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“Thanks, Mom! I’m going out to tell Bart good night.”
“Watch for snakes. They crawl at night and I don’t know how to kill one. We don’t own a gun anymore.” That was true. After her husband’s death, Katy, who was mortally afraid of firearms, sold them to several friends of Teddie’s dad.
“I’ll watch where I put my feet,” Teddie assured her.
“Okay. Don’t be long.”
“I won’t!” she called back over her shoulder as she ran to the front door.
A few minutes later, there was a scream and a wail.
Katy, horrified, went running out the door onto the front porch, flicking on the porch light on the way. “Teddie! What happened?!”
Teddie was frozen in her tracks. She couldn’t speak. She just pointed.
There, standing a few feet away, was a wolf. Even in the dim light, Katy could see that it was huge, much larger than the biggest dog she’d ever seen. It had an odd ruff around its head with black stripes running through it. As she looked closer, she noticed that the wolf had three legs.
“Teddie, come here. It’s all right. Walk slowly. Don’t run, okay?”
Teddie did as she was told. She was afraid, but she followed her mother’s instructions. “He’s so big,” she said in a ghostly tone.
“Yes.” Katy let a held breath out as Teddie made it to the porch. The wolf still hadn’t moved.
Teddie would have run into her mother’s arms, but they were folded over her chest. She never had understood why her mother didn’t hug her. Her friends’ mothers did it all the time.
As Katy stood there with her daughter, wondering what in the world to do, she heard a pickup truck coming down the road. It paused at the end of her driveway and suddenly turned in, going slow.
“It’s Parker!” Teddie said. “That’s his truck.”
Katy wondered why he’d be here after dark, but she was so worried for her daughter that she didn’t really question it.
He pulled up at the steps and got out. “Oh, thank goodness. You horror!” he said, approaching the wolf. “Your papa’s worried sick!”
The wolf howled softly as Parker approached it.
“It’s okay, old man, you’re safe. Come on, now.” As the women watched, Parker picked up the wolf as if he weighed nothing at all and put him in the passenger seat of the truck. He closed the door and only then noticed how upset Katy and Teddie were.
“It’s all right,” he said in a soft tone, the one he used with frightened horses. “He’s old and crippled and almost blind. Sarge said he left the screen door open accidentally and Two Toes wandered off. Poor old thing probably couldn’t find his way home again. He’s got a lousy sense of smell.”
“Oh, thank goodness,” Katy said. “I thought he was going to eat Teddie. She screamed . . .”
Parker chuckled. “That’s what most people do when they come face-to-face with wolves. Some are aggressive predators. Old Two Toes, there, he’s a sweetheart.” He indicated the wolf, which was sitting up in the passenger seat without making a fuss.
“He’s somebody’s pet?” Teddie asked.
“My sarge. He’s a wildlife rehabilitator. Two Toes lives with him, though, because the old wolf can’t be released into the wild. He’d die.”
“I remember now,” Katy said. “You told me about him.”
“I did,” he agreed.
“That’s so sad,” Teddie said. “I’m sorry I screamed. I was really scared. He came out of nowhere.”
“Everybody gets scared sometimes. It’s not a big deal,” he said softly, and smiled at her.
“Okay. I’m going inside. It’s cold!” Teddie said.
“It is. You don’t even have a jacket on,” he chided.
