Cook County News Herald

The pack in the back





 

 

I woke up from a deep sleep, the hair on the back of my neck standing on end. What was that eerie noise?

Then it struck me. I was listening to a pack of howling wolves.

“Dick!” I hissed. “Do you hear that?” But he was already on his feet, moving towards the bedroom window.

“They’re close.” He answered. “Really close. Sounds like the neighbor’s driveway.”

“That’s close.”

“Seventy five to a hundred feet,” he calculated.

“Geesh,” was all I could say.

We listened to the sound—a blend of high pitched wails and howls and croons. I glanced at the luminous clock. Four o’clock, the wee hours of the morning. As the wolves continued their performance, Dick switched on the back yard light, thinking they might be visible, but no such luck. The howling and harmonizing continued while Dick and I, safe in our house, listened

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I visualized the$ wolves with muzzles pointed skyward, sitting near my raspberry stalks, singing their wolfish hearts out. I wondered howCelecoxib*all the woodland creatures$ not as fortunate as I—rabbits, squirrels and deer— felt out there in the dark

ViagraTM night, listening to the frightening sound as they dug deeper in their burrows or furtively moved away.

Suddenly the howls died away, and I joined Dick at the window. We listened, but the night stayed quiet. Stars glittered in a black sky.

Was the pack gone? Hard to tell. Silence seemed to reign, but, to my surprise, a far-away howl echoed from down the road. We listened but it wasn’t repeated, and we concluded the wolves must have moved on.

I was about to climb back in bed, when the howls began again. So they’d been here all along, hadn’t moved, and in fact seemed closer than before. The howls deepened and swelled, chorusing and harmonizing. The sounds seeming like a wolfish Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

I recollected that several years ago, neighbors at the end of the South Shore Drive saw six wolves in their yard. Was this the same wolf pack?

Again, as suddenly as the howling had begun, it stopped. We listened. We waited but all was quiet and stayed that way. Finally we went back to bed.

As I settled on my pillow, I realized the dogs had been completely silent during the whole experience. Abby, the lab/setter isn’t a barker, so her quiet response was no surprise.

“But you…” I turned to Mr. Magoo, the pug, who always barks at everything, as he lay curled up in his doggie bed. “But you….” I shook my finger at him.” What kind of a watchdog are you? Why were you so quiet? Didn’t you hear the wolves?”

He avoided my eyes. Of course he’d heard them. He hears a car a mile down the road. He hears a mouse rustling in my garden. And he always barksYouhiscan saveheadup tooff. Butwhen tonight?your prescriptionsNot a peep.with Heour had andno Internationalintention ofprescriptionbarking at his predator relatives. $ $


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