ALONG THE WAY

backroad Over the BLUE RIVER and Through the Woods Await Petroglyphs, Ponderosas, Ancient Ruins — and Maybe a Wolf

IN THE BEGINNING WERE THE WILD GREEN eyes. That's all I could think about as photographer Randy Prentice and I headed into the remote mountains of eastern Arizona. Somewhere in that wild terrain, the "fierce green fire" in the eyes of a dying wolf had made a lasting impression on a man named Aldo Leopold, who would one day become famous. As we left a spot called Beaverhead, 14 miles south of Alpine on U.S. Route 191 and 13 miles west of the Blue River, a sign informed us we were entering a Wolf Recovery Area. That's why Leopold came to mind. In his day and for some time after, killing wolves - "predator control" - was seen as a good thing because it made cattle-grazing possible. Eventually, the wolves were hunted into extinction, and now the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is reintroducing them as a means of restoring some natural balance to the ecosystem. Leopold, an inexperienced kid fresh out of Yale, came to this area to work for the Forest