Part 2
Nate leaned into the hauling straps before the contraction had fully passed.
The recovery sled lurched, caught on a buried root, then slid free. Behind him, the lion gave a low, broken growl. Nate did not turn. He kept the lines taut and followed the narrow bench across the slope, choosing each step before he committed his weight.
The field station was one and three-quarter miles away. In summer, the descent took forty minutes. With fresh snow covering rock, a live predator on the sled, and darkness filling the timber, distance stopped behaving like distance. Every hundred yards became its own piece of country.
Nate tried his radio as he walked.
“Cal, emergency traffic. I am transporting the female to Bear Creek field station. Notify Maya Torres. Possible snare case, active labor.”
The speaker clicked once and fell silent. When he checked the unit, he found the antenna housing cracked from his scramble on the ridge. His satellite phone showed one weak bar, then none. He typed the same message with numb thumbs and watched the screen hold on SENDING.
No confirmation came.
Snow thickened beneath the trees. The sled tipped at a sidehill crossing, and Nate dropped to one knee to keep it upright. Pain shot through his shoulder. The lion struck once beneath the canvas, not at him but at the restraint and the world closing around her. He waited, speaking in a low, even voice until the movement stopped, then pulled again.
He could not tell whether she understood the sound. He only knew silence made the dark feel worse.
By the time the roof of Bear Creek station appeared between the firs, his base layer was soaked and ice had formed in his beard. The building was little more than a timber cabin with an attached equipment bay, used during collaring work and winter surveys. Nate hauled the sled through the wide bay doors, shut out the wind, and lit the propane heater.
The lion’s eyes followed him from the canvas.
He cleared the floor, lowered the lights, and opened enough space for her to move away from him. When he released the cover, she dragged herself into the far corner and turned with her forequarters facing him. Her mouth opened with each breath. The injured hind leg lay useless beside her.
Nate stayed across the room.
The satellite phone finally chirped.
MAYA CALLING appeared on the screen, followed by a connection so broken her voice arrived in fragments.
“—Nate? Tell me—how long—”
“I don’t know. I found her contracting maybe an hour ago. There’s fluid now. Cable wound on the right rear leg, recent. She’s exhausted.”
“Do not—crowd her. Keep the room—quiet. I’m leaving Hamilton now, but the pass—”
The line dissolved into static.
“Maya, I may not have that long.”
Her answer came back thin and distant. “If she cannot clear the kitten—you may have to help. Keep it warm. Keep it breathing. Nate, listen to me—”
The connection died.
He set the useless device on the workbench.
For the next forty minutes, the mountain lion labored in the dim equipment bay while snow erased the tracks outside. Nate watched from several yards away, fighting the impulse to move closer each time her body tightened. Intervention could save her. It could also panic her, cost precious strength, and get him badly hurt. Experience had taught him that help offered at the wrong moment was sometimes only another form of pressure.
Then her head dropped to the floor.
The next contraction rolled through her without enough force behind it. She made a rough sound deep in her throat and looked back toward her hindquarters. Nate saw the dark shape of the first kitten and knew waiting had become its own decision.
He moved slowly, keeping his body low and his eyes off hers. The lion lifted her head. Her lips peeled back, but the warning faded before it became a strike.
“I know,” Nate whispered. “I know.”
He did only what was necessary, then withdrew as soon as the tiny body came free.
The kitten lay motionless on the blanket.
The mother turned toward it immediately. She licked it with quick, forceful strokes, nudged it, licked again. Nate waited for a twitch, a breath, any small protest against the cold room.
Nothing came. After a while, even the mother slowed. Her tongue passed once over the kitten’s head, then stopped. She lowered her chin beside it, eyes half closed, chest heaving.
Nate’s vision blurred.
He was no longer in a mountain field station. He was standing beneath fluorescent lights at Missoula International while a man in a dark jacket explained why there would be no viewing, no last touch, no chance to say goodbye to Laura or to the daughter who had never taken a breath outside her mother’s body.
Ellie had never been held. This kitten had, and it had changed nothing.
Nate wrapped the small body and moved it just beyond the mother’s reach. His hands shook so badly he had to stop and press them against the concrete floor.
The lion’s abdomen tightened again. He looked up.
A second kitten emerged into the pool of dim amber light. The mother tried to turn, but her forelegs buckled. Nate was moving before he had time to decide. He caught the newborn in the folded towel, freed it from the birth membrane, and drew back beyond the reach of the mother’s claws.
The kitten was warm in his hands. It was also completely still.
Nate searched the tiny rib cage for movement. There was none. He rubbed the kitten through the towel, willing some answer into the fragile body. One second passed, then five. The room held only the rasp of the mother’s breathing and the soft mechanical hum of the heater.
“No,” Nate said. He bent over the kitten, shielding it with his body, and kept working. “Not this one. Not while I’m here…”
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