Aimee Easterling's Blog, page 10
April 10, 2019
Wolf Dreams: Chapter 2
(If you’re starting on this page, please click here to return to the beginning so you don’t miss any of the story.)
“No, absolutely not!” Patricia proclaimed, waving the paper wildly in front of her face without taking in the fact that she was one step away from being menaced by a weapon.
“What is it?” This was Joe, my people-pleasing kid-genius. He paled as he scanned the handout someone thrust toward him. “Due Wednesday?” he groaned, no less horrified than Patricia was. “That doesn’t even give us time for interlibrary loan.”
I wanted to tell him that he didn’t need interlibrary loan—there were thousands of volumes in our own library and millions of articles in our online system. But I didn’t want to draw anyone’s attention to the armed intruder. Not when the ensuing panic might result in somebody getting shot.
Instead, I took a chance that I was reading the situation properly. I snapped my fingers at my inherited raven even as I dove into the scrum.
“You don’t understand…” one student started.
“Here, this is for you.” A bright red apple perfect enough to have graced a teacher’s desk in a comic strip was thrust into my hands.
“Thank you,” I told the blushing teenager, sliding past to lead the mass of youngsters like goslings toward the door.
Behind me, the rustle of wings was met by a grunt of annoyance. Ever since inheriting Adena from my predecessor, I’d spent my evenings training her to land on shoulders when commanded. Surely the stranger would find it hard to pull and fire a pistol when weighed down by a two-foot-tall bird.
Of course, a perching raven wouldn’t stop a determined gunman. But my gut said this wasn’t a school shooter. This was a man reacting to past trauma by drawing upon his only available resource.
Or so I hoped. I couldn’t hear whether or not the gun emerged from its holster. Instead, Patricia was nose-to-nose with me now, her piercing voice overwhelming all other sounds.
“You said there was going to be a test!” she snapped. “Multiple choice. Easy peasy. It’s on the syllabus!”
“No, it’s not,” I countered. “If you’ll check again, you’ll notice the line in question says ‘TBD.’”
Immediately, three students began pulling up evidence on their cell phones. “TBA, actually,” reported the most pedantic of my followers. In reaction, Patricia raised her claws in preparation for tearing out his eyes.
I didn’t think she was angry enough to follow through on her threat, but these were my students. I was responsible for their wellbeing. So I threw myself between Patricia and the object of her ire…only to thud up against a huge body that had gotten there first.
A minute ago, I’d been positive Craggy Face was standing on the far side of the lecture hall. I’d felt his eyes like icy fingers running up and down my spine.
But I must have been mistaken. Because the man in question was now gripping Patricia’s shoulders in a manner that was entirely platonic but nonetheless went against the department’s code of ethics. His face was even more terrifyingly intent than it had been when I woke from my vision, angry russeting making the scar around his neck stand out in stark relief.
I think he even growled, a rumble that sounded more animalistic than human. Patricia had chosen the wrong day to mess around.
Which is exactly when Dr. Dick Duncan, department chair and pain in my ass, chose to stroll down the hall toward us. His eyebrows rose as he took in the scene in my classroom, and I could see my job disappearing without a trace.
***
Here’s what I’d learned about Dick during the semester he’d been my de-facto manager:
His area of expertise was Roman archaeology but I was pretty sure he hadn’t bothered to so much as skim new literature during the preceding decade. “Archaeology is all old,” he’d told me when I pressed him on the issue. “There’s nothing new under the sun.”
As if that wasn’t bad enough, the wispy-haired stick-in-the-mud had set himself up as my mentor when I first entered the department. Then he’d quickly turned against me when it became apparent I knew more than he did about modern field techniques.
“You weren’t what he expected,” our department secretary Suzy had explained last week as she and I chatted around the water cooler. “He thought a newly minted PhD—especially one as young as you are—wouldn’t be up to speed until his retirement. Then he’d look like a hero for molding such a perfect professor as his replacement. The trouble is, you’re already better at this gig than Dick was in his prime. Now he’s starting to look like an idiot in front of the rest of the staff.”
Worries about his professional reputation aside, the department head possessed all the power in our relationship. And the expression on his face when he took in the circus-like ruckus in my classroom resembled nothing so much as anticipatory glee.
I took a deep breath and channeled my father. “Mr. Wolf, take your hands off that student,” I barked, making up a name on the spot that seemed to match Craggy Face better than the moniker I’d been using for him previously. “Ms. Owens, the paper is due next week, no ifs, ands, or buts about it. This should be an easy assignment after everything you’ve learned in my class.”
If Patricia had been a dog, her ears would have pinned back and her tail would have tucked in submission. She wasn’t used to being yelled at, and I felt a little bad for taking her to task.
