Wolf in the Barn

While on a road trip across the US with my wife Rachael, we came across an old ghost town in the middle of Nevada. Out of curiosity, Rachael and I decided to take a walk through the old western ghost town, so we parked our camper on the edge of town and began to wander around. Many of the buildings were such that the town itself was considered a sort of a landmark, so while keeping up with the intended look from the 1870’s, whoever it was who actually owned the town did a rather good job of keeping everything from falling apart. Of course, the old ghost town was turned into a roadside tourist attraction.

The first building we entered was an old saloon with a player piano to one side which was actually playing some tune typical of the saloon music that was played in the old movies. There was also the bar across the back of the saloon and a card table to one side of the room. Mannequins were set up to replicate actual people, including a bartender, a bar girl dressed in a thin lace top and posed for business, a gunslinger sitting at a card table with his gun drawn and finally a “dead body” on the floor; there was an Ace not so subtly hidden up his sleeve with a rather large pile of chips at the seat where he would have been sitting. We snapped a few pictures with our cameras.

We moved on to the second building, this one was a general store, like with the saloon, there were several mannequins set up; a shopkeeper, a customer and a young girl peering into the bin of candy who was apparently hoping for a tasty treat.

Again, after taking a few pictures we moved on, this time to a big old barn on the edge of town, and again there were mannequins set up, but this time they took the form of barnyard animals, horses, cows and even a pig. In the back of the barn was a pile of hay, and along the side of the hay was another animal, but this one was a wolf…and it was alive and was nervously looking straight at us and letting out a warning growl.

“So,” Rachael said, “I don’t think he’s a part of the display.”

I gave Rachael a look, she was a smart girl, really she was, but she had two faults to her, one was doing things without thinking ahead, and the second was stating something that was quite obvious. “You don’t say?”

Rachael looked, and saw that besides the warning growl, the wolf was rather docile and laying on the ground behind the pile of hay with a litter of wolf pups curled up nearby. “Aw look, she just had puppies!”

As Rachael reached out to touch one of the pups I gave her a warning, even as the wolf stepped up her warning.

“I wouldn’t touch those pups if I were you!” The voice behind us was sudden, loud, and sharp, which caused Rachael to jump so bad she landed in a comedic position in the pile of hay. At least, it would have been comedic if it hadn’t gotten the wolf riled up, and she began to growl even more intently and lean into Rachael’s face. “Woah, Nellie! It’s okay.”

I looked up at the man who shouted out the warning, he was a gruff, heavyset looking man with an ugly face, he wore a tan vest and a 5-gallon hat. He looked a bit like he just walked off the set of Bonanza, which I guess was the way he was supposed to look, a bit like Hoss Cartwright. I stood up and looked him in the eye. “We didn’t mean any harm to the wolf.”

“I know, but Nellie, that’s the name of the wolf, didn’t know that.” There was a piece of rawhide in the guy’s hand, he handed it off to Rachael, “if you want, you can feed this to her, as a sort of a goodwill gesture.”

“Will she bite?” Now Rachael pulled back.

“Nah,” the man said, “besides, I don’t think she even knows how to. You see, I’ve been raising her from a pup, so Nellie here is as domesticated as a wolf can be. But don’t be mistaken, she is not a pet, and she is wild, and is allowed to run free, but unlike the wolves out there, she is used to being around humans.”

“Why did she pick here in this barn to have her pups?” I asked, as I watched Rachael feed the rawhide to the wolf.

“This town is all she knows, in a way this town is her territory, and I guess the hay is soft enough for the pups to sleep on, so why not pick here in this barn to have her pups?”

“I see,” I responded.

“Do you think she’ll let finally me pet her?” Rachael reached her hand out to the wolf before she could get a response.

“I wouldn’t do that.” “Hoss” said a little too late, as Rachael’s hand was already touching the wolf’s nose.

“Rachael,” I said with a groan, fortunately the wolf just sniffed at her hand, looking for more rawhide.

“Do you think she’ll let me pet one of the pups?”

“Rachael don’t push it,” I warned.

“Those pups are only a few weeks old, and while she is domesticated, she will become extremely protective of those pups if you get any closer to them and will probably figure out that she can bite people.”

“Come on Rachael,” I said, “there are other buildings we can look at.”

“OK,” Rachael said, as she realized she had her cellphone in her pocket, “hey, do you think I can take a few pictures of her and the pups?”

“I don’t see why not,” “Hoss” said, “actually you could take a picture of anything here.”

“We’ve been doing that,” I nudged at Rachael who was getting a few closeups of the wolf pups.

“I wish we could take one of them with me!” Rachael seemed to even have one of them picked out.

“NO!” I exclaimed. “Now come on.”

“OK,” Rachael reluctantly followed me out of the barn, and we moved on to the next part of the roadside tourist attraction.

“Hoss” waited for a minute, cursed under his breath, and followed us. “Here’s what we can do, taking one of those pups from her is not an option, but we will be feeding them, which will require a lot of food.”

“And?” I asked.

“Well, we’re going to have to start feeding these pups when they start to get bigger, they will require a special kind of food--.”

“I should have known there was some sort of a scheme behind all of this.” I barked.

“It’s not a scheme, we really do need the money to help feed them, and for $20 a month you can help to feed them.”

“As long as I get pictures of their progress as they grow up,” Rachael said.

“That can be arranged.”

I began to grumble under my breath, first we had to pay a ticket to get to look around the few buildings that were available for us to look at, now we were maneuvered into helping to feed the wolves.

“It’s just a shame we can’t take one of those wolves.”

“That’s not going to happen,” both “Hoss” and I said at the same time, but I was the one who continued, “besides, we live in Philadelphia, there’s not a lot of room for a wolf to run around.”

“And even domesticated wolves like the feeling of being wild, and this way is better off.”

“OK.” Rachael said.

“Come on let’s go,” I led Rachael towards the final building of this little tourist trap, a converted hotel that had gift shop, “besides, we need to get back on the road after we pay for all of this.”

So, after signing my life away to help to feed some wolf pups we came across in some old barn we never would have otherwise seen, we were back on the road towards the next tourist trap in the state of Nevada, where there seemed to be a lot of them around.