Raised by Wolves

Chapter 24

CHAPTER 24

DRIVING BACK INTO Kokanee Creek, the chief asks if I want to keep riding along on his rounds. “I’ve got to check on a report about a sick raccoon in someone’s garage. Then I’ll go make sure Dougie isn’t causing trouble. It’s ten a.m., so he’s sure to be drunk already.”

The chief sounds like he actually wants me to come along. I can’t quite figure it out. Is he trying to prove he’s a nice guy? I guess by now I can tell that he is, but that doesn’t mean I have to be nice back. I’m planning on holding that jail experience against him forever.

So that’s the first reason I’m not sticking around while he protects Kokanee Creek from drunks and vermin. The second reason is that I hate riding in a car. Being strapped inside a tiny, moving room that smells like gasoline makes me feel like I’m going to be sick.

“I better go back and check on Holo,” I say.

Does your sister take care of you, Holo? Yes! Yes, damn it, I do.

“Okay,” the chief says, nodding. “Sure.” He seems disappointed.

Sorry, Chief.

Sort of.

By the time we get back to the meadow, Holo’s sitting on the porch looking pissed. “You can’t keep running off like that, Kai,” he fumes.

“Blame Chief Greene,” I say. “He totally forced me to go.”

Since the chief‘s already pulling away, he can’t deny it.

“You could’ve left a note,” Holo points out.

“I thought you’d still be asleep.” I sit down next to my brother. The air smells like pine, the wooden steps are warm from the sun, and a trio of cedar waxwings make high-pitched whistles from a nearby tree. My mood lifts immediately. Being outside’s so much better than being inside.

Unless, of course, it’s the middle of the Idaho winter. In that case, you’d better have really good shelter or else you’re going to be saying goodbye to half of your toes.

Holo’s ripping stalks of prairie June grass into tiny pieces. “I’m bored,” he whines.

“Seriously? You just discovered the human world a week ago. How can you be bored already? Go turn some lights off and on.”

“I did that when I woke up. I experimented with the garbage disposal thing, too.” His eyes widen. “It grinds up everything.”

Uh-oh. Don’t ask , I think. Don’t ask.

His face turns serious. “What are you supposed to do when you don’t have to collect water to drink or make a fire to keep warm? What do you do when the food just gets handed to you?”

When someone’s really, truly taking care of you. That’s what he means. Fine, I get it. It’s new to both of us.

I pat his bony knee and then get up and start walking toward the trees. “Come on,” I say, “let’s go not be bored.”

We push our way through the underbrush. The light gets dimmer and greener the farther we go into the woods. Our footsteps are silent. We leave no tracks behind us.

After half an hour, Holo stops and looks around in dismay. “No one’s here,” he says.

By no one, he means no wolves.

“They know where to find us if they want to,” I say sharply. I’m still mad at them for running. “Let’s keep walking.”

Holo and I go another half mile and then we come to a wide, deep creek. We pick our way along the edge until we find a bend where the water has eaten away at the bank to form an overhanging ledge of dirt and roots.

“Yes,” Holo whispers, because this is exactly what we need right now.

I lie down on the ledge, belly to ground. My fingers trail in the cold water.

Holo knows what he’s supposed to do next. He walks downstream a ways, and then he steps into the creek and starts wading in my direction.

He’s herding any fish toward the shelter of the ledge… and my waiting hands.

Shadowy trout slip away from him through the water. They slide under the stream’s bank, thinking that they’ve escaped danger.

They haven’t.

I’m right above them.

I wait, my hands unmoving in the water, until I feel a brush against my wrist—and then my fingers snap closed around a fish’s belly. I pin it to the bottom of the undercut while it struggles. I work my fingers into the gills so I’ve got a good grip, and then I fling it over my shoulder onto the shore.

Kai 1, rainbow trout 0.

Holo lowers himself into the water so he can reach under the bank and grab them from below. He moves slowly, slowly, sloooowly—until suddenly he doesn’t.

“Pinned one,” he says, grinning. Water streams down his happy face.

We repeat the herd-and-grab process until we’ve got a little pile of speckled rainbow trout. While Holo guts and cleans them, I look around for more things to eat. I don’t have to look too hard to find morel mushrooms and a bunch of miner’s lettuce.

We rest creekside for a while, and then we walk back to the cottage with our arms full. In the early evening we make a fire in the yard. And by the time Lacey and the chief get home, there’s a feast waiting for them.

Lacey looks like you could knock her over with a sneeze. “Did you two—”

“Yes,” Holo interrupts, so excited to surprise her. “We cooked dinner!”

“I don’t think anyone’s cooked me dinner in a decade,” Lacey says, and then she gives the chief the side-eye.

He says, “Oh, come on now, Lacey, I grill us steaks.”

“Okay,” she acknowledges. “But you sure don’t know how to make a salad or a side dish, do you?”

“A what?” the chief says, and then they’re laughing, and he kisses her cheek before she goes into the kitchen and brings out a bottle of wine. The chief spreads out a blanket on the grass. Then he goes inside and comes back out with plates and forks.

“Why are you bringing all that stuff out here?” Holo wants to know.

“When it’s a nice day, sometimes you eat outside on the ground, and it’s called a picnic,” Lacey says.

“I guess wolves have picnics all the time, then,” Holo says.

Lacey laughs, but of course Holo isn’t trying to be funny; he’s just figuring stuff out. And considering we’ve never lived in an actual house before, or been to actual school, we’re not nearly as ignorant as we could be.

The food we made is a thousand times better than Wendy’s or the slop they serve in the cafeteria. Lacey’s licking her fingers when she says, “You know what, Holo, you might just be right.”

“About what?” he asks eagerly. He’s so excited to be right about something— anything .

“About Kai being the best cook there is,” she says.

Then she grins at him and ruffles his hair, and my brother doesn’t duck away. Instead he smiles back at her, and then he rests his head on her shoulder.

The compliment ought to make me feel good. But suddenly I’m afraid. I’m convinced that the human world is going to tear my brother and me apart.