The huffed laugh from “Mr. Wolf,” however, reminded me that Patricia and I weren’t the only ones present. So I addressed the rest of the students in a slightly warmer manner, reminding them that my usual office hours would be shaken up during exam week. “If you have any questions,” I finished, “please don’t hesitate to email or call me. You know I’m always willing to help.”
Then they were gone. My pupils, the department chair, and every single one of the handouts. I’d printed three extra papers and there’d been two absent students, so simple arithmetic suggested there should have been five handouts left on the table. But…
“I’m pretty sure Apple Kid took the last handful to build into a shrine.”
That was Mr. Wolf, still very much present as he pushed himself further than he properly should have into my personal space. His scent enfolded me, mossy and enticing, and my skin tingled as if I’d been stroked…or wanted to be.
Yes. Pet us, whispered the monster deep in my belly. Shaken by the feeling I wasn’t entirely in control of my own internal dialogue, I forced my eyes aside to take my first proper look at the second man.
The gun was gone. Adena perched on his shoulder like a pirate’s parrot. But he didn’t appear at all piratical. Instead, the stark black bird added to the stranger’s handsomeness to turn him into a fairy-tale prince in appearance, all blond hair and blue eyes.
“Ma’am, I apologize for earlier,” he started. “I can assure you, nothing like that will ever happen again.”
I nodded absently. I’d known he wasn’t really dangerous—my monster had somehow smelled it on his breath.
“Apology accepted,” I answered. But my attention kept returning, like a heat-seeking missile, to the man with the saber-tooth fang around his neck.
***
“Now you’ll tell us where you went,” Mr. Wolf ordered, not bothering to turn his query into a question. His eyebrows were so dark they almost became a brow ridge when they V’ed downwards. But he was no Neanderthal. His eyes possessed the intensity of Homo sapiens sapiens and I got the distinct impression he was aware of the monster lurking beneath my skin.
Perhaps that’s why I started spitting out my secret. “I…the cave…” I answered without thinking, halting only when that familiar glimmer of disappointment rose behind his pupils.
Of course. Mentioning my visions wasn’t the way to assert my sanity.
Mad at myself for the slip, I turned to the other stranger as I tried to nudge them both out the door. “Can I help you? I assume you dropped by for a reason other than to draw a gun on my students?”
“That was a mistake, Dr. Blackburn,” Prince Charming started. Which is when I remembered he’d used my predecessor’s name the first time he’d spoken to me also.
These men didn’t want me. They wanted Dr. Frank Blackburn, who had died of a heart attack so close to the start of the semester that no one even bothered to clean out his office before I moved in. I’d inherited his classes, his bird, and apparently his problems in the form of these two intruders.
“I’m afraid you’re mistaken,” I said, hating the fact that my voice quavered slightly. The trouble was, Mr. Wolf—still silent—continued circling me like a turkey vulture homing in on a piece of choice roadkill. At the moment, he was behind my back…and being unable to see him made me so twitchy it was all I could do to meet the speaker’s eyes.
“You’re not F. Blackburn?” Prince Suddenly-Not-So-Charming snapped, mouth pursing.
“I’m O. Hart,” I countered. “Frank died in his sleep over the summer. I took his place….”
Oops. That was more information than they likely needed or wanted. Plus, I couldn’t hold myself still any longer, not when I could have sworn I felt hot breath drifting across the nape of my neck.
Whirling, I found myself face to face with the larger stranger. Or, rather, face to scar-encircling-his-neck.
April 9, 2019
Wolf Dreams: Chapter 1
(If you’re starting on this page, please click here to return to the beginning so you don’t miss any of the story.)
Fourteen years later….
“From the stunning renditions of horses in French and Spanish caves…” I started, only to pause as words drifted toward me from the fifth row of the audience at my Friday morning lecture.
“…walked out of the Peace Summit,” one student murmured, provoking a rustle of interest from those sitting nearby.
“Well, could you really blame them?” asked a young man who’d never once bothered to answer an in-class question. “I mean, our President acted like a hoodlum. He punched the guy. In the nose.”
Of all the times for current events to pop the collegiate bubble, I would have preferred it not to happen right before final exams during my first semester in a tenure-track job. Of course, I couldn’t really blame the kids for their lack of attention. I’d been so shaken by the news this morning that I’d forgotten my meds for the first time in months.
Still, I was supposed to be the authority figure here. “Excuse me,” I said, pushing my glasses up on my nose then glaring into the cluster of chattering students. “As fascinating as political drama might be, this course is focused on the past, not the present.”
