Notes from the Feild: Three wolves
By Matthew Neal
Thursday, February 14, 2008 10:50 AM PST
A few days ago I happened upon the oddest occurrence along the Snake River in Weiser. A winter walk brought me to a field of gyp corn in which I had hoped to find quail and pheasants or any other creature. I was curious as to how they were fairing amid the rather harsh conditions.
There were few birds but the gyp corn stood strong and tall in the drifts of snow and pheasant tracks were etched in the ice. I saw no pheasants. Just myriad black birds, chickadees, and sparrows.
As I walked back along my path in the snow I looked across the river to an island. I noticed a herd of 20 or so deer laying down in the snow on a very small island and I thought it odd that they would be there. All winter I have not seen them on that small island as it is fairly barren of anything they could eat.
I dismissed it immediately and kept walking through the snow along the river. Other birds seemed to be tolerating the weather well. In fact, I saw more American widgeon along the banks of the river than ever before and I enjoyed hearing them whistle. Small birds flitted among the brush. The sound of small beaks cracking seeds superceded my stumbling upon piles of seed husks in the snow. The deer on the island seemed a distant thought.
Then, last Wednesday I went on another walk along the river. This time I spotted three dark shapes at a distance of 2,500 yards or more. I could tell they were not deer. They were moving too fast and too low to the ground to be deer. They kept running and their shapes took form. They were canines.
They most certainly were too big to be coyotes. They were too big and too black as well. I was looking south and they were running north and they closed the distance between us so surprisingly fast that it caught me off guard. They came closer and I could tell they were wolves.
The small pack finally stopped approximately 400 yards from my position. The hair on my arms stood up and I could feel an electrical friction throughout my body.
The wolves shook their coats and appeared as if they were trying to figure out were to go next. I could hear their breath as clearly as if they were standing very near me. Their sharp, gasping and raspy exhalations may be the single most blood-curling sound I have ever heard. The sound of their breathing is something I will never forget.
It was as if they were chasing something, deer perhaps. I could only wonder what they were doing but the thought of the deer on the island came back to me and I was hit with the fact that these wolves had been here for possibly more than a few days. I started thinking of my dog that I let out at night for an hour or so. I started thinking about my crazy habit of moon-lit midnight walks through the dark. I started thinking about the bravado with which I seem to possess in the way I interact within the outdoors. Then I started to think about my rifle.
I yelled at the wolves and they looked right at me. There was one very large almost black wolf in the front followed by two smaller and lighter colored ones. They looked at me for a spilt second and then fell back into stride running flat out due north and away from me.
After I cleared my head of all this, I grabbed a rifle and headed over to where they had stopped. I wanted to see the tracks because I was having real trouble believing what I had just seen. All the fresh snow on the ground would really help discern the tracks.
Sure enough, the tracks were huge. I looked in the distance toward the direction they had gone. They were like ghosts, they disappeared.
I decided to back track them and see where it is they had come from and maybe I could find some clue as to what they were doing.
The tracks showed me that they had traveled single file for most of a mile and then they split into a pattern parallel to each other about 12 feet apart. The tracks led me to the river where they had come from the trees and brush along the fringe of the Snake.
The next day the snow fell and the tracks were gone along with any evidence that they had ever been here. The picture painted in my mind though will never fade from memory.
