Part 3
Maya treated the wounds, covered the torn pad with a noncompressive dressing, and checked the Doppler signal again.
The pulse remained faint, but it was there.
“Crush injuries reveal themselves slowly,” she said. “The next forty-eight hours will tell us more.”
Erin photographed the trap and sealed the broken chain in an evidence bag.
“No tag. Serial number ground off. Pan tension altered,” she said. “Somebody knew exactly what he was doing.”
“The original set should be uphill from here,” Tom said. “Once the weather clears, I can help you find it.”
“I’ll run the investigation. You can help if I ask.”
At 1:10 in the morning, Maya secured the sedated bobcat inside the transport crate. Tom checked the latch once and then again.
Maya noticed the faded tape across the top.
“Ruth?”
Tom nodded.
“I met her at Cedar Ridge. She brought us a great horned owl with a fractured wing and argued until our director agreed to operate.”
“That sounds like her.”
“The owl was released.”
Maya offered the fact without ceremony, but Tom still had to turn away.
The rescue vehicle left for Cedar Ridge Wildlife Center near Libby shortly before two. Tom stood beneath the porch roof until its lights disappeared.
The mudroom was empty except for blood and a rectangle of melted snow. Yet the house did not return to its old silence. The stove snapped. Water ticked from the eaves. The telephone had a dial tone.
Tom heard every ordinary sound as if the house had been holding them in reserve.
He cleaned the mudroom before dawn.
At seven, Maya called. The bobcat’s temperature had stabilized. Blood tests showed dehydration and muscle damage but no organ failure. The Doppler signal below the injury was stronger.
“If the paw pad continues healing, he’s looking at six to eight weeks of rehabilitation,” she said.
“What do you need?”
“Quiet, antibiotics, pain control, and time. After that, he’ll need an isolated outdoor enclosure to rebuild strength. Our bobcat run is secure, but last winter damaged the den box and an elevated shelf.”
Tom looked through the window toward the low cedar building beyond his woodshed.
Ruth had called it her workshop, although half its shelves held wildlife carriers and the other half held lumber. She kept every safe scrap of untreated cedar because wildlife centers never had enough money or enough wood.
Tom had locked the building after her funeral.
“I may have materials,” he said.
The key resisted in the padlock. He warmed it in his palm and tried again.
The door opened on the smell of cedar shavings and linseed oil. Ruth’s safety glasses rested beside the saw. Her flannel shirt hung from the back of a stool. On the workbench sat a partly assembled cedar den with a paper pattern pinned beneath a carpenter’s square.
Across the top, in Ruth’s handwriting, were the words:
BOBCAT DEN — CEDAR RIDGE
Tom remembered the summer she began it. Cancer had weakened her grip, and he had found her fighting a screw that would not seat.
“Let me,” he had said.
“Tomorrow. We’ll finish it together.”
By morning, she was in the hospital.
Grief rose so sharply that Tom bent over the workbench. He did not force it down. He let the tears fall into Ruth’s sawdust before carrying the dead drill battery to the house and plugging it in.
By ten, sunlight had begun breaking through the clouds. Tom replaced the warped board, countersank every screw, and sanded the entrance smooth. He worked slowly because each tool carried the shape of Ruth’s hand.
The county opened Boulder Creek Road that afternoon. Tom loaded the den, cedar boards, screws, and tools into his truck and drove to Cedar Ridge.
Maya met him at the service gate.
“You understand he cannot associate you with food or comfort. No talking to him, no direct contact, and we keep him from seeing us whenever possible.”
“Ruth taught me that.”
Tom worked with a staff carpenter inside the empty recovery run. They reinforced its shelf, mounted the den beneath an overhang, and added solid visual panels along the service side. He checked the double-door entry, every bolt, and every seam of wire twice.
The bobcat would not use the enclosure for weeks, but preparing it made those weeks feel possible.
Before Tom left, Maya allowed him to watch the hospital camera from her office. The young cat had awakened. He crouched behind a barrier, favoring the bandaged paw but placing it lightly against the floor.
“He’s bearing weight,” Tom whispered.
“A little. Don’t ask for more today.”
His telephone rang. Erin’s name appeared on the screen.
“I found the original set,” she said. Wind rushed behind her voice. “And, Tom—it wasn’t one trap.”
“How many?”
“Enough to make a line. Whoever did this planned to keep doing it…”
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