“Then you focus, Dr. Oblivia,” a third student countered. “We don’t care about caves on the last day of the semester.”
The earlier whispers had been a minor annoyance, but this was outright insubordination. No wonder my pet raven—Adena—squawked her ire from the far corner of the room. She spread her wings as if preparing to protect me and I raised one finger in warning, holding my breath until the raven’s ruffled feathers smoothed back down and her attention wandered toward the clouds outside.
Of course, the backtalking student took advantage of my distraction to continue with her tirade. “This is a class, not a wander through a museum. Tell us what’s going to be on the test.”
Patricia Owens—congressman’s kid and troublemaker from head to toe—was spiky with amusement. She had classic good looks combined with edgy modern style, and she used the combination like a duelist’s sword. Now, rather than fading beneath my scowl as any right-minded twenty-two-year-old should have, she raised her eyebrows and glowered back.
No wonder the monster inside me surged awake the moment our gazes made contact. Images of teeth and blood and submissive students flooded my interior landscape, and I clenched my fists to push back the horror.
Clearing my throat, I used words rather than releasing my inner monster. “Ms. Owens,” I started. “If your sole interest lies with the test, please pick up a copy of the handout by the door on your way out and leave the rest of us in peace.”
Then I clicked to the next slide in my PowerPoint presentation, trying to ignore the way my vision tunneled even as a hum buzzed angrily through my mind. Here it came—part two of the craziness. First the monster, then the trance.
Clutching the podium, I whispered a silent rebuke to my brain chemistry: Not now. The department chair was just waiting to catch a slip in classroom protocol so he could write me up.
In desperation, I shot a glance at the ringleader of all my teaching problems. If she was sitting, the monster would subside and the vision would fade along with it….
Patricia had risen so she could sling a messenger bag across one shoulder. And that did it. The monster grabbed me. I’ll make her sit, it started.
No, wait, I countered, terrified by the way my muscles bunched without permission.
Then the trance responded by slapping us both into submission. The monster subsided and I fell backwards into the silence and the dark.
***
Okay, so perhaps silence was a bit of an overstatement. Sunlight was obscured by overhanging earth and rock, so even the drip of distant water became as loud as a roaring school bus. My feet scraped against pebbles while my breath echoed in the enclosed chamber. And my hand moved without conscious volition to uncover a smoldering coal housed within a tallow-filled lamp.
Light emerged slowly as the body I inhabited fed moss into the minuscule fire. I was here, but not here. Present inside this woman, but unable to do anything other than watch her actions unfold.
The first time this had happened, I’d been terrified. A mere child, I’d thought myself transported into a nightmare and had spent the entire trance struggling to get back out again. Now, though, I was an adult obsessed with archaeology. I could do nothing to hasten my return to the modern world, so I relaxed and took in every wonderful vision as a many-thousand-year-old cave painting gradually flickered into life.
Red and black animals danced across the rock wall before me. Today it was horses, so many horses, with one big bison smack dab in the center. It looked similar to the French cave I’d visited on a research expedition one year earlier, but with different paintings covering the curved and irregular walls.
Even though I knew this experience was merely my imagination playing tricks on me, I began taking mental notes the way I always did. Perfect curves made the animals lifelike, overlapping legs gave the illusion of three dimensions….
Distantly, I knew that my living body would be catatonic and terrifying to my students back in the lecture hall. Distantly, I accepted the psychiatrists’ assessment that these visions were nothing more than a rehashing of materials I’d pored over and studied ever since becoming obsessed with archaeology as a kid.
I knew all this…yet I didn’t care what I was missing in the real world as I gazed greedily at images that both did and didn’t match current scientific knowledge. My hands were speckled with red ochre—the cave person’s favorite pigment. Words I didn’t understand tripped off the woman’s tongue. Then she sucked up a mouthful of paint in preparation for spitting it back out onto the rock face.
Meanwhile, her hand rose to clasp fingers around the eight-inch-long fang that had hung around her neck for as long as I’d been visiting. As always, this single jarring element pushed me out of the daydream. “Saber-tooth cats are from the Americas,” I protested. “This type of cave art was made in Europe.”
Only then did I realize I was speaking aloud, the cave flickering away as a bevy of worried students clustered around me. Meanwhile, tapping against my forehead, was the exact same tooth I’d worn a moment earlier, this time threaded onto a modern metal chain.
***
“Dr. Blackburn, are you alright?”
The name being spoken wasn’t mine, but I didn’t swivel to correct the speaker behind me. Instead, it was the silent man attached to the fang that snagged my attention and refused to let it go.
