Part 2
Keller moved between Beth and the table. “Back to the door.” He checked the wolf while the technician adjusted the line beside him; after several seconds, the rigid legs loosened and the mother drew a rough breath.
Beth put her shoulder against the door frame. Keller kept working until the monitor settled, then told the technician to stay beside the female. “The smaller pup has pneumonia,” he told Beth. “I need to check him again.”
Someone brought Beth a chair. She sat without feeling herself bend, holding the wet cuffs of her coat away from her wrists. Each time the door closed, she found a new reason to stand.
Hours passed in separate pieces: a fresh towel, the squeak of a cart wheel, a cup of coffee that cooled untouched. Each time Keller passed, she asked about the pup’s breathing. It had not grown easier yet, he told her; no one could promise what the night would bring.
Near midnight, the mother opened her eyes. She turned toward the clear-sided warming enclosure where the pups lay together and watched until the dark one moved against his brother. Then her head lowered again.
Keller pulled a chair beside Beth’s. There was dried mud on one of his shoes, and a red mark where his mask had pressed his cheek. He asked where she had found them.
“Mile forty-seven. Hollow Pine highway.”
He wrote it down. “The wildlife people will arrange a proper facility once they’re fit to travel. You understand they can’t go home with you.”
Beth looked at the mother’s chest. It rose, paused, rose again. “I wasn’t looking for something to keep.”
Keller waited, his pen still above the paper.
“There’s a cross there. On a pine.” Her throat hurt from the cold and all the things she had said to the windshield. “My son. Three years today. I was driving.”
He lowered the pen. Beth wished, almost at once, that she hadn’t told him. At home, once people knew, every ordinary question became a different question.
“I sat there while they worked on him,” she said. “Tonight I could at least get them here.”
Keller set the clipboard aside and stayed another minute. When the technician called him, he got up. Beth was grateful he had not tried to make the two nights balance.
Elena Ruiz arrived the next morning with damp snow on the shoulders of her field jacket. Before introducing herself, she asked Keller about the pneumonia and went to look through the recovery-room window. Beth watched the woman’s face, trying to read a decision in it.
Elena explained that the wolves were going to the North Fork Wildlife Center. The center had secure facilities and people who worked with large predators. Transport had been arranged for that afternoon.
“He’s still struggling,” Beth said. “The little one. You haven’t heard him when he wakes up.”
“I’ve read the treatment notes.”
“Then let him stay.” Beth stepped into the passage before she realized she was blocking it. Elena stopped a few feet away and let the silence become uncomfortable.
Keller came out of the treatment room with his hands still wet. “I’d prefer seventy-two hours here. Especially for the smaller pup. We have them stable enough to watch; I don’t have them stable enough to send over a mountain road.”
Elena looked back through the window. “If their condition changes, call me. We’ll move them when Sam clears them.”
Beth stepped aside. Her relief lasted until Elena turned to her again.
“After the transfer, there won’t be visits. They need as little contact with people as we can manage. Being comfortable around us can become a problem they can’t survive.”
Beth had been about to ask for the address. She folded the question away with the gloves she was holding.
She rented a motel room across the parking lot and called the store to say she needed a few days. The owner asked whether she was hurt. Beth said no, looked at the purple marks appearing on her forearms, and added, “Nothing serious.”
During the next three days she washed bowls, changed bedding outside the occupied pens, and folded towels until the corners lined up. Keller allowed her long hours at the clinic, though he sent her across the lot when exhaustion made her careless. She learned that helping meant leaving a doorway clear and following an instruction the first time.
Keller put the pups’ age at about a month. Their feeds were measured and supervised. Beth used what the clinic provided, wrote down what each took, and handed the smaller one back whenever his breathing changed. He tired sooner than his brother and had a way of pressing one forepaw against the bottle as though someone might remove it without warning.
She called the dark pup Flint in her head. His brother became Wren, for the pale, restless scraps of him tucked into the towel. The mother was Willow, a name Beth chose while watching the long gray body finally rest without shivering.
She kept the names out of the medical chart. They belonged to the parts of the day she wasn’t reporting to anyone.
On the second afternoon, Willow stood. Her hind legs trembled, and Beth rose from her chair before the technician gave a small shake of the head. Beth sat back down and watched the wolf find her own balance.
Later, after a short feed, Wren fell asleep with his body supported on Beth’s lap and his head resting in her open palm. His mouth worked once in his sleep. She could feel the warmth through the thin skin at the base of her fingers.
Danny used to fall asleep before she finished fastening his pajamas. One arm would be in a sleeve and the other tucked against his chest, his cheek heavy on her wrist. Paul would turn down the television without being asked, and Beth would stay where she was, putting off the simple business of laying him in his crib.
The pup shifted. Beth bent over him, unable to see clearly, and a tear landed on the towel instead of his fur. She wiped her face with her shoulder so she would not move the hand beneath his head.
Across the room, Willow watched through the mesh of her recovery pen. Beth stayed until the technician came for Wren, then let the towel lift from her lap. The small absence of weight remained in her hand afterward.
On the morning the seventy-two-hour hold ended, Willow was eating solid food. Wren’s breathing had improved enough for Keller to sign the transport clearance, though treatment would continue at North Fork. Beth returned to the motel, packed the clothes she had barely worn, and carried the room key back to the desk.
When she crossed to the clinic, Elena’s van was already there. Through the glass doors Beth saw the handlers bringing in the crates, and Willow heard them, too.
To read the rest of the story – CLICK the NEXT button 👇👇👇