Chinny Chin Chin!

Without a single car to display my thumb to for the last couple hours, the desert highway appeared deserted. "SPRINGVILLE POP 411 ELEV 1,120--2 miles" read a faded road sign pointing to the left. As I crossed the highway and turned onto a side road, my stumbling feet picked up the pace in anticipation of a much needed rest.

A full moon appeared in the darkening sky, bright, round-faced and big-eyed. Half an hour later, an unlit structure with black silhouettes of solar panels on the roof and heavy shutters on the second story windows came into view. A solid brick wall with concertina wire on top and evenly spaced searchlights and cameras seemed out of place in the middle of Arizona desert. I kept going instead of asking for shelter right there.

I was hardly a couple hundred yards from the compound, when a howl ahead slowed my steps. The howl repeated, closer. Muffled thumping on the ground, imagined or real--I wasn't sure, perked my ears. Was that a hungry predator or a whole pack of them, crazed by the full moon and ready to attack? A cold sweat ran behind my ears. I took a wobbly step back, turned around and ran. In less than a minute, out of breath and disgusted with myself, I banged on the low, iron clad door in the brick wall.

"Who's there?" asked a voice, "What do you want?"

"Help! Let me in, please! There are coyotes--"

"Not coyotes, that's a wolf!" interrupted the voice, "Anyway, do you want to stay overnight, or what?"

"Yes! I don't need much room, just to put a sleeping--"

"Not a problem at all! What's your name, buddy?"

"Alex."

"And I'm Hogan," the voice said over clunks and squeaks of the opening door. As the moon hid behind the clouds, a stocky silhouette shut the door behind me and secured it with numerous latches.

"So, what brings you here, Alex?"

"Hitchhiking, the research for my next book."

As we walked toward the house by a parked Harley-Davidson, the wolf howled again. Hogan mumbled something raspy.

"I'm sorry, what was that?" I peered into the darkness.

"Never mind, Alex, let's get inside." He yanked the door open, let me into a dimly lit hallway that smelled of Pine-Sol, and dexterously repeated the locking down procedure.

"No, that's not a coyote. I know that daughter of a bitch very well," Hogan said in a low and throaty voice, as I followed him around the corner and up the narrow, poorly lit stairs. "She comes every full moon--oh, watch your step, Alex, we're almost there. Now, have a seat. I'll be right back." He pointed to the couch barely discernible in the dark room.

"Where's the light?" I asked, "It's a little dark in here."

"Well, I'm off the grid here and right now all the juice that my genie makes is needed to protect the perimeter."

"So, that wire on the wall is--"

"Yes. Five thousand volts in ten microsecond bursts! I wouldn't reco--" he was interrupted by another, this time very protracted, howl. Although muffled by the surrounding structure, it came from all directions at the same time.

"Not by the hairs on my chinny chin chiiiiiiin!" squealed Hogan. As if accepting a challenge, he shoved up his middle finger, stomped his foot, then turned toward me. My jaw dropped and my mouth went dry. I had a hard time deciding what was more unsettling--what I'd just heard, or what I saw under a shabby baseball cap where Hogan's face was supposed to be. For it was hardly a face. Hell, it wasn't! It was much closer to a hog's snout. With no chin whatsoever to speak of.

"Oh yea, go ahead, scream your lungs out or run away if you wish--I'm used to it," uttered Hogan through clenched yellowish teeth, "Oh, wait a minute, there's nowhere to run."

"Ah, I, I'm, but--"

"No buts! Not everyone's got Brad Pitt's looks, that's all. End of story! Now, if you gonna stay, you better keep calm. I may need your help."

"Oh, okay. Yes. Sure, what do you want me to do?" I asked, taking a deep breath, still hesitant to look at my host.

"There," he motioned to the dark side of the room. My eyes adjusted enough to the scarce lighting to distinguish a big fireplace in the corner. "There's a pistol on the mantel--well, not a real one, a tranquilizer. I want you to take it and keep an eye on the fireplace. I'm sure it won't come to that, but just in case, since I can't be in two places at once."