Unlike the body I’d recently inhabited, this tooth bearer was male instead of female. His features were craggy, his gaze so piercing it made me shiver despite the room’s sub-tropical heat. And was that a thin but very obvious scar completely encircling his neck?
Vaguely, I noted another stranger roughly the same age—early thirties—moving forward as if to assist me. This was the speaker, the one who was even now attempting to create a pocket of breathing space with me at its center. I appreciated the gesture and might have settled back into it if the chatter of surrounding students hadn’t spurred me into action.
“Do you think she’s okay?”
“What happened? I wasn’t looking…”
“Somebody call 911.”
Hospital visits never led in good directions. My father had lost faith in my ability to amount to anything after one memorable hospital visit. It wasn’t such a long shot to think the university might come to the same conclusion if my boss realized I popped three-times-a-day, maximum-dose anxiety meds to silence the voices in my head.
So I found my way to my feet and stepped away from the man who hovered above me. Then I raised my voice and regained control of the class.
“Nobody call 911,” I countered, forcing out a laugh that sounded like a mix between a pack-a-day smoker and the last gasp of an ailing hyena. “That embarrassing display of brain freeze was simply the result of low blood sugar. If you learn nothing else from my class, please write this down—always eat a complete breakfast before going to work.”
I think I actually saw someone recording my words of wisdom at the edge of the mob of students, so I didn’t blame the craggy-faced stranger for his snort. This was the most amusing part about being a professor. At my best, these students thought I was some combination of their mother and an all-knowing soothsayer. It was only when I assigned homework that certain students lost the rose-tinted glasses they usually perched on the bridge of their nose.
Right now, unfortunately, I was far from my best, and rose-tinted glasses were in short supply in the classroom. Which meant it was time to truncate the final lecture and send these students away with the handout I’d offered to the class’s least pleasant member a few moments before.
“It’s been a pleasure teaching all of you,” I lied. “Have a wonderful holiday. Grab a paper from the stack on your way out.”
I tensed, fully expecting some reaction to the bombshell waiting for them on those handouts. But I wasn’t prepared for the volume of Patricia’s shriek.
Neither, apparently, were the strangers in my classroom. Because even as Patricia bellowed her disapproval of the final exam changing into a five-page paper, the more ordinary of the two men yanked aside his suit jacket, hand landing on a pistol that gleamed dully from a holster beneath his armpit.
April 8, 2019
Wolf Dreams: Prologue
Are you ready to dive into a brand new adventure? Meet Olivia in this excerpt from Wolf Dreams….
***
Do you remember your first date? The rush of excitement. The fumbling awkwardness. The way the boy bent down for a kiss, prompting your teeth to bite all the way through his cheek.
The blood. The ensuing faintness that progressed into a prehistoric vision. The visit to the emergency room. The awfulness when your father arrived to pick you up.
Okay, maybe my experience wasn’t precisely average. Normal is not my middle name.
“Olivia Nicole Hart!” my father raged as he took in the red streaks smearing my face and the wildness of my dilated pupils. His hand lashed out just shy of striking me, and that danger provided my inner monster permission to steal my body a second time.
Don’t touch us, she hissed, her voice raspy within the confines of my body. Then she leapt at him—I mean, I leapt at him. Sometimes it’s confusing when my body does things I don’t ask it to do.
But it was my manicured fingernails that scraped a long welt of red down the side of my father’s cheek and neck. It was my teeth that bared as if they intended to rip out his throat.
Blackness hovered around me, the vision attempting to pull me under before I could commit patricide. As if it wasn’t bad enough that I housed a monster, I lost my entire grasp on reality every time the beast came to call.
But my father was ready for me. “Get in the car,” he demanded, voice so cold my feet scurried to obey him. And, just like that, monster and vision both released their holds.
I shivered as I attempted to clean up their messes ten minutes later. “I’m so sorry,” I whispered as we drove out of the city. I’d used up half a box of Kleenexes wiping blood off my body, but I still felt like I’d been rolling around in offal. “I didn’t mean to.”
“The doctors warned us what would happen if you didn’t take your medicine.” My father—or Dr. Hart, as he preferred to be called—didn’t bother turning down the radio while he berated me. Didn’t take his eyes off the road as he pulled the hated pill bottle out of his pocket and tossed it into my lap.
It landed with the weight of lost potential. The promise of dulling the world to protect me from my own animal nature.
No, my monster growled. Starbursts flickered at the corners of my vision.
“Take two,” my father demanded.
I twisted off the lid and swallowed them dry.
April 1, 2019
A highly recommended Yellowstone wolf watching tour
If you’ve been reading along with me all week, you probably have a question — what tour did I sign up for and do I recommend it?
