Beach Bones

The rib cage was intact but some of the ribs had been gnawed by other dogs. Nearby, the deer’s skull laid on its side, two rows of teeth like specimens for class.

Further down the beach was a deer’s hoof up to the knee joint. Tufts of hair, long enough to braid, moved in the lake breeze. It was by itself so probably dragged by a dog or perhaps a curious child.

“How do you think it died?” I asked my husband.

“Probably a wolf,” he answered. We both wanted it to have been a wolf’s work. Years ago, we saw a wolf standing in deep snow on the beach near our Lake Superior house. We called the forest ranger who said that it probably wasn’t a wolf because wolves were rare then in the Upper Peninsula but he changed his mind when he saw the paw prints.

“Those prints are too big for a dog.” 

So, even though the ranger said this many years ago, we believe that wolves could be here and that a wolf could kill a deer on the snow-driven shore of a fierce lake. It fits with how fearsome winter seems now that we are older, less adventurous, more watchful.

“Maybe the deer was sick and just died here,” our friend said. We were all walking together on the beach. The sun was shining and the water had quieted from the day before when it was high and reaching.

Maybe. Maybe a wolf can take many forms. Maybe a determined carnivore, maybe a germ, a forbidden spore, maybe age, exhaustion, weakness, surrender. Maybe there are many wolves and they run in a pack, all around us, all the time.

We can’t know everything. We aren’t supposed to.