’s perception of a wolf? But John felt uncomfortable thinking up humanities-orientated questions. He wrote them down but decided to ask questions as they occurred to him. John compared it to watching an animal in the wild, rather than in a laboratory.
Kevin wanted to tell John more about the böxenwolves at lunchtime. Volunteers fed people sheltering in churches, schools, and City Hall. When packing for Wolftown, John expected to spend quite a bit of time without refrigeration or reliable access to vegan food. He brought food in his pockets because his car despised large puddles and he walked whenever possible. John got black coffee, grapes, a sweet pickle, and vegetables.
After flipping his tie over his shoulder and spreading a napkin on his lap, Kevin said that a minority of Wolftown citizens actually believed the legend. Most people did not even think about it, let alone be influenced by it. However, during a böxenwolf situation, people would receive information from those who thought böxenwolves existed. Other people would rely on misremembered memories or make up an explanation that made sense to them. People’s behavior varied too greatly for Kevin to predict responses to a confirmed böxenwolf.
"The average person almost definitely thinks the wolf is a particularly ferocious wolf, but a wolf." Kevin crunched a potato chip. "But we can’t separate Wolftown’s emergency procedures from the böxenwolf, and people don’t like that. For example, the fences are too high for a wolf to jump and too slippery and high for the average man to scale alone.”
“The apron on the ground keeps a wolf from digging a tunnel,” John said.
“And I doubt a man would dig one. People must stay indoors until their sector is fenced in. After fencing in a sector, the patrollers search for the wolf. The fences keep people from leaving the neighborhood and the wolf from entering. People are not always willing to comply with the searches and fences.”
“Why use the walls instead of a police barricade and humane traps?”
“I suppose the wolves are too aggressive, quick, and sneaky. Nothing else stops them. And we already had the walls.”
“The people on the street come from the Wolf Guard, right? How do they affect the wolf?” John asked.
“Mayor Dwyer was very reluctant to authorize the patrollers. Higher government must know they exist because they were licensed to use tranquilizers before the wolf attacks. I would be more worried about a person attacking a patroller or policeman than a person harming the wolf.”
“But what if a patroller killed a wolf?” John asked.
“A wolf killing could be self-defense or a scared person cracking under pressure. We haven’t needed a Wolf Guard, though. Wolfberg historians say every hundred years or so, a böxenwolf becomes violent. During attacks, böxenwolves were preemptively jailed.”
“So, people came to the police station?” John said.
“Exactly. Some people sheltering in City Hall had or have a wolf strap in their possession and of their own accord, came here. They were concerned about their safety and came here for an alibi, or to aid the emergency response. The churches are traditional, and the schools are our emergency shelters. If böxenwolves are bad guys, wouldn’t keeping them, the police, and the entire local government inside City Hall be dangerous?”
John nodded; peanut butter and jelly clogged his teeth.
“In Germany, the Wolf Guard would search for the other böxenwolves, capture them, cure them, and destroy the wolf strap. We have had one violent attack attributed to a böxenwolf, in 1878. Some wolf strap owners stayed indoors or were taken in for questioning, and some helped carry out frontier justice. The mob lynched one böxenwolf, and another was killed trying to defend him. The wolf strap owners killed two people during the lynching. Everyone said wolves killed the victims, but who knows what a medical examiner would have ruled it?”
“Could it happen again?” John asked.
“The 1878 incident was chaotic and uncontrollable. Our wolf situation is chaotic in a different way, and our emergency response came from the 1878 incident. A person drawing the wrong conclusion could kill a wolf strap owner. I don’t think modern Americans would be accomplices.”
“I’m pretty sure I can say this. Mayor Dwyer said that police think somebody trained a wolf or dog to attack people. Wouldn’t that look like a böxenwolf?”
“Very possibly. A böxenwolf in human form can work a doorknob. Is it possible for a wolf to enter a building alone?”
“The news said the wolf went through a dog door. Maybe it figured out buildings have food, but that sounds like bear or raccoon behavior, not wolf behavior.
“Sometimes I make up cases and think about them, like a thought experiment. I’m speculating, but criminals have made more stupid plans. I don’t have any evidence of that happening here, and I doubt most criminals would try it. Do you suppose a person could use a wolf as a murder weapon? He’d leave böxenwolf evidence behind, like wolf straps. Maybe the police would disregard the evidence as superstitious and attribute the cause of death to a wolf attack. There are cases of people who were accused of using magic to commit a crime, where using the magic itself was not the crime. I highly doubt an American judge would allow law enforcement to prosecute a case that relies on magic.”
“Then why do people think the straps are evil?”
“For about 1,300 years, Westerners believed that quite a bit of unexplainable phenomena were magic or miracles. They believed a werewolf was not a miracle from God or a mysterious natural phenomenon. The alt—”
John jumped as thunder rolled and lightning struck. City Hall lost power, and the window blinds blocked what dim light landed on them and the windowsill. Lang called, accurately, “The generator will turn on in a minute.”
Kevin said, “Like I was saying, the alternative was magic, and they believed magic came from Satan. The böxenwolf legend began during that time period. Some religious people would use wolf straps and others wouldn’t.”
When children learned about böxenwolves in school, teachers treated it as a myth and never mentioned the Devil—that might lead to Peter Stumpp. Saying that Peter Stumpp’s criminal record gave people negative opinions about böxenwolves understated it. In the common, child-friendly legend, two friends’ hard work made them hungry. The first friend sat down to eat, while the second friend went into the trees. Soon, the first friend saw a wolf run into a field, eat an entire calf or foal, and run away. The second friend came back, complaining of a stomachache. The first friend said, “Of course, what did you expect after eating the whole thing at once?”