Short answers: Yellowstone Wolf Tracker. And, yes, all of those five-star reviews on Trip Advisor are very much deserved.
For five days, I completely lost track of the outside world. I reveled in stunning scenery…
…enjoyed like-minded company…
…followed knowledgeable, personable guides to track down astonishing wildlife-viewing (and –photographing) opportunities…
…ate delectable food…
…and enjoyed bonus talks by local experts after dinner.
To cut a long story short — due to a combination of legal protection, radio collars, and open landscape,Yellowstone is one of the few places in the world where you can dependably watch wolves in the wild. And the leaders of Yellowstone Wolf Tracker are immensely knowledgeable experts with decades of experience, able to not only guide you to the wolves but also fill in the blanks with endless information and stories about the animals you see.
There are some caveats, however. I doubt this trip would appeal to children or to the impatient — there are long periods of standing in the cold, waiting and hoping. And when you do finally see wolves, they are almost always very far away, visible only via scope.
(A fact that is very much made up for by the obliging nature of other wildlife, like this Clark’s Nutcracker.)
The days were also very long with almost no alone time, which pushed my introvert nature to the limit.
(Of course, that was my own fault. I could have skipped various optional activities…but when it came right down to it I preferred pushing my limits rather than losing a moment of this amazing tour.)
In the end, the only real negative is the price tag. Otherwise, I’d be signing up for every wolf watch Nathan and company leads.
If you want to be involved but can’t drop a couple of grand on the full adventure, there are other ways to engage your imagination. I read a bunch of books on Yellowstone wolves leading up to my trip, and I thoroughly recommend the following:
Decade of the Wolf — This is an easy-to-read, riveting summary of the first ten years of Yellowstone wolves, from capture in Canada to spread throughout the park. The profiles of individual wolves made me feel like I really knew them on a personal level and the whole thing was full of fascinating tidbits and evocative passages.
Yellowstone Wolves in the Wild — The photos in this book are astonishing, and the behavioral information was some of the best I’ve found.
American Wolf — I haven’t read this one yet, but several of the tour participants loved it. I gather this is a deep look into the life of one very popular wolf. (I currently have it on hold at my local library.)
Alternatively, if you’d like to help ensure the survival of these magnificent creatures, a couple of non-profits might be right up your alley:
Yellowstone Forever is responsible for all of the amazing science that goes into collaring, tracking, and studying the park’s wolves. With their help, two decades of Yellowstone wolf watching has taught us more about the species’ behavior that centuries of previous studies managed to ferret out.
Bear Creek Council is a grassroots nonprofit that takes engagement to another level. This group deals with thornier issues that transcend boundaries, like the fact that wolves who set foot out of Yellowstone often fall to hunters’ bullets.
And there you have it — a life-changing week in a nutshell for your reading enjoyment. I hope you had fun wolf watching along with me!
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March 31, 2019
The power of pack
A lone wolf, a wolf family, three coyotes, and a grizzly bear taught me an important lesson on the power of pack last week. Perhaps you’d like to share in the excitement?
Before I continue, I should warn you that all of the closeup photos in this post are from a different place and time. I was so riveted by the action (and the characters were so far away) that I couldn’t take my eye off the scope long enough to pull out the camera. So, please consider the photos here more an imagination boost than anything else.
That caveat aside, my story starts at dawn in the North Range of Yellowstone. A bit to the right of the sun in the photo above, the Junction Butte pack was hanging out around a bull elk carcass that they’d taken during the night.
The eleven-month-old pups were playing. The adults were sleeping.
Ravens were sneaking in to steal bites. And, at various spots along the road, wolf watchers had set up their scopes to watch the action unfold.
There wasn’t much action though, once you got over the cuteness of the pup play. So, when we heard coyotes yipping perhaps halfway between us and the kill site, many folks moved our scopes over to Yancey’s Hole to check out the wolves’ smaller relatives.
Coyotes, as you may or may not know, have a social structure a bit like that of wolves…but different. Weighing in at a third the mass of wolves, coyotes go for small prey and generally hunt solo. They do defend territories from other coyotes, and they do bed down together once hunting time is done. But even the full pack is usually just a handful of animals — a mated pair plus maybe a few youngsters from last year.
In this case, there were three coyotes on the frozen ice…and all of them were looking to the left. Smart guides know that when groups of animals all peer in the same direction, you should look that way too. Sure enough, off to the left was:
…a lone wolf! (Yes, this is my very best wolf photo of the entire trip.)
The books tell me that a wolf is always the winner in a coyote-wolf interaction. That’s why, soon after wolf reintroduction to Yellowstone, coyote numbers declined dramatically (and fox numbers actually went up since coyotes, in turn, kill their own smaller relation).
