Part 2
“Do not let him enter that hollow,” Tessa said. “Give him the warming packs. If he needs a job, he can make sure they don’t touch bare skin.”
Megan tore open two packs from the emergency bag, wrapped them in a second towel, and slid them beneath the padded splint. The newborn’s body was no bigger than both her hands cupped together. Frank watched its chest and called out each shallow breath while Megan relayed the count over the phone.
The kitten moved its head once. Then the mother contracted, and the two small feet beneath her tail advanced another inch.
Frank shifted forward.
Megan tightened her grip on his sleeve. “Your job is breathing,” she said. “Hers and yours.”
He looked at her as though he might argue, but a siren sounded faintly from the logging road. A minute later, an engine revved beyond the ridge. The young bobcat vanished into the spruce while Conservation Officer Cole Ramirez came downhill carrying a covered transport crate. Tessa followed with a hard-sided medical case and the deliberate footing of someone who understood that hurrying near a frightened predator could cost more time than it saved.
She took control without raising her voice. Frank and Megan backed to the cedar while Cole cleared an approach. Tessa immobilized the mother from outside the den and waited until it was safe to examine her. Only then did Cole cut the cable away from its buried anchor and ease the animal onto a padded stretcher.
The obstructed kitten had nearly stopped moving. Tessa worked beneath the shelter of the root wall while Cole held a light and monitored the mother. The delivery took only a few minutes, but to Megan it seemed to happen outside ordinary time. She watched Tessa free the kitten, clear the membrane from its face, and begin trying to start its breathing.
Frank counted under his breath. He stopped at twelve.
The kitten’s mouth opened. A thin rasp came out, followed by a sharper cry that carried up the wet slope. The yearling answered from somewhere beyond the trees.
Tessa wrapped the kitten and placed it with its sibling in a warmed carrier. “Both are alive,” she said, looking toward Frank. “That is all I’m promising right now.”
The mother’s condition was worse. The cable had cut through skin and impaired circulation in her left rear leg. She was dehydrated, chilled, and losing blood from the birth. Tessa started emergency treatment before they moved her, then instructed Cole to take the carrier and stretcher toward the road. Frank reached for one end.
“No,” Tessa said.
“It’s steep.”
“Cole has another officer coming up from the trail. You’ve taken nitroglycerin and you’re gray.” She pointed toward the ridge without looking away from the bobcat. “Your ambulance is that direction.”
“I can walk out.”
“Good. Use that ability to walk yourself out.”
Megan expected him to resist. Instead, he stood too quickly and swayed. She caught his elbow, feeling how little weight he seemed to have inside his coat.
On the way downhill, they passed three more cable loops. Cole had flagged them with orange tape but left them undisturbed for documentation. Each was positioned low along a narrow animal path and fixed to a root or sapling. No owner identification was visible.
“These were here all winter?” Frank asked.
Cole crouched without touching the nearest cable. “The coating is barely scuffed, and the ground disturbance is recent. I’ll know more after we process the site.”
“Trapping season ended months ago.”
“Yes, it did.”
At the logging road, an ambulance crew took Frank’s vital signs and placed him on a monitor. The chest pressure had eased, but the paramedic did not like what she saw or the fact that he had continued uphill after the pain began. Frank tried to negotiate an evaluation at home. Megan climbed into the ambulance before he could finish.
“You can be angry in the emergency room,” she told him.
“I’m not angry.”
“Then this should be a pleasant ride.”
The doors closed on his answer.
While Frank was taken to the county hospital, Tessa transported the mother and newborns to her licensed rehabilitation facility. Cole remained behind with two wardens to search the slope. The yearling stayed hidden for nearly an hour, occasionally calling from the brush.
It might have escaped, which would have been the preferable outcome if it were uninjured. But the wire beneath its front leg caught on fallen branches, and blood marked the places where it had struggled. Tessa returned with a second covered crate. Using barriers and distance rather than hands, the team guided the animal inside and moved it to the rehabilitation center for examination.
Frank learned the rest that evening from a hospital bed. His initial tests did not show a new heart attack, but the emergency physician ordered further monitoring and made it clear that relief after one tablet did not make the episode harmless. Frank had missed two rehabilitation appointments, let one prescription lapse, and walked more than a mile through wet, uneven ground after symptoms began.
“You treated the pain like a scheduling conflict,” the doctor said.
Frank looked toward the window. “There were circumstances.”
“There are always circumstances. Your heart doesn’t care.”
Megan sat in the corner with her arms folded. She did not say I told you so. She did not need to.
Tessa called shortly after dark. The mother had survived the trip and the newborns were warming, though the smaller one still needed supplemental support. The yearling’s injury came from a different cable loop that had tightened around the right front leg before its anchor broke. The wound was painful but had not destroyed the paw.
Frank closed his eyes. “So both of them were caught.”
“Separately,” Tessa said. “Probably within days of each other.”
Cole sent a message before Frank could ask another question. It contained a photograph of a hand-drawn site map laid across the hood of the DNR truck. Eight red marks formed a rough ring around the uprooted hemlock. Two loops had held animals. Six more had been waiting. Every opening faced a trail leading toward the den…
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