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“I couldn’t save the child I lost. I know the medicine, I get it wasn’t anything I did, but it was my child and never got a chance to be born. But this is more than that. I didn’t realize it until we got out here with them. This is a journey I started as a child, in the area of the reservation bordering the park in Wyoming.
“I’d just turned ten and gotten a new slingshot for my birthday. I wanted to shoot at rocks and trees. My dad let me go, and I got caught up in a pretend hunt and was running through the trees when I heard something. It wasn’t a bark or a growl, it was something else. But what?
“I started searching and found it. Three wolf pups, very young. Too young to be weaned. I didn’t know what to do, but was sure there was something wrong. The mother would never leave pups this young unattended. Which meant something had happened to the mother.
“I knew I had to take care of them. So I took them home and made them a place in the back of the barn where we stored the garden tools. I snuck milk from the morning buckets and found some old rubber gloves my grandmother wore when she did the dishes. I used one to make into a kind of bottle, andfed those pups every three hours for a week.
“I was so scared when I came to feed them one morning, and one of the pups was dead. It hadn’t been killed. It was just dead. It had to be my fault. I wasn’t feeding them enough. So, I upped the feedings to every two hours.
“I did it for three days, and on the fourth day I missed two feedings. I fell asleep on the back porch and woke to my dad asking me if I was going to sleep on the step all day or wanted some lunch.
Oakley paused, still stroking Nashoba’s face. “I have never been so scared or felt so awful in my life. I must have scared my dad when I jumped up and said I had to go, because he grabbed me and forced me to sit down.
“It didn’t take much for him to get it out of me, and when he knew what I’d done, he just stood and offered his hand. “Let me help.” That’s all he said. So we got the milk, put it in the glove, and I put it inside my shirt against my belly to warm it.
“My happiness at my dad helping took one to the chin when we arrived. Only one pup was left alive. I lost my shit, Gun. Completely. Scooped up that puppy, crying and apologizing, and feeling like the most awful person ever to live.
“My dad stopped me. He made me sit and listen, and he said this. “Oakley, it’s important that you listen to me. Will you hear me? With open heart and open mind?”
“Yes.”
“Good. You have a gift, Oakley. You connect with animals in a way that most people can’t. You connect with wolves. Look what you hold. A life you saved. A ten year old girl with no idea how to save them, but with the heart and determination to try.
“Perhaps if you’d asked for help, all may have been saved, but that was not the path you were destined to walk. You are young and until now haven’t experienced loss that took a piece of your heart. Now you have, and you understand the value of what was lost. That lesson will be your guiding star, Oakley, helping to keep yourheart focused on doing what is right, even when others see your actions as wrong. These aren’t the last wolves in your life. They’re the first. There will be others and one day you’ll understand why.”
“Do you?” I asked him. “Understand why?”
“Yes.”
“Then tell me.”
“No, I’d rather you tell me.”
She looked at Gunner. “I never got to do that, but maybe he never expected it anyway.”
“What would you tell him if you could speak to him now?”
Oakley looked from him to Nashoba, and then up, at the sky. “I’d tell him I understand. The Dreamwalker helped me see.”
“Dreamwalker?”
“Sadie Three Rivers.”
“You believe in dreamwalking?”
“I believe in a lot of things, don’t you?”
“Yeah, I guess so. Just not dreamwalking. Does that matter?”
“Not to me.” She looked at him. “Does it to you?”
“It makes me curious.”
“Then one day you should meet Sadie.”
“How do you know her?”
“She and my aunt Grace have been best friends since birth.” Oakley gave Nashoba another rub, then stood. “It’s about to get ugly.” Oakley talked so Gunner would understand what she signed to Nashoba. Protect the pack. Safety is east. High ground. Elk grazing. Stream.”
