Reflections - Exploding Fall Mysteries

Gray Wolf Print with Shiny Quarter

The footprint puzzled me. The last Tuesday in September, a print marred the mud at the bottom of the driveway where, years back, a black bear had burst out of the woods on a rise twenty feet from Spence and me. Until the bear had about-faced and disappeared into cover, we’d stood motionless on the exact spot of this mystery print.

I opened my camera cell phone app. “Do you have a quarter, Spence?”

He stuffed his hand into a jeans pocket, did a jig to jostle the coins, and located a quarter. Handing it to me, he peered at the imprint. “It’s bear size.”

Placing the coin beside the footprint, I focused the lens and clicked the shutter. “The claw marks resemble a raccoon’s. But the print isn’t shaped like a bear’s or raccoon’s.” I gave Spence his quarter.

The animal hadn’t made just one print. Curious, I followed its trail along the edge of Creek Road. The prints ended at a driveway marked by a huge boulder on one side and a patch of wildflowers on the other. Asters and goldenrod flourished among dwindling daisies. A lone bumblebee buzzed among the asters. I wondered if the critter had wandered into the flowers. Perhaps it traipsed up the hard, rutted driveway.

Before returning home to check the animal’s identity, I followed Spence to the witch hazels, shrubs or small trees, growing six feet off the berm. In the summer, we’d discovered they had small, green acorn-like nuts with four points on the bottom rather than one. This intrigued Spence. Then he read an article in Ars Technica that explained how witch hazel nuts explode to expel their seeds, “Pew, pew, pew!” He became fascinated.

Spence reached overhead and pulled a branch to eye level. The mostly green nuts were still shut tight. “They’ve got to open soon. Witch hazels flower in fall. Nuts should open before the tree flowers.” We checked every witch hazel tree on the way home. Though some leaves had yellowed, we didn’t find any exploded nuts. Few were brown.

Back home in the great room, I grabbed the plastic animal tracks card from the basket of nature guides and unfolded the card’s sections. The last entry in the four toes category matched the mystery prints—five inch tracks with elongated toes and clearly defined claws.

“Gray wolf, Spence.”

“What?” At the coat rack, he pulled his boots’ Velcro. Ri-i-ip.

“A gray wolf made the prints along Creek Road.” Thumb pointing at the entry, I held the card for him.

He studied the entry, murmured “Makes sense,” and pushed our largest cat Ande over on the sofa. “Thanks for warming my seat, big fella.” Spence tapped laptop keys.

Stooping, I put the guide away. Spence’s “Huh” distracted me. “Yeah?” 

“I checked gray wolves in Wikipedia. They only howl in packs. They bark when alone.” He pointed his finger at the computer. “The wolves bark to locate mates. They bark as a warning.”

Spence’s furrowed brow meant he’d connected something. “I was walking Monday evening.”

I’d been washing dishes. Dusk had nearly ended.

“A dog barked ahead. I didn’t want to meet a strange dog in the dark. I turned back at the vacationer's driveway.” 

“Where we saw the beginning of the wolf tracks?”

“Right.” He scratched Ande’s head. “The wolf could’ve barked a warning.”

“Maybe the wolf followed you home.” I glanced at the glass door. Two cats, Rills and Gilbert, sat haunch to haunch and gazed out at the deck.

 

Gilbert

“Unlikely.” Spence shuffled through paperwork.

Cats often look outside. But they held their bodies on extra alert. Speculating the wolf had followed Spence wasn’t a vague theory.

Returning from the late walk, Spence had come up the ramp and leaned down to wrap his knuckles on the glass door by our waiting cats.

The household settled in Monday night after his excursion. On the sofa, Spence fell asleep reading Michael Hingston’s Try Not To Be Strange. Our son Charlie snored in his basement man cave. I snuggled under my log cabin quilt in the bedroom. The cats prowled then curled up.

A CRASH! BANG! BOOM! woke me between three and four.

Assuming either Spence or Charlie had fallen on the spiral stairs, I sprang out of bed and ran down the hall yelling, “Spence! Spence!”

“I’m here.” He pulled me in for a hug.

Ande and Rills sat looking out the glass door. Gilbert pranced atop the railing around the stairs.

Footsteps thudded up the stairs. Charlie stepped beside me and rubbed my upper arm.

My eyes feasted on both men. In tact. “What happened? I thought one of you fell?”

“Gilbert was on my lap facing the deck. He exploded off the sofa.” Spence waved his hands in a frenzy. “Knocked folders off the table. Smashed into furniture. Crashed onto the stairs.”

Charlie scooped Gilbert up and gave the cat reassuring cuddles.

“Something on the deck spooked Gilbert.” Spence mussed my already messy hair. “Or he had a bad dream.”

If Gilbert freaked when he saw our daughter and son-in-law’s corgis walk up the deck, he would definitely unhinge at the sight of a wolf. And the other cats wouldn’t watch out the glass door for Gilbert’s bad dream. 

In succeeding days, each time I brought up the idea of the wolf having visited the deck—I only had the cats’ behavior as evidence—Spence countered with his dream theory. He might have convinced me if he’d argued for a terrifying nightmare. Even Gilbert wouldn’t have run around in such a bizarre manner because of a bad dream.

Midday Friday, Spence recalled another clue of the wolf’s presence. Making coffee he said, “Deer haven’t been in the garden. Not for a couple of weeks. Another sign the wolf’s been around.”

Catching the conversation while coming through the door after work, Charlie dropped his messenger bag on the table. “They’re back now. One ran across the road when I drove past the garage.”

The wolf prints faded.

Each subsequent health walk, I checked where the gray wolf left its trail. No new prints appeared. The wolf had moved on. Only Gilbert knows for sure if the canine walked up the deck in the wee hours of the morning. And Gilbert isn’t telling.

But, Wednesday, October 11 brought answers to the other mystery. Crickets droned above the crunch of gravel under Spence’s and my feet. A blue jay scolded. A faint fragrance of decaying leaves drifted in the air. We walked along Creek Road to the witch hazel trees.

Their nuts had turned brown. And they’d pew, pew, pewed seeds into the woods leaving four empty chambers in each nut shell. More exciting, quarter inch round balls beside the nuts opened into stringy yellow flowers. The nuts exploded and flowers bloomed together.

 

Witch Hazel with Nuts and Flowers