Part 2
Inside, the cabin felt immediately different. The familiar smell of woodsmoke and old paper was suddenly overwhelmed by the sharp, musky scent of wet earth, pine resin, and wild animal.
I laid the cub on the center of my worn leather sofa, keeping the flannel shirt wrapped tightly around him. Under the harsh yellow light of the living room lamp, he looked even worse than he had on the porch. He was dangerously still. His wet fur was clumped in dark spikes, and his breathing was so shallow his chest barely moved.
Panic, cold and useless, threatened to take over. I wasn’t a veterinarian. I was a guy who spent his days staring at a laptop screen, trying to figure out character arcs.
Working more on adrenaline than logic, I started tearing through the cabin. I grabbed every clean towel from the bathroom closet. From the back bedroom, I dragged out a heavy-duty electric space heater, plugging it in next to the sofa and cranking the dial until the coils glowed a harsh, burning orange. I bundled the towels around the cub, creating a makeshift nest to trap the heat, leaving only his head and his injured side exposed.
I knelt beside the sofa, forcing myself to look closely at the damage.
The blood around his left ear was completely dried, but the real problem was his hind leg. The thigh was badly swollen, the skin pulled taut and radiating a feverish heat against my palm. A deep, jagged puncture wound marred the muscle—a clear, unmistakable bite mark. The tissue around it was an angry, infected red. It looked like the kind of infection that could kill a small animal in a matter of hours, long before the cold or exhaustion did.
A low, heavy scraping sound came from the front of the cabin.
I snapped my head toward the window. Through the thin pane of glass, I could see the mother bear. She had moved onto the porch, her massive claws lightly scoring the wood as she shifted her weight. She sat back on her haunches, her dark eyes locked directly on the window. Just a fraction of an inch of glass separated me from three hundred pounds of protective maternal instinct. If she heard the cub cry out, or if she simply changed her mind, that window wouldn’t slow her down for a second.
I swallowed hard, pulling my cell phone from my pocket. I dialed the only person I knew who dealt with animals for a living.
Rachel Kowalski was a large-animal vet who spent most of her time pulling calves out of mud or treating draft horses. She answered on the fourth ring, sounding as exhausted as I felt.
“Kowalski. Make it quick.”
“Rachel, it’s Aiden Brody,” I said, keeping my voice low so the mother outside wouldn’t hear the sudden cadence of human speech. “I need help. I have a dying bear cub in my living room.”
There was a long pause on the line. “Aiden. It’s barely past six. Tell me you aren’t drunk.”
“I am completely sober,” I said, my voice tightening. “He’s badly hurt. Bite mark on the hind leg, heavily infected. His mother literally carried him onto my porch and left him there. And she is currently sitting outside my window watching me.”
Another pause, this one shorter, sharper. The skepticism vanished from Rachel’s voice, replaced by cold, clinical authority.
“Check his gums,” she ordered. “Are they white or pink?”
I gently lifted the cub’s upper lip. “Pale. Almost white.”
“He’s in shock, and dehydrated,” Rachel said. “Don’t move him too much. Keep him warm, but don’t cook him with the heater. Do you have any honey?”
“Yeah. Somewhere in the kitchen.”
“Mix a tablespoon of honey with warm water. Not hot, warm. If you have a syringe or an eyedropper, get it into his mouth. Just drops, Aiden. Don’t let him choke. I’m going to call Ginny over at the wildlife rehab center. We’ll be there as fast as we can.”
“Hurry,” I said. “I don’t know how long he has.”
“Don’t let him die, Aiden,” she said, and hung up.
I rushed to the kitchen cabinets, frantically pushing aside cans of soup and boxes of pasta until my fingers closed around an old, half-empty plastic bear bottle of local honey. I mixed it into a mug of warm tap water, stirring rapidly. Ransacking the kitchen drawers, I finally found a plastic turkey baster. It was clunky, but it would have to do.
I hurried back to the sofa. The cub hadn’t moved. The mother outside shifted her weight again, a floorboard groaning under the immense pressure.
Sitting on the floor, I rested my forearms on the sofa cushion. I pinched the bulb of the baster, drawing up a small amount of the amber liquid. With my free hand, I gently pried open the side of the cub’s muzzle. His teeth were tiny, sharp little needles, but his jaw offered no resistance.
I squeezed the bulb, letting a single, warm drop of honey water fall onto his dry tongue.
Nothing happened.
I waited a full minute, the ticking of the wall clock echoing loudly in the silent cabin. I let another drop fall. Then a third.
Just as the despair started to settle heavily in my chest, the cub’s tongue gave a faint, weak twitch. He smacked his lips together, a tiny, instinctual motion, and swallowed.
“That’s it,” I whispered, the tension releasing from my shoulders in a long exhale. “Stay with me, little guy. Just stay with me.”