Part 2
Dr. Leah Moreno did not reach for the bundle right away. She looked from Jack’s face to Ranger’s rigid body, then to the second black pup pressed against the German Shepherd’s leg, its amber eyes fixed on the jacket in Jack’s arms. The clinic door stood open behind her, letting warm air spill into the frozen morning.
“Leah,” Jack said, and the sound of his own voice scared him. “He stopped breathing.”
That moved her.
“Exam room. Now.”
Jack carried the pup inside, and Leah cleared the nearest metal table with one sweep of her arm. A clipboard, a roll of tape, and a box of gloves hit the floor. Jack laid the bundle down as gently as he could while Ranger stopped just inside the doorway, blocking the healthier pup with his body as if the clinic were another kind of forest.
Leah unwrapped the jacket and went silent.
The pup looked smaller under the fluorescent lights. Without the snow and shadows around it, there was no hiding what hunger had done. Its fur was dulled with dirt. Its gums were pale. One back leg trembled once and then lay flat against the towel Leah had shoved beneath it.
“Is it breathing?” Jack asked.
“Barely.” Leah pressed a stethoscope to the pup’s chest. “Move back. Let me work.”
He stepped away because she had used that voice before, the one that allowed no argument. She rubbed the pup’s chest, checked the airway, warmed oxygen tubing between her fingers, and snapped instructions at Jack as if he were a veterinary assistant instead of a deputy who had just broken half a dozen rules.
“Towels from that cabinet. Warm, not hot. Plug in the heating pad. Don’t let that other pup near the table unless I say so.”
Jack obeyed.
The healthier pup did not. It took one step forward when Leah slipped a catheter into the small vein in its brother’s leg. Ranger lowered his head across the pup’s chest, not pinning it, only reminding it to stay. The wolf pup trembled with the effort.
“I know,” Leah said without looking up. Her voice softened, but her hands kept moving. “I know you’re worried.”
“You know this is illegal for me,” Jack said.
“I know this is stupid for you,” she replied. “Illegal depends on who’s writing the report.”
“Can you save him?”
Leah did not answer quickly. She listened again, adjusted the oxygen, and began fluids slowly enough not to shock the pup’s body. Her face told Jack more than her words could have. She was measuring the distance between possible and too late.
“I can try,” she said at last. “But you need to call it in. Fish and Game has to be notified. And your captain.”
Jack looked at the pup on the table. Its chest moved, stopped, then moved again.
“I’ll call,” he said.
“Jack.”
He turned.
Leah’s eyes were tired already. “I mean it. I’ll stabilize an animal in front of me. I’m not going to hide two wolves in my clinic.”
“I’m not asking you to.”
“No,” she said. “You’re asking me to buy you time.”
He did not deny it.
In the corner, the healthier pup had sat down beside Ranger. Its eyes never left Leah’s hands. Jack found himself thinking of the road again, of all those small paw prints pressed into snow between the den and passing cars.
“I’m buying him what his brother already bought him,” Jack said. “A chance.”
Leah held his gaze for half a second, then looked back down at the pup. “Then call.”
Captain Dan Harlan answered with the impatience of a man who had already been told something was wrong.
“Mercer, dispatch has been trying to raise you for an hour.”
“I’m at Pinehaven Animal Clinic,” Jack said. “I found two orphaned wolf pups north of Boulder Creek. Mother’s dead. One pup is critical.”
There was silence. Not confusion. Jack knew Harlan well enough to hear him putting the pieces together and disliking every one.
“Tell me you secured the scene and called Fish and Game.”
“I transported them.”
“You transported wild wolves in a county cruiser?”
“One was dying.”
“And you made that assessment how?”
Jack closed his eyes. He could hear the old version of himself answering correctly, respectfully, with enough regret to sound reasonable. He could hear himself protecting the job because the job had been the only shape his life still held.
He opened his eyes and looked at Ranger standing guard over a wolf pup that should have been his enemy.
“I made it because I was there,” Jack said.
Harlan exhaled through his nose. “You’re on administrative leave as of now. Do not wear the badge until this is reviewed. Do not make another decision involving those animals without state wildlife present. Is that understood?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I’ll notify Fish and Game. They’ll send someone as soon as they can.”
“How soon?”
“When they can, Mercer. You lost the right to complain about process when you ignored it.”
The line went dead.
Jack lowered the phone. For the first time since he had left the road, he felt the consequences catch up to him. His badge was still clipped to his belt. His sidearm was still at his hip. But something had shifted, and not in his favor.
Leah glanced over while taping the IV line. “How bad?”
“Leave.”
She winced. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m not.”
The words surprised him, mostly because they were true.
The next few hours narrowed to the size of that exam room. Leah moved between the oxygen, the fluids, the thermometer, the small monitor chirping beside the table. She warmed the pup in stages, checked glucose, started medication, and kept her voice low whenever she needed Jack’s help.
The healthier pup stayed beside Ranger until Leah adjusted its brother’s position. Then it rose on shaky legs and made a sound so quiet Jack almost missed it. A thin, wavering whine.
The pup on the table twitched.
Leah froze.
“Do that again,” she whispered, though no one had any reason to think the wolf understood her.
The healthy pup took a step closer and whined again.
The smaller pup’s paw flexed against the towel.
Leah looked at Jack. Some of the professional armor had fallen from her face. “I’ve seen animals respond to familiar voices. Mothers. Littermates. Bonded pairs. But this…”
“His brother went looking for help,” Jack said. “He knew.”
Leah swallowed and returned to the IV. “Then he may be part of the treatment plan.”
By late afternoon, the smaller pup’s breathing had evened out. It was not strong. It was not safe. But it was there, each rise of the ribs a fragile argument against the cold hollow where Jack had found him.
The healthy pup stood with its front paws against the side of the table, not touching anything, just watching. Ranger sat behind it like a patient old guardian, his head level with the pup’s back.
“You named them yet?” Leah asked.
“No.”
“You’re lying.”
Jack rubbed a hand over his face. “Ash,” he said, nodding toward the stronger pup. “Because he came out of those trees looking like something that survived a fire.”
Leah looked at the one on the table. “And him?”
Jack studied the tiny body, the black fur, the stubborn little heartbeat beneath wires and tape. “Finn.”
Leah nodded once, accepting the names as if they had been necessary all along.
The knock came just after dark.
Ranger stood before Jack did. Ash slipped back from the table and pressed against the dog’s front legs, all the trust of the afternoon vanishing into caution. Leah looked toward the front of the clinic, and Jack saw the worry in her face.
Through the glass door, a woman in a dark state jacket stood under the porch light with a field bag over one shoulder. Jack could read the patch from across the waiting room. Idaho Fish and Game…
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