Part 3
Maya ran the scanner over the collar a second time, as if the number might correct itself.
It did not.
“Transmitters fail,” she said, more to herself than to Ethan. “But her last signal came from south of the highway. We searched for weeks. No carcass, no collar, nothing.”
“Maybe she crossed out of range.”
“Not with that model. We would’ve picked her up somewhere unless the unit failed all at once.”
Luke looked toward the surrounding forest. “Could someone have damaged it?”
Maya examined a split along the transmitter housing. “Weather could’ve done this. So could a hard impact. We won’t know until the lab opens it.”
The wolf’s paws rested motionless beneath the blankets. Up close, she looked smaller than she had beside the trap, though Ethan knew that was an illusion created by sedation and wet fur. The injured leg was badly swollen from the toes to above the joint.
Maya touched two fingers to a pulse point and frowned.
“We need to move.”
The trip to North Fork Wildlife Recovery Center took nearly two hours. The center stood beyond a line of cottonwoods outside a small mountain town, far enough from public roads that most people did not know it existed. Its concrete treatment building connected to several wooded enclosures hidden behind privacy fencing.
Ethan followed in his truck, although nobody had asked him to.
He told himself he was bringing the red field bag. He also knew he could have handed it to Maya before she left.
Staff members met the trailer beneath a covered intake area. The mother went directly into treatment. The pups were carried to an adjoining room where heat, fluids and quiet mattered more than anything else.
Ethan stood outside both doors with rainwater drying on his jacket.
Maya emerged after forty minutes. There was blood on one sleeve, though not much.
“No fracture,” she said. “That’s the best news I have.”
“And the rest?”
“The trap compressed tissue and circulation for a long time. The paw is viable right now, but crush injuries change after the pressure comes off. Swelling can get worse. Infection is a serious concern.”
“The pups?”
“Three are stable. The smallest female is still cold, but her heart rate has improved.”
Ethan nodded toward the treatment room. “Can they stay with their mother?”
“If she wakes well enough. Keeping them together gives all five the best chance of returning to the wild.”
“All five,” Ethan repeated.
Maya watched him for a moment. “You counted them more than once, didn’t you?”
“Six times before you arrived.”
“I would have, too.”
She led him to a dark observation room overlooking an indoor recovery pen. The glass allowed them to see inside without being seen clearly from the other side.
The wolf lay on fresh straw near a low wooden den box. Her injured leg was bandaged, and the research collar had been removed. Four pups occupied a heated section behind a temporary divider.
The weakest pup was easy to identify. She was smaller than the others and had a narrow pale mark beneath her chin. While her littermates pushed against the divider and climbed over one another, she lay on a towel with her sides moving too quickly.
Maya checked her watch. “We’ll lower the barrier once the mother’s alert enough to recognize what’s happening.”
“What if she doesn’t take them back?”
“She probably will. Human scent isn’t the automatic rejection people think it is. Stress, illness and confusion are the real concerns.”
The wolf’s ear moved.
Her eyes opened, unfocused at first. She raised her head, sniffed and tried to pull herself upright. When the bandaged paw touched the straw, she dropped back down.
The three stronger pups began making soft, urgent sounds.
The mother turned toward them.
Maya pressed a control, and the temporary divider lifted several inches. One pup squeezed beneath before it had fully cleared the floor. The other two followed, scrambling across the straw.
The wolf stiffened.
For several seconds she did nothing.
The first pup reached her belly and tried to nurse. Another climbed against her chest. The mother stared past them, still disoriented from the drugs.
Then the smallest female cried from behind the divider.
It was not loud. Ethan barely heard it through the glass.
The wolf did.
Her head swung toward the sound, and something sharpened in her face. She dragged herself forward despite the bandaged leg and pressed her muzzle beneath the rising divider. The weak pup tried to stand, fell and cried again.
The mother reached her.
She pulled the pup close with her uninjured foreleg and began licking its face, firm and insistent, until the tiny body squirmed beneath her tongue. Then she gathered the other three against her and lowered herself around them.
Ethan looked down at the red field bag beside his boots.
Rachel had once told him that relief was rarely a clean feeling. It carried fear with it because once something mattered again, it could be lost again.
He had not understood why she was saying it at the time.
Maya leaned against the wall. “We’ll monitor them by camera. Minimal human contact from here on.”
“So I shouldn’t come back.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to.”
“You can get updates. But if the goal is release, they shouldn’t learn that people mean food or safety.”
Ethan looked through the glass one more time. The mother’s eyes were open now, clear and alert. She could not see him well through the darkened panel, but she faced his direction.
“She doesn’t owe me anything,” he said.
“No,” Maya replied. “That’s what makes this work worth doing.”
His phone vibrated in his pocket.
Nora again.
Ethan let it stop.
Luke called that evening while Ethan was driving back toward the cabin. The wildlife officer had remained at the logging road to photograph the site and search for identifying marks on the trap.
“I found something,” Luke said.
“A tag?”
“No. Another trap.”
Ethan slowed the truck.
“Where?”
“Ten yards from the den entrance. Covered better than the first one.”
The line was quiet except for tires on wet pavement.
Luke continued. “This wasn’t old equipment somebody forgot about. Someone set a trap line around that den…”
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