Part 5
Tessa eased backward first. She motioned for everyone to retreat behind the fallen timber, where the animal could no longer see them.
From there, Tessa used a long lens to inspect the hollow. The female wolverine lay on her side beneath the root plate, one hind foot held in a steel trap. The drag chain had wrapped around a buried root. Her coat was wet with snowmelt, and the place where she had tried to dig free was worn to frozen earth.
“Alive, responsive, exhausted,” Tessa murmured. “The foot is swollen. I can’t tell the rest from here.”
She did not move closer until Amara had assessed the images and chosen a field plan. Then she assigned each person one task. Amara prepared the immobilizing drug and monitoring kit. Lena documented the approach and the trap. Sam established a safety perimeter.
Tessa turned to Maribel. “Go back to the upper bench with Sam. Do not come down until I call.”
Maribel looked at the dark hollow. All morning she had carried the idea that finding the animal would make her useful enough to stay. The order to leave felt like being shut outside her own life again.
Then the wolverine moved. The chain scraped once, and the animal’s head dropped from the effort.
Maribel followed Sam uphill. From the bench, she could see only pieces of the operation through the trees: Tessa’s red jacket, Amara kneeling, Lena’s arm raised to signal that the area was clear. Nothing about the rescue resembled the dramatic struggle Maribel’s fear had prepared her for. The team advanced by inches, withdrew, waited for the drug to take full effect, and checked the animal’s breathing before anyone touched the trap.
Maribel sat on a broken log with nothing to do but keep the distance she had been given. Each time someone vanished behind the root plate, her body prepared to stand. Each time, she stayed seated.
When Amara’s voice came over Sam’s radio, it was stripped of everything but fact.
“Trap is off. Some blood flow in the foot. No obvious fracture. Significant swelling and a laceration that needs treatment. We’re packaging for transport.”
Maribel closed both hands around the edge of the log. Below them, the team placed the wolverine in a ventilated transport box and fitted monitors for the trip down. Amara stayed beside the box while Tessa and Lena examined the surrounding ground.
Lena photographed, tagged, and secured the trap, drag chain, and pulled anchor before the sled left the hollow.
The den was less than two hundred yards upslope, beneath a shelf of persistent snow held together by boulders and fallen timber. Tessa found where someone had dug into a side tunnel. Boot prints overlapped the wolverine’s tracks. A shallow pocket in the snow still held a few pale hairs from the kits.
Burke had found the mother in his trap and followed her approach tracks back to the den. He had not rescued two abandoned babies. He had taken them from the only animal that could raise them properly, then left her tethered below.
They carried the transport box down on a rescue sled. At the trucks, Tessa called the clinic. The kits were stable, an authorized wildlife-care team had arrived, and Daisy had finished her own examination. If the mother survived treatment, the team would attempt a controlled reunion before making any decision about release.
“Will she know them?” Maribel asked.
“She’ll know their scent,” Tessa said. “What she does next is up to her.”
At the north gate, Burke was waiting beside his truck. He had parked just short of the cattle guard. His hat was in his hands, the way it had been at Eli’s funeral, and for one foolish second Maribel expected him to offer comfort.
Lena stepped out first. She told Burke to remain where he was and asked whether he had any weapons. He said there was an unloaded rifle behind the truck seat and kept both hands visible while Sam secured it.
Lena arrested him on probable cause for illegal trapping, failure to report an injured wolverine, and unlawful possession and transport of the kits. Sam told him the federal take and intended sale were also under investigation. Burke said he understood his rights and agreed to answer questions. When Lena asked for the keys to his truck, he handed them over.
“You found her,” Burke said to Maribel.
“Alive.”
His eyes closed briefly. The relief on his face looked real.
“I went back yesterday morning,” he said. “The anchor was gone. There was blood. I thought she’d crawled off and died.”
“You thought that was enough?”
“No.” He looked toward the transport box. “Nothing I say is going to fix it.”
Maribel had wanted resistance from him. Denial would have given her something clean to push against. Instead he stood in the mud looking older than he had the day before.
“Why my barn?” she asked.
“A warden’s rig passed me on the county road. I panicked. Your north gate was close, and I still had the key.” He swallowed. “I knew you never used that stall.”
“Because Daisy lost her litter there.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“You knew I had stopped looking.”
He lifted his gaze to hers. “Yes.”
“You helped me after Eli died,” Maribel said. “Was any of that real?”
“All of it.” Burke’s voice roughened. “I loved him. And yesterday I used the worst thing that ever happened to you because I knew where you wouldn’t look.”
Lena showed him a photograph of the sealed canvas pack and asked him to identify it. Burke did. He gave her the name of the man who had offered to buy the kits and agreed to surrender his phone pending a warrant. Sam secured his wrists and guided him toward the state vehicle.
Before Sam closed the door, Burke turned back. “Mari, there’s something about Eli.” “Don’t.” “He found one of my sets the day he died.” Burke’s face tightened. “I’d told him they were gone. He drove the north road to check because I’d lied…”
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