Part 5
Ben bent until his ear was almost against the blanket. A second breath came, shallow enough to vanish beneath the creak of the gazebo walls.
“Hey,” he whispered. “I’ve got you.”
One of Clover’s eyes opened to a narrow, clouded slit. She did not lift her head. Her whiskers were tipped with frost, and beneath the matted coat her body felt made of angles.
Ben slid the blanket around her without trying to straighten her legs. When he lifted, the bundle weighed so little that his arms rose too fast. He tucked her inside his coat against his base layer, pulled the zipper as high as it would go, and felt for movement through the fabric.
The chickadee called from the doorway.
“I know,” Ben said. “We’re going.”
He left the carrier behind. It would have protected Clover from the wind, but it would not have shared heat. With one arm holding her against his chest and the other working a single trekking pole, he fought back through the drifts.
The return took nearly twice as long. Ben broke through the crust above a drainage ditch and went down on one knee, twisting so Clover never touched the snow. Pain shot through his thigh, but the small shape beneath his coat gave a weak shudder. That was enough to pull him upright.
He called Rachel as soon as his phone found a signal.
“She’s alive.”
Rachel inhaled sharply. “The clinic in Rhinelander is ready. They said gradual warmth, no food, and keep her airway clear. I’m at the car.”
Ben could hear an engine running behind her voice. “Tell them thirty minutes.”
“It’ll take forty.”
“Tell them thirty.”
Rachel did not argue.
By the time Ben reached the highway, sweat had soaked the collar of his shirt and ice hung from his pant cuffs. Rachel opened the passenger door before he had removed the snowshoes. Together they settled Clover on warmed towels, still wrapped loosely enough to breathe, and angled the vents toward the floor instead of blasting heat directly at her.
Rachel touched two fingers to the cat’s neck. “I can barely feel it.”
“She breathed the whole way.”
“Then she keeps breathing.”
Ben drove. Rachel watched Clover’s chest and spoke to her in the same steady tone she used with frightened children at the public library where she worked. She did not call her brave or promise she would be fine. She described the passing trees, the heater, the red scarf around her own neck—ordinary things, as if the world had remained ordinary enough for the cat to stay in it.
At the emergency clinic, two technicians met them with a warmed carrier and oxygen. A veterinarian examined Clover on the floor because moving her to a high table would have cost time.
“Severe hypothermia, dehydration, and starvation,” she said. “Her heart rate is dangerously low. We need to warm her in stages and start fluids carefully.”
“Can she make it?” Ben asked.
The veterinarian looked at the cat before answering. “She has made it farther than I would have expected. Right now, that is the most honest thing I can tell you.”
They carried Clover through a set of swinging doors. Ben remained in the treatment-room entrance until a technician asked him to wait in the lobby. Only then did he realize the front of his shirt was damp where snow and frost had melted through the blanket.
Rachel sat beside him beneath a television no one was watching. She called the county animal-welfare office and gave the address, dates, and Russell’s name. Ben emailed photographs of the empty food bag, locked cabin, frozen water dish, and gazebo. Neither of them used the word accident.
An hour later, a technician brought out Ben’s backpack and the wool blanket sealed inside a plastic bag. “We scanned her,” she said. “She has a microchip.”
Ben stood. “Who is she?”
The technician checked the tablet. “Clover Whitaker. Registered owner is Anna Whitaker, Milwaukee address.”
Rachel looked at Ben. “His wife.”
“The account has Russell Whitaker listed as the household contact,” the technician continued. “Should we call?”
“No,” Ben said too quickly. He lowered his voice. “Not until animal welfare knows. He admitted he left her there.”
The veterinarian came out before the technician could answer. “We’ll document everything. For now, she’s in a warming unit with oxygen and an IV. Her bloodwork shows strain, but not the complete organ failure we feared.”
Ben gripped the back of the chair. “So that’s good?”
“It means there is something to work with.”
The first night passed in numbers. Temperature up half a degree. Heart rate still slow. Blood sugar corrected, then dipped. Clover received tiny amounts of nutrition because a starved body could be harmed by too much food too quickly. At 2:00 a.m., Rachel drove Ben to a motel across the road, but neither slept.
They returned before sunrise. Clover lay beneath a warm red light with a catheter taped to one leg and oxygen flowing into the clear enclosure. Her eyes were closed, but when Ben said her name, one ear turned toward his voice.
Rachel covered her mouth with both hands, and the veterinarian allowed herself a small smile. “That’s new.”
For four days, progress came in pieces too small for anyone outside the room to celebrate. Clover swallowed a measured spoonful of recovery food. She kept her temperature without extra heat for twenty minutes, then forty. She lifted her head. She hissed weakly when a technician changed the pad beneath her, and the entire staff treated the protest like good news.
On the fifth afternoon, Ben sat beside the kennel while Rachel went for coffee. Clover opened both eyes and watched him. He rested his hand on the floor, several inches from the bars.
“You don’t owe me anything,” he said. “Just stay.”
Clover dragged one paw forward until the white tips of her toes touched the metal between them.
A social worker from Anna’s rehabilitation hospital returned the clinic’s call that evening. She could not discuss Anna’s condition, but she accepted the case number and photographs for delivery.
Twenty minutes later, Russell called the clinic. The receptionist put him on hold and came into the treatment area. “He says he’s Clover’s owner. He wants to know where she is.” Ben looked through the glass at the cat under the red light. The veterinarian picked up the phone, closed the office door, and said, “Mr. Whitaker, before we discuss release, we need to talk about where Clover was found…”
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