"Whitley - Strieber - The Wild" - читать интересную книгу автора (Strieber Whitley)

timber wolf. The animal was part of the past. Its last place was a cage in the middle of a zoo in the middle
of a city totally beyond its understanding.

What did it understand? It understood how to snatch trout from streams, how to eat voles and gophers,
how to bring down deer and moose. Did it also understand how to turn a key?

There was something about this creature, though, that Bob knew with crystal certainty could not be
destroyed.

"It's beautiful," Cindy said. She had come beside him. He felt what Monica would call "inadequate."

"I wish I was some kind of an activist. I'd like to come in here and free all of these animals."

"Kill them, you mean?"
"Free them."

"To release them into the city is the same thing as killing them. Even in the wild, most of these animals
would die."

The wolf remembers, though, the long shadows of evening and the darting movements of the muskrat.
"You're so controlled. I think you're overcontrolled. What if they made it, all of them, even the sloth and
the anteater."

"The anteater's cage is empty. I guess it's dead."

"What about giraffes? What if I found them all an apartment? They could live in comfort then, no crowds,
no cages."

"Who'd pay the rent?"

"A secret zoo. Admission fifty dollars. Worth it to see a hippo cooking breakfast and a full-grown moose
grazing the shag rug in the bedroom."

"I want to be together later. When Celeste takes Kevin and Joseph to the movies."

"I thought he and Joey were fighting."

"No. Now Dashiel and Kim are fighting. The rest of the class has suspended hostilities, pending the
outcome."

The wolf turned and stood directly before Bob, lowering its head as if it wished it could ram itself into his
belly. It growledтАФnot a little, throaty sound, but a big noise.

It was magnificent, it had the whole wild in it.

Down the row of cages the baboon sat, its mouth lolling opened, its head resting against the bars, its eyes
in Africa. The wolf paced and barked, and Bob knew that it was begging for freedom.

No, begging for forgiveness. "It's just their fate," Cindy said, trying to be kind to him, "they ended up
here."