John said, “One very hungry, adult wolf could eat a lot of a very small, very young, newborn calf. A wolf eats almost everything, even hair and small bones."
“Did you notice something odd about Lang’s questioning?” Kevin asked.
“I’ve never been questioned before, and I assume fiction police officers behave differently than real ones.”
“He could have told Officer Matthews to question you about the wolf straps.”
“So, they were wolf straps.”
“In fact, Lang has not questioned anybody since I came here, except for you.”
“Is that bad?”
“No, it is probably nothing important to us.” Then Kevin’s tone changed. It fell between admitting he used marijuana once in college and telling an imaginably accepting person his sexuality. “You might not believe this, but before I donated it to a museum, I wore my family’s wolf strap once.”
John bit half through the baby carrot.
“Don’t worry. It didn’t affect my legal services,” Kevin said.
“Do you mind if I ask what happened?” John chewed with effort.
“I transfigured into a wolf,” Kevin said.
John mumbled jumbled words instead, then settled for, “Really? How? What?”
“Just once,” Kevin said. “It was on September 8, 1973, in the woods when I was eighteen. My grandpa thought it was important. Our family has instructions to make wolf straps. I just tied on the wolf strap, and I looked like a wolf. My senses worked like a wolf’s, and I could think like a person. I think that protects people from us. He told me never to do anything while transfigured that I wouldn’t do while not transfigured. I didn’t have any wild animal urges or evil thoughts while wearing the wolf strap or after taking it off. I untied it with my teeth, and I transfigured into a human again. I didn’t like being a böxenwolf.”
Lang overheard the last couple of sentences. “I wanted to be a hare, but Kevin’s recipe didn’t work.”
“You used a rabbit,” Kevin said.
“I am not having this argument again!”
“The legend says the person can transfigure into a hare, but I’m not aware it ever happened. And you would probably agree that was good, or Lang would’ve been eaten.”
“I didn’t know what would happen to my mind if I was a wolf,” Lang said.
“Also, he didn’t want to kill another alleged rabbit and fail,” Kevin said.
“We ate the meat if that makes you feel better. Anyway, Mr. Dalton, you are allowed to observe if you ride along with Wayne McDowell. You will not have access to evidence, but you may make your own notes. Nobody is required to answer your questions, and everybody has the right to refuse you access to something. You must wear a reflective vest because of low visibility and to identify yourself. You must carry a tranquilizer gun, but the state of Wisconsin requires a permit. Is that acceptable?”
“Sure. John handed over his tranquilizer gun permit for verification.
Next part coming Friday, June 28, 2024, hopefully. I have had several bad health problems in a row and if I don't feel better by Monday morning, I might need to delay the next installment by one week.
Wolftown, Part Two
The wolf charged John. He yanked the antiquarian bookshop’s door open and squeezed into the bookshop. Simultaneously, Schuster activated his lights and sirens, and accelerated, and began firing his gun.
As the bookshop door closed, the wolf cracked the glass. Schuster’s car hydroplaned and skidded sideways onto the curb. John flattened himself on the floor but had seen the wolf gallop away.
Schuster stood in front of the bookshop and continued firing. John rushed out, hands raised, and saw the wolf dodge from a doorway to an intersection.
“Hey! Stop! It ran away! Stop! I was in a safe place! The wolf couldn’t attack!” John also yelled other comments.
Schuster alternated chasing and shooting the wolf, radioing throughout, and John chased Schuster. The wolf crossed the intersection a second time and bolted down the block.
Just when two patrollers and a wolfjäger splashed up, Schuster emptied his magazine, and the wolf turned a corner.
“Are you okay?” Schuster reloaded.
John took a deep breath.
“Are you okay?” Schuster resembled a snapped rubber band five minutes ago, but now he looked glued together, and the glue was still wet.
“The wolf isn’t, but I’m fine,” John said.
The armed patroller asked, “Why were you chasing the wolf away?”
“Okay, guys, everything is fine.” John wondered why Schuster tolerated the patroller’s revolver.
“Come on, Dogzilla.” The wolfjäger and handler ran, but the other patroller asked,
“He aided and abetted a suspect. I heard him.”
“You go that way and around in a circle.” Schuster pointed.
“But he helped the wolf.”
“I was present at the time.”
Over the patroller’s objections, Schuster said, “Mr. Dalton, you can go ahead and lower your hands.”
John did.
Schuster spoke deliberately and firmly. “Let’s get back on track. Circle the block, meet up with your partner, and patrol. Radio observations.”
The patroller complied.
“Okey-dokey, we will be stuck here for a while because I discharged my weapon,” Schuster said.
“Your arm is bleeding.”
“It’s fine. I mean we will be here. You are a witness now. Let’s go back to my car.”
“Have I broken a law?” John asked.
“No, sir, but you witnessed the wolf, and Wolftown would appreciate your cooperation in the investigation.”
John understood little of Schuster’s radio message.
“I’d like a lawyer to be present before I say anything,” John said.
“Okay, no problem.”
Sitting in the police car with the door open, Schuster juggled fresh bandages and the radio, both urgent issues. Once John noticed, Schuster accepted his help with the bandage. It was the first time John saw sutured wolf bites in person, and the shooting had torn and separated several stitches. The long pattern and the smaller punctures matched a large carnivore’s teeth, and the welts and scratches were inconsequential.