What the books don’t say is that a pack trumps a lone animal any day of the week.
In this case, the wolf initially looked like it might be able to wander through coyote territory unscathed. But it was three against one, and before we knew it the coyotes were driving their larger relative up off the ice and into the snow.
The story became more poignant when our guide clued us in to the lone wolf’s likely identity. Leo Leckie knows each wolf in the park by number and ancestry and can tell you in great detail about the soap-opera drama of mating, fighting, and hunting in which the packs engage.
In this case, Leo had two guesses about the uncollared lone wolf’s identity. The most likely scenario, he told us, is that this was a youngster who used to be part of the Crevice Creek Pack before said grouping splintered and failed. It all began when yet another pack lost their alpha male to a hunter outside the park boundaries, leaving the females without their patriarch. Their hunt for a solution was as bloody as the initial problem — they drove the alpha female out of the Crevice Lake Pack and stole her males, leaving this pup alone in the cold.
Life is tough for a lone wolf, as I soon discovered. But he was lucky to run into coyotes — less bloodthirsty — rather into than another wolf. In this case, the smaller canines just got the wolf’s attention, then they escorted him out of their territory in one long line running along the top of a hill. First came a coyote, then the wolf in the middle, then two more coyotes bringing up the rear.
They were running so fast I could barely keep up through my scope. Then, a shout from the side of the parking area:
“Grizzly bear!”
As a unit, every one of the wolf watchers whipped our optics back up to the more distant carcass site, leaving that lone pup to escape on his own. Because grizzlies were just coming out of hibernation, so seeing one at that time of year was considerably rarer than a wolf sighting. But sure enough, there the bear was, lumbering toward the site of the bull-elk kill.
(In the sad photo above, the grizzly is on the far left and a wolf is on the far right for scale.)
Now, once again, let me start with book learning. Grizzly bears are tremendous compared to a wolf, so it’s no surprise that they steal wolf kills left and right. In fact, some naturalists have reported that grizzlies follow the scent of wolves, looking for a dinner to steal rather than taking down their own prey. I fully expected the Junction Butte pack to lose their dinner and have to move on.
But this post, as you may recall, is about the power of the pack. Five or six wolves were on that bear by the time I got my scope refocused. They mobbed the larger animal, jumping and biting…and within seconds it was the grizzly rather than the wolves who headed away.
And, okay, so the grizzly didn’t run scared like the lone pup had in the face of coyotes. Instead, the bear ambled, a bit like my cat when I shoo him off the counter. “I didn’t want that carcass anyway,” I could almost hear the grizzly say.
But the wolves did want the carcass…and they kept it. And that, many scientists suspect, is why wolves live in packs.
What do you think? I hope you’ll share your thoughts via facebook:
March 29, 2019
A kitsune teaches me to hunt voles
I have 700 photos and 20 pages of notes to pore over, so I almost didn’t know where to start. How about a snack to tide you over while I wait for dawn?
My group was treated to extended viewings of three species of “dogs” during our three full days touring Yellowstone. And all three shared one behavior — mousing.
Wolves were playful about it, with only pups taking part (and often doing so together). The coyote we watched (shown here) was intent and focused. But the fox was pure elegance…so I guess I should let Kira teach us how to take out voles.
Kira: The first thing I do is find a nice, broad expanse of snow beside a road. In fur form, I’m absolutely stunning and bound to stop traffic. Gotta go with your strengths.
Me: Okay, Kira. That’s helpful advice. But I think what folks what to hear about is how you figure out the location of a mouse-sized rodent a foot or more beneath the surface of crusty snow while the wind is blowing and your nostril hairs are freezing together.
Me: Do you dig?
Kira: If you really want to make it hard for yourself, you can dig. But that’s pretty boring. I like to use my ears and my pounce.
Kira: Fox ears are pretty awesome things. All you have to do is walk around on the crusty surface, listening, and soon you hear that first little scratch.
Kira: Sometimes it’s handy to triangulate. You know, walk back and forth a bit getting your audience excited while also pinpointing the location of the gnawer underneath.
Kira: Then, when you’re ready, you leap…
Kira: …up…
Kira: …and down…
Kira: …and grab it in your teeth. Three voles in twenty minutes. Score!
And that is the story of how a fox catches a vole. Stay tuned for more excitement as I delve deeper into my notes in the days to come!
March 26, 2019
Finding wild wolves in Yellowstone
Today was our first full day in the park and we were on a mission — finding wolves. On the surface, this sounds utterly impossible. Currently, there are between 80 and 100 wolves living in the 3,741 square mile park. And, okay, so half of the eight packs live in the north range where we planned to be looking. Still — when we headed up into the mountains at dawn, the task felt reminiscent of seeking a needle in a haystack.
