Part 5
Nine weeks later, Rachel called from the north gate and asked whether Beth was ready.
Beth had been ready since five-thirty. She had filled a thermos, put on an extra pair of socks, and moved her car out of the lane twice, first to make room for the truck and then because she thought the new space might be better. She told her daughter she would be there in a minute.
Outside, the hollows left by the stock trailer had filled with blown leaves. Selling it had paid for the first stage of cleaning and repairing the barn. Beth had taken another bookkeeping account to cover the rest, and the insurance question remained unresolved.
She carried the thermos down to the truck. Three covered carriers were secured in the back, and Rachel was checking the fastenings with a center employee Beth recognized from the rescue. Mercer stood beside them with a map folded against his clipboard.
“Morning,” Rachel said. “You can ride with me.”
Beth looked toward the carriers. “All three?”
“All three.”
Twice a possible release date had passed without becoming a promise. Until she saw the carriers, Beth had prepared herself for Rachel to arrive with an explanation instead.
At the remote rehabilitation enclosure, the young female had been climbing and hunting without favoring her paw; the adult had kept to cover whenever staff approached. Contact with people had been kept to a minimum. Rachel had passed on those updates by phone; until today, the animals had been almost all they talked about.
Rachel opened the passenger door. “You’ll want your gloves. We’re walking the last bit.”
They drove past the barn. Through its open doorway, Beth could see light on the patch of floor where Nell had lain. Rachel’s last update had the lioness eating again, though she would need continuing care.
Frank had surrendered the animals and agreed not to keep wildlife while the case proceeded. His chair in Beth’s kitchen had started collecting mail.
The truck stopped below a meadow on the upper slope, near where the investigation records placed the cats’ original capture. Beyond Beth’s woods, the land ran undeveloped along the creek; the release site had been checked and approved. Frost lay in the grass the sun had not reached. Mercer showed them where to carry the equipment.
Beth carried the folded screen up the slope while Rachel brought its posts. Wet grass brushed their boots, and once Rachel slowed to let Beth catch up.
“Here?” she asked Rachel.
“A little farther back. We want the opening toward those trees.”
Beth moved it. Rachel came to help, and together they secured the screen while the others positioned the carriers. Beth was working a strap through its buckle when her daughter spoke again.
“Mercer went over the part about Sunday with me.”
Beth kept the strap flat between her fingers. “What I wrote about you?”
“Yes. I wasn’t sure you’d given him all of it.”
“I wish I hadn’t written it.”
Rachel looked toward the carriers, then back at her. “I know. But you left it in.”
Beth pulled the strap too tight and had to loosen it. Rachel held the buckle steady for her.
“And you didn’t come to the center,” Rachel said.
“You asked me not to.”
“I kept expecting you to show up with lunch anyway.”
Beth could see how it would have happened: the bag of sandwiches in her hands, people watching while Rachel decided whether to let her stay. She had nearly made that trip more than once.
“I wanted to,” she said.
“I know.” Rachel smoothed a fold in the canvas. “I’m still not ready to talk about Frank.”
“All right.”
Rachel held the buckle until Beth had secured the strap. Then she moved aside, leaving room for her mother behind the screen.
The first carrier door lifted. For nearly a minute, the adult bobcat remained inside.
Beth could see a strip of leaf litter through the gap beside the canvas. She imagined the blue lead again and had to remind herself that it was gone, removed weeks earlier. She wondered whether she would recognize the cat without it.
A whiskered face emerged. The bobcat tested the air, crouched at the threshold, and sprang into the meadow so abruptly that Beth’s fingers closed on the canvas.
She reached the trees and stopped behind a fallen limb. Through its bare branches, Beth could make out one dark ear and the pale edge of a cheek. The cat was looking toward the carriers.
The young male came out next, low to the ground, and ran for the same cover. His sister waited until the last door was fully raised. She stepped forward, placed her right front paw in the frosted grass, and stood with her head turning toward the creek.
The young cat stayed there long enough for Beth to feel her own breathing. Beside her, Rachel remained still, and Beth kept her hands loose against the canvas.
Then she bounded toward the trees. The mother moved deeper into the brush, and the two smaller shapes followed her beyond the fallen limb. Beth could no longer separate their movement from the movement of branches.
Rachel stayed in place until Mercer signaled. Then she stepped out and went to check the empty carriers.
“Do you think they’ll stay together?” Beth asked.
“For a while, probably. The young will go their own ways when they’re ready.”
Beth nodded and began gathering the pegs from the screen. Rachel knelt to secure the carrier doors, brushing the damp dirt from each latch before she closed it.
By the time the truck was loaded, the sun had reached the meadow. A thin wet shine replaced the frost, and the places where the cats had crossed were already difficult to find.
Rachel pulled off her gloves. “What’s in the thermos?”
“Coffee.”
“Good coffee?”
“The kind you buy me because you don’t like mine.”
Rachel smiled, briefly and without looking away. Beth unscrewed the lid and discovered that she had brought only one cup.
“I can get another from the truck,” she said.
“This is fine.”
Rachel took the cup and drank. They stood beside the folded screen while Mercer finished securing the load, the warmth of the sun just beginning to reach their coats.
After a moment Rachel handed the cup back. Beth turned it by the handle and drank from the same side.