His life for most of the decade was an uninterrupted pattern of pacing back and forth in a cage beside the highway. I never saw him standing still. He was always moving. His future was only his next step.
I first saw him in 1972 when I came back to Montana after an absence of thirty years and I would see him every year after that, always doing the same thing, pacing, until this autumn of 1978. I was gone from Montana for six months and when I came back he was gone. We had changed places.
The wolf must have died during the summer. There were grass and weeds growing in his empty cage when I came back. While he was alive, which was the 1970's, nothing grew there because of his endless walking. He walked the decade away a step at a time. If all those steps were put together, he probably walked halfway to the moon.
I am glad he is dead because I don't think a wolf should spend his life in a cage by the highway, but I don't want you to think that the wolf was on public exhibition. He was somebody's private pet and the cage was beside that person's house.
The owner's position probably went something like this, "I have a wolf for a pet," and whatever would happen then, would happen after that.
But the wolf is dead now.
Weeds grow in his cage.
His journey to the moon is over.