Part 5
Gabe returned to Cobre Ridge alone the following morning.
Winter had retreated into the north-facing gullies. The ledge where the female had been trapped now held dry leaves and a faint rust stain on the granite. The pinyon that had anchored the cable bore a pale scar around its trunk.
He did not remain there.
The female’s pre-capture tracks and camera history suggested that she had traveled a chain of remote canyons south of the public roads. Gabe spent four days examining water, cover, road access, livestock use, and the condition of old service tracks. He found deer trails, javelina sign, and a spring that had held through two dry summers.
No site could make release safe. One canyon opened toward a highway. Another narrowed beneath cliffs the female might not manage if her leg worsened. The third offered passage south through broken oak country and no reliable vehicle access for miles.
Years earlier, Gabe would have treated the difficulty of reaching it as a reason against release. Now he wrote it under advantages.
Lila joined him for the final survey. They parked before dawn and carried equipment through a wash where monsoon floods had taken half the trail.
At the damaged section, Gabe pointed toward a sloping shelf. “I’d go high.”
Lila tested a lower crossing with one boot. “This holds.”
“The mud beneath that crust may not.”
She crouched, broke the edge with a trekking pole, and exposed packed gravel below. “It held after the last storm too. I checked the field images.”
Gabe looked at the shelf he had chosen. Fresh rock fragments lay below it.
“All right,” he said. “You lead.”
Lila crossed first. On the far side she turned but did not offer her hand. Gabe chose his footing and followed.
The release canyon lay beyond two low ridges. Sycamores marked hidden water along the bottom, and winter grass covered the southern slopes. The route toward Mexico disappeared through overlapping mountains without any visible border.
Lila took measurements while Gabe inspected the ground where transport crates could be positioned. She rejected his first location because turning the trailer would damage a patch of unstable soil. He rejected hers because the doors faced open ground.
They found a third site beneath live oaks, with brush extending from the thresholds into the canyon.
Lila stood where the screens would conceal the team. “This works.”
Gabe looked at the route, then at the slope above it. “Yes.”
They ate lunch on separate rocks. Lila opened a container of sliced apples and set it between them, the old field habit surviving before either had decided whether their relationship would.
“Marisol told me what you said to her,” Lila said.
“I asked her not to be evidence for either of us.”
“She appreciated that.”
“Did you?”
Lila bit into an apple slice. “I appreciated that you asked her.”
Gabe took another slice from the container. He did not ask Lila to give a name to whatever remained between them.
The final medical review documented permanent loss of motion in the female’s wrist and an intermittent limp. It also documented sustained travel, successful independent hunts, avoidance of humans, and no worsening of the injury after exertion.
At the release meeting, Gabe withdrew his sanctuary recommendation.
He presented the canyon route, the transport limits, and the need to keep all coordinates restricted. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service had approved the return to the female’s known range, temporary access closures, and a limited tracking plan. Both animals would wear collars designed for wildlife monitoring; the young male’s would accommodate growth and release safely at the end of its service period.
One committee member asked whether the female’s disability made the decision irresponsible.
“It means we cannot promise the outcome,” Lila said. “The field tests show what she can do now.”
Gabe would once have answered for her, adding terrain detail until her judgment sounded like his. He waited until the chair asked him directly.
“The canyon gives her water, cover, and a route south,” he said. “Her leg may fail there. It may also carry her for years. The field tests support release.”
When the vote was complete, the chair turned to the operation plan. “Who directs on site?”
Gabe knew everyone expected his name. He had the longest backcountry experience and had found the animals. A year earlier, he would have accepted before the question was finished.
“Dr. Holloway,” he said. “I’ll manage ground safety if she wants me.” Across the table, Lila made no display of surprise. She pulled the plan toward herself, crossed out Gabe’s name on the command line, and wrote hers above it. Then she added his beneath FIELD ROUTE. “Departure is Friday at four-thirty,” she said. “Be at the center by four…”
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