The Fenris Unchained Wolf Refuge had a Web page that looked as if it had been built in 1990 and not updated since. I recognized the name Fenris as belonging to a monstrous wolf out of Norse mythology. The site consisted mainly of pixelated photos of wolf dogs inside a border of Nordic runes with a flashing button to click if you wished to make a donation. No driving directions were given—the refuge didn’t welcome drop-in visitors—but Kathy had gotten route information from the guy who ran the place. His name, she’d told me, was Dale Probert.
By my rough calculation, I guessed it would take an hour to get there, allowing for traffic. I checked on Shadow, who had somehow found a way to lie down in the tight carrier. He sniffed my hand, then went back to sleep.
I decided I had better get moving if I wanted to be home before nightfall.
The summit of Mount Washington was hidden in clouds of its own making. It was the tallest mountain in New England. Even more noteworthy, the highest winds ever measured on the planet, 231 miles per hour, had been recorded at the weather station at the top.
Mount Washington was a killer and not to be underestimated. I remembered the time when my college friends and I had gone backcountry skiing down the face of Tuckerman’s Ravine. All of the sensations I had felt that glorious April day came back in a rush: the burning in my quads as I trudged up the ridge, carrying my skis over my shoulder; the surprising warmth of the spring sun on my face; the moment of stomach-dropping fear at the top; and then the burst of adrenaline as I pushed off into space. Skiing had always made me feel so alive, even more so because it had never come easily to me.
Maybe when Stacey visited again we could try it, but when would that be? Not until after the funerals. I’d had more brushes with death than any man my age should have, but I had never lost three close friends in a single day.
I stopped at a market in the failing mill town of Berlin and got an Italian sandwich, a bag of salt and vinegar chips, and a jug of water. At the meat counter in back, I bought a package of stew beef for Shadow. I had a feeling that the stomachs of near wolves were not well adapted to digesting kibble made from soybeans and corn.
I pressed the chunks of beef one by one through the metal gate. He took them gently, as if not wanting to nip my fingers with his fangs. He even held his mouth open while I poured water from the jug into his throat. This was, indeed, one of the smartest animals I had ever seen.
Kathy had told me to turn east off Route 16, cross the Androscoggin River, and then head up the backside of the Mahoosuc Range. As I climbed out of the valley floodplain, I found that the roads grew worse and worse with every passing mile. Eventually, I couldn’t see the paving beneath the compacted layer of snow. Kathy had told me to watch for a signpost. When I passed a weathered rail carved with Viking runes sticking up out of a snowbank, I felt confident I was on the right path.
The woods around me were mostly young evergreens with an understory of poplars and willows. The trees had been cut hard a couple of decades earlier, which might have explained how Dale Probert had gotten the acreage cheap. Few buyers viewed clear-cut hillsides as investment opportunities. I checked my cell phone and saw a NO SERVICE message. I had entered the geographical middle of nowhere.
I reached for my pager and clipped it to my belt.
The road evened out along a ridgetop, but I found my eyes rising above the ragged skyline. Up high, in the distance, circled dozens and dozens of black birds. They were not crows. They were ravens, recognizable by their shaggy throats and wedge-shaped tails. Their calls carried across the winter landscape: a chorus of croaks, rasps, chortles, and knocks.
I rolled down my window to listen, and that was when I heard the wolves.
In my life, I had heard hundreds of coyotes and even more dogs, but never anything like this except in television shows. Wolves had been extirpated from the Northeast more than a century ago. Never in my life had I expected to hear them howling in the wild mountains of New England.
I wished Stacey could have been here to share the moment with me.
Suddenly, Shadow started howling as well. Which only excited the others even more. A few ravens peeled off from the others to have a look at us.
I spun my tires, I was in such a hurry to see what was ahead.
When I finally crested the last hill, the scene that greeted me could not have been further from my romantic imaginings. The refuge was located at the bottom of a basin between clear-cut hillsides. It seemed to consist of a rusting mobile home, a handful of weathered sheds, and a checkerboard of wire-fenced pens. Each scrubby enclosure housed a handful of wolflike dogs of various shapes, sizes, and colors.
As I rode the brake down the hill, a skinny old man emerged from inside the trailer.
I climbed out of the truck and raised my arm. “You must be Mr. Probert.”
“And you must be the warden with the wolf.” His voice was harsh as a raven’s, little more than a rasp.