Page 53 of Wind Valley

“Heavy salivation?”

Lachlan shook his head. “I wouldn’t say heavy.”

“Did it try to bite non-food items?”

“Does a plate glass window count?” asked Maura.

“It could. Let me know when you get the results of the antibody test. It certainly could be rabies.”

“I had another thought I wanted to run past you,” said Lachlan.

Maura glanced at him, surprised. He hadn’t mentioned any alternative theory. Maybe he’d been deferring to his expert buddy.

“Let’s hear it. You’re the one who saw this wolf up close. Did you take any photos or videos, by the way?”

He snorted, catching Maura’s eye so they could share in the amusement. “There was no time for that, believe me. It was such a primal experience that I forgot phones existed.”

“I understand. Humans and wolves go way back, and there’s a lot of residual fear there. So, your theory?”

“Yes.” Lachlan cleared his throat to explain. “It’s not fleshed out. It’s just a thought. What if it was neurological? What if something is interfering with the normal functioning of the wolves’ brains, in other words?”

Maura shivered as she pictured the wolf scrabbling its paws against the glass. It hadn’t looked in its right mind, but then again, she had no idea what a normal wolf would look like. She’d never seen one in real life before, only in movies.

The phone call switched to FaceTime, which Lachlan accepted. Roger Jones turned out to be a Black man in his forties, with horn-rimmed glasses and a sprinkling of gray in his close-cropped hair. “That’s a fascinating question. Are you imagining some kind of trauma?”

“Is that possible?” Lachlan lifted his eyebrows; clearly he hadn’t been thinking exactly along those lines.

“Sure. We know that animals of all types can suffer the aftereffects of trauma. It’s been documented in animals in captivity. You could even say they have psychiatric issues.”

Maura scooted closer to the phone. “Like what? Hi, I’m Maura, I’m a friend of Lachlan’s.”

Roger was so caught up in the scientific storytelling that he barely paused to return her “hello.” “A good example is birds, who tend to get obsessive when they’re traumatized. Horses get compulsive to a pathological degree. Some species will self-harm, such as whales and dolphins, especially in captivity. These are all emotional trauma responses. Sometimes animals will become especially aggressive when they’re under stress. But many of these studies involve animals like elephants or bears, species with a long history of being captured and abused by humans. Wolves are much more elusive. That’s one of the reasons I find them so fascinating. It’s extremely unusual for a wolf to come so close to humans. The snowmobile attack was strange enough, and now you’ve had a second encounter. What was the wolf’s eye focus?”

“Excuse me?”

“Was he looking you directly in the eye, or avoiding eye contact?”

Maura and Lachlan exchanged a glance, then he shrugged. “It’s really hard to say. I’m not sure he even saw us inside the house. Why does it matter?”

“A wolf will challenge another wolf with a fixed stare into its eyes. If he’s signaling submission, he’ll open his eyes wide and look away. Eye posture is one of the ways wolves communicate, along with an array of growls and whimpers, and of course scent.”

“Well, I don’t speak wolf well enough to say,” said Lachlan dryly.

Something occurred to Maura then. “Is it possible he saw his reflection in the window and was attacking that? Do wolves attack each other, generally?”

“Most wolf conflicts happen at the edges of territories, between packs. Within a pack, wolves manage conflicts with ritualized displays more than actual violence. Wolves are actually quite social. They like to play and they take care of injured pack members. But when one pack fights another over territory, it’s often deadly. The most aggressive wolves will often end up dead. Such fights will take place mostly in the lean seasons, fall and winter, when more territory means a greater chance of survival.”

“Well, that’s us right now,” said Maura. “I’m sure things are very skimpy out there in wolf territory. Maybe this wolf thought we were another pack.”

“Wolves know enough about humans to avoid them,” said Jones, as he pushed his glasses back up his nose. “They’re scared of us, which some might find hard to believe. But it’s true, and they have good reason, having been hunted to extinction in some parts of the world.”

“But in Alaska, wolves aren’t endangered, especially in our area.” Lachlan angled the phone back toward him. “In the Wrangells, wolves have plenty of space and territory. There’s no development at all past Firelight Ridge, just vast untouched mountains and ice fields. That’s why it’s so strange to even see a wolf. They have no need to expand their territory, nothing’s disrupting their habitat.”

“That you know about,” said Jones.

“It’s protected. It’s all part of the National Park. Other than some mining claims and grandfathered homesteads, I can’t think of anything else that could be bothering them. And those would all be small-scale.”

“The thing about the wilderness is, you really have no idea what’s going on out there, do you? It’s so vast.” He gave that comment a spooky, horror-movie vibe that made Maura shiver.

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