Part 6
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service special agent arrived before ten that night and stayed until after midnight. Keene returned with him and transferred the document case across June’s kitchen table.
June gave the agent David’s brass keys and a statement that included the unexplained deposit, Cole’s explanation, and her decision not to demand an invoice. When he opened the ledger to March and asked why she had accepted the money as a client payment, she looked at her initials.
“I was tired,” she said. “I knew he’d get angry, and I didn’t want another fight. So I wrote down what he told me.”
The agent recorded her answer. He explained that investigators would copy the records and return them when possible. The company vehicles and line cabin might be searched under warrants. He could not tell her whether her handling of the deposit would create legal consequences for her.
Cole had gone to town voluntarily with Keene and the deputy. At June’s request, the deputy told him not to return to the ranch that night. Luke blocked his father’s number, then sat at the kitchen table with the phone in his hand.
After everyone left, he carried the two untouched bowls of tomato soup to the sink and poured them out.
“You don’t have to stay here,” June said. “Lena has a spare room. Mara can help arrange something else if you want.”
Luke rinsed one bowl, then the other. “Do you want me to go?”
June set down the dish towel.
“No. I want you here. I should have said that the first time you asked.”
He dried his hands but did not look at her. A few minutes later, he went upstairs and chose the room across from hers. Amos followed him one slow step at a time.
After the agent left, the wildlife veterinarian cleared Mabel to return to the barn. June carried her out before going to bed.
At dawn, June found Mabel curled in the bare square where the apple crate had stood. The cat had pulled loose straw into a mound and was kneading it with both front paws. June sat beside her until she stopped calling.
Keene sent three stills from the overnight camera. In the first, the female wolverine had returned to the substitute den. In the second, she crossed the frame carrying the white-chinned kit that had remained there at dusk. The final image showed both kits beside her at the entrance to a new den higher in the trees.
The biologist’s message remained cautious: all three animals accounted for; adult using the injured foot intermittently; site closed and remote monitoring continuing.
By August, investigators had returned the apple crate and its blanket, and Luke had set both back in the loft. Cole had admitted failing to report the trapped wolverine and removing her kits, but the remaining federal questions—including the buyer’s role—were unresolved. He had stopped guiding while the state reviewed his license. Mercer Backcountry Outfitters missed the spring season and closed before summer. June sold two unused trailers to cover the guides’ final wages, but she kept the ranch.
Luke had graduated in June and moved his belongings into the upstairs room without calling the arrangement permanent. He worked part-time at Lena’s clinic, cleaning kennels, preparing exam rooms, and helping with the animals she trusted him to handle.
One afternoon, he sketched a ramp for Amos on the back of an old booking form. He and June cut the boards on sawhorses outside the barn, fastened crosspieces for traction, and secured the finished ramp on a long, gentle rise beside the steep loft ladder.
Halfway through the work, Luke set down the drill.
“Dad sent me a letter.”
June kept one hand on the board between them. “Are you going to open it?”
“Not yet.”
“All right.”
He picked up the drill again.
Later that afternoon, they used the new ramp to reach the hayloft and clear the last of the nesting straw. Mabel watched from a beam while Amos made his careful way up between them.
At the apple crate, the dog stopped, and June stopped with him.
For several seconds, Amos sampled the warm air, his nose moving over the blanket, the boards, and the place where the two wild babies had slept against Mabel. Then he looked toward the open loft door and the blue distance beyond the north pasture.
June waited.
Amos sneezed, turned once, and lay down beside Luke’s boot.
June lifted the apple crate. Luke took the other end. Above them, Mabel closed her eyes in the dust-soft light. Beside Luke’s boot, Amos closed his too, and the hayloft held only the dry smell of summer.