Home Range

By Jeffrey C. Smith

Robert howled again, and this time a single voice replied. Long, haunting sounds, beautifully modulated. They chilled Jo. Seconds later came a more distant wailing chorus.

"We've got company," Robert said. "Two different groups."
All three raised their binoculars. "There" said Jo, pointing.

When Dr. Jo Settle, a Michigan Tech University biology professor, becomes involved with PhD student Robert Peterson, she is unaware of his scheme to steal and relocate two packs of wolves from Wisconsin to a wilderness area in West Virginia. But events quickly spin out of control, thrusting Jo from the placid groves of academe into a terrifying battle of wits and weaponry in the Appalachian coal country.

Jo's brother Cal, a Civil War park docent recovering from failure in both his marriage and the dot-com bubble, tries to help his sister navigate the treacherous dilemma with Robert. Jo's mentor, Theo Rosenbloom, head of Tech's biology department, and Robert's lifelong friend Hassan, a second-generation Arab American, also become caught up in Robert's intrigue.

Home Range combines a page-turning crime novel with a sober environmental sensitivity. Driving the plot are issues from today's news:

What does it mean to be an immigrant in America? In fact, who is a native and who is an American? Do we have a duty to protect native species and our environment? And what do we lose for ourselves and our descendants if we don't?

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jul 12, 2006
• ISBN: 9780595842568

Jeffrey C. Smith

Jeff Smith is a well-known environmental attorney who has testified nearly a dozen times before the U.S. Congress, and over a hundred times before federal and state regulators. He has also published numerous articles on environmental issues.

Book preview

Prologue

When European colonists first stepped ashore in North America the red fox was the only mammal more widely distributed on the continent than the wolf. But it was no match for the human arrivals. Soon it was gone from over 99 percent of its territory.

In 1838, the year it became a state, Michigan set a bounty on wolves. That bounty, along with a fear handed down through centuries of folklore, eliminated all wolves from the Lower Peninsula by 1910. The last verified wild litter of pups in the Upper Peninsula—what the locals refer to as the U.P.—was in 1954.

Michigan lifted the bounty in 1960. Only twenty wolves remained. They all lived on a secluded island in Lake Superior.

In 1974 researchers transplanted a pack of four individuals to a remote area of the U.P. Within nine months all were dead. One was killed by a car. The other three were shot. A popular U.P. bumper sticker of the time read Save a Deer, Shoot a Wolf.

But in the early 1980s gray wolf populations started to rebound. They had been protected since 1973 by the Endangered Species Act. Individuals began moving out from Minnesota’s Superior National Park. They created packs in the Minnesota woods. Dispersing individuals from these packs gradually trekked into Wisconsin. Along the way they crossed farmlands, highways, and the backyards of second homes and hunting lodges. From Wisconsin they moved into Michigan.

In 1989 Michigan Tech University biology professor Joanna Settle and other researchers identified the so-called Nordic Pack in the U.P. It consisted of seven wolves.

From those first few immigrants out of Minnesota and Wisconsin, and a few more from Ontario, the population in Michigan’s U.P. grew to over three hundred individuals in fifty-five packs. Over four hundred wolves now live in Wisconsin. A couple thousand wolves roam Minnesota’s Superior National Forest and the surrounding area.

Still, the gray wolf has reclaimed only five percent of its original range.

CHAPTER 1

Jo didn’t protest when Theo Rosenbloom summoned her to his cluttered office to gave her yet another assignment. It made sense for her to be Robert Peterson’s faculty adviser. His proposed dissertation concerned wolf migration and dispersal. Aside from Theo, she was the department’s top authority on the subject.

Young Robert seems to be quite energetic, considerable promise, Theo said. Motivated, top-notch undergrad with an independent research project leading to an honors degree. I think he deserves the best we’ve got.

He took a puff of his pipe in defiance of the ban on smoking in university buildings.

Since when have you needed to butter me up to get me to agree to anything? she replied with a wry smile.

Good point, madam. I guess being department chair with no say on the budget has forced on me the embarrassing habit of flattery and groveling. It’s the only way I’ve been able to get anyone to do anything.

Jo leaned back in her seat. She wondered for the umpteenth time why Theo put up with the tough department chair job. Maybe a sense of duty, she thought, along with the belief that he could manage better than anyone else. Of course, he’d never admit that.

I’ll take on young Robert, Jo replied in a serious tone, but not because of your flattery.

I am in your debt—

No, Jo interrupted, surprised that she was angered by Theo’s modesty. We are all indebted to you, Theo. You’re our leader. We couldn’t get on without you. Everyone knows that.

