Part 4
Eli placed his hands where Mara directed and locked his elbows.
There was no room to think about what lay beneath his palms. Mara counted the rhythm while Kendra ventilated through the secured airway. When the monitor showed that his pressure was not moving enough blood, Mara shifted his hands an inch toward the sternum.
“Again.”
The cub’s crate rocked on the second sled. Its cry rose through the trees, thin and raw, the same sound that had pulled Eli from the trail.
“Stay with me,” Mara said.
Eli did not know which of them she meant.
Kendra administered medication through the line already in place. One narrow complex appeared on the monitor and vanished. Eli continued until a second mark crossed the screen, then a third.
Mara checked the artery in the jaguar’s thigh. “I have a pulse. Stop compressions. Keep ventilating.”
Eli lifted his hands. His shoulders trembled from the effort. Snow had soaked through the knees of his pants, though he felt only the hot ache in his arms.
The jaguar’s heart settled into a slow, organized rhythm. Mara kept everyone still for several minutes, watching for another collapse. A muscle jumped once beside her mouth, then went quiet.
“We move when I say,” she said.
Nobody argued.
The insulated compartment of the tracked vehicle had been warmed in advance. Once the litter locked into place, the team kept the airway, fluids, and monitor accessible for the descent. The cub traveled in a separate secured bay beside the mother.
Kendra tried to withdraw Eli’s coat through a transfer slot before closing the crate compartment. The cub flattened itself over the canvas and hooked both forepaws around a sleeve.
“Leave it,” Mara said.
“It smells like me.”
“Right now it is the only thing stopping him from throwing himself at the door. We’ll remove it after transfer.”
Eli let the sleeve slide from the pole.
The drive to Tucson took nearly three hours on winter roads. Eli rode in front because the treatment bay belonged to Mara and Kendra. Behind him came the muted movements of equipment, drawers opening, and clipped exchanges about pressure and temperature.
Once, the sounds stopped long enough that Eli turned. Through the small interior window, Mara’s back remained bent over the litter.
He faced the road again.
A surgical team met them at the wildlife hospital’s covered entrance. The female disappeared beneath white lights. The cub was moved without direct handling into a dark adjoining stall, where a solid partition separated him from his mother while allowing scent and sound to pass through vents.
Eli completed his field statement in a plastic chair. He recorded the cut gate, two restraints, the camera, Wes’s arrival, and every admission he remembered. He wrote only what he had observed. The evidence could carry its own weight.
A federal wildlife investigator called before dawn. The camera account contained images from both restraints and messages arranging the live sale of the cub. Wes’s vehicle held the transport crate and capture gear. The buyer’s identity remained uncertain, but the immediate case no longer depended on another confession.
Eli ended the call and waited.
Mara entered the room after sunrise wearing blue scrubs. A pressure mark crossed the bridge of her nose, and dried mud remained around the seams of her boots.
Eli stood. “She made it?”
“For now.”
Imaging showed a fracture above the paw, deep soft-tissue damage, and prolonged compression of vessels and nerves. The team had cleaned the wound, stabilized the bone, and restored enough circulation to justify keeping the limb. Infection, kidney damage from injured muscle, loss of sensation, and another cardiac event remained possible.
“You saved the leg,” Eli said.
“No. We kept it attached through the night.” Mara sat at the end of a row of chairs. “Those are different things.”
Eli took the seat beside her, leaving one empty chair between them.
After a while, Mara rubbed both hands over her face. “You were right about the west route. The snow shelf fractured after we passed it.”
“You were right when you stopped me after the dart.”
“That isn’t a trade.”
“I know.”
The heating system clicked, and warm air stirred the paper in Eli’s hand. He had carried a copy of the mountain lion report in his map case since Mara returned it to him. The fold lines had begun to tear through his final paragraph.
“I’m filing an amended statement,” he said.
Mara lowered her hands. “About what?”
“The incident with the mountain lion.”
“Don’t use tonight to erase it.”
“Kendra was hurt. You crossed the line. Those facts remain.” Eli looked at the sentence above his signature. “What changes is this. I recommended taking you out of field leadership without speaking to you, and I presented my judgment as if the team had reached it. They hadn’t.”
Mara did not reach for the report. “If I make the same call again?”
“I raise the objection where you can answer it. If I believe someone is in immediate danger, I act through the proper chain. I don’t decide in private that being your father gives me another vote.”
Her expression tightened at the last word. Eli resisted the urge to explain it better.
“File it,” she said. “Then accept whatever follows.”
“I will.”
Mara leaned her head against the wall. Her eyes closed, though she did not sleep.
Several hours later, the female began to wake. The veterinary team withdrew from the stall, reduced the light, and watched by camera. She raised her head, lost control of it, and tried again. Her bandaged leg remained extended along the floor.
The cub crouched against the partition. He had not eaten. Each time his mother moved, his body shifted toward the sound.
When the female could hold her head upright and breathe without assistance, Mara opened the mesh panel between the stalls.
The cub squeezed through before the opening reached the width of his shoulders. He flattened himself beside his mother and pushed his black back under her jaw. She drew one breath along his coat, then another.
Her uninjured paw lifted a few inches. It hovered as if even that small movement cost more than she possessed. Then she laid it across the cub and held him against her chest…
To read the rest of the story – CLICK the NEXT button 👇👇👇