Carter's P.O.V.
It had been two weeks since the hunting trip and Joe had not returned to her house since. It didn’t seem to bother her until Joe showed up at her house while her dad was out in the barn. Carter walked to the door and unwilling opened the door to let Joe in.
“Hey Carter, is your dad home by chance?” Joe asked.
“Ummm, yeah he is out in the barn,” Carter replied quickly hoping he would leave.
“Oh okay well can you tell him I stopped by and dropped off a few papers,” Joe said as he handed Carter an envelope.
“Sure,” Carter replied and with that Joe turned around and walked away as quick as he had come.
In her head Carter argued with herself about opening the envelope and reading the papers. But in the end she decided not to, knowing that her dad would see that it had been opened and ask her why.
It was about 6 o’clock when her dad finally came in from doing basic house chores like giving hay to the cows, horses, and goats, chopping some firewood, and checking the chickens. He came in one of the happiest moods she had ever seen him in. She didn’t even know why but his mood seemed to make everyone else happier as they sat down to eat a supper of caribou steak and boiled potatoes.
Dinner tonight was full of lots of laughter and conversations. Carter didn’t even realize how towards the end of dinner her dad was becoming less and less happier until he finally said he had to make an announcement.
“I think it would be wrong for me to keep this as a secret from you any longer. I know you probably think it’s something along the line as Mollie has calved or the chickens hatched another batch of chicks but it isn’t,” he paused took a drink of water and then continued, “lately some people in town have been asking me questions about the wolf population we have up here. They think that we should start decreasing the amount of them that are surrounding us. Since the caribou have moved out quicker than the past years, the wolves haven’t been able to follow them as well. Some packs have seemed to just given up and stay here. This is a problem because they have been wandering around town and getting dangerously close to schools and homes.”
“So, what does this have to do with us?” Jase asked.
“I haven’t got there yet, hold on. Okay so anyways, Joe said he has men willing to come up and hunt a few packs. Now, this doesn’t mean I have excepted he said he had to bring me papers on all the laws on how many they can kill but legally if the mayor says they are considered a pest it wouldn’t matter because they are a threat to young kids in town,” her dad replied.
“But wait “hunt a few packs” doesn’t mean completely kill of a few wolf packs does it?” Carter asked.
“No, at least I don’t think so. Joe said all he need it my written permission and he can handle the problem. He has offered me all of the meat even though I told him we wouldn’t eat it. But all he wants out of it is the fur. Which I have already agreed to allowing him to keep,” her dad said, “now as soon as he drops off the papers, I will be able to read them and then write my permission.”
“But how is it fair that they are going to kill off a whole pack of wolves? Even the pups? It isn’t right! The poor wolves can’t help they couldn’t move fast enough to follow the caribou! I bet that poor little wolf pup he killed didn’t even have rabies! I bet he was just wandering around and Joe shot him!” argued Carter and with that she ran to her room, slammed the door shut, and locked it.
It was almost 9 o’clock by the time Carter had remember that she had left the envelope of papers sitting on the counter. He dad had probably already read them and was in the process of writing his permission to shoot innocent wolves. It ticked her off the think people could be so selfish to just think they could kill off animals because the animals were hungry and went looking for food.
Carter didn’t go to sleep until she had read all her books on wolves. This hadn’t taken long because most of her books were books by Nicholas Sparks and Jean Craighead George. As she shut of the light beside her bed she looked out the window and out into the forest. She said a quick prayer asking God to help the wolves and then fell to sleep quickly.
