Part 5
Wren sprang as the rabbit cleared the limb. His first snap missed, but he turned with it, close to the ground, and caught it before it reached the brush. Beth’s hand tightened around the binoculars.
For a few seconds she could see only moving fur. Then Willow approached, and Flint circled back with the uncertain eagerness of someone arriving after the work was done. Wren kept his place beside the rabbit.
Beth had a ridiculous impulse to tell somebody which pup had done it. She wanted Keller to see the pale body braced over its catch, the legs that had once hung so weakly over her arm. She wanted to say that this was the one whose breathing they had listened to all night.
Willow lifted her muzzle and howled. Flint joined her first, his voice climbing above hers, and Wren followed a moment later. Beth covered her mouth with her free hand and listened from behind the screen.
When they quieted, she stayed where she was. Her knees had begun to ache, but moving seemed likely to disturb something she wanted them to finish without her. Eventually Willow led the pups toward thicker cover, and Beth returned to the cabin with the binocular strap caught beneath her collar.
She recorded the hunt before calling Elena. Halfway through the report, her voice failed and she had to begin the sentence again. Elena let her finish, then asked what the mother had done afterward.
“Taken them into the trees.”
“Good. Put that in, too.”
As August gave way to September, the family began using ground Beth could barely see from the observation points. She found their sleeping places farther from the clearing, confirmed by the field crew’s checks. Their food requirements changed as evidence of successful hunting accumulated, and Elena reduced the supplemental placements.
Some mornings Beth returned to find the meat untouched. She still checked carefully, distinguishing an uneaten portion from scraps scattered by scavengers. Then she carried it away and wrote the result without adding the sentence she wanted someone to answer: What am I supposed to do with this good news?
The notebook grew thinner toward the back. There were fewer feeds to record, longer intervals between sightings. Beth used some of the spare time to repair a loose porch board and sharpen the knife she had brought for small jobs around the cabin.
One evening Willow stood at the forest edge on her side of the woodland fence, facing the porch. There was no food waiting there. The wolf watched Beth take the empty water bucket off the step.
Beth set it down again. She could have said the name easily; no one was beside her to hear. Instead she raised one hand a little, an awkward wave that remained unfinished when Willow turned away.
The pups followed their mother through the brush. Wren was almost as tall as Flint now, though he still let his brother go first. The last thing Beth saw was the pale tip of his tail slipping behind a trunk.
She sat on the step until the bucket’s metal handle grew cold beneath her fingers. There would be no arrangement that allowed her to stop by after work, no promise that somebody would send a picture whenever she became afraid. If this ended as they intended, the forest would stop giving her an answer every morning.
When she finally cried, there was nobody to move around quietly on her behalf. She went inside, rinsed her face, and heated the soup she had left on the stove. Before bed, she checked the radio battery and set the alarm.
Elena returned in early October. For two days she moved among the observation points and walked the service routes with Beth, studying the family’s responses to an unfamiliar person’s presence. Beth tried to stop giving explanations every time they saw less than she hoped.
On the second morning, Willow detected Elena before the woman reached the screen. She withdrew up the slope with both youngsters, putting trees between them and the human sound. Beth watched Elena make a note and resisted asking whether that counted.
Later they observed a hunt from the ridge. The youngsters still made mistakes, but Willow kept moving and they worked with her, following instead of turning toward the feeding stations. At the cabin that evening, Elena spread her records on the table and went through the questions she still needed answered.
“They’re getting there,” she said at last. “The mother is hunting. The boys are learning from her, and they’re choosing distance from people.”
Beth waited. The generator rattled outside, making the spoon in her empty bowl tremble.
“Ready for release?”
“Ready for us to finish the release plan. We still need the site cleared, the next assessments, and a workable transfer date.” Elena tapped the map with one fingernail. “I wouldn’t say this if I thought we were choosing permanent care.”
Beth stood to take the bowls to the sink. She stacked them carefully, then moved the top one because its edge rested crookedly against the other. Behind her, Elena unfolded a second map.
“We have several possibilities within fifty miles. You know this family’s movements better than anyone who’s visited for a day. I want your choice in the assessment.”
Beth returned to the table. The map covered most of the wood between them, its old creases mended with clear tape. She followed a river with her eyes, found the highway, and stopped at the curve marked beside the forest tract.
“Here,” she said.
Elena looked where she was pointing. “The place you found them.”
“Their woods go back from it for miles. There’s an access track on the forest side, away from the road.” Beth kept her finger on the map. “You’d have to tell me if it isn’t suitable.”
Elena studied the contour lines. “I will.”
Beth nodded, but didn’t take her hand away. Beneath her fingertip was the number forty-seven.
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