The pistol had a cool, comfortable ribbed handle and, despite an unusually long barrel, turned out to be well balanced and felt good in my hand.

"It's loaded, just point and squeeze the trigger," Hogan said from the opposite side of the room, clicking switches and pushing buttons. Three big computer screens came to life. After several keyboard strokes, black-and-white images appeared, showing brightly illuminated surroundings of the wall. Alternating between keyboard, mouse and joystick, Hogan swapped, moved, zoomed and focused images until one of them caught a big animal pacing back and forth in front of the wall. It was limping on the right foot and had a nasty whitish scar splitting the ear on its way from the forehead to the right shoulder.

"Here she is," Hogan said without taking his eyes from the screen, "You can relax now and make yourself comfortable. This may take a while." He pulled a gooseneck microphone closer to his mouth and flipped another switch.

"Good evening, Clarice," Hogan said, a faint nasal foreign accent replacing the raspiness in his voice, "Can't sleep again? I'll listen now."

"Aaaah-ooouuuuuuuuu"

"After your father's murder, you were orphaned. You were a couple of months old." He read from one of the screens, while two other screens tracked movement of the wolf from two different angles. "You went to live with cousins near a sheep and horse ranch in Montana--"

"Aaaah-ooouuuuuuuuu, aaaaaaaaah-ooooouuuuuuuuuuuuuu, aaaah-ooouuuuuuuuu"

For the next hour or so, Hogan kept reading while the wolf paced outside the wall, occasionally interrupting with howls as if maintaining a conversation. With time, the gait slowed down and the responses became shorter, quieter and less frequent. Finally, the wolf turned around in place several times and lay down.

* * *

"I was born on a farm in Montana where my parents settled down after meeting each other at Woodstock," Hogan said, as we were washing down reheated leftovers of a homemade vegetable stew with a six-pack of Dos Equis. We sat in the brightly lit kitchen under a "HOLD ON TO YOUR DREAMS" poster featuring a winged pig. I was able to look at Hogan's face without flinching; he seemed pleased to have an attentive listener.

"It wasn't until the high school years, that my two brothers and I realized our, err, how should I put it? Our peculiarity. And I don't mean just the looks. We were comfortable with each other, but not with other people. With time, even among the three of us we socialized less and less, and it became obvious that each of us had grown to be a loner or, as some would say, a lone wolf. How ironic!"

The wall clock struck twice. Though tired, I was anxious to hear more.

"One day," Hogan continued, "my oldest brother went hunting and disappeared. We found his bow next to the demolished ground blind. The camouflage was spread around as if blown away by a blast. No body, no blood, no footprints. I didn't have a clue what had happened. All I knew was that in a middle of the night my brother, sprinkled with hog urine, was hiding in a hole in the ground covered by straw.

"My other brother took it differently. Three days later he showed me a tiny wolf pelt, grumbling that the parents weren't in the den and one of the pups got away. He wanted to make a Davy Crockett style hat, but was only able to get a pair of mittens out of it."

"Why would he think it was a wolf that attacked your oldest brother? I watched this documentary that said there's never been a case of a wild wolf attacking a human in North America."

"First--never say 'never', and second--listen to this. Several months later," he paused to finish his beer, lifted his unkempt Lehigh Valley IronPigs baseball cap to scratch his forehead, and looked at me. "My brother went to fetch firewood and never came back. The back wall of the woodshed was blown to pieces. A mitten on the floor and a single set of wolf tracks in the snow gave me all the evidence I needed. Right then and there I knew who would be next unless I did something about it. And I did.

