Part 2
Walt did not touch the bobcat. First, he pulled out his phone and held it near the opening until one wavering bar appeared.
Dr. Rebecca Sloan answered on the fourth ring. She ran a mixed-animal practice outside Ely and held one of the region’s wildlife-rehabilitation permits.
“Tell me exactly what you see,” she said.
Walt described the cable, the newborn, and the tiny paw.
“Don’t pull between contractions,” Rebecca warned. “And stay clear of the mother’s head. Even half-conscious, she can open your wrist to the bone.”
“I remember what teeth do.”
“Human teeth aren’t attached to a bobcat.”
The mother contracted again. The kitten’s hindquarters appeared, wrapped in a membrane.
Under Rebecca’s direction, Walt poured warm water from his thermos over a clean towel and placed it beneath the emerging kitten. He kept his body outside the den and used the folded thermal blanket as a barrier between his arm and the mother’s head.
When the next contraction came, he supported the kitten without yanking. Its hips cleared. Then its shoulders stuck.
“Rotate no more than a quarter turn,” Rebecca said through the speaker. “Only while she pushes.”
The mother’s claws scraped frozen earth inches from Walt’s sleeve.
He waited.
Another contraction tightened her body. Walt turned the kitten slightly, supporting its chest as it slid free into the towel.
It did not breathe.
He tore the membrane from its face, cleared its mouth, and rubbed its small body briskly. For several seconds, nothing happened.
Then the kitten jerked and released a thin, furious squeal.
The mother raised her head at the sound. She drew the newborn toward her with one paw and began licking it with slow, exhausted strokes.
The first kitten, chilled but alive, crawled toward the movement.
Rebecca’s voice sharpened. “Now the cable. Can you cut it without getting close to her face?”
Walt found the compact cable cutters in his tackle pouch. The wire was anchored around a root beneath the snow. He cut the long end first, but the loop remained embedded around the bobcat’s leg and would require sedation to remove safely.
The moment the tension released, the mother slumped.
“Respirations?” Rebecca asked.
“Shallow. Maybe eighteen. Gums are pale.”
“She’s in shock. Nate Holloway is on his way with a transport crate. I’m leaving now.”
“How long?”
“At least fifty minutes.”
The temperature inside the den was dropping. Meltwater dripped from the exposed roots and soaked the bedding around the newborns.
“They don’t have fifty minutes,” Walt said.
Rebecca was silent for a beat. “How far is your cabin?”
“Three-quarters of a mile if I cross the lake. A mile and a half around shore.”
“Do not carry an adult bobcat against your body. Cover her eyes, secure her in the sled, and keep the yearling away from your hands. Newborns go inside the thermal blanket, against your base layer. If your chest starts hurting, you stop and call 911. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“I mean it, Walt.”
“So do I.”
He moved carefully. The mother was barely conscious, but he still wrapped the thermal blanket around her head and shoulders before sliding her onto the padded sled. He used the cargo net from his fishing gear to keep her contained without compressing her chest.
The two newborns went inside a clean fleece liner beneath his jacket. Their movements were almost weightless against him.
The yearling watched every motion. When Walt began pulling the sled, it followed several yards behind, carrying the stolen perch again.
The shore route was safer, but snowmelt had flooded the low ground. Black water reached above Walt’s boots after less than a hundred yards. He turned toward the lake, where a narrow stretch of firmer ice led to his cabin.
He tested every step with his spud bar.
For the first forty yards, the ice answered with a hard, ringing sound. Near the mouth of a creek, the tone changed.
Walt dropped to his knees and spread his weight. The sled moved more easily behind him, but halfway across the weak section, his right boot punched through.
Water closed around his leg to the knee.
The cold struck like electricity.
He rolled onto his side, drove an ice pick into the firmer surface ahead, and pulled. The sled shifted toward the opening. Beneath the cargo net, the mother stirred.
“No,” Walt gasped. “You stay with me.”
Pain tightened across his chest.
He forced himself to stop fighting long enough to put a second nitroglycerin tablet under his tongue. Then he crawled, dragging his soaked leg and pulling the sled six inches at a time.
The yearling crossed behind him as lightly as smoke.
When Walt reached solid ice, he lay still for several breaths. The newborns moved against his shirt. The sensation—not strength, but life—gave him a reason to rise carefully instead of trying to rise fast.
He reached the cabin twenty minutes later.
Rebecca’s truck arrived just behind Nate Holloway’s Minnesota DNR vehicle. They found Walt sitting on the workshop floor with a blanket around his shoulders, his wet boot removed and the newborns warming in a towel-lined box.
Rebecca sedated the adult female before touching the embedded loop. She started fluids, administered antibiotics, and treated the damaged leg. Nate used heavy cutters to remove a second piece of red cable from the yearling’s injured front paw.
The young cat had been dragging three feet of broken wire beneath its fur.
“That’s two animals from the same family,” Nate said. “Two different loops.”
Walt watched Rebecca place the newborns against their mother after her temperature began to rise.
“Could they have caught the wire months apart?” he asked.
Nate examined the bright coating where the cable had snapped.
“No corrosion. No winter wear. These were set recently.”
“Trapping season ended weeks ago.”
“I know.”
Nate sealed both pieces of cable in evidence bags. His expression changed as he looked toward the woods across the lake. – “These bobcats weren’t unlucky, Walt. Somebody laid an active snare line around that den…”
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