Part 2
“Then you built a trap for a five-month-old cat,” Gabe said.
Clint held his hands away from his body. “Both restraints were meant to hold, not kill.”
“You set the empty loop by the gate too.”
“The first one never closed.”
“That does not help you.”
Beneath the overhang, the female lifted her head at the sound of their voices. The cub slid from the coat and tucked himself against her chest.
Gabe drew his radio microphone close. “Dispatch, suspect on scene. Clint Arnett. East fire road. Send county unit to my beacon.”
Clint looked toward the northern ridge. “Your people aren’t here yet.”
“They’re coming.”
“How long?”
Gabe did not answer.
Clint nodded toward the injured jaguar. “She won’t last all night.”
“You’ve known she was here since the camera alerted.”
“I knew something hit the line yesterday morning. She was standing then. There was no way to get close.”
“So you waited for her to weaken.”
“I waited for the cub to leave her.”
The words seemed to alter the temperature between them.
Clint glanced at the crate in his vehicle. “A buyer offered enough to stop the foreclosure. Cash for a live black jaguar. I wouldn’t have hurt him.”
“You anchored two restraints in his trail.”
“I’ve seen what your agencies do. Collar an animal, issue a press release, draw a line around somebody else’s land. You turn him into money too. You just put a seal on the letterhead.”
Gabe had attended meetings where a rare animal became a budget request before it became a living creature. The meetings had been slow, clumsy, and sometimes self-protective. None of them had left a cat bleeding beneath a granite ledge.
“The bank taking your property did not put that cable around her leg.”
Clint’s jaw tightened. “My sister and her girl live there. You know that.”
“I also know you could have called for help yesterday.”
“And told you where the cub was? By sundown there’d be fifteen trucks on this mountain.”
“You brought one yourself.”
Clint looked away.
Gabe directed him to sit against a boulder twenty feet from the utility vehicle. With ice underfoot and no backup yet in sight, he would not attempt to handcuff a man who was complying. Clint sat but kept watching the female.
The jaguar shifted. The cable snapped tight, jerking the trapped leg. Clint flinched before Gabe did.
“I brought a winch and a drag sled,” Clint said. “You’ll need both getting her out.”
“You are not approaching her.”
“You still make every decision sound like a safety rule.”
Gabe knew the remark was aimed past the canyon toward Lila. He kept his voice level. “Hands on your knees.”
Clint obeyed.
Headlights moved through the trees above them forty minutes later. Lila came down first in an orange shell and insulated coveralls, carrying a dart projector in a padded case. Marisol Vega followed with oxygen equipment and a portable monitor. Behind them, Deputy Tomas Ruiz and two county rescue workers guided a sled loaded with shields, a litter, and thermal blankets.
Lila stopped at Gabe’s position. “Changes?”
“Breathing is slower. She tried to move twice. The cub has stayed with her.”
Only then did Lila notice Clint. “How long has the female been caught?”
Clint looked at Gabe, perhaps expecting him to speak.
“She asked you,” Gabe said.
“The first alert was a little after two yesterday morning,” Clint answered. “She was upright until close to noon.”
“You have the images?”
“On my phone and the camera account.”
Deputy Ruiz removed the phone from the vehicle without opening it. “We’ll preserve it until we have legal authority.”
Lila kept her eyes on Clint. “Are the times accurate?”
“The camera syncs automatically.”
“And you watched her for more than a day.”
Clint stared beneath the ledge. “I thought the cub would come back alone.”
Lila’s mouth tightened. “Thank you for the timestamp.”
The words were neither pardon nor cruelty. Clint had supplied information that could help her judge the female’s condition, even though it deepened his own responsibility. When Ruiz secured his wrists, Clint did not resist.
“Use the west line when you carry her out,” he said. “The shelf above the direct route split during the freeze.”
Gabe studied him. Clint had read snow and rock in these mountains long before he began selling what he found in them.
“We’ll inspect both routes,” Gabe said.
Ruiz moved Clint beside the rescue truck but kept him within sight until the scene was stable.
Lila crouched behind the granite shoulder and studied the female through binoculars. She selected a conservative immobilizing dose because of the cold, dehydration, and possible shock. Marisol prepared the airway equipment while Lila assigned positions.