Schuster and the police dispatcher struggled to send more police officers to the scene. He told a patroller with the other police officers to lend his walkie-talkie to Officer Matthews. “You guys are two blocks away and can’t get anybody here?” Schuster asked. Convincing Officer Matthews to use his radio, Schuster forced himself to speak calmly and evenly. Then his volume increased with every word: “No, Dustin, I’m not going to investigate my own shooting alone! Come on! Get your asses over here, damn it!” He restrained further outbursts and regained his composure.
Finally, the supervisor intervened, and Schuster’s taut rubber band tendencies relaxed.
Observing Dogzilla, John wondered if some people reported false sightings: a wolfjäger misidentified as a wolf. Dogzilla was approximately the same size as a Great Dane, St. Bernard, or English mastiff. His tail and head resembled a German shepherd’s, though his pointy ears sat further apart, closer to a wolf’s position. Soaked fur emphasized his pointer dog shape. Medium-long, bushy fur covered him—mottled and darker on his back and sides, with a light underbelly, and pale facial and leg markings. Especially in low visibility and from a distance, a frightened person unfamiliar with comparing canines might become confused.
On John’s last trip, he met a wolfjäger breeder, Ruby Klug, who said that Germans bred the dogs to hunt wolves and bears. Wisconsin banned hunting wolves, and the dogs mangled anything smaller than a fox. Most hunters trained the wolfjägers for elk and deer.
In 1982, some wolfjägers escaped Ruby Klug’s property, and two or three bred with wolves. Though she, Happy Howlers, animal control, and government departments searched and captured some, the wolf-wolfjägers caused mayhem. Then they mauled a young girl to death. Wolftown requested the public’s assistance in trapping or killing them. The effort succeeded. Although many people supported euthanizing them, Wayne welcomed them into Happy Howlers and had them sterilized.
Between the patrollers’ suspicions and the risk of another attack upon the wolf, John decided to accept Schuster’s offered ride. He overheard an argument between Schuster and another policeman, whom Schuster thought should take John to the police station and question him. The policeman, Matthews, thought he had more important duties. They compromised: Schuster transferred John, and Matthews would question him when time allowed.
Regarding riding in a police officer’s car, John was less than thrilled. He felt all right with Schuster, who uncovered police corruption, which threatened his career. Though John considered himself minimally cooperative, Schuster accepted his hesitations.
Schuster searched and handcuffed John, assuring him it was routine for both people’s safety and particularly important because John rode in the front seat. Foster’s blood had soaked the backseat and dried. Though Schuster rinsed the floorboard and wiped down the interior, blood dribbled and dotted the police car. Also, his bitten arm had stained the driver’s side.
“You’re a wildlife biologist, right?” Schuster asked.
“Yeah, though I’m more familiar with African, Asian, and South American animals than with wolves.”
“How did you end up on three continents?”
“I worked for a charity concerned with the illegal wildlife trade.” Mentioning that he burned out and quit seemed thoughtless, compared to Schuster’s recent experiences.
“Believe it or not, I really hate seeing animals suffer.”
“I agree with you about that, but I was okay in the bookshop.”
“Can I ask you a question that is about wolves?”
“Sure.”
“I couldn’t tell visually, but I fired seventeen times. We found fifteen bullets, and one of them went through the wolf.”
John prevented himself from saying, Poor wolf, aloud.
“I’d say I shot it three times. If it’s the same wolf, I shot it five times total today, and one of the shots grazed it,” Schuster said.
“In the same day?” John asked.
“Yeah. My question is, should the wolf be dead, let alone able to attack?”
“It survived somehow, but it should be dying, and too weak to find a safe place to die.”
“I was trying to kill it both times. I hit its hip and chest.”
“It shouldn’t have galloped.”
“Did you see blood?”
“No, but it was moving fast, and I couldn’t see well. The rain probably washed off blood, too,” John said.
“I’d say he was high if he was a human, but he is a wolf. Here we are.”
Schuster parked behind Wolftown City Hall.
Wolftown’s police station was inside City Hall, and Schuster brought John through the police entrance. In an office area, one police officer worked at a desk. A middle-aged woman knocked on the Chief of Police’s office and entered.
Schuster looked around the seated people and pointed John to the lawyer. Kevin Miller snored under a newspaper, but fumbled and rustled to the surface.
“Hi. Sorry to wake you up,” John said.
Kevin waved it aside.
“Officer Lang said you were a lawyer?”
Kevin nodded, standing up in black socks, and shook John’s hand. “Kev—” he yawned, “excuse me.”
“My name is John Dalton,” John said. “Officer Schuster said to wake you up.”
He rubbed his eyes. “Kevin Miller. I offer any legal services people need, issues with the wolf are pro bono.”
“How did you know?”
“I came here yesterday for that purpose, among others. I might not be available otherwise. Let me wake up for a moment.” Kevin stretched, then retrieved his black shoes from under the chair. He wore a loose paisley tie, partially untucked white shirt, and a brown suit; the jacket hung over the chair’s back.
Kevin tidied up in the restroom. John wondered how he managed to fall asleep in the awful chairs.
In one of two interrogation rooms, John told Kevin what happened since his arrival in Wolftown. Kevin asked, “Does something specifically bother you?”
“The local authorities sanction killing the wolf, and I’m worried if a man with a wolfdog murdered people, the wolfdog will be killed,” John said.
“Other than professional concerns, what concerns you?”
