The Great Gray wolf of Minnehaha Creek

Preamble to the story: “The Young Man and the Woods”

The Great Gray Wolf
Of Minnehaha Creek



The Great Gray Wolf, of Minnehaha Creek, only the wilderness could feed him, love him, bed him, and those who knew him, heard about him, wished he’d disappear (even his own kind), in the Great Northern Wilderness of Minnesota, in the early 1960s. He strutted along the little Minnehaha Creek, near the hamlet in the woods, as often he did unnoticed, roaring eupeptic hours, it was as if—when he left—he’d leave his ghost, so we all thought, sculptured in shadow form, on every tree, that swayed in the wind, he was the highwayman, the murderer, the pistol shooting rawhide gunslinger, the haunting hunter of the wilderness, the creek being his tavern, it was a branch of a nearby river, and up river it was peopled by men with a handful of laws, who owned cabins, paid taxes, and who strolled and smoked pipes and cigars, along those banks, those purlieus banks, doomed if they were alone.
If alone, and if attacked the beast could make a twenty-five foot bound, when chasing its prey. This one had a bulky coat, as thick as any Alaskan fur. This one had patches missing, as to rid him-self of any loose fur, so his enemy would not detect him, in spotting his trail. He had deep yellow gold Irises. He had a lot of gray tints into his coat, thus, making his observers think he was old, perhaps older than he really was. With his long mussel, he would break the bones of his foe, in particular, the coyotes and Golden Jackals. He’d run with the dogs, on a few occasions, having some kind of instinctive heritage with them. In comparison to the dog, the gray wolf has a larger paw size, and longer legs, and this gray wolf, tipped even that scale. His bones in his tail were as hard as steel. His long canine teeth, gripped its prey at 12,000 kPa of pressure, his main weapon. More than twice the pressures for bone crushing than the dogs have. And his saliva, kept his wounds from becoming infected and he had a lot of scares.
This was the life of being perused and sought after because of his vanishing acts, to be shot on sight and dragged out of the woods; the town-let needed somebody, anybody, vast enough with youth, strength, courage, shrewdness to walk those cold fields in winter, to search those dense woods, uncompromising, with rage to fulfill the task, to put the wolf on a gallows, on a limb of a tree, once and for all, and hang the beast, and be done with it.
Those tomorrow-less days, were gone where you could walk bravely with a rifle over your shoulder in the woods, in that 1200-acres forest he ran wild in, said it was his territory, like their grandfathers did, used to do, and not expect calamity. And many a hunter left his cabin, and moved on back to the Twin Cities (St. Paul, Minneapolis), because of the fear that beast instilled in them.
There was a young man, who had a sidekick, a girl, just them two, not counting the populist in the hamlet, with the same blood, ran in each others veins, similar to the gray wolf’s, a light strain of it at least, taintless and incorruptible. He was twenty-two, and she seventeen. And the old wolf—who’s to say?
For four years now, he had heard the worse of all talking, concerning the gray wolf, bigger and older and with more malice than any other recorded and documented wolf: —it was a century before, that the Indians had a legend of such a beast, bigger and older and ruthless enough to defy all mankind. Chippewa Indians had lived in this area once upon a time, it was of men, white men, they no longer did, no black nor red, nor yellow, only white men now, perhaps that is what created this hard-stone wolf, to endure humanity, to sharpen its kill-skills, more deadly than the dog, the bear, the deer with great antlers, compelled by an intrinsic wildness of the ancients to get revenge, an unremitting game of reprisal on the white man, with savage rules, which did away with all voices of conscious, the name of the gave was to stop the other one’s breathing, forever, to listen for the heartbeat, footsteps, and get your trophy. This was the burning legs, heart and soul of the Gray Wolf—the near immortal spirit, drunken spirit, of the wolf—hence, they needed an equal to the wolf, with human reasoning.

And so it seemed to the young man: one December morning—not only natural but quite fitting—to endure the task of finding, luring and killing the Great Gray Wolf, without ever having seen him—the young man gave himself a oath. It even come into view and overlooked his dreams; thus, he would search the un-axed woods, it was as if he already knew, he could cover the wolf with a death blanket, the nameless wolf, other than ‘The Great Gray…’ and its nickname of ‘phantom.’ Perhaps he came to this conclusion because he had what folks within the hamlet called “Bad Luck in killing wolves, or game, or anything,” but perhaps it was simply, destiny calling him for a greater task? That had never occurred to the populist of the town-let, never once came to mind.



No: 559/12-28-2009