Part 3
Cole would not yet say who had placed the cable restraints, but he was willing to say what the map meant. The loops were fresh, unmarked, and arranged too deliberately to be discarded gear. Someone had found the den, studied the paths around it, and built a circle that a nursing female or her older offspring could hardly avoid.
“Could they have been after coyotes?” Frank asked over the phone.
“I’m not guessing at motive,” Cole said. “I’m documenting what’s there.”
It was the kind of answer Frank used to give families beside an ambulance: honest, limited, and infuriating when waiting was the only thing left to do.
The hospital kept him overnight for repeat testing. By morning, the physicians had ruled out new damage to his heart, but they had not cleared his behavior. His discharge papers included an expedited cardiology visit, medication changes, and restrictions he read with the expression of a man reviewing terms written for somebody much older.
Megan drove him back to Alder Lake. She had packed his heart medicine, Beth’s green mug, and a change of clothes before leaving the cabin. Frank noticed the mug in her tote and said nothing. At the first turn toward the lake, she passed the road.
“You missed it,” he said.
“We’re going to the pharmacy.”
“I have medication.”
“You have an empty bottle and another prescription you forgot to refill.”
“Forgot is a strong word.”
“Then give me a more flattering one.”
They made the rest of the drive in silence. Tessa called that afternoon. The adult bobcat had a research microchip from a state study and was listed as F-17. Circulation had returned to the injured leg after the cable was removed, though infection remained a concern. Both newborns had nursed once, although the smaller kitten tired easily and would be watched around the clock.
The yearling had no chip. Its age, behavior, and proximity made it likely that it was F-17’s surviving offspring from the previous spring, but Tessa cautioned against turning likelihood into a story the evidence could not prove.
Frank wrote “Bandit” beside the yearling’s case number in his notebook.
Megan saw it. “You named it?”
“For recordkeeping.”
“The record already has a number.”
“Numbers lack personality.”
“That is probably the point with wildlife rehabilitation.”
He crossed out the name while she watched, then wrote it again after she left the room.
The animals remained at Tessa’s facility, not at the cabin. The center had separate treatment rooms, secure outdoor enclosures, backup power, and trained volunteers who knew how to work without teaching a wild predator that people meant food. Frank was allowed a short daily update. He was not invited to visit.
This offended him more than he admitted, and he spent the afternoon cleaning the emergency bag. Mud streaked one side, and the zipper had trapped a hemlock needle. Megan watched him replace sealed towels that had not been used and inventory bandages no one had asked him to carry.
“Come to Milwaukee for six weeks,” she said. “Not forever. Keep the cabin. Keep every coffee can full of screws. Just come long enough to finish cardiac rehab where I can drive you.”
Frank did not look up. “You scheduled doctors before asking me.”
“Because asking gets me three weeks of ‘I’ll think about it.’”
“That doesn’t turn thinking into consent.”
“And being independent doesn’t mean disappearing into the woods with chest pain.”
He closed the bag harder than necessary. “You came here to take me to an appointment, Megan. Not to reorganize my life.”
Her face changed, and he knew he had reached the old wound before either of them named it.
“Your life reorganizes itself around every emergency,” she said. “It’s only the people who have to make appointments.”
Frank carried the bag to the mudroom. By the time he returned, she had gone upstairs to make a work call.
Near midnight, his phone rang. The smaller kitten had stopped nursing and could no longer maintain its body temperature. Tessa’s team had moved it to intensive support while another veterinarian treated F-17 for worsening infection.
Frank was already pulling on his boots when Megan came down.
“Where are you going?”
“The center.”
“Did Tessa ask you to come?”
“They may need another pair of hands.”
He called before Megan could answer. Tessa picked up from the treatment room, her words clipped by activity in the background.
“I have six pairs of trained hands,” she said. “What I need from you is the transport log from yesterday. Cole thinks one of the marked cable sites may have been checked recently. Email him the copy you made, then stay home.”
Frank stood with one boot on and one boot off. “Call me if the kitten changes,” he said.
“I will.”
For the next two hours, he and Megan sat at opposite ends of the kitchen table. He sent the log, answered two questions from Cole, and did nothing else. At 2:40 a.m., Tessa reported that the kitten was warm, taking supplemental formula, and breathing normally.
Frank put down the phone. The relief on his face was so open that Megan looked away to give him privacy.
The following afternoon, Dean Voss drove up in a dark green pickup. He owned Northline Outfitters near Manistique, sold live bait and snowmobile parts, and guided deer hunters on private timberland. Frank had known him for more than a decade in the way rural neighbors knew one another: by truck, reputation, and favors exchanged without intimacy.
Dean carried a paper bag of sandwiches and a thermos. “Heard you had a rough day.”
“News travels.”
“An ambulance at the logging road tends to help it along.” Dean set the food on the porch rail. His concern appeared genuine, and perhaps some of it was. “How’s the cat?”
“Under professional care.”
“And both kittens made it?”
Frank’s hand stopped on the thermos lid.
“Last I heard,” he said. “Who told you there were two?”
Dean hesitated only briefly. “People talk at the store. You know how it is.”
He changed the subject to Frank’s heart, then left after ten minutes. His truck disappeared between the birches without hurry.
Frank called Cole from the porch. The officer listened, asked for Dean’s exact words, and went quiet.
“We never released the number of kittens,” he said. “Neither did the clinic…”
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