“I will decide when the animal is safe to approach,” she said. “Marisol controls ventilation and monitoring. Gabe, you watch the cub and the rock opening. If he comes toward us, you close the corridor with the shield. Nobody improvises.”
Her gaze rested on Gabe for the last two words.
“Understood,” he said.
Lila delivered the dart into the muscle of the female’s rear leg. The jaguar exploded upward with strength she had not shown before. Her roar struck the granite and came back through the canyon. She twisted toward the impact, and the cable dragged her down.
Gabe took one step from cover.
“Stay,” Lila ordered.
He stopped.
The female fought the medication for several minutes. Her head sagged, rose, and turned toward the cub. The black animal crawled beneath her jaw until her weight forced him sideways.
Lila watched her eyes, ears, jaw, and breathing. She waited beyond the moment Gabe would have moved. When she finally raised one hand, Marisol advanced behind a clear shield while Gabe approached from the opposite side.
The cub struck the plastic hard enough to shake it.
They formed a shallow passage leading away from his mother and toward an open crate. He would not use it. Whenever they widened the corridor, he flattened himself against the female’s uninjured shoulder.
Gabe saw his green coat lying several feet away. Using a pole, he drew one sleeve toward the crate and pushed the cuff across the threshold.
The cub’s gaze followed the canvas.
“Back up,” Marisol said.
They withdrew behind the shields. The cub crept from the female, sniffed the coat, and stepped onto the sleeve. He stopped halfway inside the crate and turned.
The female did not move.
The cub entered fully and crouched in the folds. Marisol pulled the door closed from behind the shield and covered the crate at once. Metal rattled as the animal struck it, then quieted except for his rapid breathing.
Lila went to the female.
She checked anesthetic depth, secured an airway, and started oxygen. Marisol placed the monitor and established access for warmed fluids. Gabe held a low work light where Lila directed.
The trapped foreleg was swollen to nearly twice the size of the other. The cable had opened the skin and compressed the tissue beneath it. Lila tested the paw and received no response.
“Can the leg be saved?” Gabe asked.
“I don’t know yet.”
Not yes to comfort him. Not no to prepare him.
The rescue workers placed absorbent pads beneath the injury. A manual spreader opened the cable while Gabe stabilized the anchor and Lila protected the leg. Dark blood welled as the pressure released. Lila controlled it, dressed the wound, and secured the limb in a padded splint.
“Temperature is ninety-five,” Marisol said. “Pressure is falling.”
They rolled the female onto an insulated litter and placed warming packs around her chest and abdomen, each separated from the skin by folded blankets. Lila checked the monitor before looking toward the slope.
The direct climb to the tracked vehicle was shorter, but it passed beneath the snow shelf Clint had mentioned. Gabe probed its base and found a crack running across the loaded crust.
“West around the rock fin,” he said. “Longer, but the ground is supported.”
“Her circulation is getting worse,” Lila replied.
“If that shelf moves, we lose the litter and everyone under it.”
For a moment they were back inside their old argument: his caution, her urgency, each hearing control in the other’s voice.
Lila went to the edge of the direct route and inspected the fracture herself. She returned to the litter.
“West,” she said. “Gabe calls the grade. I can stop the carry whenever I need to.”
He took the front handles without treating her agreement as surrender.
They advanced in short stages. Gabe tested the ground before placing each boot. Lila moved alongside the jaguar’s head, one hand on the airway tubing and one on the litter frame. Marisol kept each assisted breath even while the slope pulled at her footing.
The cub traveled behind them on a second sled. A thin cry came from the covered crate every few minutes.
Halfway around the rock fin, the pulse tone slowed.
“Down,” Lila said.
They lowered the litter level. Lila adjusted the airway while Marisol checked the connections. The rhythm steadied enough for them to continue.
The tracked vehicle’s amber light showed through the trees. They were less than a hundred yards away when the tones separated again, each one farther from the last.
“Stop.” The litter touched the snow. Lila found the artery inside the female’s thigh, shifted her fingers, and searched again. Marisol looked at the flat line on the monitor. “No pulse,” Lila said. She pointed to the jaguar’s chest. “Gabe, put your hands where mine are…”
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