Part 2
Caleb did not breathe until the pup moved.
It was smaller than he expected, darker than the mother, no bigger than both of his gloved hands together. For one terrible second it lay still on the tarp, slick and trembling in the cold. Then its mouth opened in a sound too thin to belong in that storm, and the she-wolf strained toward it with a low, desperate rumble.
The male wolf on the road did not move.
Caleb kept his body turned sideways, one eye on the pup and one on the pack. Scout stood so close to him that Caleb could feel the dog’s ribs brushing his knee. The old dog had stopped growling. He watched the male wolf with a silence so complete it seemed to cost him every ounce of discipline he had left.
“I’m going to pick him up,” Caleb said softly, though nobody there could answer him in any language that mattered.
He stripped off one glove with his teeth, ignoring the immediate bite of cold against his fingers. The pup was wet, and wet meant death if he hesitated. Caleb took the wool liner from his spare glove, folded it around the tiny body, and rubbed just enough to clear the fluid from its nose and mouth. The pup squirmed weakly. The mother lifted her head, and this time her open mouth did not show threat. It showed need.
“I know,” Caleb whispered. “I know.”
He slid the pup close enough for the she-wolf to lick it. Her tongue moved over its face with a rough tenderness that made Caleb look away for half a second. That half second almost undid him. Not because the scene was sweet, but because it was fierce. Even trapped, bleeding, and nearly spent, she knew exactly what she was supposed to do.
Caleb thought of Emma again at four years old, asleep on his chest in a faded Vikings sweatshirt, her small hand curled in the front of his uniform shirt. Maggie had taken a picture. He still had it in a drawer and had not looked at it in years.
The wolf’s injured leg jerked inside the trap, and Caleb forced himself back into motion.
He tried the radio again, keeping his voice low. “Base, this is Reed. Emergency traffic. I need Dr. Porter patched through if anyone can hear me.”
Static cracked, then a broken syllable. He turned a few degrees toward the ridge, lifted the radio higher, and tried again. “Hannah, if you’re monitoring, this is Caleb. I’ve got an adult female gray wolf in active labor, front leg in steel, muzzle snare removed. One live pup on the ground. I need guidance.”
For several seconds, the storm answered.
Then a woman’s voice came through in pieces. “—leb? Say again. Did you say wolf?”
Caleb closed his eyes briefly. “Yes. Adult female. Illegal trap. She’s alive, but she’s fading.”
“Are you alone?”
“Scout’s with me.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
He almost smiled. Hannah Porter had been the wildlife clinic’s lead vet for twelve years, and her patience had never extended to men who pretended danger was a technicality. “Yes,” he said. “I’m alone.”
A longer burst of static swallowed her first reply. When the voice returned, it was sharper. “Do not dose her with anything. Not in labor, not without weight, not in that weather. Stabilize what you can, keep the pup warm, and get her here if you can do it without getting yourself killed.”
“I may not have that last part fully under control.”
“What does that mean?”
Caleb looked at the road. The dark-shouldered male still stood there. Snow collected along his back. He had not taken one step closer, but he had not given one inch either.
“The pack is here,” Caleb said.
The radio went quiet long enough that Caleb thought he had lost her. Then Hannah said, “How many?”
“At least four. Probably more in the timber.”
“Caleb.”
“I know.”
“No, listen to me. Don’t challenge them. Don’t stare them down. Keep your movements slow, get the mother secured, and leave the pup with her. If the pack wanted you down already, you’d know.”
That was probably true. It was not comforting.
Caleb took the bolt cutters from his kit and moved to the trap. The jaws had bitten high on the lower leg. The steel was old but strong, the kind of illegal equipment that passed from garage to garage after the law had moved on. There was no tag, no visible owner mark. A legal trapper would not have set it this way, and a decent one would not have left a muzzle snare to finish the job.
The wolf watched his hands. Every time the trap shifted, her body flinched, but she did not snap. Caleb used a short length of rope to control the spring pressure, then worked the jaws open just enough to ease the leg free. He did not examine the wound more than necessary. Out here, in this cold, the goal was not treatment. The goal was getting her to someone who could keep her alive.
As he slid a folded pad under the injured leg, his fingers brushed something stiff beneath the fur at her neck.
At first he thought it was another piece of cable. He moved the flashlight closer and saw a strip of cracked orange material, half-hidden by blood and winter coat. A collar. Not a hunting collar. Not trash. A wildlife tracking collar, its outer casing split near the transmitter housing.
He wiped snow from the side with his thumb.
The black markings were worn, but he could read them.
27F.
“Hannah,” he said into the radio. “She’s collared. Orange unit. Marking looks like twenty-seven F.”
The static broke hard enough to make the radio squeal. When Hannah came back, the tone of her voice had changed. “Say that number again.”
“Twenty-seven F.”
“Caleb, that’s one of ours.”
The she-wolf licked the pup again, slower now. Her head wavered as if even that small motion cost too much. Caleb looked at the broken collar, then at the illegal trap, then at the trees where the rest of the pack waited beyond the beam of his light.
“Hannah,” he said, “the casing’s cut.”
“Cut how?”
He leaned closer. The plastic was not cracked from weather or impact. The edge was too clean, too deliberate. The antenna wire had been sliced and tucked under the collar strap as if someone had wanted the signal to die before anyone came looking.
“With a blade,” he said. – Hannah’s answer came through the radio in a thin, frightened thread. “Then somebody knew exactly what she was…”
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