“The corruption,” John asked.
“It is completely separate from the wolf attacks. You may feel better if you know the Chief of Police is unavailable,” Kevin said.
John raised his eyebrows. “Really?”
“There are strong reasons to prefer the Deputy Chief of Police,” Kevin said.
“Vincent Woods. Honestly, I think you have scarcely anything to worry about. You can expect routine questions. Why would anybody suspect you?”
“I grew up in a bad LA neighborhood. I made two of my life goals not being shot at by anybody and not being killed by a gang. I don’t want to see a police shooting, too.”
“The police supervise the patrollers closely, but they have been threatening or going beyond their authority. I know what people think of them, and how police respond to them.”
John and Kevin made small talk while waiting for Officer Matthews’ arrival.
Officer Matthews rushed, impatient for the questioning’s ending. Kevin predicted the questions accurately, until Matthews left, and Lang entered with two evidence bags. Both held fur, one wet and one dry.
“Just a moment,” Kevin said. “Why are those pertinent?”
“They may help our investigation,” Lang said.
Pointing between John and Lang, Kevin said, “I would like a minute alone with you, then him, or you, then him. Either order.”
“Me first,” Lang said.
Kevin opened the door a minute later, calling into the lobby, “You had opportunity yourself, Danny!”
“Oh, go tell him,” Lang said.
“He expects me to tell you.” Kevin sat.
“About what?” John asked.
Lang stuck his head in. “You wanted him to be informed before I questioned him and if I told him, you would want to listen, and if you listened, you would find something objectionable.”
“Why didn’t you say so first?” Kevin asked.
Lang muttered, “End with the strongest point,” as the door shut.
“We grew up together,” Kevin said.
“You seemed to know each other,” John said.
“Have you been to the local museum, by any chance?” Kevin asked.
“Last time I visited. I understand that some Wolftown residents think the wolf is a werewolf or böxenwolf. It’s a kind of werewolf?”
“Yes, and I think Lang will ask you about them. How do you want to answer?”
“I’ll tell them I don’t know much about them, and I’d be telling the truth.”
“I can easily stop the böxenwolf line of questioning. Just say so, anytime.”
“But why do the böxenwolves matter to the police?” John asked.
“I highly doubt the police force in general believes in the böxenwolf, as in, believing a man can turn into a wolf. Who could turn from one thing into something else? But just the same, we can’t separate Wolftown’s emergency procedures from the böxenwolf legend. Maybe at some point, the emergency procedures and laws will change, but at the moment, we have them. Wolftown laws state that being a böxenwolf in and of itself is not a crime and that a person who commits a crime while being a böxenwolf cannot receive a lighter or heavier sentence or unlawful treatment owing to his transfigured state. It was a reaction to Germany’s treatment of werewolves. Maybe I can predict the questions.”
“Sure,” John said.
Kevin’s questions included idealizing wolves or having an interest in tanning and taxidermy, German folklore, alchemy, and Satan. According to legend, the Devil gave a person a wolf pelt girdle or belt that transformed the wearer into a wolf. But in exchange for the gift, or as a condition of receiving the wolf strap, the wearer either performed the Devil’s work or the Devil possessed him. Therefore, Kevin explained, in the 1980s Wolftown, people voluntarily turned wolf straps over to the museum or police. Without mentioning specifics, Kevin said that modern experiences contradicted the occult theory. Wolftown citizens owned wolf straps; police found all kinds of things in crime scenes. He doubted Lang would ask about Satan, but the idea mattered to the legend and Wolftown’s history.
Lang asked if John had been to Germany or Poland, killed a wolf, or acquired an uncured wolf pelt or a cured wolf pelt product, or instructions for tanning a wolf hide. He omitted questions Kevin considered unlikely—like idealizing wolves or having an interest in alchemy, German folklore, or tanning and taxidermy.
“This is an example of a suspicious object.” Lang passed John an evidence bag holding a strip of dry fur. “Can you identify the object?”
John felt sorry for the animal. “It looks like a wolf strap from the museum, but I don’t know if this was the one I saw on display or not,” he said.
“Do you notice anything about it?”
“Why?” Kevin asked.
“I’m asking him as a wildlife biologist and because he had some idea about what it was.”
“I’ll answer,” John said. “Can I look at it up close?”
“I brought a pair of gloves and a magnifying glass. Don’t let it trail on the floor.”
The bag listed the fur’s dimensions (about five feet long and seven inches wide), so John pulled out one end, from which dangled a rawhide string. He examined it. “It is a cured strip of animal fur, probably from a wolf or a coyote. I think it is wolf fur, though. Wolves have darker fur on their backs and lighter fur on their bellies, but I can’t tell if it came from the wolf’s back or side. The fur is white and grey, probably from an older wolf. A wolf grows a thick undercoat in winter and sheds it in the spring, and the fur doesn’t have an undercoat. The wolf was probably killed in summer.”
John thought the muddy fur belonged to a young but full-grown wolf, and it died in spring or autumn. The strip changed color from creamy to mottled brown and black, and along with its shorter length, indicated the skinner lay the hide flat and cut side-to-side instead of lengthwise.
The wolf straps’ musty, stinky wolf odor had faded, but the first strap smelled like the plastic bag and the second like Wisconsin’s forests and mud. Furs he sniffed in second-hand stores absorbed perfume, cigarette smoke, closet must, or dry-cleaning chemicals, none of which applied to either wolf strap.
“Thank you for your cooperation,” Lang said. “You are free to leave now.”