Jo grabbed at a sheaf of papers a gust of wind from the open window had suddenly lifted into the air. Theo kept the window open when he smoked, even in winter. Jo wasn’t a smoker but she enjoyed the aroma of Theo’s pipe. It relaxed her, or maybe it was just that it reminded her of Theo. He was an invaluable mentor when she joined the faculty. Now he was a beloved friend.

I suppose everyone on the staff does know that, Theo replied with his ever-present air of mild amusement. Everyone, that is, except for the second- guessers, chronic complainers, pretenders to the throne, judgmental intellectuals, antiestablishment nonconformists, dysfunctional personalities, and general pains-in-the-ass. And that would be almost everyone.

Jo sighed good-naturedly.

Okay. And while you’re at it don’t forget the lost lambs. You know, the supporters who once helped set a positive tone but who’ve since defected to the side of cynicism.

Right. Those too. At least I’ll never have to worry about you slipping a dagger ‘twixt my ribs.

Never, Theo. She said. I’ll never let you down.

Two weeks later, Jo staggered up the steps of Dillman Hall. Twenty pounds of books and files weighed her down. It was the first day of classes. As she approached her office, she noticed a young man sitting in the hallway.

Dr. Settle, he said, rising quickly. He started to hold out his hand before realizing her arms were full. Robert Peterson.

Jo surveyed him quickly. She remembered him from his interview the previous winter. She didn’t recall his large green eyes. Nice, she thought, but not enough to offset his poor judgment in arriving early for their first advisor- advisee meeting. The initial téte-á-téte was critical in setting the tone for the relationship. This was not an auspicious beginning.

Yes, of course—Robert, she replied.

Putting aside her annoyance, she mustered a quick smile as she wiggled the key into the lock.

Here, let me get those, Robert said eagerly.

He reached for her two book bags.

Guess I got here a little early.

No problem. I like punctuality, she replied, feeling herself relax. And thanks. Just put them on the desk. I’ll be right with you.

She set the stack down and stole another glance at him. Robert didn’t look exactly like the thin, angular kid with jerky movements she’d interviewed. He still had the ponytail. But he seemed bigger, more assured. Maybe it’s the tan, she thought. Her failure of memory vaguely perplexed her.

Well, Robert, Jo said, sitting down, my objectives for this meeting are for us to get to get to know each other a bit, to clearly lay out my expectations for your performance, and to discuss with you the overall agenda for the next four years. And, of course, I want to answer any questions you have.

Great, Robert replied.

He sunk back into the heavy wooden chair facing her desk. As he did so Jo saw him glance at the family photo on her credenza. It showed her, Jonathon and her girls, Maddie and Kate, standing in front of a fudge shop on Mackinaw Island. It’d been taken a couple of summers earlier. She resisted the urge to turn and look at it too.

They discussed Robert’s summer and his trip to Houghton for a few minutes. Then Jo got down to business.

So tell me. With your stellar record, you had your choice of schools. Why Tech?

Two reasons, Robert answered easily, you and the wolves.

Jo blinked, momentarily off-balance. Before she could answer, he continued.

You know, Dr. Settle, I first read about you when I was in ninth grade at Detroit Country Day School.

Jo conjured up the image of fifteen-year-old Robert at the exclusive private school. It was known for its opulent facilities, intense academics, and ability to turn out future NBA players.

Oh? she replied neutrally.

The Free Press had an article about your identification of the wolverine.

Ah, yes. My fifteen minutes of fame. It lasted for about three, actually.

Jo recalled the time, eight years back, when she’d made the first positive identification of a wolverine in Michigan in nearly two hundred years.

Dumb luck, she added. I’d been in the field tracking coyotes near Ubly—you know, about ninety miles north of Detroit. I just happened to have my camera out when I stumbled across North America’s most tirelessly cantankerous mammal.

I never read anything after the initial press reports, Robert replied Even though I’ve read all your journal articles. I cited several of them in my senior thesis at U of M.

No wonder you did well, Jo said with a smile.

She glanced at her notes from the admissions interview: Well-rounded. Member ofthe UofM tennis team. Aviator and amateur caver. Keptpilot’s license by logging hours out ofWashtenaw County GeneralAviation Airport. Not apply- ingfor student loans or grants. Not interested in being a TA. Wants to concentrate on research. Intense, very articulate. Poised.

Well, seriously she continued, looking up, there wasn’t much to write about. There haven’t been any other sightings. It’s still unclear whether the wolverine was ever a part of Michigan’s recent past. The one I saw may have been released. Or maybe it escaped from captivity. The feds delisted it as an endangered species in Michigan on the grounds that it wasn’t expected to return.

