Winter Study

“What are you hiding from, Kathy?” Bob said in a voice loud enough that A

Katherine raised her head, her eyes invisible behind her glasses. “Just trying to stay out of the way,” she said.

“You’re not in the way,” Robin reassured her. In such cramped quarters, they all were in the way all the time.

“Bob once carried me,” Katherine blurted out. “He carried me up five flights of stairs.” Her voice had an edge, as if she was making a point.

“Hey, careful, my head will get too big,” Bob said with the first show of humility A

“I don’t really remember it,” Katherine went on. “I was out cold.”

Bob laughed and Katherine shrank back into her self-made cave.

A

ARRAYED IN THE FRILLY APRON, Bob started di

Soft hands touched her face, brushed the lank hair from her forehead. Gray, A

“I am so sorry,” Robin whispered. A kiss or a tear settled on A

“De nada.” A

ANNA SHOULD HAVE slept like the dead – or the very nearly dead – but she was troubled by dreams and the revenge of muscles she’d abused. Her legs flinched and quivered and sent mixed messages to her brain, unable to decide whether they were hurting or bored. She wasn’t asleep when the beeping started.

Either Robin shared A

“Which one?” Robin whispered.

“Between Intermediate and Richie, about a quarter of a mile from where you went in.” She clicked on her headlamp. Using its light, she began pumping the Coleman lantern. Colemans worked. They’d worked forever, lighting places electricity would not. But they were noisy machines, clanking in the preparation and hissing like a thousand angry snakes when lit. Katherine and Bob woke up.

“What is it?” Katherine asked, her voice fogged with sleep.

“We’ve trapped a wolf,” Robin told her. She was already pulling on her ski pants.

A

“You’re not going,” Robin said.

“I’m going,” A

They both looked at Bob. He stared back at them. The Coleman was not a cosmetic light, and he looked pasty and scared. “I’m not Superman,” he said in a tone just short of surly. “I’ve already saved one of you today. Leave the fucking wolf in the trap till morning.”

“It could die,” Robin said and sat in the straight-backed kitchen chair to put on her mukluks.

“I’ll go.” This was from the top bunk. A

Courage and bravado, A

“Get in bed,” Robin said. She picked up a radio from the table and called Ridley. He radioed back immediately. Robin told him about the motion detector going off.

“If A

Bob moved back, legs still in his sleeping bag, and leaned against the wall, folding his arms over his chest.

“It’s a fool’s errand,” he said.

“Bob’s done in,” Robin said into the mike.

There was a long moment of crackling silence, then Ridley said:

“I think there’s an old pair of skis in the cabin. You go, take the jab stick. If we’ve got a wolf, just put him out and set him free. He should wake up and get moving before he freezes to death. You can reset the trap tomorrow. Keep me posted.”

The jab stick was what it sounded like, a long stick with a syringe on the end, loaded with ketamine and xylazine. A trapped wolf was jabbed with it. In five minutes or so, the animal would go down long enough for the study team to do their work.

The skis and poles were stowed in the rafters. Robin had them down in a minute and was prying off the bindings with a butter knife. “No boots,” she said when A

“Radio and flashlight,” A

“Got them.”

The door slammed shut. Life had gone out of the cabin. A

“This study should be shut down,” Bob a

“Moose don’t eat grass,” A

“New DNA,” Katherine said. “It might be a big deal, Bob.” This was the second time Katherine had stood up for herself. A

“They can’t shut the study down now,” A

Bob dropped that line of conversation and launched into a lecture about how personal safety was number one with professional big game hunters. A

She didn’t have long to wait. Robin radioed Ridley. A

“I’m here,” the biotech said. She’d covered the miles in a startlingly brief time and didn’t even sound out of breath. A

“What have you got?” Ridley asked.

“Nothing.” Now she sounded breathless. “The trap and line have been torn all to hell. Whatever was in the foothold ripped free. The metal is bent and there’s blood everywhere.”

“Get out of there,” A

The radio went silent.