“I’d still like to offer assistance or stay to observe,” John said.
“Mayor Dwyer knows, and you need his permission.”
Lang suggested waiting with Kevin, since the wolf response used a buddy system, among other teamwork, close contact, and communication methods. Kevin was willing. To demonstrate cooperation, John agreed.
Since John needed to update Paula, his boss, Kevin directed John to a pay phone and returned to his seat.
“If you don’t feel safe now, you will feel less safe later, and don’t forget about the floodwaters,” Paula said.
“I won’t. I want to stay and find out what is going on. I’m making more observations now than I could last time. If it gets too weird, I’ll leave.”
“Weird how? The werewolf?”
“Yeah. I don’t know how to express it yet, but I’m thinking of something. I think we would miss a lot if we came back later, and I don’t know if it would be a cover-up or people unwilling to talk to strangers.” John spoke over Paula, who stopped talking. “Somebody can find out if they try, but a lot of people wouldn’t try, or they overlooked something, or something has to fit the right way to be understood, or people have impressions. Somebody reconstructing events wouldn’t figure it out easily, and I don’t think I could understand it. I don’t know if multiple observers could, or if they would come to one conclusion. I’m wondering if a local could, but I don’t know if they would try, or if they want to. Sorry, I interrupted. What did you say?”
“Be careful,” Paula said. “Thinking of something else?”
“Like I said, I don’t know what I’m thinking yet.”
“Now, be really careful.”
“I’m probably fine, but the wolf isn’t. I’ll call again before leaving City Hall.”
(Next part coming Friday, June 21, 2024.)
Wolftown, Part One
“Wolves have killed three people in Wolftown, Wisconsin. Most recently, Officer Zachary Foster, 25, died of his injuries at the UW Health University Hospital. The names of the other two victims and details about their deaths have not been released. Foster leaves his five-month pregnant wife, Megan, behind. Wolftown Mayor Herbert Dwyer says, ‘Officer Zachary Foster’s death greatly saddens us in local government, and of course, those in the police force, and, I imagine, members of other emergency services who worked with him. The citizens of Wolftown will no doubt remember his sacrifice for years to come.’ Our listeners may know that Foster and another officer, Billy Schuster, were put on unpaid leave pending an investigation after they brought forth evidence of Wolftown Police Chief Dennis Laufenberg’s misconduct and criminal activity. Wolftown Police Department has revealed some details about the wolf attack that killed Officer Zachary Foster and injured Officer Billy Schuster, and Megan Foster also answered some questions. Megan says that Foster and Schuster felt like they, ‘couldn’t sit around all day waiting for a wolf to kill someone.’ When the wolf attacks began approximately eighteen hours ago, the officers volunteered for duty. At around 5:20 this morning, Foster and Schuster responded to a 911 call reporting a wolf entering a house through a dog door.”
“Why would a wolf do that?” John asked to the radio.
“—Foster sustained injuries on his neck, arms, and legs, and Schuster was bitten on the arm. Schuster shot at the wolf repeatedly, but it escaped. Schuster and an unidentified civilian administered first aid, and Schuster drove Foster to Wolftown Medical Clinic. Foster was then transferred to the UW Health University Hospital. The wolf has yet to be found. Nobody on the property was injured.”
The wolf’s escape relieved John, but he wished Foster survived. Local people and the authorities probably felt even more hostile towards the wolf and upset by it than before.
A police roadblock stopped John, the only person driving into Wolftown, Wisconsin, and a line of cars waited in the opposite lane.
The roadblock police officer said, “We’re checking each car for a dangerous suspect. Have you seen unusual behavior on your way here, either a person behaving unusually or a wolf behaving unusually, or a big dog maybe?”
“No,” John said.
“Have you seen a naked man running around on your way here?”
“No. In this weather?”
“Have you seen a wolf, wolf-dog, or large dog, whether loose or with a person?”
“No.”
“Do you know anybody in Wolftown?”
“Yes, but I’m not going to say who unless I need to.”
“What brings you to Wolftown today?”
“I’m a wildlife biologist from the Nature Protection Society Wisconsin Branch, and I’m here about the wolf. I want to offer assistance if possible, or at least observe the events,” Paula, John’s boss, intended to open the second branch in Michigan.
“We don’t allow outsiders to hunt the wolf.”
“In my opinion, humans killing animals is unethical.”
“Please, say you have something to defend yourself.”
“I have an air horn. I understand what carnivores do and I respect them.” He thought, And I’m not stupid enough to approach the wolf before tranquilizing it.
“You are aware of the killer wolf and highly dangerous suspect.”
And that some locals think the wolf is a werewolf, John thought.
“The other road out of Wolftown crosses a flooded bridge, and if the rain keeps up, this road will become unpassable. By the time you change your mind, it will be too late.”
“I’m prepared for the flood,” John said.
“The tourists have been leaving because of the flood. I’m going to radio that you intend to stay in town. We need to collect as much information about the wolf and highly dangerous individual as we can. We’ve been asking people to go to the police station and find out if they might have useful information.”
“I will keep it in mind.”
“Most of the businesses left their doors unlocked for people running away from a wolf. Go inside and shut the door when you see a wolf. Keep a really careful eye out for the wolf.”
“I will.”
