The little roan gelding paced gravely under me up the slope with its long waving green grass rippling like a river in the winds passing.

I turned once and glanced down the ridgeline where the buffalo horses stood grazing in the deep meadows of Seven Eagles Ranch. The blue stallion guarded them. He raised his head and I could see and one or two mares did likewise and then they all bunched and turned and headed for a high hill.

The children were waiting for me, little colorful dots in the distance. They stood by the lazy little creek that glided between the rolling hills, and were watching for grizzly as a cow had been killed near here last night. We had all heard the dogs growl and bark and run for the shelter of the porch. But the children were from this place and believed in the grizzly as much as the wind or sky or snow or water. Grizzly belonged here.

I was looking for the bunch of geldings that had come up this way. The children were waiting to ride with me and the geldings were needed to teach. Lonesome, the gelding I rode was round and trustworthy and I sat him bareback with only a war bridle to guide him where I wished to go. I scanned the prairie for prints of unshod hooves and as I approached the holding place of the thunderheads, the East Side of the Rockies, I saw something.

It was a large paw print almost as big as my hand. One that I recognized. A wolf track alone and trotting towards the ridge perhaps looking for lost mates or scouting out deep grass for an elk calf.

The wolves have come back to this area. The Blackfeet Rez on the eastern side of Glacier National park. And for the most part they have been welcomed. Many times have I heard the stories of the tolerance of the people for the grizzly. A wonderful and beautiful friendship in a place where there is little to do besides ranch or dry farm. And now the Guides have returned. And not dropped here by humanity in their well-meaning way to balance wrongs done in the past and to hurry a long slow remembrance of the way things were. But they have come on their own.

"A rifle that kills a wolf will never again shoot straight." An elder at the cultural office of the Blackfeet told me, years ago. I was also told that the wolf knew the people by smell. Linda who ranched on this beautiful land had told me of the times she had warned off predators rather than kill. And when she came to Wolftown and stood and looked into the Wolf Rescues golden eyes she felt a kinship to the wolf as never before.

I chased these thoughts into the present and sat the roan gazing down at the print. A big wolf. A wild wolf. I always grieved for my friends, the captive ambassadors of wilderness at Wolftown. They could never go back to the land. But this wolf belonged here. Hunting….traveling…..having a mate, pups, a den…. Territory.

'Will we be able to figure out how to live with our first teachers?' I mused aloud to the gelding.

All of us are involved now. What we eat, wear, build our homes out of…where metal for our cars is mined. All of us are involved in the plight of our big predators.

I turned the gelding up hill and rode on thinking I could spot the gelding band from the next high ridge. The gelding's feet were quiet and as we walked I scanned the ground for more tracks of horses. The gelding suddenly stopped and drew in his breath; he had caught some new scent.

I have many times been warned by my horses of the closeness of the Real People of the mountains and I looked up and around.

She was trotting above me. I knew it was a female because I could see the pale belly fur touched with brownish red. A sign of nursing pups. She was the color of dust, with pale shoulder markings. She did not give me a glance as she trotted in the graceful sliding poetic movement of the wolf. But she was sniffing at the air and once opened her mouth to pant. She was about 200 yards away.

The gelding and I stood and watched her slide up the ridgeline and turn and disappear over its edge.

I watched long after she had gone on her way and listened to the wind with no other sound but the grass rustling. The clouds turned over our heads.

They are here……

MOUNTAIN HORSE

Bob Black Bull calls me at Wolftown and we sit and drink coffee and tell the tales of both projects. The wolf rescue that I run in the Pacific Northwest and the Buffalo Horse project he runs on the Rez in Browning Montana.

But today he tells me a different story that binds both projects together as sisters.

A stallion had been injured in a fight. The horses are run in family bands so there are fights and injuries as would be in the wild. The stallion, a black and white paint had lost this fight and had been driven out of the bands territory.

A few days later Bob had gone looking for him and came upon the scene of a great struggle, written into the deep snow and frozen grass of the mid winter prairie. The small pack of wolves that live around Seven Eagles Ranch had found the injured stallion and took his life to feed their family. Bob was amazed at the marks in the snow that told of the desperation of both sides. The wolves fighting to feed their family. The injured stallion trying to defend his life. In the end the stallion succumbed. The wolves ate everything but his hard hooves and his tail.

I listened to Bob carefully as he explained this situation that to any other rancher would be an excuse to wipe out the whole pack of wolves.

