Part 2
“I authorized a temporary move,” the man said. “That’s all I’m discussing with guests on this vehicle.”
Lena looked at the wound again. “A move doesn’t explain this. We’ll deal with it after they’re out.” She pointed toward the rear of the bus and asked Eli whether the emergency exit worked by hand.
“It does. We check it every morning.”
“Use it. Let the ranger tell you when to send each row.”
She told Eli that base had caught enough of his broken transmission to send the response truck. He closed his eyes briefly at that, then opened them and checked the rear exit through the line of seats. The useless-looking radio had brought help after all.
The man in the polo moved aside to clear the approach for the second ranger. Wade recognized him from a photograph by the ticket counter: Dean Voss, operations director. Voss checked the line of people visible through the windows, then turned back to Lena.
“Make sure they get through the service gate. Don’t leave them on the road.”
That was sensible. Wade was glad to hear somebody say it, though he did not take his attention off the lion. Amos had lifted his chin at a sudden intake of breath behind them. Wade hummed, barely moving his lips, and the head settled again.
“You’ve handled him before,” Lena said quietly.
“Years ago. He used to wake up hungry in our laundry basket.”
Eli looked from Wade to Amos. “The intake photograph. That was you?”
Wade nodded. Voss’s gaze moved sharply toward Eli, but the guide had already turned to the seats. He climbed across the unoccupied front row to get around Amos, then worked his way to the rear without approaching the lion’s head.
The latch opened with a metallic clack. Amos’s tail moved along the floor, and Wade stopped his hand until it was still. Outside, the ranger signaled to Eli.
The mother and her boy left first, moving directly toward the back. She looked over her shoulder once; Wade could see her mouth form a thank-you. He answered with a small movement of his chin and kept the tune going.
Others followed a row at a time. An older man needed help over the rear step, and one of the teenagers put her phone away when Lena caught her still filming. Shoes scuffed; somebody lost a hat. From Wade’s seat, the procession looked painfully slow, though no one was wasting a movement.
Only after the last passenger had reached the service gate did Lena tell Eli to return. He crossed the seats again, coming down beside Wade, who could no longer feel the fronts of his shins properly. Amos watched the guide’s hands.
“Let him lift his head first,” Wade said.
They waited. When Amos shifted, Wade drew his knees back a fraction, then another. Eli took his elbow as he stood, and for several seconds Wade had to hold the seat frame while the bus tilted in his vision.
“Can you walk?” Eli asked.
“If you don’t let go yet.”
Lena cleared the space outside. Wade moved toward the door with Eli supporting him, and Amos rose behind them, mane brushing both seat backs. At the steps, Wade felt the old animal’s breath close to his jacket. He could not have hurried even if somebody had asked him to.
Eli steadied him on the gravel. Amos descended after them, pausing over the last step with his damaged leg held stiff. Once he was down and clear of the bus, Lena signaled the ranger.
The dart struck high in Amos’s shoulder and made him flinch. He gave a low, rough growl and swung his head toward the sudden sting, then toward Wade’s broken attempt at the tune. Lena motioned everyone else farther back.
Eli helped Wade behind the response truck’s open passenger door, where Lena could still watch both him and Amos. His coat was soaked beneath the arms, and he had begun counting his breaths because counting was easier than worrying about whether the next one would come properly. Eli stayed close enough to catch him.
Amos lowered himself gradually. When his head finally rested on the gravel, Lena waited, assessed him from a distance, and then went to his side with a technician. Only at her signal did the others approach.
She checked him before touching the injured neck. Wade watched her separate the mane, photograph the band of damaged skin, and ask the technician for a ruler. There were other marks: rubbing near the shoulder, dried blood behind an ear. She recorded those too.
“He didn’t have that last week,” Eli said.
Voss turned on him. “You’re a guide, Eli.”
“I hosed mud off him through the wash fence. I saw his neck.” The young man looked at Lena. “I would have called you.”
“He belongs in the north habitat,” she said to Voss. “Who moved him into medical holding?”
“I did. He wasn’t shifting reliably, and we had a guest route to run.”
Voss said the morning crew had returned him from holding to the habitat before the first tour. Wade looked toward the fencing beside the track, fitting the short distance to the sore band beneath the mane. Amos had been back where guests could see him, with the injury hidden by all that hair.
“Then you needed to call me before moving him.”
Voss pressed his sunglasses against the bridge of his nose. A sheriff’s cruiser had appeared on the service road, and he went to meet it before answering. Wade heard him describe a mechanical incident and prompt staff action.
Deputy Owen Bell asked first about injuries. When he reached Wade, he opened a notebook and waited for the name, then wrote it without asking for a version that would fit Voss’s account.
“He put his head on me,” Wade said. “Nobody was attacked.”
“Mr. Harlan has a long attachment to this animal,” Voss added.
“I’ll put that down,” Bell said. “You can give me your statement separately.”
Eli had been twisting the radio strap around his fingers. He unwound it and stepped closer to the deputy.
“The door was reported three times. Twice last month the switch stuck. Maintenance thought the front panel was overheating.”
Voss said his name, softly enough to make the warning plain.
“I logged it,” Eli continued. “When the paper entry went missing, I emailed Leon in maintenance and copied operations. We’d complained about radio reception too.”
Wade watched the guide swallow before each sentence. Bell asked him to retain the emails and show where they had been sent. Voss tried to interject, but the deputy held up a finger until Eli finished.
The mother from the bus spoke through the service gate. Her boy was pressed against her leg, holding a plastic dinosaur by its tail. She repeated that Amos had lain down without hurting Wade.
“He looked scared,” the boy said. “Our dog does that when the fireworks start.”
His mother glanced down at him, then back at the deputy. Wade gave the child a nod. The boy straightened the dinosaur in his fist.
Lena had gone to the response truck for Amos’s transport paperwork. Now she was standing beside the open cab with the clipboard held against her stomach, looking from one page to Voss.
“Wade,” she said. “Was this discussed with you?”
He limped over, leaning heavily on the cane. She turned the page toward him. Under Amos’s identification number was a short entry: Disposition pending. A marked box beneath it referred to euthanasia review.
Wade knew what the box allowed somebody to consider. He followed the line to the authorizing signature, then looked at the date.
The review had been opened yesterday, before Amos had ever stepped onto the bus.
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