Part 7
The following November, the first real snow reached North Fork before it reached Pine Crossing. I drove up after morning appointments with Friday’s annual examination kit in the back seat. By then he weighed eleven pounds, his coat had become so glossy that the keepers complained he disappeared against the black rubber floor after dark, and the pads that first touched my exam table split and bleeding had healed into thick, healthy skin.
He still disliked needles. He no longer believed every hand was one.
The lynx had grown into her paws. Winter fur broadened her face and hung in pale tufts beneath her jaw. The scar in her right eye remained visible, and she turned her head to use the left when she studied anything at a distance. While I unpacked my kit, she crossed the habitat, climbed the rock shelf, and disappeared into her den without checking the corridor. Friday slept through it on the farthest shelf in his room.
After his examination, I stayed for one of their increasingly rare indoor sessions. Two keepers secured the outer doors and let Friday enter first. When the lynx came through her gate, she approached with him on her seeing side and stopped before touching him. Friday rose, smelled the pale scar around her right eye, and washed one small place beneath it. She leaned into the contact, but when her weight made him step sideways, she eased back.
The greeting lasted seconds. The lynx climbed onto a shelf to watch snow through the screened window. Friday chased a dry leaf beneath my chair. Neither searched for the other.
Back in the cat room, Friday pushed his forehead into my palm, inspected the medical bag, and objected to his vaccine with language he had apparently saved for the occasion. Afterward he climbed onto my lap without permission and remained there for almost a minute.
Then the lynx called from outside. Friday jumped down.
The keeper opened the protected corridor, and he trotted into the snow. The lynx appeared beyond the mesh, moving easily along the rock line. They touched noses through the barrier and continued toward the far end of the habitat.
Near the feeding station, Friday gave the familiar low urrt and looked back, an echo of the days when the lynx could not find a bowl six inches from her face.
This time she did not wait for his shoulder or another call. She saw the keeper set down her food with her left eye, passed Friday at a quick, sure walk, and reached the station first.
Friday watched her go. Then he followed, their shadows crossing on the new snow.