Part 3
Caleb caught the throw line from the screened pocket and used it to haul the winch cable across. He locked the cable to the sled’s bow and clipped an upstream load-control tag line to its frame. Maya rigged a separate personnel safety line between the rated posts. Nobody clipped a person to the load.
In flotation vests and rescue harnesses, Maya, Caleb, and Hannah crossed one at a time with both hands on the upstream line. The current rose to their knees, but a downstream belay from the far truck checked each body before the next person entered. Eli remained on the near bank with the sled’s stern rope running through a fixed brake.
Juniper rode strapped to the rigid litter atop the runners, oxygen line tucked beneath the blanket and monitor transmitting to Hannah’s receiver. Hannah checked every strap before crossing, including the one that would bruise before it failed. Now she waited beside the far-bank winch with airway equipment open at her feet.
Boone paced behind the steel wing on the near bank. He did not enter the water or find a gap around the truck. Then he stopped with his nose lifted toward a tangle of saltbush downstream.
Three coyotes emerged on the far side, narrow-backed and rain-soaked. A fourth stayed half concealed in the brush. They were not charging, but their attention fixed on the litter, and blood and birth fluid had traveled through the wet air more clearly than any fence line.
Maya freed the air horn at her vest. Before she used it, Boone bounded along the mesh on the near bank, taking the coyotes’ attention with him.
Boone’s roar crossed the water. The coyotes checked, ears flattening, as he stopped against the barrier in full view, shoulders high and head low. They backed into the brush one at a time.
“Winch,” Maya said. The capstan drew the bow line in at walking speed while Eli paid out the stern belay. The runners entered the current square to the flow, then the front one caught on something below the surface. The sled swung until Juniper’s head dipped toward the water.
Caleb stopped the capstan. Maya hauled the load-control tag line while Hannah watched the monitor and fought the useless urge to enter the water. On the near side, the stern rope had wrapped a submerged limb. Eli stepped shin-deep within the screened channel to clear it, clipped to the personnel safety line. The limb rolled and struck him across the shin hard enough to tear his pants. He folded once, kept both hands on the belay, then planted his upstream foot and hauled until the branch tore free with a crack.
The sled straightened. Maya restarted the winch while Caleb kept the tag line taut. The monitor showed a faint pulse, and the blanket lifted by less than an inch. “Keep her level,” Hannah said. “We’re close.”
The bow runners struck the far shoulder. Hannah and Maya pulled from dry ground while the capstan held the weight, and Caleb guided the frame between the anchor post and the truck. As soon as the sled cleared the current, Hannah found Juniper’s carotid pulse and reseated the oxygen mask.
Eli crossed last on the upstream safety line, limping when he gained the opposite shoulder, blood showing through the torn cloth. He waved Hannah off and took his place at the litter. Owen’s technician had backed the second vehicle almost to the water, and together they transferred Juniper without undoing the straps. Across the flood, the abandoned box truck and its locked wings still separated Boone from the low crossing.
The clinic truck climbed the final grade. The drowned road was the shortest human route, but inside the secured range the runoff narrowed uphill; Boone followed a high animal track around the head of the flooded channel. Hannah saw him only at intervals along the inner fence, yet he reached the medical compound seconds behind them.
At the gate, Boone accelerated as Juniper’s litter crossed his line of sight. The steel held, but Hannah heard his chest strike the air with a grunt when he stopped himself short of it. He followed along the perimeter instead, keeping parallel with the team until the building cut off his view.
Owen Bell met the litter at the treatment entrance, masked and gowned except for his gloves. His gray hair had the flattened look of a man summoned before breakfast. One look at the monitor changed his brisk walk to a run.
“Pressure?” he asked.
“Falling despite fluids. Obstruction is low, likely transverse.” Hannah kept pace at Juniper’s shoulder. “At least two movements on palpation. I couldn’t get a reliable count.”
“Then we count what we find.” Owen pushed through the surgical doors, and Hannah went with him.
Once they induced general anesthesia, Hannah intubated Juniper, confirmed breath sounds on both sides, and connected the tube to oxygen and anesthetic gas. The next minutes separated into tasks: additional venous access, clipped fur, antiseptic, drapes. Maya called readings while Owen opened the abdomen and Hannah managed the airway, hiding the tremor in her calves by bracing one knee against the table.
Caleb remained in the corridor because his soaked clothes excluded him from the room. Through the glass, he tracked Hannah’s hands rather than the surgical field. Beyond him, a slice of outer yard showed Boone moving past the window, reversing whenever the wall forced him away from Juniper’s direction.
Owen found the obstructing cub turned across the birth canal. Freeing it required time Juniper did not have and gentleness the uterus did. When at last he lifted the first cub out, it hung silent in his hands.
Hannah received the newborn in a warmed towel. She cleared fluid, rubbed the small ribs, and gave careful breaths while Owen reached for the next. The cub’s tongue stayed dusky for several terrible seconds, then its forepaw flexed and a ragged complaint escaped its mouth.
The sound made Hannah’s own lungs unlock. She noted the cub’s sex and passed it to the warming station without lingering; the table still held the animal whose pulse governed every other outcome in the room. Juniper’s heart rate surged as Owen repositioned his hands, then settled into an uneasy rhythm.
“Heat station,” Hannah said, passing it to Maya. A second cub arrived breathing, writhing against the towel before anyone touched it. The third needed suction and oxygen, but soon all three lay beneath the warmer, their cries thin and discordant over the machines.
Juniper’s pressure dropped again. Owen controlled a bleeding vessel and looked toward the monitor without lifting his head. “I need to close as soon as I’m sure we’re clear.”
Hannah checked the three cubs, then Juniper’s color. Saving the mother could not become an abstract priority; she was the body under Hannah’s hands, the reason those three had a chance. “Do what you need to do.”
As Owen examined the uterus, a minute ripple traveled under the drape near Juniper’s flank. Hannah almost dismissed it as pressure from his hand, but it came once more in the opposite direction.
“Wait,” she said. “There. Did you make that movement?”
Owen stilled, then explored behind the position where the first cub had been trapped. His eyes narrowed above his mask. “No,” he said. “That one did.”
Hannah looked at the warmer and counted again, though the answer could not change. Owen shifted his hand with exquisite care and found a small body folded deep behind the obstruction.
“There are four,” he said.
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