Part 7
The female did not rush toward the kits. She backed into the darkest corner, head low, while the gate climbed high enough for a kit to crawl beneath it. The smaller one emerged first, belly dragging on the bedding, and called again.
The mother stopped pacing. Her nose worked rapidly. She approached in short, suspicious steps, circled the kit, and touched its back with the front of her muzzle. The kit rolled toward her warmth.
For several seconds, nothing else happened. Then the female took the loose skin at the back of the kit’s neck in her teeth. Maribel gripped the edge of the chair, but Tessa did not move. The wolverine carried the kit into the covered den box and returned for the second. When she lay down, both pale bodies disappeared beneath the dark curve of her chest.
Rowan released a breath. Tessa lowered her forehead briefly to one hand.
On the monitor, the mother rested her chin over the kits. From the clinic hallway came Daisy’s impatient yowl, followed by the metallic knock of a carrier door.
Maribel took the cat home.
Daisy complained for the full drive and marched into the barn without looking back. In the foaling stall, she sniffed the empty apple crate, stepped inside it once, and came out. Then she jumped onto a warm bale in the sun and began washing one front paw.
Huck slept until supper.
By late August, the south tank was running on the brass valve Burke had left on the porch. Maribel had sold six cows rather than take another operating loan, hired a high school senior for two afternoons a week, and learned to service the north water system herself. The first repair took three hours, two dropped wrenches, and language that made Huck leave the pump house. The valve worked. Burke’s old key no longer did.
The wolverine family had been released six weeks after the reunion, once the mother’s foot had healed and the kits were moving well. Tessa had sent Maribel a thirty-second infrared clip from a remote camera: the mother crossing a patch of late snow at night, one kit close behind, the second stopping to sniff the camera tree before hurrying after them into the dark.
One evening that month, Eli’s field-room door stood open. Some nights Maribel sorted his notebooks and labeled survey maps for Tessa; other nights she read only a page or two. One entry identified a track as lynx, crossed it out the next morning, and replaced it with BIG HOUSE CAT, CHECK EYES. Beside a list of snow depths, Eli had complained that Huck ate the thumb from his best glove.
Maribel heard the scrape of Huck’s nails in the hallway and followed him outside. Cold mornings stiffened his back legs now, and their evening walks no longer went beyond the lower pasture. He crossed the barn slowly and sat at the open end of the aisle.
Daisy slept in a square of light near the foaling stall, all four paws in the air. Beyond her, the north pasture rose from gold grass into dark timber. The highest folds of the range were bare now, the winter den hidden among thousands of ordinary shadows.
Maribel stopped beside Huck instead of walking past. His nose lifted. Wind moved down from the ridge carrying pine, dust, cooling water, and scents no human could separate. He did not stiffen or fix his gaze. After a moment, he leaned his gray shoulder against her shin.
Maribel rested one hand on his head and looked north with him.