"Not knowing how much time I had, I devoured books on wolf biology and behavior, firearms, self-defense, and home security. When the time came, I was ready. Not as ready as I'm now, but enough to survive the first encounter. The wolf couldn't get to me, locked inside the brick house, and--after several hours of futile scurrying around, jumping and howling--left with nothing. Although, not for long. Next time, he found the only unsecured entry to the house--the fireplace chimney. A clatter on the roof warned me in time, and I shot him dead as soon as he landed."

I sighed and took my eyes off Hogan's face. It was quarter after two on the clock, but he wasn't done yet.

"I thought that was the end of it, but boy oh boy, was I wrong! A week later, I found fresh footprints in the spring mud behind the house. One set was of an adult, although the size was smaller than I saw before, another could only belong to a pup. At sunset, they howled, circling the house in the distance.

"My fear and anger were tinted by empathy and even regret. Combing through the recent events again and again, I tried to find something--anything--I could've done differently, but there was nothing. I never intended to hurt anyone, but I did. I took a life to protect my own. It was just an animal, and my actions were justifiable by the human morality, but on a deeper, basic level--oh, well.

"One thing was for sure--I'd had enough! I wanted to leave all that behind, get on with my life and never see or hear another wolf again. Oh boy, was I naive!"

The wall clock struck three times. Recent excitement was being replaced by exhaustion, yet I couldn't decide what I craved more: getting some rest or hearing the rest of the story.

"To make a long story short," Hogan continued, "there and then I decided to disappear. A big city was out of question, so instead I chose to put as many miles between me and the wolves as possible. I moved here.

"With my recently acquired knowledge, I was able to get a job as an online consultant and a sales rep for ADT. Business was good; I could not only support myself, but also start a family and have a very comfortable life. Instead, I invested all my time and money to design and build this house using the best construction materials and home security equipment available. It took her almost two years to find me--"

"Her?!"

"Yes, her," he pointed in the direction of the door in the surrounding wall, "but all in good time, Alex, all in good time. The wall was finished, but there was no wire on top. As you might guess, she jumped over and headed straight for the roof. I saw everything over my surveillance system and was waiting for her, in front of the fireplace, with the tranquilizer pistol. That's, by the way, how I know it was 'she'. I kept her caged for three days and let her go only after the electric razor wire was installed on top of the wall."

"Let go--why?" I asked, realizing that I would, most likely, do the same. There was also something else, something I needed to ask Hogan about, but couldn't put my finger on just yet.

"What was I supposed to do? Kill again? Yes, I knew what she came to do to me, but I also knew why. Besides, I was hoping she might stop coming."

"But she didn't, right?"

"You betcha," Hogan nodded.

"And?"

"It was a real mess. She got stuck in the wire and would have been burned to death if I hadn't switched the current off. She was knocked out and bleeding from multiple cuts and burns. It took a team of veterinarians several hours to revive and fix her up. That was five years ago. After that disaster I didn't see her for almost a year. It was a strange feeling. I--I almost, uh, missed her--"

I looked at him and he quickly turned away, as if scrutinizing the "WHEN PIGS FLY!" wall clock behind him where the long hand was about to catch up with her squatter sister pointing at "3".

"Another beer?" Hogan asked after a minute of an awkward silence.

"No, thanks, I'm good."

"Okey dokey, then. So, she showed up again. Scarred, limping, but still determined. She didn't try to jump the fence any more, but ran around and howled all night. A human-like despair and grief coming from an animal! I felt pretty secure, but couldn't simply ignore her and go to sleep. During one of those nights, I discovered how she reacted to the sound of my voice. At first, it would agitate her, but after an hour or so she would calm down and leave or fall asleep in front of the wall. I don't think it matters what I say, but prefer something that fits."

His tone told me that the story was over. I was too tired to fully comprehend what I just heard, let alone to say anything appropriate for the occasion. Suddenly, a question popped up in my mind and I knew I had to ask it there and then.

"You designed this house by yourself, right? Why did you need a fireplace here, in a desert?"

He thought for a while. "Nights can get chilly here," And, after a pause, "And lonely."

As he turned away, his eyes glinted wet.