It seems a new timber wolf pack has moved into the area. For weeks I've been seeing sign and scat, but last night I had visual confirmation in the waxing gibbous moon.
About 11 PM, I stepped out the summer kitchen door, which is much quieter than the front door, and saw seven or eight deer in the yard. They didn't notice me as their attention was obviously drawn toward the lake. I went around the north side of the house and looked down the beach. Two deer, an adult doe and a yearling, were on a dead run headed south, with two wolves on their heels. There is something about a wolf that is immediately obvious, even in the moon light. Dogs chasing deer look like amateurs. Wolves look like the professional killers they are.
Having seen this type of thing before, I doubted that there was only two wolves involved. I ran down to the beach, after they'd passed, just in time to see two or three more wolves break from the brush above the beach and cut off the deer. The older doe took to the water, and was last seen swimming strongly for the western shore. The yearling wasn't so lucky, and was disemboweled and dead in less time than it takes to tell.
I headed back to the house, to hear the phone ringing. It was the neighbor lady, and she was hysterical. "Something terrible just happened right in front of our place - can't you do something?" I really don't know what she thought should be done. I asked her if she wanted me to scare away the wolves so she could get the deer meat, and the phone went dead on me. She is from the cities.
Tonight, as I stepped out the door to go to work, the moon hung large in the sky - one day from full moon, and I could hear the pack howling down to the southeast. A rich cacophony of sound, going from creshendo to creshendo, haunting, wild, and beautiful.
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