H’mm, Robert replied. He shifted his weight in the chair.

She waited for a further response. Getting none, she changed gears.

So enough about me. The wolves, you say, led you to pick Tech?

Yes. I suppose I could’ve pursued my migration-and-dispersal research from Ann Arbor, or even one of the eastern schools. It just seemed more natural to be here where the wolf recovery story is really playing out.

Well, it’ll be quite a change culturally from the ‘People’s Republic of Ann Arbor.’ You know that’s what folks around here are wont to call it.

I understand that, Professor. I’m looking forward to the change. I can’t wait to get out in the field next year. After all, it was these folks in the U.P. that allowed the wolves to recover, as you yourself wrote.

True enough, Jo thought.

Her involvement with the wolves had ended in the early 1990s, a few years after the Nordic Pack was discovered. The paper she’d written at the time correctly predicted the wolves’ population growth in the U.P. It seemed to make a difference that the wolves of the Nordic Pack had come back on their own, unlike in the forced reintroduction effort in 1974.

To be sure, she’d written, the Endangered Species Act helped. But the key was increased hunter and farmer appreciation for the wolves’ natural recovery. It led to a climate of tolerance that was glaringly absent when they were artificially reintroduced. This tolerance, the paper concluded, was the difference between life and death for the wolves.

Blinking out of her reverie, Jo replied.

Well, Robert. Public acceptance was the difference. But it wasn’t like my neighbors were inviting the Nordic Pack and their descendants over for Sunday dinner.

Nearly two hours later Jo closed her file and stood up.

I’m optimistic that you’ll be very successful here, Robert. I’m looking forward to doing what I can to help you along.

Thanks Dr. Settle. I’m excited to start. I really hope that I can push the boundaries of science with my research.

Well, it might be better to explore those boundaries, rather than attempt to push them, Jo replied. Science doesn’t like to be shoved around, I’ve found.

Right, Robert replied, That’s what I meant.

He rose and extended his hand. Jo noticed that it was large and callused. It was so different from Jonathon’s.

After Robert left Jo opened the window. The trees in the walnut grove had already begun to shed their leaves.

Robert’s research would be interesting. Maybe even a professional plus for her should it be critically received. The bottom line, she reflected, is that he’s a motivated, captivating young man, and a fan to boot—the best kind.

For the rest of the morning Jo marked up the notes for her afternoon lecture in General Biology I. She could teach the class with her eyes closed but figured she owed the students a special effort. Most, she figured, had initially tried to get into Theo’s section. He was the most popular professor in the department, but his department chair duties limited him to one highly-coveted class each semester.

Her thoughts kept returning to Robert. She was excited to have him under her tutelage.

At forty-two, Jo was fit and still youthful-looking. Every year, sure as rain, there would be a student who she sensed was attracted to her. She consciously avoided anything that smacked of undue familiarity with her students. She just couldn’t hide an embracing warmth borne of her continued enthusiasm for her subject matter. Something told her that she should be especially careful with Robert.

At 1:00 p.m. she walked to the faculty lounge for lunch with Jonathon. She passed by a stand of maples. Soon they’d be ablaze in autumn glory. It would be a harbinger, along with the departure of the American redstart, meadow- larks, jays and hawks, of the long north-woods winter. In a week the nighttime temperatures would dip below freezing. The thought annoyed her. It did every year.

More than the South’s warmth, she missed the gentle, verdant Blue Ridge mountains she’d known as a girl. She needed to see their sweep, their dark silhouette against the night sky. She missed their surprise and the delight. They always brought comfort.

Those old hills should be the first thing I see when I wake up in the morning, she’d often thought. They were crisp and sharp when the humidity was low. She liked the way the fog spiraled up on cool mornings to fluff out the valleys in between. There was a different light in every direction.

She feared losing memories of her family’s time in the mountains. She felt them withering like frosted squash leaves. Soon they might crumble. First turning to dust and then to nothingness. Already the memories of her youth seemed gauzy and unreal. She wanted to frame and protect them like valuable paintings. She returned to them often. It was her way of preserving them from time’s corrosion.

Not that the Houghton area on the shores of Lake Superior was without its own special appeal. There were stories and romance and history here too. She’d first seen the Lake over a decade before when she and Jonathon moved to Houghton. But her first walk on the shoreline that April disturbed her. The ice breaking-up sounded like gunshots. The feeling of vulnerability had stayed with her. She liked the vast expanse of water. But she was a mountain person.

CHAPTER 2

John Caleb Settle studied himself in the mirror of his garden apartment in Brandy Station, Virginia. He liked the faux park ranger he wore as a guide for the Battle of the Wilderness National Military Park. It was the only uniform he’d ever worn, not counting his one year in the McLean Boy Scouts.

