and eventually throws it in a creek not far from his home. He has no idea that these collars send a mortality signal if the wolf has stopped moving for a specific number of hours, nor that the collar is waterproof.
“Pretty soon McKittrick was caught, thanks to the radio collar—which was quickly located—and a few people who weren’t willing to lie to protect him. He was charged and found guilty of killing a member of a threatened species, possessing its remains, and transporting those remains. After a few appeals, he finally served a three month sentence in 1999.”
Pete tells the story matter-of-factly, but I hear what sounds like empathy for both sides. McKittrick was a barely employed, unsubstantially educated man who made a poor decision, and Yellowstone lost an animal on which they’d spent ten thousand dollars to bring into the park. The alpha female lost her partner, and numerous park and law enforcement personnel spent hours attempting to ameliorate the consequences of McKittrick’s decision. It’s part of wolf history in the park. McKittrick isn’t evil and wolves aren’t to be glorified. Interestingly, this case resulted in a Department of Justice directive—the McKittrick Policy—that requires prosecutors to prove that the defendant knowingly killed a protected animal. The word “knowingly” is at issue, its definition not clearly stated, which places a higher burden of proof on the prosecutor. As such, the policy has effectively hobbled prosecutors and drastically reduced the number of criminal prosecutions against people killing protected animals.
“This work is complicated. We have to balance protection with leaving the wolves alone, and we have to work with state and federal agencies, and people, too, ordinary people. As a scientist I can objectively approach wolf interactions. If a wolf were impacting my livelihood, my business, I’d want some kind of control. No matter our level of awe about them, there are limits to what we as a society can allow, can tolerate. I’m okay with that.”
Pete has been steadily scanning the hillside. Coyotes howl from somewhere beyond sight, and we all fall silent, listening. Seconds later we hear an answering chorus, drifting toward us from another direction. The volley of howls and yips seems to suspend time, but it is over almost instantly. I ask Pete what else drew him to the study of wolves, besides their charisma.
“The complexity. The dynamics still aren’t well understood, the lifestyle, pack organization. We know a lot, but not with certainty. Wolves, like us, are cultural learners. They pass knowledge down through generations. Each wolf in the pack plays a part in its social structure. A beta male may be the alpha male’s brother and key lieutenant, while another brother might be the omega, bottom of the social ladder. Young adults often disperse to start their own packs. But when packs fall apart, like when an alpha gets killed, the structure doesn’t work as well. Young wolves, without enough training, can get overly aggressive or go after livestock instead of sticking with what they know, elk and deer, wild game.
“There’s always some surprise, something cool, something that makes you go wow, that was amazing. I’m curious, I like to learn, and they’re always teaching us something new.”
I release Pete to the rest of the wolf watchers, and turn away from the coyote hillside and toward the Lamar River. I inhale air from miles away, air that has traveled here over small valleys, skimming lake surfaces, rolling up mountain peaks and swooping down their craggy sides, leap-frogging over the bison by the river to brush past me before skimming the next rise of hillside. Sun-warmed, river-fresh. I’ve left my bicycle behind for three days now, and am operating at a lower frequency than usual, breathing in peace and breathing out tranquility. My day is structured only by the movements of the wolves that live in the canyon, the wolves that seem to be hiding from us this afternoon. There’s a crinkled brown paper bag with two cinnamon rolls from the Bearclaw Bakery in the car and my water bottle is full. I look out at cranes high-stepping through marshy river edges. I am possibly the hundred millionth person to stand here and whisper, thank God this place exists.
Emerson’s words echo: the landscape belongs to the person who looks at it. I possess this beauty, me alone, as I breathe it in and store it in my cells. I color it with my past, seeing mountains I skied as a girl, rivers I splashed through, meadows where I ran and swung on tree limbs. I place myself inside it all. I move into vrksasana, tree pose. I am balanced. A breath, two, five, then I become human again and walk back to the car.
I haven’t always been balanced. I toddled like most children, and earned each bruise and scrape. As I grew I became more steady, learned to skateboard, ride a bike, ski. I earned a degree, worked a corporate job, got married. Stable, settled, tethered by a house and a bank account and a husband. And then the pregnancy, the loss, the death. I lost every bit of balance I’d ever possessed.
My feet are spread so far apart, I’m immobilized. One is planted in the cemetery—with Little Joe, and the other at the hospital—with Jake. I lose equilibrium with the slightest shift toward one or the other, and crash noiselessly into a netherworld. Grieving is impossible when I navigate by clinging desperately to a thread of hope.
On Jake’s second day of life we’re told he had a seizure during the previous night.
“A seizure?” Bob asks.
“Yes, so he’s on phenobarbital to suppress them. But we have an ultrasound scheduled, they should be here soon with the machine.” The nurse is small, short dark hair, olive skin. Her eyes are walls. She doesn’t smile.
“An ultrasound?”
“They want to look at his brain. Seizures usually indicate some kind of injury to a section of the brain, so they want to look, see if they can determine why he had the seizure.”
I look at Bob. I’m in my wheelchair again this morning. I cannot walk all the way from my room to the Newborn ICU. I have another heated blanket on my lap, a plastic band on my left wrist stating that I am the mother of Jake Imhoff. I do not have a band for Little Joe.
Each day in the newborn ICU is a week in normal life. I assume the babies in the incubators to be worse off than those under lights on warming tables, until I’m told the opposite is true: on a warming table the baby is available for immediate intervention should he or she suddenly retrogress. Crises erupt and resolve, blood is drawn, tests are performed, diagnoses pronounced and options presented. What is life-threatening in the morning can disappear by evening. What appears normal can indicate severe distress. And just when I think Jake is stable, I’m told of some new complication. He hasn’t urinated, he might have necrotizing enterocolitis, he isn’t alert enough. Hourly I’m presented with something new to absorb and incorporate. You must keep hope.
There is a room off the hallway with a single reclining chair and a machine that pumps milk from my breasts. I hide here. Alone in this room I am protected from beeps and severe expressions, from bad news, from terror of the unknown, from others.
Sympathy pours toward me, and I can’t bear it. Believe. Hope. Each expression demands a reaction I can’t give because I am hollow.
Why are you keeping him alive, my mother asks. The fury of my netherworld leaps from me, pulsing, and shoves itself between the two of us. I don’t know who this woman is. Jake is keeping himself alive. His heart beats, his lungs compress and expand, his stomach digests, his kidneys filter. I say nothing.
I see pain darken the green of her eyes. My mother doesn’t believe in medical heroics. But she’s never given birth to a preemie, and she doesn’t understand that there’s nothing heroic about feeding and keeping warm a newborn baby boy—even a baby boy who’s suffered cerebral hemorrhages in both hemispheres of his brain. Bleeds, they’re called. A grade IV in his left, a grade III in his right. There’s nothing heroic about this. Nothing heroic about placing one foot in front of the other. Feeding and changing diapers, cradling and kissing my baby, hoping and praying—all while operating almost by rote,
