Every living thing (and perhaps many a
dead one as well) pays heed to that call.
To the deer it is a reminder of the
way of all flesh, to the pine a forecast
of midnight scuffles and of blood upon
the snow, to the coyote a promise of
gleanings to come, to the cowman a
threat of red ink at the bank, to the
hunter a challenge of fang against bullet.
Yet behind these obvious and immediate
hopes and fears there lies a deeper
meaning, known only to the mountain itself.
Only the mountain has lived long
enough to listen objectively to the
howl of a wolf.

Those unable to decipher the hidden
meaning know nevertheless, that it is
there, for it is felt in all wolf country,
and distinguishes that country from all
other land. It tingles in the spine of
all who hear wolves by night, or who
scan their tracks by day. Even without
sight or sound of wolf, it is implicit
in a hundred small events: the midnight
whinny of a pack horse, the rattle of
rolling rocks, the bound of a fleeing
deer, the way shadows lie under the
spruces. Only the ineducable tyro can
fail to sense the presence or absence of
wolves, or the fact that mountains
have a secret opinion about them.

My own conviction of this score dates
from the day I saw a wolf die. We
were eating lunch on a high rimrock,
at the foot of which a turbulent
river elbowed its way. We saw what
we thought was a doe fording the torrent,
her breast awash in white water. When
she climbed the bank toward us and
shook out her tail, we realized our
error: it was a wolf. A half-dozen
others, evidently grown pups, sprang
from the willows and all joined in
a welcoming melee of wagging tails and
playful maulings. What was literally
a pile of wolves writhed and tumbled
in the center of an open flat at the
foot of our rimrock.

In those days we had never heard of
passing up a chance to kill a wolf.
In a second we were pumping lead
into the pack, but with more excitement
than accuracy: how to aim a steep
downhill shot is always confusing.
When our rifles were empty, the old
wolf was down, and a pup was dragging
a leg into impassable slide-rocks.

We reached the old wolf in time to
watch a fierce green fire dying in
her eyes. I realized then, and have
known ever since, that there was
something new to me in those
eyes--something known only to her
and to the mountain. I was young
then, and full of trigger-itch; I
thought that because fewer wolves
meant more deer, that no wolves
would mean hunters' paradise.
But after seeing the green fire die,
I sensed that neither the wolf, nor
the mountain agreed with such a view.

SINCE THEN I have lived to see
state after state extirpate its wolves.
I have watched the face of many a newly
wolfless mountain, and seen the
south-facing slopes wrinkle with a maze
of new deer trails. I have seen every
edible bush and seedling browsed, first
to anemic desuetude, and then to death.
I have seen every edible tree defoliated
to the height of a saddle horn. Such a
mountain looks as if someone had given
God new pruning shears, and forbidden
Him all other exercise. In the end,
the starved bones of the hoped-for
deer herd, dead of its own too-much,
bleach with the bones of the dead
sage, or molder under the high-lined
junipers.

I now suspect that just as a deer herd
lives in mortal fear of its wolves, so
does a mountain live in mortal fear of
its deer. And perhaps with better
cause, for while a buck pulled down by
wolves can be replaced in two or three
years, a range pulled down by too many
deer may fail of replacement in as
many decades.

WE ALL STRIVE for safety, prosperity, comfort, long life, and dullness. The
deer strives with his supple legs, the
cowman with trap and poison, the statesman
with pen, the most of us with machines,
votes, and dollars, but it all comes to the
same thing: peace in our time. A measure
of success in this is all well enough,
and perhaps is a requisite to objective
thinking, but too much safety seems to
yield only danger in the long run. Perhaps
this is behind Thoreau's dictum: In
wildness is the salvation of the world.
Perhaps this is the hidden meaning in
the howl of the wolf, long known among
mountains, but seldom perceived among men."