Here’s a news
item you might recall, though it never got much play in the Lower
48: Alaska wildlife officials targeted more than 600 wolves for
death by aerial gunning during the 2006-2007 season. In just a few
months, they’d gotten close, killing 560. And as an
inducement to hunters, state officials said they’d pay a $150
bounty for any wolf killed in specified management zones —
provided that shooters turned in the dismembered legs of the wolves
they’d killed.
The buried news item spurred me to
write a story – I called it “Tables Turned” —
that you might want to think about when you’re sitting around
a campfire on some starry night in a wild place in the West. This
is how it begins:
“Not so long ago a family lived
deep in the Alaskan wilderness. The gray-haired father and mother
had an older son, two daughters and twin boys. They lived by
hunting caribou and moose. They took the old, infirm animals
because they knew that healthy ungulates could kill them.
Inadvertently, they strengthened the herds. Also, when the hunt was
not successful, they at least kept the animals moving, which gave
everything green a chance to grow. This was the way of nature.
“After a kill, the family ate in turn with the
father and mother eating first, the twins last. The remains of the
carcass fed many of the neighbors: bears, coyotes, magpies, ravens
and eagles. After a big meal, Father often carved sticks into toys
for the twins back at the shelter.
“One bright
winter day, Father led his tribe on a hunt across the frozen
tundra. The twins were old enough to tag along. A mile from the
tree line, Father heard a strange sound in the sky. As the distant
buzz grew closer, it became rolling thunder. Suddenly a Cessna
appeared above the tree line, its engine screaming like a
prehistoric bird of prey. Father barked orders to his family to
flee for their lives. They scattered, running in all directions
through deep snow.
“In the cockpit, the pilot wore
wraparound sunglasses and a ball cap with Canis Lupus Air stitched
above the bill. His client, a sharpshooter from Phoenix, balanced
against the open window his semi-automatic .30-06 rifle loaded with
180-grain soft-point ammo for maximum damage.
“The
plane’s shadow pursued Father across the snow. The crack of
the rifle shot broke the air. Father felt the hot lead rip through
his chest. His white world went dark. The client found his next
target. The son was almost to the woods when he was hit in the hip.
He rolled in the snow trying to bite at the wound when the second
shot came. He lay still on the blood stained snow, red on white.
“Two more shots rang out, and the sisters were
dead. Several shots missed the agile mother who was able to make it
to a snowdrift where the twins were cowering. She covered them with
her body. Another bullet pierced the mother and one of the twins.
Their breath ceased.
“‘I can’t believe
this much fun is legal!’” said the client.
“‘They’re just varmints that kill my moose, my
caribou,’” said the pilot. “‘Let’s
head over to Christmas Valley. There’s another tribe there we
can have some fun with.’”
“When the
fading sound of the plane was swallowed by the wilderness, the
surviving twin emerged from under his still warm mother. He sniffed
and nudged his sisters, brother and father. No one stirred. The
twin, tiny in a big land, trotted off toward the tree line, the
tremolo in his small voice barely audible.”
Brian Connolly is a contributor to Writers on the Range, a
service of High Country News in Paonia, Colorado (hcn.org). He
lives in Bend, Oregon, and is the author of Wolf Journal, a novel,
and Not Far From Town, a collection of short
stories.
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