Part 4
The paw withdrew, and the trailer shuddered again.
Mara reached for the utility-vehicle door. Evie caught her sleeve.
“Ruiz said wait.”
“Then you wait.”
“That’s not happening.”
Evie sent their location to Ruiz and put the phone on speaker in her jacket pocket. The officer’s voice, broken by poor service, told them to stay behind their vehicle and not approach the trap.
Evie looked through the windshield at the rocking trailer, swore once, and put the UTV in gear. She drove through the lodge gate and across the empty yard, stopping broadside outside the timber wall, where the vehicle shielded the service-gate latch from the trailer. Mara climbed out with her cane; Evie stayed behind the hood.
Wade stepped from the handling shed with a rifle held low across his body.
“You came,” he said.
He looked tired. Mud darkened his pants to the knee, and a line of blood crossed the back of one hand where the trap cable had caught him. He was not smiling, and there were no clients, guides, or hounds in the yard.
“How did you get him?” Evie asked.
Wade glanced at her. “You drew me a map.”
Evie’s face went still.
“He followed the corridor to a bait station off Alder Road,” Wade said. “That’s all it took.”
The bear struck the steel again. Mara heard the scrape of claws and a short, breathy bawl that belonged neither to the giant at Cypress Cut nor the silent yearling beneath her canvas coat. It belonged to a trapped animal spending itself against a wall.
“Let him go,” she said.
Wade nodded toward the handling shed. A clipboard rested on a folding table, the same incident statement beneath its clamp. “Sign it. I report an aggressive bear, put him down, and file the carcass through the business.”
“The statement’s a lie.”
“So were the nine reports you signed.”
Evie looked at Mara, but did not step away.
Wade’s gaze moved to the green cashbox on the floorboard. He understood. His shoulders lowered slightly, as if the weight of the rifle had increased.
“You went to the old line,” he said.
“Yes.”
“Who did you call?”
Mara did not answer. From Evie’s pocket, Ruiz’s voice said that officers were less than ten minutes away and instructed Wade to place the rifle on the ground. The connection cut before his name finished.
Wade gave a small, tired laugh. “Lena Ruiz. Of course.” He did not raise the rifle, but he did not put it down. He looked at Evie.
“You gave me the movement maps, Evie. I knew exactly where to put the bait.”
Evie’s grip tightened around the phone. “I know what I did.”
“Your mother knew,” Wade said. He turned to Mara. “When your father died, who kept you on payroll?”
“You did.”
“And who signed the removals when bookings fell?”
“I did.”
Wade’s mouth tightened.
“Then don’t stand there like I built this alone,” he said.
Mara shifted her cane to her left hand. “I won’t.”
For a few seconds, only the bear moved. Steel groaned under another blow, and one of the trailer tires settled deeper into the mud.
Wade looked toward it. “If Ruiz takes him, they’ll kill him later. We can do it here.”
“Ruiz can supervise a release here,” Mara said. “The only thing he attacked was the trap you put him in.”
“Ruiz isn’t here.”
She had signed nine reports after telling herself the bears were already dead.
“Move away from the release,” Wade said. “Both of you.”
He walked to the trailer’s rear release. The timber walls funneled straight toward the service gate, and Wade stopped at the mouth of the lane with the rifle covering the only exit.
Mara stepped between him and the lane.
“Don’t,” Wade said.
“Open the service gate. Then release him.”
“You can barely stand.”
“I can stand here.”
He brought the rifle across his chest. “I’m not going to shoot you, Mara.”
“Put it down, then.”
The words came out steady. Her hands were not; the cane tip tapped twice against the post.
Evie edged along the sheltered side of the utility vehicle and pulled open the wide service gate leading from the yard to the trees, keeping the vehicle between herself and the trap.
“Mom,” she called, “opening this trap doesn’t change what I tell Ruiz.”
Mara looked at her daughter over the hood. Evie’s face was wet with sweat though the evening had cooled.
“Tell her everything.”
Evie nodded once and braced the gate open. Wade’s grip shifted on the rifle.
“If this place closes, the kennel crew loses their jobs,” Wade said. “They didn’t sign anything.”
“They didn’t,” Mara said. “I did. Ruiz gets the records.”
Mara moved behind the timber barrier. Her ankle wobbled when she set down the cane, and she caught herself against the post. The release line was stiff with rust. She wrapped both hands around it.
Wade took one step forward. The rifle remained pointed at the ground.
Mara pulled.
For a moment nothing happened. Then the gate lifted with a metallic slam.
The bear came out backward, hindquarters first, twisting as soon as its paws struck dirt. It saw the open service gate at the end of the timber lane and ran straight through. Mud flew from under it. The crooked right paw landed, lifted, and disappeared into the cane without the animal turning its head.
Wade brought the rifle to his shoulder.
Mara stepped out from behind the barrier and filled the sight line. The barrel stopped several feet from her. Wade could have moved. He could have aimed past her before the bear reached the trees.
He lowered the rifle.
By the time a wildlife truck and county cruiser turned through the lodge gate, the yard held only three people, an empty steel trailer, and the heavy smell of a frightened bear. Officer Ruiz and a deputy came out with their hands visible, and Ruiz repeated her order for Wade to put down the weapon. This time he laid it in the mud.
Mara retrieved the green cashbox from the utility vehicle. She carried it to Ruiz without the cane, limping hard enough that Evie moved beside her. Her daughter did not take her arm.
Ruiz opened the lid and saw the rain-swollen notebooks. “Your records?” she asked. “Mine,” Mara said. “Some entries record Wade’s instructions. The signatures are mine. Start with mine…”
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