Part 5
Nathan agreed before he could turn the condition into an argument.
Masilo approved one final attempt before sunrise and held the rehabilitation vehicle back for twenty-four hours. Naledi would direct it; serious lameness, aggression, or failure to return would end the attempt, and Pula would go to the center when the vehicle arrived.
“There is no third design,” Masilo said over the radio. “The rehabilitation-center vehicle leaves at dawn tomorrow. I will not move the deadline again.”
Naledi acknowledged the order. Nathan wrote it into the operations log.
They chose a dry island west of the channel where Zara’s pride had denned two seasons earlier. Before the crew moved the first panel, Kabo radioed Thato with the location, the night patrol route, and Masilo’s deadline. Thato asked him to keep one patrol vehicle on the eastern cattle track until sunrise and to call if Zara turned back. Kabo agreed.
The roofed compartment used in the first attempt was modular, so Kabo’s crew moved it to a cluster of rain trees on the island. Water lay nearby, and the nearest cattle post was more than six miles east. Kabo found fresh prints on the approach route before noon. Zara had already crossed toward the island.
Nathan spent the morning emptying his office while the others prepared the site. It was the first useful work that did not require his presence. He set the already packed box of Ruth’s plant surveys aside for Mowana, packed his personal letters into another, and left the lion notebooks on the shelves for Naledi.
The earliest volumes were swollen from damp and stained by years of red dust. Ruth had drawn narrow red lines down their margins so dates, locations, and animal IDs could be found quickly. After she died, Nathan had continued using the same system, though his lines wandered more.
He carried the master index and station keys to Naledi’s temporary desk. “The camera archive through 2019 is complete,” he said. “After that, the metadata are inconsistent. The raw files are all there.”
Naledi opened the index. “How much of this can I trust?”
“The raw files. Not all the labels.”
“Then show me every gap before you leave.”
Nathan placed the keys beside her hand. “You should have these now.”
She slipped the ring into her pocket. “I’ll take the keys. You’re still accountable for tonight.”
“I know.”
“Your observation point is the old flood tower across the side channel. The wind is forecast from the east, so your scent should carry away from the boma. A patrol vehicle will wait beneath the north landing. If the wind turns, you get inside and the driver takes you north.”
“How will I know?”
“There is a ribbon on the west rail, and you have been studying wind longer than I have been alive.”
“Not much longer.”
“Not today, Nathan.”
At noon, Nathan went to the quarantine shed for the last scheduled visual check. He stood behind the one-way screen while Naledi’s technician opened the interior partition remotely. Pula entered the small yard with her belly low and ears turning toward each sound. She drank, sniffed the transport crate, and swatted at a beetle that crossed the sand.
Nathan shifted his weight, and the sole of his boot scraped concrete. Pula wheeled toward the sound. Her lips lifted, and a raw growl vibrated through the partition. She backed into cover without approaching the screen.
For three days he had helped keep her alive. Now his footsteps sent her into cover. Nathan wrote appropriate avoidance response on the check sheet. The pen rested against the paper for a moment before he made himself add the time and his initials.
They moved Pula in the late afternoon. The covered crate was loaded onto a vehicle she had never been fed from and taken west by a seldom-used route. An officer drove Nathan separately to the flood tower, backed the closed patrol vehicle beneath the north landing, and waited inside. Nathan climbed to the tower with instructions not to cross the side channel or leave except through the waiting vehicle.
From the tower he could see the boma through a spotting scope, but not the people concealed in two closed vehicles farther south. The single roofed compartment stood beneath the trees, screened on two sides, with its field gate facing open grass. Pula had water, low cover, and enough room to move away from the fence.
Sunset drained the color from the floodplain. Lechwe moved through shallow water beyond the island, their legs making dark strokes in the reflected sky. A fish eagle called once and then stopped. Nathan checked the ribbon on the rail. It streamed steadily west.
Pula began calling after dark. The sound was stronger than it had been at the kill site. It carried across the side channel and seemed to enter the tower through every gap in the boards. Nathan kept both hands on the table beneath the scope. He did not answer, did not move closer, did not turn on the small monitor that might have lit his face.
Zara appeared forty minutes later. She came from the east with the deliberate, low walk of a lion approaching something it wanted and did not trust. The shoulder graze had dried; her gait was nearly even. She paused at the edge of the trees, looked toward Naledi’s concealed vehicle, then continued to the pen.
Pula pressed against the fence. Zara touched noses with her and gave a short exhalation Nathan could not hear at that distance. The cub rubbed one side of her face along the mesh. Zara repeated the motion from outside, then began licking through the openings.
Ten minutes passed. Zara remained beside the gate, relaxed enough to sit with her back partly turned toward the concealed vehicles. Naledi’s voice came quietly over Nathan’s earpiece.
“Observed affiliation sustained. No aggression. I am opening the field gate.”
The gate slid a few inches along its track, stopped, then continued. Pula retreated from the unfamiliar motion and crouched behind the grass screen. Zara stood and watched the widening space.
Nathan leaned over the scope. At that moment the ribbon on the tower rail sagged. It hung motionless for two breaths, then lifted toward the east. His scent would soon cross the side channel and move directly toward the boma.
Nathan closed the scope. “Wind’s turned. I’m leaving.”
“Copy,” Naledi said.
He shouldered his small pack and was already on the north ladder. Within seconds he was inside the waiting vehicle, and the driver pulled away. The north track turned into mopane scrub, cutting off Nathan’s view of the island. He had waited three days to see the cub cross that threshold. Now every turn of the wheels carried the moment farther behind him.
He did not ask the driver to stop when Pula called. From somewhere near the rain trees came the hollow knock of the gate reaching its fully open position…
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