Wolftown’s sign read:
Wolftown
Welcome to the Pack
Founded 1831
Population 1,524
Wolftown’s state of emergency applied to the floods—other current issues were the wolf, allegations of police corruption, and two murders, all of which occurred in the past week. John wondered if the wolf attacks were the town’s last straw. On the drive, he listened to local radio, hoping to learn more about the wolf, and ignoring the corruption and murders. Reporters knew little about the corruption, and police strictly withheld information about the murders. Wolftown’s settlers brought a werewolf legend from Germany, but the news never mentioned it.
The reporters repeated the same wolf information. Authorities identified one killer wolf and at least one other wolf roaming the town. Already, Mayor Herbert Dwyer condoned killing the wolf or wolves. Wisconsin Fish, Wildlife, and Parks Division aided Wolftown. The city also had an animal control department, but Happy Howlers tended to wolves. Dr. Jodi Richardson (a popular large animal veterinarian who treated the odd wild animal when called upon), and dozens of local civilians volunteered to hunt the wolf.
John drove to Wolftown because the people’s reactions seemed odd, and he found insufficient information remotely.
Before coming to Wolftown, John spoke with Wayne McDowell, who founded the local wolf sanctuary, Happy Howlers. Sometimes Happy Howlers and the Nature Protection Society worked together. He understood John’s concern but thought coming was a waste of time. “I bet nobody will let you look around or do anything,” he said.
The police identified the highly dangerous suspect as a person with a wolf, wolf-dog, or large dog. Both Wayne and John acknowledged some modern people successfully trained wolves like dogs. Due to the difficulty of acquiring a trainable pup, Wayne and John guessed the suspect worked with a wolf-dog or a massive, strong dog. In Wayne’s experience, a wolf, wolf-dog, or above-average domesticated dog’s bite force was at least one hundred times more forceful than the attacking canine’s. John trusted his judgment.
Police Chief Laufenberg’s misconduct and crimes seemed unrelated to the wolf, but the allegations’ effects on the police officers concerned John. Officers probably disagreed with each other, leading to teamwork problems. Meanwhile, they worked together for long hours under high stress, managing multiple crises, routine calls, and supervising wolf hunters, which combined could make them mishandle the wolf situation. Because Wayne said the wolf attacked his employees, John thought between the stress, emotions, and cooperating with the local authorities, Happy Howlers might harm the wolf. Wayne said he had distributed tranquilizer guns and people carried their normal weapons. He struggled to reassure people that one dart made a full-grown wolf unconscious—even after Wayne demonstrated on an ambassador wolf. Multiple tranquilizing darts would overdose the wolf. Through experience with various animals, he and John sympathized with people’s doubts about their safety in the few minutes before the wolf fell asleep. Finally, the werewolf rumor could provoke mass panic and violence towards wolves and people, whether or not somebody correctly identified the culprit.
Neither Wayne nor John believed in werewolves, but Wayne told John, “They wouldn’t look like wolves because wolf and human musculature and bone structure are so different, they need to change. It takes a long time for real animals to totally change their form, and an object doesn’t make them change their form.” According to the folklore, wearing a special belt made of wolfskin turned the wearer into a wolf. The folklore called the werewolf böxenwolf.
Wolftown beautifully maintained its brick roads, half-timber buildings, and other historic architecture. A few businesses had lights on, and two people exited a closed gift shop. Despite the rain and workday, cars filled the church parking lots; other parking lots remained empty.
People stacked sandbags, often looking around for a wolf, or under apparent guard. Pairs of people in reflective vests walked wolfjägers, and one pair carried a rifle. John pitied the soggy dogs because the wolfjägers had absolutely no choice about suffering the weather. The thick, cold rain hurt and it was a cool March day.
John owned an eco-hostile, half-useless pick-up truck. The van belt squealed about a puddle of water. He pulled over into a street parking spot, fed the meter, and opened the hood.
“Just so you know, there is no parking here,” a man in a vest said.
“I’m stopping long enough to adjust the van belt,” John said.
“Do you need a tow?”
“I’ve done this before, and once today.”
The man carried a break-action shotgun, cracked open and unloaded. Still, it scared John. He concentrated on the engine.
“We try to be a friendly town, but we don’t welcome outsiders today," the man said.
“The officials want to keep people safe," John said.
“You’ll need to go back the way you came and an hour out of your way.”
John shut the hood. “Thanks for your concern.”
The man spoke into his walkie-talkie while John drove away. Another unarmed pair followed him. He wondered if they had concealed carry permits or hid their guns illegally.
To learn Wolftown’s layout, John drove around Wolftown. He saw weird posts and holes lining the streets on his last visit. The town needed them for a 12-foot tall, rusting, corrugated metal wall, on which they hung detour and Do Not Enter signs. Water trickled under the crack and through drainage holes. On grassy land, a 3-foot corrugated metal apron prevented tunneling. In John’s experience, a farmer's wire fence with a wire apron blocked the average wolf’s entry. Wayne built wire and concrete fences because tourists came so close to wolves.
Before John left for Wolftown, every hotel, motel, and bed-and-breakfast refused to reserve a room, but he came prepared to sleep in his truck. He found a motel room in person, at the first place he asked. The manager warned him about the flood and wolf. She said that the motel cooperated with the police, which meant notifying the police he had checked in. Great, John thought. He checked in anyway. On the phone, the police also asked him to come to the police station (in city hall) for voluntary questioning.
Paula worried about John’s safe arrival and the town’s room availability, and she needed his phone number. She agreed some aspects of Wolftown seemed odd. If, at any point, John felt unsafe, she encouraged him to leave.
