Part 2
“In cover, with us watching,” Grace said. “Only if Anika says she’s ready.”
She kept the image open while they worked out where they could place the kitten away from the road. The female would need room to investigate. Grace and Mateo would need a clear approach if they had to end the attempt.
The state wildlife office approved a monitored reunion. They chose a sheltered spot near the route on the camera and brought a reunion box from the department: a covered enclosure that would keep the newborn from crawling away while letting an adult reach her. It couldn’t exclude every other animal that might come along.
Grace checked the access lane from the concealed parking spot twice. They tested the live camera, its view of the opening, and the approach beside it. There would be no food outside the box to draw scavengers.
That afternoon Anika examined the kitten again. Her temperature held, she was hydrated and more alert, and the shoulder was improving. Anika cleared the attempt with limits on exposure and the time until her next care, and they agreed on when to bring her in.
Before sunset Grace set the covered carrier inside the reunion box and opened its connecting panel. The rolled towel remained around the kitten. Then she withdrew along the access lane and joined Mateo in the truck, out of sight of the enclosure.
For an hour, the small figure on the monitor barely moved. Mosquitoes worked through the gap at Mateo’s window. He slapped his wrist, checked whether the sound had disturbed the kitten, and closed the gap.
“I could’ve brought spray,” he muttered.
Grace kept her eyes on the screen. “I’d settle for sleeves.”
The kitten lifted her head and called. The microphone made the sound thin and scratchy inside the cab; Grace turned it low without looking away. On the screen, the grass beyond the box stirred.
A raccoon appeared, nose to the ground. It sniffed along the path and passed without approaching the enclosure. Grace followed it to the edge of the frame, then checked the opening again.
The kitten kept calling for several minutes. Each time she paused, Grace listened to the insects outside the truck, waiting for the next small cry. At last the little head sank against the towel, and the camera switched to night vision.
A long muzzle entered the far edge of the picture.
Grace reached for the keys as the coyote stepped into view. She started the truck and drove down the clear lane, headlights sweeping across the box. Mateo called out through the window, and the animal wheeled away into the brush.
“Watch that side.” Grace was out as soon as the truck stopped. Mateo kept his light toward the retreating animal while she closed the carrier, secured it, and lifted it against her body.
Inside, the kitten moved beneath the towel. Grace checked her before they drove away. The opening on the abandoned monitor was empty now, bright under the truck’s lights.
They said little on the way back. At the center Grace gave the kitten her prescribed feeding, settled her against the roll, and closed the incubator. The warm pressure of that small body lingered in her gloved palms after she had put her down.
Mateo remained at the doorway. “We tried, Grace.”
Grace looked up from the care sheet.
“We got her out,” he said. “She’s fed. She can stay here.”
He wasn’t wrong. Grace could begin the long schedule of raising her, keep human contact limited, and work toward release when she was old enough. The incubator was holding its temperature; she could read it from where she sat.
She finished the feeding entry. On her phone, the adult female still faced the roadside in the saved image. Before deciding that the attempt was over for good, Grace wanted to know whether that animal had come back.
She checked the original site before dawn. At the muddy edge, a fresh bobcat print lay across the tread mark Mateo had left the previous morning. Grace stopped with her own boot above the ground and set it down farther back.
The camera held two new appearances by the female. In one she was near the roadside rescue spot; in the other she faced the sheltered opening. Grace phoned Anika, Mateo, and the wildlife officer with the new evidence and a proposal for a second location.
“Farther into cover,” she said. “Closer to where she’s moving.”
The second site had thorns on three sides and much more ground between it and traffic. Grace checked for fresh coyote and raccoon sign and found none while Mateo arranged cameras to show both the box entrance and the narrow path beside it. They checked their access again and left no food lure.
Anika reexamined the kitten before the attempt. After a full feeding, Grace placed her in the covered carrier, checked the towel around her, and took her out to the new site. Everyone withdrew before dusk.
For the first hour, the kitten slept. When she woke, she raised her head and began to call, and Grace glanced from the picture of her to the view along the path. She kept one hand resting beside the keys.
Half an hour passed, then another. Mateo shifted carefully in his seat, trying to quiet the seat belt fitting against the door. Grace checked the time remaining before they would have to bring the kitten in.
Ninety minutes into the calling and waiting, a shape crossed the upper corner of the screen. The female stepped onto the path and stopped several yards from the enclosure. Her body stayed low while she tested the air.
Grace moved her hand away from the keys.
The bobcat circled downwind. For a moment, her shoulder appeared between two branches; then she passed beyond the camera’s view. Mateo leaned toward the second screen, where the path was still empty.
“She’s gone,” he whispered.
“Give her a minute.” Grace watched the dark strip behind the box.
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