The volunteer gig was a positive development in Cal’s life. It was the biggest in the four years since he’d divorced Jenny and quit his job at iVentures LLP in the Washington, D.C. suburb of Tysons Corner.

Satisfied that he looked professional, Cal ambled out the door to his aging Blazer. The engine sputtered in the February cold. Cal wondered again what unnatural sentimentality kept him from buying a new truck. It wasn’t money.

Despite his middling rank at iVentures he’d received just over a million dollars for his shares in the company. He acquire them via an employee stock- option plan. It was a pittance compared to the higher-ups, but more than enough to live on indefinitely in rural Brandy Station. He’d migrated there immediately after selling out at the first opportunity.

The company’s fortunes fell soon after he left. Within months iVentures was in Chapter 11, then Chapter 7, then gone. Its shares became worthless.

Cal’s good fortune bothered him. He considered himself neither smart nor deserving. He was just lucky. It was unfair that faithful employees who remained saw the value of their shares evaporate. At the same time Cal was thankful. For once he’d snagged the last train out of town.

Brandy Station was only an hour south of Tysons, but light-years away in socioeconomic composition, culture, and politics.

More traditional, he liked to call it. Classic.

Unlike Tysons, the motor vehicles office in Brandy Station didn’t have to give the licensing exam in forty-three languages. Its supermarkets did not have entire aisles devoted to ethnic foods. He felt comfortable there.

Cal coaxed the Blazer onto Route 3. He headed for the battleground. It was in surprisingly good shape despite the development that radiated from D.C. This growth had brought escalating real estate prices that caused farmers to sell out to developers. But a citizens’ group had recently traded developments elsewhere for twenty acres that included the site of General Longstreet’s famous flank attack.

It was a priceless addition, Cal felt.

He strode into the Visitor’s Center purposely. He winked at Cindy behind the concessions stand. She handed him a cup of coffee.

He accepted it with a slight bow. Then he took up his customary place near a map of the battlefield and surveyed the day’s crop of tourists.

Arms crossed, he watched them point and wince at the black-and-white photos on the walls. They showed young men grotesquely positioned in attitudes of death. A few visitors leaned over a table display. It contained minie balls, Union and Confederate uniforms, hardtack, and several letters written by soldiers to their families back home.

The hardtack sparked the most questions. Americans, Europeans, Asians—it was always the same. Derived from some sort of universal survival principle, Cal supposed. They ate that? What is it? How did it taste?

Cal liked explaining that hardtack or teeth duller was a stiff cracker that soldiers would soak in water during the day. Then they’d boil it in coffee. This softened the cracker. It also brought to the surface any worms or weevils, which could then be skimmed off. He could hear the visitors thinking. Could I have eaten it? Could I have survived.

The battlefield was a low-wattage attraction. It wasn’t featured in tour books. You had to have a special interest in the Civil War to find it. There were fewer children, too. This suited Cal.

He cleared his throat and summoned those interested in the tour. He gave a brief overview of the grounds and then solicited questions.

Why is this battle so important? one man asked. Because of all the dying?

Partly, Cal answered. "The Battle of the Wilderness was the first match between Robert E. Lee and the new Union commander, Ulysses S. Grant.

Although it ended in a draw—a very bloody draw—Grant, unlike his predecessors, Gens. Burnside and Hooker, pressed on.

’Whatever happens, there will be no turning back,’ Grant wrote Lincoln. Soon other battles followed down the road, like Spotsylvania Courthouse, Chancellorsville and Cold Harbor as Grant marched to Petersburg.

After a few more questions, Cal cleared his throat. Beginnings and endings were important to him. He liked to start the tour by underscoring the central- ity of Virginia’s role in the war.

The Wilderness Battlefield and other sites along the way to Petersburg comprise the bloodiest landscape in North America. Virginia felt this war more than any other state. One hundred and four men from the Commonwealth became generals in the Confederate army. Another seventeen became Union generals. As the capital of the Confederacy, and its largest, richest, and most populous State, it was the focus of the Union’s assault for four years. At war’s end she’d hosted over two hundred military engagements. She’d lost over a half million ofher sons to death, wounding, or capture. Her land—her entire ‘infrastructure,’ as we say today—was laid waste.

After this background information, Cal led the visitors out for a tour of the Gordon Flank Trail.

It was a two-mile circuit that followed the Confederate trenches before crossing over to loop back along the Union earthworks. The trail passed by the Ellwood Plantation. It had been occupied by both Federal and Confederate troops. The floors retained the soldiers’ bloodstains. Its grounds held the graves of soldiers from both sides.