Enter the Wolf Project — a team of hard-core scientists who spend every daylight hour at this time of year tracking Yellowstone’s wolves. At least two wolves per pack wear radio collars that can be picked up as far as five miles away if the terrain is in your favor. On the other hand, if the wolves are hiding down in a ravine, you might not get a signal even if you’re only a mile out.
Wolf Project did get a signal pretty quickly…but the wolves (Junction Butte Pack) were hiding in the trees. After hours of hopping from spot to spot on the road, setting up scopes, and seeing nothing, our fearless leader caught a glimpse of a lone gray wolf running across the snow…and then the wolf was gone before any of us could find it with eyes, binoculars, or scopes.
I’ll admit to feeling a bit discouraged at this point. I was overdressed, having packed everything on the recommended list and worn two-thirds of it. Wool socks beneath -100 F boots. Long johns beneath down pants. Six layers on my torso and two on my hands. I was too hot for a hat even though others were stomping their feet at 19 degrees.
A bison reminded me how good I had it. He took a side trip into a parking area in search of water, breaking through the ice with his nose before drinking long and deep. Afterwards, perhaps spooked by our proximity, he left the pavement and sunk hip deep into the snow, struggling to move either forward or back.
Yes, this is foreshadowing. Pay attention.
Anyway, back on the trail of the wolf we decided to leave the road and do a little postholing. What’s postholing, you ask?
It’s when you walk on a crust of snow that occasionally drops you through into a knee-deep post hole. Then you’re faced with clawing your way out without disrupting the surface so much your other leg breaks through as well.
Suffice it to say, postholing is nothing like ambling down my usual woodland trails!
Despite a bit of postholing, I thoroughly enjoyed our off-road excursion…but the wolves still refused to show. So we headed back to Mammoth for a delicious lunch and a bit of bird watching. This magpie is the picture my travel computer feels like posting, but we were also treated to magnificent views of a sleeping male great horned owl and his mate hidden deep in a nest of witch’s broom.
So, yes, there was lots of beauty and wildlife…but I wasn’t the only one who wanted to see wolves. So when our leader came to us with a decision — the 8 Mile Pack was on a kill and we could see it if we walked through a mile of rock and snow — I jumped at the chance to take part.
I was so gung-ho, in fact, that Mary (another wolf watcher) and I set out up the road toward North Butte before our trip leaders had finished handing out scopes and trekking poles. Only after we’d crested the little hill on the left did we look back…and realize the rest of the group was waving at us. We were headed the wrong way.
No problem. We’d cut across the snow to meet them. But the snow was deep — up to our hips in spots. And postholing was happening right and left.
One of my pack mates has a photo I may manage to add later. Taken from a distance, Mary and I are both waving our arms wildly as we attempt not to sink into the snow. But I have one leg submerged and she’s going down to.
Yes, this is why this section of the blog post has no photos. I was far to intent on survival to pull out the camera!
At one point, I tried following a bison trail…but apparently I weigh more than a bison. Still, Mary and I pressed on, not smart enough to take turns breaking trail the way wolves do but instead spreading out in our own separate struggle.
Eventually, huffing and puffing, we caught up to the group and continued climbing up the hill, through thin high elevation air, hoping the wolves weren’t gone.
They weren’t! At the top, we set up scopes and found them, four black and two gray wolves lounging three hundred feet or so from the elk carcass they’d gorged upon that morning. Through binoculars, they looked like specks. Through the scopes, they looked like lumps.
Then one raised its head…and imagination filled in the blanks. The wolf was real and wild, seeming to peer across the mile of snowy ground that separated our two packs.
“Follow your alpha next time,” I imagined the wolf admonishing me and Mary. Nodding sagely, I lay back and listened to the wind rushing through the pine trees while soaking up my first wild wolf sighting.
And on the way back, Mary and I let our tour guide break trail.
March 25, 2019
Wolf Watching in Yellowstone: Day 1, charismatic megafauna
I’m currently enjoying a once-in-a-lifetime adventure — a wolf-watching tour in Yellowstone National Park! I’d planned to save up a week’s worth of thoughts and photos and compile them into several thoughtful blog posts. But the truth is that at the end of day one, I’m just too excited not to share! So, come along with me on this afternoon’s cruise along Yellowstone River on the northwest corner of the park.
If you had to guess which of the two species in this subpar photo (taken through the bus window) is considered lunch by wolves, which would it be? Bison or pronghorn antelope?