The wolves at Wolftown began to howl their greeting of morning and over the phone Bob could hear them.

" What are you going to do now, Bob….." I asked him.

" Well…It was my fault…the stallion should have been moved closer to the house. But I think it is the way of things…the wolves are like us. They kill to feed their families…they are like us… They keep the horses strong. And you know, Muckqui Aki…our horses are strong like in the old days."

I smiled and we both sat and listened to the howls that echoed from the sanctuary over the phone to Bob.

And we think that the balance of the earth is coming.

THE COWBOY

He came to the project because of his wife. She was small and delicate and loved wild animals. He was tall and rangy, and took off his black cowboy hat as he sat down. He listened as the volunteers told them of the plight of the wolves and how our wolf rescues got to the sanctuary at Wolftown.

His wife listened carefully and nodded at times. But as I watched from a corner of the cabin I could see that the man was full of doubt and concern. He drew in his breath and kindly told our volunteer, a tall leggy boy of about eighteen, "I know you will not agree with me at all. But I have been ranching for a living most of my life. And we raise cattle. It's a way of life…you know? My family has been doing this for five generations. My great grandfather built our house. And there is nothing to do out where I live but ranch. No other jobs….you understand young man?"

The boy looks at him with careful consideration and I hold my breath. Always I have tried to instruct the young people not to argue but to point out compassionate understanding of where the earth is going.

"I understand what you are saying. I guess. " The boy answered slowly, "But I have to ask you a question….what do you see the world becoming in fifty years?" The boy's face was innocent and open as he asked this. I smiled in my corner.

The cowboy considered the question carefully. "What do you mean?"

The boy swallowed a bit nervously. "Well, what I mean is….a long time ago England had wolves and bear. And now the biggest predator they have left is the fox. I have been out to the ranches in your area and I don't think any of you guys want the west to be like England. Don't the Wolf and Grizzly define your home?"

The cowboy was silent for a moment. I held my breath, I was truly proud of the young volunteer. He was not judgmental or arguing he simply spoke the truth.

The cowboy, wiping his big rough hands on his blue jeans, said, "Now, let me ask you a question then? What are folks like me supposed to do….?" His question hung caught in the air between them, hooked like a trout jumping in some still morning lake.

The young man hung his head a moment thinking. Then he looked up and said, " I do not know. But I know that we are in this together you and I. All of us are in this together. Do you want to go see the wolves?"

The woman nodded quickly I could see that she was tired of this. They got up and went out to see the wolves. They stood for a long time in front of Wah Sho She's pen. The big black male wolf watched them with shy intelligence and beauty. His being shining out of his deep eyes. The cowboy was instructed to sit down near the enclosure and talk softly to him and doubtingly he did so.

The big wolf crept up close so shy and silent on his great paws. He sniffed at the man through the chain link and the man was rivetted by Wah's piercing direct gaze.

The man whispered, "I thought they were mean. He is frightened of me."

The young volunteer merely nodded.

Wah's wife, Zhoni peered from around a fir tree and she crept up too but not so close as Wah. Wah turned and with half an eye on the guests trotted over to her and rubbed his big head along her side and they both trotted to the wolf long house. And it looked for all the world as if the big male was escorting her back.

The cowboy blinked in the sunlight. "I have seen wild wolves after the release that folks did years back. And I gotta say I shot at them. But I am kinda amazed at how they are in person."

The young man watched as I slowly approached them from the cabin with a pack of hot dogs, donated by our local grocery store, Thriftway.

The young man gestured, 'Watch!' I tossed a hot dog into the enclosure and Wah quick trotted to it and took it up into his mouth so that we could see his big fangs. He took a long serious look deep at the guests then trotted back and gave the hot dog to Zhoni.

The Young man explained. "Zhoni is too shy to come up to the fence line when we have guests but Wah will bring her his share of hotdogs sometimes."

The cowboy was silent. The big black wolf came back up to the fenceline and waited for another hotdog. I tossed it in and again he took it to Zhoni.

The cowboy looked up at me and asked with his eyes if he could toss in a hotdog. I gave him one and the maneuver was repeated. Then I took his hand rough and callused from work and I held it in mine fingers curled up, back of his hand to the fence and Wah trotted back and licked at his hand.

The cowboy smiled and said these words which melted both my heart and the heart of my young Volunteer.

"Hey there big guy…..hey there…you want another hot dog for your wife?"

All stories ^© 2002 for WolfTown by T Martino