But Ellwood’s most compelling feature, judging by the tourists’ interest most days, was the burial site of General Thomas J. Stonewall Jackson’s arm.

Two hours later the group returned to the Visitors Center.

Cal concluded by reading a letter from a young soldier written on the evening before the first day battle. Cal had actually written the letter himself. But he considered it authentic since he’d drawn on several real letters written by young Civil War soldiers. He often varied the stories to suit his mood.

This soldier was an eighteen-year-old named James Stratton, from Salem, Massachusetts, Cal said James left a safe job as a druggist’s apprentice in 1862 to join Company A of the Thirty-seventh Massachusetts Infantry. Because of his training he spent a year and a half working at a Union hospital in Washington, D.C. before requesting reassignment to the battlefield. On the evening of May third, 1864, he found himself sitting near a campfire right where you are standing now.

Cal paused. He looked down at a spot in the middle of the gathered tourists. They followed his gaze. He then pulled out a sheet of paper and put on a pair of reading glasses.

"May third, 1864. My dearest Mother, I hope this letter reaches you in good health. You are constantly in my thoughts. The image ofyour beautiful, loving face is always before me. I am wishing to see you the most I ever have. And Father, Josh, and Sarah, too.

I am sorry I have not written more, but I have been on the move to join the forces that have been amassing in recent months to push the rebel army back to Richmond.

First off, I have not forgotten my prayers. I remain steadfast in reading the Bible you gave me. I keep it under the blouse ofmy uniform. I read it daily and it gives me powerful comfort. I am also much obliged for the housewife you sent, as it has proved very handy in repairing my uniform.

Cal paused and looked up over the top of his reading glasses.

The ‘housewife’ was the soldier’s term for a small mending kit which many men on both sides carried, he explained. Then he continued.

"The men’s spirits are high because we now have a fighting leader in General Grant. There are many rebels about. I believe the prospects for battle are high.

Right now we are camped along the Rapidan, some distance from Culpeper. The country here is heavily wooded. Everywhere in Northern Virginia, from the Potomac to where I now sit, is completely in ruin. There is notafield planted or a fence standing. I am unclear how these Virginians survive, especially with all their menfolk gone.

You may be surprised to hear that there is some cordiality in this conflict. At our present location we have for several months advanced our pickets at night and pulled back at dawn, with the rebels doingjust the opposite. Infact, I’m told that the pickets of both armies have taken to occupying the same log shed. On the colder days our boys arrive to find firewood cut and laid out for them. They of course have repaid the favor. It puts my mind in confusion as to the prospect of killing those Rebs, for, as I said, I believe the fight is soon to begin in earnest.

There have been some small skirmishes, with a few casualties, but none that have engaged me so far. I have seen our wounded and dead in Washington City, but now, for thefirst time, I have viewedafew ofthe rebel bodies as well. I thought it would be good to see the dead Johnnys. But instead it relieves me not and causes almost as much griefin my soul as seeing our own lost soldiers. I confess that the groans and cries ofthe wounded harass my mind. I am at times afeard ofmy lone thoughts. I had hoped the terrible suffering I have already witnessed in the hospital would inure me to such weakness.

But I trust in God that I will not be put to shame and that He will help me stand bravely and do my duty. Some say it is a coincidence thatplaces a man and a bullet in the same place at the same time. But I believe it is part of a Divine Plan, and I comfort myself with that thought.

I mostly keep to myself, as I have not been with these men long, nor have Iyet joined them in battle. Although I am pretty wellfatigued, my health is good. The weather has turned warmer, though there is often a fog that obscures our vistas. Some ofthe men have campfevers, butIam sofar unmolested by them. Mypro- fessional opinion is that it is mostly the measles. Ifear that many will not survive it. Sometimes I assist in giving powders to the men with the bloody flux."

Cal looked up. The ‘bloody flux’ was their term for dysentery.

"I spend much time studying your photograph. I am most fortunate in this regard, as most ofthe men are notso lucky as to bepossessed ofan image oftheir mother. Otherwise I am drilling, preparing for inspections, reading my Bible, cleaning my gun, and eating my meals. I am also possessed ofa gospel tract called ‘Parting Words, abandoned by a rebel soldier that I found in a briar patch. Its words are familiar, but I feel odd reading them. I prefer my own holy book.

Mother, you know I entered the ranks with a sense ofduty, not rashly or out of a need for adventure. But I am now less sure of my purpose and powerfully wish this killing to be over. I pray to the Lord to make haste to help us all.

Please write me soon. I treasure your letters and news from home, however common