It always smells of blood at pupping time — the fiery scent of a female's heat or the gushing placenta two months later. At least, that's what the wolves smell. As for me, I only get the odor of the pines, the freshness of new leaves, and the pepper of the chili I eat from a can.
I get a clean view of the white male as he paces on the hill above his mate's den. Oh, but you will never see such a discontented being in all your life, at home or in a maternity ward, as the one I've found here on this ridge. He frets and paces for all he's worth, whining in ways so unbecoming of an alpha that you'd think him only a pup himself.
Yet now, in a sense, everyone is a pup. In birth, as in death, all are equal.
It's their first litter. His mate won't let him into the den, and that's most of the problem. My, but he's confused. He killed a rabbit and filled himself but can't even provoke her to eat. He could only hear her straining and pushing, then sniffed the air as she ate the afterbirth. That must have smelled like heaven to him — the fleshiest of all flesh. Yet he doesn't force his company upon her.
Now he's lying down and watching with that look in his eyes — like fathers get when they're dreaming of playing catch with little Timmy, or putting skirts on little Jennifer. But it's his own wolfish look. If he dreams, it's not of human things. I like to think he dreams of elk.
His mate still hasn't moved — probably won't until tonight. But oh, she'll be hungry. She'll come up tired but tail a-wagging and lick up to him with the most pitiful of whines ... and he'll vomit that rabbit down in front of her, looking pleased to see her, to feed her, to draw closer to the mystery that's been locked in her belly for so long.
Perhaps he can see them, where he is now, if she has turned herself so their naked bodies lie uphill. His face looks so priceless, and I'm loath to ruin it with a photo. His ears all relaxed, his tail flopping softly ... maybe it's their smell; maybe he can nose each of them, even at that distance.
This wolf never read a parenting manual, but he rests on the moistened dirt and waits, patiently or otherwise, to see everything through to the end. If he has read anything, it's the instincts written in his body and brain. When human fathers read their instincts at a time like this, how do they feel? I sometimes wonder.
Now with my viewfinder I catch his eyes slowly closing, his ears tucking back, his mouth and tail relaxing so completely he might as well be asleep. Yet his eyes squint, and his expression almost smiles. I can see his black nostrils flaring.
I know nothing about parenting — nothing of my own. This is my vicarious hospital, my surrogate nursery. I come here partly for my job, partly as a way to endure my own life. I may never fully overcome the piddling personal issues that have hindered me from becoming a father myself. I like to think I improve a bit each time, but I do not know.
What I do know is that something has changed here, in front of me. This hunter, this blood-drinker and flesh-gulper, now stares docile through yawning eyes toward the hole where his cubs drink their first meals. The umbilicals have been severed, in more ways than one.
Here I see a father, breathing for the first time ... and I breathe along with him, hoping for survival.
Andrew Darel Gates is an MFA student at Spalding University, and he lives in Madisonville, Kentucky. Some of his earlier creative pieces can be found in the 2005-2007 editions of The Muses' Repertoire, the student literary journal of Kentucky Wesleyan College. You may contact Andrew at adgates@bellsouth.net.