The Year's Best Science Fiction, Vol. 20

Sam shook his head. “No. This was something else. Something different. He was graduating college by this point and they were just putting Beck-Lewis on the boards.” Sam stopped a moment. “Do you really understand what Beck-Lewis is? It’s a park and a refuge, all right. But it’s bordered on all sides with corporate farms, ranches and gas wells. There are no roads into it. It’s a no-man’s land. It’s the badlands that nobody wanted so the corporations all decided to do something to protect their inside borders and appease the environmentalists. Every couple of years the Sierra Club or the National Geographic or a few scientists come out here and do some work. But to do it they got to get federal permits, state permits and then border permits from each one of the abutting corporations. It’s really hard to do so people go elsewhere, to the Grand Tetons, or Yellowstone or Glacier. Jack and I realized that this place was going to be cheap, underfunded, barely visible. It was perfect. Accidentally, Beck-Lewis was going to slip backwards two hundred years. So we both applied to be rangers and got jobs here. We might have been the only applicants-there sure wasn’t much competition. That was the way of it for ten years.”

Sam stopped and stared at me through the screen, coming back to himself. I didn’t say anything. This was his song, his eulogy. I wouldn’t have broken it for the world. Every word, every gesture was being recorded. It was great background.

“Then, the wolves started coming down from Canada. A few strayed up from Yellowstone. Not many but enough to start a small population. Beck-Lewis wasn’t part of the Wolf Restoration Project but wolves go where they want to go. We wanted the wolves but we didn’t want the WRP-too many strings. Too much visibility. We didn’t want the scientists and the tourist trade. So, we started hunting them, tranquilizing them, and pulling off the radio collars. We left the collars to be found in different places to make the WRP think the wolves had dropped them or been killed. Some we just destroyed-a few collars are lost every year. It was tricky but there weren’t very many wolves. It didn’t take long for Jack to first discard the plane, then the trank gun. Then, he was going out there just by himself. We were only getting one or two collars a year. He would stalk the wolves just like he stalked cougars and elk. But wolves are smarter. They knew who he was and wouldn’t sit still for it. He had to get to know them before they’d let him take the collars. He spent more time out there than anywhere else.”

“Then, he won the lottery,” I prompted.

“Damnedest thing. He stopped in for a six-pack of club soda-he has always had a passion for carbonated water. Go figure. Bought a ticket and a week later he’s a millionaire.” Sam shook his head. “I guess he was already pretty clear in his mind what he was going to do with the money. That was eight years ago. I was against it. I thought it would bring trouble.”

I let that slide. Arguing with him would only get in the way of the story. “What would you have done with the money?”

He snorted. “Same thing I’m doing now. Same thing I’m going to do with the grant money you got for me. Hire some more men. Put in real boundaries. Get ready to defend this place against all comers. Jack thinks Beck-Lewis will last forever. I know better. Beck-Lewis is a holding action, a way of Corporate America getting the rights to public land they knew they could use. Throw the dog a bone and it’s busy while you rob the store. I knew it was only a matter of time before the world found us. Only I figured it would be an economic way of mining the shale or harvesting the buffalo grass or full spectrum solar power or something like that. After all, the only thing that stops capitalism is more capitalism. I didn’t figure on you.”

Two days after Akela came back I only had Sam’s background stories, Goldie’s footage and a limited amount of conversation from Jack to show for it. There was enough here for a feature or two but I wanted more. This story had possibilities. This story had legs. I wanted to see Jack in action. I needed to capture the pack in a real hunt, not wolves living comfortably and easily on rats. Where’s the drama in that?

I tried to pin Jack down. He was lying on his back in the sun. Akela was sitting next to him and Raksha was in her customary curl, snuggled against him with her head on his shoulder. They looked like a couple. It was Akela that looked like a family friend.

Maybe that’s the way it was.

“So,” I began. Jack didn’t move but he tensed suddenly. “Why didn’t you have yourself anatomically altered?”

Jack sat up suddenly. Raksha rolled over, startled. “What do you mean?”

I gestured to Raksha. “It looks like there’s more than paternal affection between you two. Akela is the one that’s the uncle. Not you.”