Part 6
Daniel froze with his hands inches from the mother wolf’s shoulder.
The old male was so close now that Daniel could see the small scars crossing his muzzle, pale lines under the fur from fights and winters Daniel would never know. The wolf did not bare his teeth. He did not have to. The warning was in the stillness.
Daniel slowly lowered his hands.
“She can’t walk out yet,” he said.
The mother tried again, and this time she got one paw under her. Her injured leg folded, and she sank back into the mud with a breath that sounded torn from her chest. The pup nosed at her cheek, frantic now, no longer careful.
The engines grew louder beyond the timber.
That was another problem. Deputies coming into a ravine full of armed suspects and a white wolf pack could turn rescue into catastrophe. Men arriving late often made loud choices. Daniel had seen it happen with dogs, bears, horses, people.
He keyed the radio.
“Approach slow,” he said. “No sirens. No lights when you get close. Wildlife on scene. Repeat, wildlife on scene and not aggressive unless pushed.”
The answer came broken but clear enough. “Copy. Slow approach.”
Mason sat very still on his stump. “They’re not going to believe this,” he said.
Daniel looked at him. “Which part?”
Mason’s mouth opened, then closed. He glanced at Rusk, bound and silent in the mud, then at the mother wolf surrounded by her pack. “Any of it.”
“They’ll believe the traps. They’ll believe the guns. They’ll believe the buyer when your phone gets searched.”
Mason looked down.
Daniel let that sit. Shame had its own work to do, and he had no interest in helping Mason make it easier.
The first deputy appeared at the top of the ravine fifteen minutes later, moving slowly with both hands visible. Behind him came a state wildlife enforcement officer Daniel knew, Laura Keene, short, steady, and better under pressure than most people with twice her experience. She stopped when she saw the wolves.
For once, Laura had nothing to say.
Daniel lifted one hand. “Stay there.”
She nodded.
The deputy stared at the old white male on the slope and whispered something Daniel couldn’t hear. It may have been a prayer. It may have been profanity. Either way, it stayed quiet, which was all Daniel needed from him.
They secured Mason first. He offered no resistance. Rusk gave them his name and nothing else, as if silence were a room he had rented and intended to keep. Clint was found an hour later half a mile downstream, soaked, bleeding from scratches, and sitting on a rock with both hands raised while two deputies approached. He claimed the wolves had chased him into the creek. The deputies’ report would later say he was “located after fleeing the scene.”
Daniel preferred the truth, but reports had their own language.
The harder part was the mother wolf.
Laura crouched beside Daniel at the edge of the clearing, studying the animal through binoculars though they were only yards away. “She needs a vet,” Laura murmured.
“I know.”
“We can’t tranquilize her safely with the pack this close.”
“I know that too.”
The old male watched them both. The pup had stopped crying and lay with his chin across his mother’s neck, his small body rising and falling with hers.
Laura lowered the binoculars. “Daniel.”
He heard what she didn’t finish. Nature sometimes did not permit rescue twice. Officers who forgot that became reckless, and reckless officers made dead animals out of frightened ones.
But then the mother lifted her head and looked at him.
Daniel had been looked at by wounded animals before. Deer hit by cars. Bears caught in culverts. Horses broken by neglect and still willing to trust a hand if the hand moved slowly enough. This was different only because he had already failed to remain separate from it. He had carried her pup against his own chest. He had taken the snare from his porch. Whatever line existed between professional duty and personal debt had been crossed before dawn.
“Give me the long pole and the antibiotic spray,” he said.
Laura stared at him. “You’re serious.”
“She let me cut the line.”
“That doesn’t mean she’ll let you do more.”
“No,” Daniel said. “It doesn’t.”
Laura studied his face, then opened her pack.
They worked without drama because drama would have gotten somebody killed. Daniel stayed low. Laura stayed behind him, handing supplies and watching the pack’s body language. The old male moved once, blocking a younger wolf who shifted too quickly. The torn-eared young male paced, restless and angry, but did not come closer.
Daniel cleaned the mother’s leg as best he could with distance and patience. He treated the side wound lightly, enough to reduce the worst risk but not enough to pretend he had solved what only time and luck could solve. The mother shook under every touch. Once she snapped into the air beside his sleeve, not close enough to bite, close enough to remind him she could.
“I know,” Daniel said. “I’d hate me too.”
Laura huffed softly behind him, nervous enough to make it almost a laugh.
When it was over, Daniel backed away on his knees until he reached Laura’s side. The pack flowed in immediately, closing around the mother. The old male lowered his head to sniff the treated wounds. The pup crawled over one of her front legs and tucked himself under her chin.
No one moved for a long minute.
Then the mother wolf pushed herself upright.
It was not graceful. Her injured leg trembled violently, and twice Daniel thought she would fall. But the old male stood shoulder to shoulder with her, taking some of her weight. Another wolf moved to her other side. Together, slowly, the pack began to guide her toward a gap in the trees.
The pup followed, stumbling to keep up.
At the edge of the clearing, he stopped.
Daniel expected the mother to call him back. Instead, the pup turned and looked straight at Daniel. Mud streaked his white fur. His ears were uneven with fatigue. He held Daniel’s gaze for only a heartbeat before the torn-eared young male nudged him sharply from behind.
The pup disappeared after the pack.
Laura exhaled beside him. “Tell me your body camera was on.”
Daniel looked down at the mud on his uniform, the blood on his gloves, the evidence bags lined beside the log, and the track of white pawprints leaving the clearing.
“For most of it,” he said.
“Good.”
Daniel did not answer.
He was looking at the last place the pup had stood. Pressed into the mud beside the small pawprints was something else, half buried by slush: a metal tag, torn loose from one of the illegal sets. Stamped into it were three numbers and a name. RUSK WILDLIFE SOLUTIONS…
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