Part 4
Ginny didn’t waste time on introductions. She stepped through the door, her boots tracking pine needles onto the floorboards, and dropped a heavy canvas duffel bag next to the sofa. She smelled sharply of rubbing alcohol and cold wind. Rachel followed close behind, locking the door the moment she was inside.
“Step back,” Ginny ordered, already pulling a pair of thick blue nitrile gloves from her pocket.
I backed away toward the kitchen counter, giving them room. Ginny leaned over the cub, her hands moving with practiced, unsentimental efficiency. She checked his gums, felt along his ribs, and then gently peeled back the hydrogen peroxide-soaked cloth I had placed over his thigh.
She let out a low whistle. “You weren’t exaggerating, Kowalski. That’s a mature boar bite.”
“A male bear did that?” I asked.
“It happens,” Ginny said, pulling a pre-filled syringe from her bag. “Adult males will kill another bear’s cubs to force the mother back into heat. This little guy got incredibly lucky. His mother must have fought the boar off, but she knew she couldn’t keep the cub safe in the woods while he was crippled.”
Ginny paused, looking up at me, her expression dead serious. “Do you have any idea how rare this is, Aiden? A black bear bringing a wounded cub to a human structure? She must have been watching you for a while. She decided you were less of a threat than the boar.”
The thought made the hairs on my arms stand up. The idea that the massive predator had been silently observing my daily routines, calculating my behavior before making her desperate gamble, was deeply unsettling.
For the next hour, my living room became a triage center. They pushed subcutaneous fluids under the skin between the cub’s shoulder blades, flushed the infected puncture wound with heavy antiseptic, and administered a strong dose of broad-spectrum antibiotics. Ginny bandaged the leg with tight, professional precision.
By the time they packed up their bags, the cub’s breathing was noticeably deeper, a steady, rhythmic rise and fall.
“He needs to stay warm, and he needs these antibiotics every twelve hours,” Ginny said, handing me a small brown paper bag filled with vials and a feeding schedule. “But listen to me, Aiden. As soon as he can bear weight on that leg, he goes back outside. He is not a pet. If you habituate him to humans, you are signing his death warrant.”
I nodded. “I know.”
Over the next two weeks, the cabin transformed. The quiet, orderly life of a writer vanished, replaced by the chaotic reality of nursing a wild animal. I named him Buster—mostly because of the way he stubbornly busted through the barricades of chairs and boxes I tried to set up around the woodstove.
The recovery was astonishingly fast. Once the fever broke on the third day, his appetite returned with a vengeance. I spent my days mixing specialized wildlife formula Ginny had dropped off, listening to the frantic, greedy clicking of his claws on the hardwood floor whenever he smelled it coming. He chewed the legs of my dining chairs. He knocked over a stack of library books. He was a small, brown hurricane of returning energy.
But I never forgot where he belonged.
Every morning, and every evening as the sun dipped behind the ridge, I would look out the kitchen window. The mother bear was always there. She kept her distance, hovering just at the edge of the treeline, a dark silhouette against the pines. I left bowls of water and whatever food I could spare on the edge of the property. Sometimes they were gone by morning; sometimes they were untouched. She was refusing to rely on me, but she was refusing to leave her cub.
The uneasy truce broke on a Tuesday afternoon.
The crunch of heavy tires on the gravel driveway sent Buster scrambling behind the sofa. I walked to the window and saw a white county sheriff’s cruiser parked crookedly near the woodpile. Deputy Louisa Gintry stepped out, her hand resting casually on her utility belt.
I stepped out onto the porch, pulling the door shut behind me.
Louisa didn’t smile. She looked past me, scanning the treeline. “Aiden. I’m going to make this quick.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Ginny had to file a report on the antibiotics. Protocol,” Louisa said, her voice tight. “The Department of Environmental Conservation got the paperwork this morning. They don’t like the idea of a civilian housing a bear cub while an agitated, fully grown female stakes out the property. They think it’s a public safety hazard.”
My stomach dropped. “He’s almost healed. He just needs a few more days.”
“You don’t have a few days,” Louisa said, stepping closer to the porch. “The DEC trucks are rolling out of Albany right now. They’ll be here first thing tomorrow morning with tranquilizer rifles and cages. They’re going to take the cub to a facility, and if that mother puts up a fight, they will put her down.”
She looked me dead in the eye.
“You need to give that cub back to his mother. Today.”