The Wolf and I

"We're a lot alike, you and me," he said and I nearly jumped out of my skin. I had thought I was completely alone but here was a wolf right at the side of my bench.
"Jeez, have a heart," I gasped. "You shouldn't sneak up on a guy like that!"
The wolf shuffled a step or two away.
"Well, just for the record, I was here first. You nearly sat on me."
"Now that would have been embarrassing," I said. "What are you doing here?"
"Watching to see if any deer come to eat the branches you piled, same as you."
We both stared at the brush pile for a few minutes. There wasn't a deer to be seen.
"We're also about the same age," the wolf continued. "I'm 10."
"Well, I'm 65," I said and was cut short by the wolf.
"That's 10 in wolf years."
I took a close look at him then. His muzzle was indeed gray and he had silver tips to the hair all over his coat.
"And we're both retired," he added.
"Wolves retire?" I was surprised.
"Of course we do, in a way." He smiled then. He was missing all but two teeth, one on the top and an opposing one on the bottom.
"Moose hoof," he said. "Couple of years ago."
The old canine explained he now mostly existed on road-kill. No worries about starvation though. There were enough dead deer along the highways to feed dozens of retired wolves. Mostly he hung around in the vicinity of our property. He had been here all his life and liked the place.
"You know I could have killed you a dozen times over those years," I said.
"I could say the same thing," said the wolf.
Now we both smiled. I liked him. Maybe we really were alike.
"And we both eat deer," he added.
"Well, I do eat other things, vegetables for instance," I said as I watched the pile.
"Never understood that. Deer are vegetarians so when you eat them you get vegetables too. They are like the perfect food, man."
I could tell he was serious so I didn't laugh.
I opined that it was unlikely a deer would walk up to the pile with the two of us sitting just a dozen yards away. I wasn't hunting, of course. I just wanted to see them. The wolf said it was the same for him. He would chase them for a ways, for the fun of it, he said, but he couldn't kill a deer with just two teeth. Anyway, it was good exercise, he added.
The wolf turned to look at me.
"Have you seen Junior, the wolf who took over the pack after I left?"
I had lots of trail camera photos of him, I said.
"Dumber than a stump. I mean the kid couldn't outwit a stupid clam."
He was silent for a minute, before adding, "I shouldn't talk that way. I apologize for that last remark."
Then, in a loud voice aimed at the woods, "I apologize to clams everywhere!"
We both laughed until we cried.
"I told him that if he would just pay attention to his physics, he and the pack would only need to get a deer every few days instead of every night. They run around all night like a bunch of partridge with their heads bit off, howling and yelping like jackasses in heat. 'Use your head once in awhile,' I told him. 'Think of the energy you're expending.'"
Wolves know about physics? I wondered.
"Certainly we do," said the old wolf. "If you run and run and run your mouth will get fizzy and next you'll upchuck last night's icky supper."
It took me a moment. "Oh! I get it," I said. "Fizz-icks."
"That's what I said," said the wolf.
"I told him, just put a couple of wolves on stand and have a couple others drive the deer to them."
That's the way we humans do it, I said.
"That's the way anyone with half a brain hunts, " said the wolf. "Anyway, Junior told me that at least he was still able to run all night. 'Not like you, Grandpa,' he said."
"He actually called you Grandpa?" I asked. "I'm surprised you didn't cut him down to size."
"Well, I wasn't going to get in a pissing match with him, my chompers being what they are. Junior may be stupid but he's also mean-stupid."
I asked the wolf where he learned to speak English.
"Never did," he said.
Then how are we carrying on a conversation, I asked.
"It's you," he said. "You're speaking wolf. I wouldn't be surprised if you picked it up listening to Junior and his gang singing their lungs out every night. Singing is a good way to learn a new language."
He was probably right.
A raven flew overhead and let out a couple of squawks. The wolf watched it intently.
I started to say, "Anyway, my ma'iingen friend...'
The wolf cut me off. "You're starting to drift," he said. "You're switching to Ojibwe for some reason, and before you go there I don't speak that either. In fact, I only know one word in it, ma'iingen, Ojibwe for wolf. We all know that one!"
Two more ravens now flew over in the same direction as the first, making gurgling sounds.
The wolf jumped up.
"Well, it's time to go chew some real fat. A furnace oil truck just clobbered a deer over on the sideroad!"
He trotted off a few yards, then stopped and looked back.
"I may not speak English or Ojibwe but I'm fluent in Raven."
He smiled his near-toothless smile.
"See you next time," he said, then added, "Bro'!"
I waved at his tail disappearing into the bush.