Part 5
Ethan and Maya left for the coordinates before sunrise.
The search took them away from Black Spruce Lake and into a section of forest burned twelve years earlier. Young pines grew thick between blackened trunks, creating natural funnels where an animal could be driven toward a concealed loop.
They found the first illegal restraint within twenty minutes.
It was empty, but gray fur clung to the wire. A smear of frozen blood marked the anchor tree. The cable had been twisted nearly straight, evidence of the force required to escape.
Maya photographed everything before Ethan cut it loose.
“Daniel was right,” she said. “The loop didn’t release cleanly.”
“He may have carried part of it.”
They followed the blood trail north. Ash’s tracks appeared and disappeared beneath drifting snow. Sometimes he placed the injured foot down normally. In other places, the paw dragged.
A mile from the lake, the trail crossed Ethan’s snowmobile route from Saturday morning.
He stopped beside the intersection.
His own track was still visible beneath the newer snow, compressed into a shallow trench. Ash’s prints approached from the west, circled the trail twice, then turned back toward Black Spruce Lake.
Ethan remembered seeing a wolf between the trees that morning.
Only a gray shape, gone before he could lift the binoculars.
He had continued his patrol.
Maya watched him study the tracks. “You couldn’t have known.”
“I could have followed.”
“You saw one wolf in wolf country.”
“I saw an injured animal.”
“And you had twelve miles of trap line to inspect.”
Ethan said nothing.
The pattern appeared again farther south. Ash had crossed the packed route, walked along it for nearly sixty yards, and returned toward the lake.
Was he searching for people? Following familiar machinery? Avoiding deep snow? No one could say.
But Ethan had been within two miles of Leah on the morning after the crash.
The knowledge lodged beneath his ribs.
They found six more cable loops before noon. Two were baited illegally. One contained the frozen remains of a fox. Another had been torn from its anchor, leaving a groove through the bark.
A boot print near the final set had a distinctive broken heel. Ethan photographed it and covered the track with a plastic evidence bin before snow could fill it. Investigators would later compare it with boots taken from a seasonal cabin several miles away.
For now, Ash mattered more.
The blood trail entered a cedar swamp where snow reached Maya’s thighs. Ethan used the old radio receiver from Daniel’s equipment case, sweeping across the frequencies associated with previous research collars.
Most produced only static.
At the fifth frequency, a faint pulse answered.
Maya stared at the receiver. “His collar was supposed to be dead.”
“Transmission battery may be weak.”
The signal strengthened as they moved east. Daniel’s team had fitted Ash with a tracking collar after treating the first snare injury. The unit stopped sending satellite positions months earlier, but its short-range beacon still emitted an intermittent signal.
They followed it through the swamp.
Near dusk, they found a bed pressed into the snow beneath a cedar. Ash had rested there recently. A few yards beyond it, the wire fragment caught on a root.
The cable was approximately ten inches long, bent into a hook at one end. Blood covered the metal.
Maya crouched beside it. “It came off.”
“Then why is he still bleeding?”
“The loop may have cut deeper than we thought.”
The pulse led toward a frozen creek. Ethan saw Ash first.
The wolf stood on the far bank beneath drooping cedar branches. Snow clung to his muzzle, and the old scar along his left side showed pale against the winter coat. For several seconds he watched the people. Then he tried to turn. His injured leg folded beneath him. Ash fell into the snow and did not rise…
To read the rest of the story – CLICK the NEXT button 👇👇👇