If you guessed the antelope, you were taken in by these ungulates’ mild appearance. Pronghorns co-evolved with a cheetah-like cat, and now that the ancient felines have bitten the dust nobody can outrun them. That’s right — pronghorn antelopes are too fast for wolves, capable of running up to 50 miles per hour and clocking in as North America’s fastest living land mammal. In contrast, wolves tend to top out in the high 30s mph.
Bison, on the other hand, can be taken by wolves, especially if a pack can drive the lumbering beasts into dense snow. In fact, there have been sightings of single wolves taking down a bison, although it can be a multiple-hour-long battle. Sometimes it’s better to be fast than big.
Of course, a wolf’s favorite food is neither of those species. Here in Yellowstone, a happy wolf is a wolf with access to elk. Given that there are only 80 to 100 wolves in Yellowstone at the moment but approximately 7,000 to 8,000 elk, the packs have a pretty good shot at finding dinner.
Or rather, breakfast. We arrived far too late in the day to get a chance at spotting wolves on day one, although we did see some of their frequent companions — ravens — nibbling on a human-killed bison carcass. Did you know that some scientists think ravens lead wolves to sick or dead animals, hoping for help ripping through tough hides so both can feast together?
Tomorrow, I hope, there will be more beauty — like these Mountain Bluebirds — and also our first sighting of wolves. Fingers crossed!
February 25, 2019
Aimee Easterling reading order
When I’ve read about 90% of the stories by a favorite author, I often get stuck trying to fill in the gaps. If that sounds like you, hopefully this page will help point you in the right direction.
So, without further ado, recommended reading order:
(Books in parentheses are side stories. If you’re not a completionist and are not a fan of shorts, you can safely skip these.)
Wolf Rampant Trilogy: Terra’s series
(The Complete Bloodling Serial — Wolfie’s novel-length serial)
(Scapegoat — Chase’s novelette, found in Street Spells)
(Pool Party — Chief Wilder’s tale, a newsletter-only short story)
(Bloodling Song — a different bloodling finds his voice, a newsletter-only flash fiction)
Alpha Underground Trilogy: Fen’s series
(Tough as Nails — Fen’s prequel, a newsletter-only short story and part of the Beyond Secret Worlds anthology)
(Dark Wolf Adrift — Hunter’s prequel novella)
(Yule Moon — five flash fiction stories, found in the Alpha Underground box set and also part of Magic & Mistletoe)
Wolf Legacy Quartet: Ember’s series; chronologically, this series is set after Moon Marked and before Moon Blind but I’m including it here in the order in which it was written and published
(First Blood — a link between Alpha Ascendant and Huntress Born, website short story and part of the Modern Magic anthology)
(In the Kitchen With Werewolves — newsletter-only short story about Ember’s childhood)
(Macaroni Dreams — a peek into Sebastien’s history, website short story)
Moon Marked Trilogy: Mai’s series
(Library Werewolf — a newsletter-only flash fiction)
(Kira’s Tale — a newsletter-only flash fiction)
Dragon Mage Chronicles (standalone dragon shifter romances)
(Biological Clock — how plants came to take over the world; website flash fiction)
Incendiary Magic — Fee’s novella (was part of the Fire Kissed box set)
Verdant Magic — Amber’s novel
Cerulean Magic — Sabrina’s novel
(Flight of Fancy — I use a time machine to visit with the cast of the Dragon Mage Chronicles; website short story)
(Mop Magic — a wind witch finds her powers; newsletter-only flash fiction)
February 7, 2019
What’s coming down the pike in 2019?
I’ve had a couple of readers ask me when my next book is coming out and what it will be. So, without further ado, here’s a brief rundown on my plans for the year ahead.
April 15 — Wolf Dreams, the first book in the Moon Blind trilogy will be launching this spring, hopefully around the middle of April. I’m two-thirds of the way through the rough draft at the moment, so I can tell you that my hero — Olivia — is a modern-day archaeologist who has always been plagued by strange visions of the prehistoric past. She’s careful to hide her trances until a handsome stranger spurs her discovery that the modern world isn’t as ordinary as she’d initially assumed.
(Yes, there are wolves involved. If you want prerelease teasers, it’s a good idea to join my email list.)
July 16 — Wolf Bones is my working title for book two in the series. But I can’t tell you more than that for fear of ruining book 1! This date may also move by a week or two depending on whether or not I get the manuscript finished before heading off to present at Romance Writers of America’s annual conference at the end of the month.
October 22 — This may be the publication date of book three in the series…or it may not be. You really think I can plan that far ahead?
I hope that makes things clear as mud for you. Happy reading in the interim!
