Part 4
Daniel called Lena before he could invent a reason to delay.
She answered with, “I’ve seen it.”
“I removed the metadata.”
“And left the tower.”
“I didn’t think three charred beams would be enough.”
“That’s the problem. You decided what was enough.”
Daniel sat on the motel bed with the laptop open beside him. The untouched video files waited in a folder named MORROW_RAW.
“I’m asking Vivian to remove the picture.”
“It’s already been copied.”
“I know.”
“No, you know it now.”
He pressed his fingers against his forehead.
“I’m sorry.”
“I don’t have time to make you feel better about being sorry. Two people crossed Rourke’s north gate this morning. One had a drone. Torres caught them before they reached the ridge.”
“Is the lion still near the den?”
“The collar is moving. That’s all I’m telling you.”
The boundary was deliberate. Daniel had turned confidential information into material once; Lena would not give him more.
“I can help identify reposts or contact the magazine’s lawyers.”
“Then do that.”
She ended the call.
Vivian removed the original article within an hour and posted a notice asking readers not to seek the animal. The request spread less widely than the photograph had. Daniel spent two days sending takedown notices to pages that had copied the image. For every one removed, another appeared with a brighter headline.
On the third day, the collar began traveling farther.
Daniel learned this not from Lena but from a short state update reporting that the rescued lion was mobile and asking the public to avoid Morrow Ridge. The statement mentioned neither kittens nor exact coordinates.
He read it several times. Mobile did not mean healed. It meant only that the animal was moving.
Twelve days after the rescue, Cal Rourke called him.
“You want to see what came through the fence last night?” he asked.
Daniel almost refused. Then Cal gave him an address.
The Rourke ranch occupied a long valley east of the ridge, where dry grass and oak woodland met dark bands of pine. Cal waited beside a fenced calf enclosure. Motion lights had been mounted along the posts, and two livestock guardian dogs paced inside the perimeter.
A dead calf lay beneath a tarp near the equipment shed.
“You call the state?” Daniel asked.
“Three hours ago. They’re coming.”
Daniel did not touch his camera.
Cal noticed. “That thing finally get heavy?”
“You asked me here to see something.”
“I asked you here because your article brought people to my gate.”
“I never named you.”
“They found the ridge, then the ranch. Somebody dug up an interview I gave six years ago about lion hunting. My wife got thirty-two messages yesterday. One said they hoped the cat took our horses next.”
Daniel looked toward the house. A woman stood on the porch with her arms folded, watching them.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
Cal crouched beside a track in the soft ground. He did not claim more than he knew.
“Could be the same female,” he said. “Could be another. I can’t tell from this.”
“Then why call me?”
“So you’d see what not knowing looks like from here.”
A state truck appeared on the ranch road twenty minutes later. Lena stepped out, followed by Eli Torres.
Her expression hardened when she saw Daniel.
“Cal invited me,” he said.
“I didn’t.”
Cal pulled back the tarp.
The examination took nearly an hour. Lena measured tracks, inspected wounds and collected samples without promising an answer. Daniel stayed near the fence, watching Cal’s wife lead the dogs away from the carcass.
When Lena finished, Cal asked the only question that mattered to him.
“Lion?”
“Likely,” she said. “I can’t tell you which one.”
“I want a depredation permit.”
“I’ll submit the findings. The decision isn’t mine.”
“How long?”
“I don’t know.”
“And tonight?”
“Keep the calves in the inner enclosure. Leave the lights on. We can bring additional deterrents before dark.”
Cal looked toward the hills.
“You’ll go home after you set them up.”
“Yes.”
“I won’t.”
Lena removed her gloves. “I understand that. But while the review is pending, don’t take matters into your own hands.”
Cal’s mouth tightened.
“I know the law.”
Eli watched him for a moment before closing the equipment case.
On the way back to town, Daniel followed Lena’s truck until she pulled onto the shoulder. He stopped behind her.
She came to his window.
“You should not have gone there alone.”
“He invited me.”
“That doesn’t mean he likes you.”
“He’s angry.”
“He’s scared, exhausted and angry. That combination makes people unpredictable.”
“Do you think he’ll do something?”
“I think he knows the land and knows how long official decisions can take.”
Daniel glanced toward the ridge. “Was it the collared female?”
“I don’t know.”
“Lena.”
“No. You do not get more information because you’ve become anxious about what your picture caused.”
He looked at her through the open window.
“The photograph of you and Mom is still licensed to three archives,” he said.
The change in subject made her step back.
“What?”
“I can withdraw it from future use. I should have done it years ago.”
“This isn’t the roadside for that conversation.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
She returned to her truck and drove away.
That night, a storm came in from the west.
Rain struck the motel windows hard enough to wake Daniel shortly after two. His phone showed three missed calls from Lena.
He called back immediately.
“The collar sent a stationary alert,” she said. Wind rushed around her words. “East side, near the Rourke boundary.”
“How long has it been still?”
“Long enough to check.”
“Are you at the ranch?”
“Torres is picking me up.”
Daniel stood and pulled on his clothes.
“Don’t come,” she said.
“The old quarry road won’t get you there. There’s a washout below the switchback.”
“We have maps.”
“Your maps show the timber road continuing north. It doesn’t. The Dry Creek Fire took the bridge twelve years ago.”
“How do you know?”
“I photographed the fire recovery survey.”
Another pause.
“Is there another route?” she asked.
“An old maintenance cut from the west. It isn’t marked.”
“Can you describe it?”
“Not accurately in the dark.”
Lena made a sound of frustration. “Meet us at the highway. Bring your climbing gear. Leave the camera.”
Daniel looked at the bag beside his laptop.
“All right.”
Eli drove. Lena sat in front with the collar receiver and a tablet, while Daniel rode in the back among lights and medical cases. Before they left the highway, Lena handed him a rescue pack containing static line, webbing, a collapsible reach pole and a compact spare cable cutter.
“You carry this,” she said. “Nothing comes out unless I ask for it.”
The stationary point lay a little over two miles from the nearest usable road. Rain turned the maintenance cut into a black channel between trees. Daniel led them past the remains of the burned bridge and down through a stand of young cedar.
At first they found nothing but water and wind.
Then Eli’s light caught a loop of cable concealed low beside the game trail. It had tightened around nothing and remained fixed between two saplings.
Lena crouched without touching it.
“The first snare,” Eli said.
“Assume there’s another,” Lena replied.
Eli photographed the device, marked its position and left it undisturbed for later collection.
A faint electronic tone sounded from Lena’s receiver.
The collar point was less than four hundred yards away.
They followed the signal toward the abandoned quarry. The ground steepened, and the rain loosened sheets of gravel beneath their boots. Daniel recognized the cut in the hillside only when his light found a rusted drill casing half buried beside the trail.
The signal strengthened.
A low growl rose from below them.
Lena stopped so suddenly Daniel nearly walked into her. She turned off her light, waited and switched it on again at the lowest setting.
The mountain lion was on a narrow shelf beside the flooded quarry pit. A second cable had closed around her injured foreleg above the old bandage line. Each attempt to retreat tightened it against a buried anchor.
Two spotted kittens crouched beneath an overhang behind her.
On the opposite side of the shelf stood Cal Rourke, holding a rifle pointed toward the ground.
He looked up into the light.
“I set both cables,” he said. “She came onto my land…”
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