Part 4
Three months after Cedar Cut, Shaw called to say the lion was ready to go back. Her leg had healed well enough for her to hunt, and the center had cleared her for release. Daniel asked whether he could bring his son to watch.
“At a distance,” she said. “You may see very little.”
He told Caleb that before they left home and again when they reached the meadow. It was late May, warm in the sun, though strips of old snow remained beneath the shaded trees. The release site lay within the lion’s former range, well away from the railroad and the trapping sites Reyes was investigating.
Caleb stood beside the pickup with the binocular strap hanging almost to his belt. He’d worn boots Daniel had warned him would be too hot, and refused to change them. Now he worked his toes inside them while looking toward the empty stretch of grass below.
“What if she goes the other way?”
“Then she goes the other way.”
“But we might not see her.”
“That’s what Dr. Shaw said.” Daniel shortened the strap so the binoculars wouldn’t hit Caleb’s knees. “We’ll be ready if she comes out where we can.”
Over the previous weekends, the lion had become part of the small traffic between their two homes. Caleb arrived asking whether she’d eaten, whether the bandage was off, whether her leg still hurt. Daniel called the center when he had permission and something to ask; sometimes the news was only that she was much the same.
He had learned not to turn that into better news for his son. Caleb could sit with an answer like “they don’t know yet,” provided Daniel stayed with him long enough for the next question. They talked over the model tracks on the bedroom floor, moving the engines aside when Caleb needed both hands to show how the blanket must have worked.
The part he returned to most was Ray carrying the other end.
“You couldn’t have done that by yourself,” he had said one Sunday.
“No,” Daniel told him. “I couldn’t.”
Now the wildlife truck came slowly along the access road. Caleb stopped moving his feet and raised the binoculars before anyone got out. Daniel rested a hand on his shoulder, keeping him beside the pickup where Shaw had asked them to wait.
Below them, the team carried the transport crate to the edge of the trees. They positioned it so the open end faced cover, checked the area, and moved back. From where he stood, Daniel could see the front of the crate but not far into it.
For a while, nothing happened.
The grass bent under a light breeze. Caleb lowered the binoculars, rubbed one eye with his knuckle, and raised them again. Daniel remembered the view through the work car’s little window, his own face reflected faintly over the motionless animal inside.
“Is she scared?” Caleb whispered.
“I don’t know. She’s got a lot to look at.”
A paw appeared at the opening. The lion set it down, waited, then brought her head into the light. Her coat had grown smooth again; even across the meadow, Daniel could see the difference in the body behind it.
She stepped out of the crate.
He watched the hind leg without meaning to. There was a narrow scar where the fur hadn’t fully returned, and she favored the leg for a step on the uneven ground. Then she shifted her weight, tested the slope, and moved forward with a strength he hadn’t seen before.
Caleb’s hand found his.
The lion paused near the first trees and lifted her face into the breeze. Her head turned toward the pickup, amber eyes catching the light. Daniel held still, aware of his son’s fingers tightening around his own.
For that moment, she seemed to be looking at them. Daniel couldn’t tell what she saw at that distance, or whether their scent meant anything beyond people nearby. He wanted to believe she remembered his voice; he kept that wish to himself and watched her choose where to go.
She crossed the last open patch in several long bounds. A tawny shoulder passed behind a trunk, the dark tail followed, and the trees closed around her. Caleb kept the binoculars up after Daniel could no longer see anything moving.
“Dad.” His voice was thinner now. “Over there.”
Daniel looked where his son pointed. Farther along the tree line, a gray animal stood partly screened by young firs. When it turned, sunlight touched the pale mask that rose unevenly above its left eye.
He recognized the wolf from the track.
It watched the meadow for a few seconds, then moved into the timber in the direction the lion had taken. Daniel tried to follow it between the trunks and lost it almost at once. Beside him, Caleb let the binoculars fall against his coat without lowering his pointing hand.
Shaw came up the slope after the team had secured the empty crate. She had seen the wolf too, and stopped beside the pickup, looking toward the trees.
“Same pack uses this country,” she said. “We’ve been seeing them through the spring.”
“Was he waiting for her?” Caleb asked.
“I don’t think we can know that. They both live here.”
Caleb considered the meadow. “So he might see her again.”
“He might.”
Daniel thanked her, and she went back to the team. He and Caleb stayed a little longer, watching the place where the wolf had disappeared. Nothing came back out; a small bird settled on the empty crate and was gone before Caleb found it in the binoculars.
On the short walk around the pickup, Caleb caught Daniel’s hand again. His palm was warm and slightly damp, and there was mud on both knees of the pants he’d put on that morning.
“Tell me how they stood,” he said. “The first time.”
Daniel opened the passenger door, then stopped with his hand on it. He pointed down the access road to show the distance, and Caleb leaned against him to look.
“About fifty yards from the engine,” Daniel began.