Part 4
Mercy was the first to move.
She dropped the spotlight into Caleb’s hands and ran for Emma’s oxygen case, kicking dust behind her. The beam wobbled when Caleb took it, and for a dangerous second the light swung across the cub. He recoiled, then stumbled against Mara’s stretcher, too exhausted to run farther.
“Light up,” Joseph said.
Caleb corrected the beam toward the grass line. The hyenas had come closer during the confusion. Joseph counted five now, maybe six, their bodies low and restless beyond the small island of human light. He lifted his rifle, not aiming at them, only making the shape of it visible. The animals stopped, but they did not leave.
Emma fitted the oxygen mask as best she could over Mara’s muzzle. “Come on,” she said under her breath. “Don’t quit on him now.”
The line was not a speech. It was not for the team. Joseph barely heard it, but the cub did. At the sound of Emma’s voice, he dragged himself toward Mara’s head and sniffed the mask. Joseph saw the decision arrive on Emma’s face before she said it.
“We take him too.”
Caleb looked over. “The cub?”
“We can’t leave him here. Not with hyenas this close and no mother awake to defend him.”
“How do we load him?”
“Carefully,” she said.
That was Emma’s answer for most impossible things. Joseph had known her for four years and had never seen her pretend a job was safe just to make people calmer. If something was dangerous, she said so. If something was nearly impossible, she said that too, then opened her kit and began.
Mara took a shallow breath under the mask.
Emma watched. “Again,” she whispered.
Another breath came, stronger than the last. Joseph felt his own chest loosen. Mercy returned with fluids and a thermal blanket, and Emma began the fast, practiced work of stabilizing an animal whose body had been pressed, starved, dragged, and shocked to the edge of what it could survive.
“Joseph,” she said, “we need the truck here. Not three hundred yards away. I know it’s tight.”
“I’ll bring it.”
“No headlights into the clearing. Low beams until the last turn, then off. We guide with handhelds.”
Joseph nodded and handed the rifle to Mapalo. “If the hyenas come, make noise first. Fire only if you have no other choice.”
Mapalo’s face stayed unreadable. “Go.”
The run back to the truck was harder than Joseph expected. He was not old, but the heat had emptied everyone slowly over the season, and the thorn caught at his sleeves as if the land itself wanted him to slow down. He reached the vehicle with his lungs burning, climbed in, and started the engine.
The diesel sounded too loud.
He drove by memory and Mercy’s low radio directions, easing through brush that clawed along the sides of the truck. Twice, he had to stop while Mapalo cleared branches. When he finally backed toward the clearing, the team had formed a rough half-circle around Mara and the cub. Emma was still at the lioness’s head. Caleb stood with the canvas barrier between the cub and the hyenas, his arms shaking from holding it too long.
The cub had stopped growling.
That frightened Joseph more than the noise had. The small animal sat near Mara’s shoulder, head lowered, mouth slightly open. He looked used up.
Emma met Joseph at the tailgate. “We load Mara first. Once she’s secured, we give the cub a route into the small crate. No chasing unless we have to. If he bolts, we lose him.”
“And if he won’t go in?”
Emma looked past him at the cub. “Then I sedate him. I don’t want to, but I won’t let him die out here because we hoped he’d understand us.”
They lifted Mara into the transport compartment with four people and all the care they had left. Even sedated, she seemed immense in the cramped space, her paws heavy, her whiskers dusted white. Emma climbed in long enough to check the bandage and adjust the oxygen. When she stepped down, the cub had risen.
He stared at the truck.
Mara was no longer on the ground where he had left her. Her scent had moved. Her body had vanished into a dark metal space that smelled of humans, medicine, and fear. He gave one sharp call, and from inside the compartment Mara’s ear twitched.
“There,” Emma said softly. “He heard her.”
Joseph and Caleb positioned the small transport crate beside the open rear door, angled so the cub could see a narrow gap toward Mara’s compartment but not reach her. Emma placed a towel that had brushed Mara’s mane near the crate entrance. It was a small trick, and not a guaranteed one, but the cub was young, frightened, and driven by scent.
For several minutes, nothing happened.
The hyenas called again. The cub looked toward them, then toward the truck. He stepped forward, stopped, backed away, and circled once, limping slightly from exhaustion rather than injury. Caleb held the canvas wide, creating a quiet corridor without closing in.
“Easy,” Joseph murmured.
The cub moved to the towel and sniffed it. His whole body seemed to fold toward that scent. He made a sound so low Joseph felt it more than heard it, then crawled into the crate.
Emma closed the door.
The cub spun once inside and pressed his face against the mesh, eyes fixed on the compartment where Mara lay. He was safe now, or as safe as a wild animal could be inside a thing he did not understand. Caleb let out a breath that sounded almost like pain.
“Load him,” Joseph said.
They secured the crate beside Mara’s compartment so the cub could see the shape of his mother through the divider. Emma stayed in back with both animals, one hand on the oxygen line, the other on the edge of the cub’s crate whenever the truck lurched. Joseph drove slowly, headlights low, following Mapalo’s directions through thorn and shadow.
Behind them, the hyenas moved into the clearing they had left behind.
No one spoke for the first ten minutes. The road was too rough, the night too close, the lioness too fragile. Joseph could hear Emma through the open rear window, counting breaths, checking equipment, giving Mercy short instructions. Once, the cub cried out and Mara’s tail shifted against the stretcher.
That small movement carried them another mile.
Halfway to the rehabilitation center, the radio crackled. It was the reserve ranger who had stayed behind to mark the site.
“Joseph,” he said, voice tight. “We checked the grass near the log.”
Joseph kept his eyes on the track. “Go ahead.”
“There are more snares. Not one. I can see at least four from where I’m standing.”
Caleb turned in his seat.
Emma’s voice came from the back, low and fierce. “Four?”
The radio hissed. “Maybe more. They were set along the trail.”
Joseph looked at the darkness ahead, at the narrow tunnel of light, at the road that led toward the clinic and the long fight still waiting there. He had thought they were racing one wire tonight. Now he understood they had found a line of them…
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