John dressed in his fishing waders, raincoat, and rainhat, packed his briefcase in a waterproof bag, and asked the motel manager for directions to City Hall, and walked. Though he planned to visit City Hall, seeking wolf information, he hoped to avoid questioning. Wayne was his only connection to Wolftown.
A patrolling pair followed John on foot, sometimes using their walkie-talkies until a police car sent them away. The officer caught up with John.
“Excuse me, sir, are you the guy here about the wolf?” he asked.
John stopped in front of the Beyond Bagels Bakery. “Me?”
“John Dalton?” the police officer asked, with a tense, stretched expression.
“Yeah,” John said.
“My name is Officer Schuster. With our ongoing situation, walking alone is very unsafe. I can give you a ride, but—”
Schuster’s radio interrupted him. Among untranslatable acronyms and numbers, John heard “wolf,” and street names. An older pair of patrollers hustled out of the bakery.
“Patrollers! Come here for a minute!” Schuster called. To John, he said, “Sir, if the wolf comes here, you need to be somewhere safer. Do you want to go into the bakery or my car?”
The patrollers waited.
“I’m not comfortable going into a police car,” John said.
“When I say, go into the bakery, and you need to comply immediately, or I will put you in the bakery.” He pointed. “Push the door.”
“Sure,” John said.
Schuster answered his radio again, and one of the patrollers listened to the walkie-talkie. By the end of the transmission, Schuster looked like a rubber band about to snap.
“Okay, John Dalton is here about the wolf. You need to keep an eye on him if I leave.”
The patrollers agreed, and John asked, “Why?”
All John understood from the radio was something about “knocked out” and “attack.” Schuster answered the radio again, and hesitated, looking at John. The emergency siren sounded.
“Haven’t you done enough?” the woman patroller asked.
Church bells rang.
“Everybody would understand if you went home,” the man patroller said, as Schuster half-shoved and half-dumped John through the door.
“Sit down and sit tight. Keep an eye on him,” Schuster said. He rushed to his car and sped away with lights and sirens.
The patrollers joined John, and the man locked the door. The thunderstorm, emergency siren, and church bells muffled the police sirens and gunshots. John and the patrollers, Frank and Debby, introduced themselves.
“What happened?” John asked.
“Something bad,” Frank said.
The bakery smelled like fresh bread and doughnuts. Somebody had turned on every light and spilled a still-steaming cup of coffee. John cleaned it up with napkins.
He overheard Frank's staticky walkie-talkie “He got away. We’re fencing in sector four.”
The corner TV blurted robotically, “A wolf attack—”
In another room, a man shrieked the same volume as the TV's blaring emergency address. Frank rushed in its direction.
“—has been reported in sector four. If you are in sector four, stay inside, and lock all windows and doors,” and listed which streets were in the sector.
“I need to go to city hall,” John said. “Is it in sector four?”
“You shouldn’t leave until told,” Debby said.
“Tommy dropped a kitchen knife on his foot,” Frank said.
“Oh, darn it!” Debby said.
“I have a first aid kit,” John said.
“He does, too. The alert scared him, and his hands were sweaty. I’m radioing for transportation to Dr. Groves’ office.”
“But you know Dr. Groves’ office is only good for little operations, like fishhooks and Bunny’s abscess.”
“Dr. Groves knows where to send him. He gave Foster a blood transfusion."
Schuster returned a few minutes later and looked like the rubber band snapped and ricocheted off the ceiling. “Okay, walking to the police station is extremely dangerous, but I can’t keep you here. In the police car, you wouldn’t be detained, but you would be in handcuffs.”
“I like walking," John said.
“No problem. I’ll follow you.”
“Does that mean if we see the wolf, you will shoot him?”
“If he is trying to get you, yeah.”
“Officer Schuster survived a wolf attack,” Debby said.
“Good! Condolences about Officer…Foster.”
“Thanks.”
“I’m not comfortable being in a police car when I haven’t broken the law. And I don’t want the wolf to get shot because of me.”
“Here’s a compromise. If you see the wolf, blow your air horn, and if the wolf runs away, I won’t shoot it.”
John nodded grudgingly. “Can you follow far away?”
“Okey-dokey,” Schuster said.
Schuster trailed about one block behind John. Patrollers gave him odd looks, but let him pass.
Catty-corner from John, a door swung shut, and something moved. A lamppost’s flowers and a mailbox obscured a massive, canine shape. It looked up and down the street, then bolted at thirty or forty miles an hour towards an alley, while John mentally compared dogs, wolves, and coyotes, and decided he saw a frightened wolf. The wolf’s ears were flattened, its head lowered, and its tail between its legs.
Why did the door open? John wondered.
The wolf poked its head around the alleyway and glared at John. Turning to face the wolf, John stared back. It stepped forward. John blew his airhorn, waved his arms, and shouted, “Run away!” He backed against a pull-to-open door, and the wolf laid its ears back and raised its tail horizontally.
(Next part coming between Friday, June 7, 2024 and Monday, June 10, 2024, and then I will post the parts one week apart. Because of a family priority, I can't schedule the exact date yet.)
(Update: Because of an illness, the next part will be posted on Friday, June 14, 2024.)
The Witch in the Woods
A witch lived in the woods.
She was there by choice.
Never alone was she.
She had friends aplenty.
Patting on the asphalt she wore all black
But in the woods green was her clad
A raven might be called her closest friend
And to her horses come a’ wanderin’
I hear she lives in the woods alone
She makes a garden dwelling her only home.
Barefoot she walks on the grass
In silver moonlight dancing
Wandering among the many trees
You can see her tumbling.
A price did meet her one day.
Kept him asleep for a week, they say
Then she sent him on his way
But he kept his promises, to this day
Now she is our queen
And a pretty thing is she
In a castle
All alone
No love has she for her own
there for power all alone
That is what happened to the witch in the woods
She became a queen, yet is still misunderstood.
She doesn’t mind, because she will always be a queen inside.
Plainer in a Plane Land
Poly lived happily in a 2-D world, her plane of life determined by three points: herself; her husband, Quad; and her little boy polygon, Trap. They were plain people living the plane life.
Quad was quite ordinary, all of his angles adding up to 360º. His were all righteous angles, but the ones that Trap had, although adding up to 360º, were skewed — two acute and two obtuse, and too dissimilar. So it goes with youth and naïvité.
When Trap grew older, he would sweep their plane for girls, and he often intersected with them. One day, however, he met "the 1," a lovely quadrilateral named Rhomba.
Rhomba liked Poly and Quad, but as her tangents with Trap increased in frequency, Poly felt she was being distanced from him. She knew what the shortest distance was, between the two of them, and she couldn't help but notice that intermediate points were beginning to define newly angled departures from the straight line. She began to see Rhomba as a strange attractor, leading Trap into fractal non-Euclidean indiscretions.
Quad, having such righteous angles, felt lines should not only be straight, but by the straight-and-narrow.
Perhaps Poly was too overbearing, a weightiness distorting their planar world. Such dents in the planar fabric caused each of them to circumnavigate, drawn to a strange Newtonian two-dimensional gravity. When Poly derived this coherency in her 2-D sensibility, she was pleased, as her family began to circle each other, approaching true intersections of mind.
But Rhomba added another dimension to the world — for Trap, anyway.
As their love deepened, they began to rise, that is, develop depth. Both Rhomba and Trap grew sides.
Rhomba did it first, since her angles were malleable. She experimented wildly with her body, pushing past 360º. She titillated her vertices. Her sides throbbed.
SHe also tried different religions. She joined the Parallelograms; she served at the altar of the Square. She even researched the very strange cult of Circles, which even Trap couldn't abide. In fact, when Romba massaged her vertices into her sides and became well-rounded, Trap could no longer follow her. His angles were what he felt made him, him.
Trap returned to the plane, descending into the common-sense reality determined by three points, yet was haunted by the possibilities. Could extensions of height and width determine self-actualization?
Poly regarded her son warily. Quad fretted. They knew such inclinations were a slippery slope (i.e., hazardous rise-over-run). She had known several friends, so tempted, who had vanished along what were theorized to be asymptotes.
Still, Trap wondered. How would his functions alter with other variables introduced--like ones of depth?
One day, a mysterious feature appeared on Poly's, Quad's, and Trap's plane. It began as a dot--a mere point. It began to grow. It widened. Radius and circumference enlarged exponentially, becoming an ever-widening circle changing colors.
Their plane scintillated in a variegated, hypnotic, stroboscopic display. Poly, Quad, and Trap were mesmerized.
Trap, however, having been exposed to spatial ambiance determined by three dimensions, recognized the truth. It was Romba! His love! How he had missed her.
But where Poly and Quad could only appreciate her surface features — a simple obscene circle--he saw the whole person.
For she was a sphere! A globe of multicolored enhancements of space, texture, and global existentialism. She was glorious.
He felt foolish. How could he continue living in only two-thirds of a world? He needed more dimension.
And so while he remained a simple trapezoid on Poly's and Quad's plain plane, he lived a secret, unseen life, in global ecstasy with his lover. They could look down on Poly and Quad, but Poly and Quad were unable to look up. Yet, they knew that their son was more than than just the 360º of his four angles; more than just four straight and narrow sides. More than just a simple quadrilateral. They suspected he was on an asymptote.
Poly lamented to Quad. "My tears need a minute to find the edges of my face. If you'll please excuse me." And with that, she was tempted to collapse into a line, albeit a straight and narrow one. But Quad had seen such collapse before and knew that there was a single endpoint that would surely follow.
Quad did not want singularity; he wanted dimensions to his love with Poly. And that's when he experienced a true epiphany:
Love is boundless. It really should be asymptotic. Multidimensional and growing. Cartesionally challenged, exponential, and unbound by geometry, planar or otherwise.
For Rhomba and Trap, they were now boundlessly in love, fractally recursive in their devotions to each other. But they still left--on that plane--a simple presence each, lined shadows that limited myopic, possessive beings could not fully appreciate, blind to the possibilities of space and time.
Dragons
Many people think humans adopt dragons
But they’re wrong.
There is something crazily, insanely, terrifyingly powerful about dragons.
And there is something hauntingly forbidding about the fact that they might almost, exist.
The one thing I know about dragons is that they are protective of what they call home.
In tales they burn down villages to take their sheep and break into castles for the treasures they seek.
In truth, we don’t know any of this. Maybe dragons are the little lizards we find on the ground and nothing more.
But I do know, that there is something hauntingly forbidding about the fact that might, almost exist.
I know that they might not guard treasures or slaves, but something tells me they never left their grave.
That they are soaring above the clouds. Just out of reach, amidst thunder showers.
There is something so hauntingly forbidding that’s it’s almost real, about the fact that dragons might be real.
There are some things that prove us wrong. Like that no bones or fossils are ever found.
But, there’s something else like an itch in my brain, that we might almost, one day, see them again.