“The son certainly does. The wife is a mousy little creature who scarcely uttered a word. Either she’s the submissive fundamentalist sort, or she really doesn’t mind being a widow.” He shrugs. “Or both, of course.”
“Domestic violence?”
“It’s possible. Certainly the son seems very sure of his manly place in the universe, and at the moment he sees that place as his father’s avenger. The MP at the gate relieved him of a knife and pistol on his way into the Base. I spoke to him”—he grimaces as smoke streams out about the stem of the pipe, giving him the aura of an oddly domesticated dragon—“at rather unpleasant length. We are going to have to have what amounts to a preliminary hearing-cum-inquest, at the very least. If there were any such available, I would advise that impetuous cousin of yours to get himself lawyered up. Where is he, by the way?”
“He says the Colonel’s made him PLO for life—that’s Permanent Latrine Officer—but he’s actually working maintenance out on the flightline. She’s got Andrews, the other pilot involved, doing the same. Here.”
Koda pushes the files across the desk. “These are the Polaroids I took before and after I treated the two surviving victims of the leghold traps. You can see the results of the treatment in person.”
The Judge opens the folders, studying the harshly-lit, slightly overexposed color pictures. His expression does not change, but Koda marks the sudden clenching of his teeth on the pipe stem as he inspects the photos of the bobcat’s torn and bloody flesh, the tendons hanging loose though the bones beneath had remained, by some fluke, unbroken. Beside it is a second Polaroid, this one showing the wound cleanly shaved and stitched. The coyote’s involuntarily bobbed tail looks less serious, and the Judge cannot quite suppress a twitch at the corner of his mouth. “The Trickster tricked,” he observes, “and escaping with nothing but wounded dignity in the end. Appropriate.”
“Not quite nothing,” Dakota says quietly. “That wound was nastily infected. He could have gone septic and died.”
“You’re right, of course.” The Judge sets the folders down. “Are there other photographs?”
Of the wolf, Wa Uspewicakiyapi, he means. “No. Come out to the kennels, then we’ll open the freezer.”
Outside, Harcourt comes close to smiling again. The coyote lies on his back, forepaws crossed over his ribs in classic mummy fashion, snoring in the sun. His abbreviated tail twitches with his dreams, the wound healed over, leaving only a bare tip of skin to testify to his ordeal. The bobcat lies invisible inside the concrete block shelter at one end of her run, favoring shade for her siesta. But signs of her improvement are obvious. A much scuffed rubber ball testifies to her growing ease at chasing and pouncing; except for a few crumbs and a feather or two, her food bowl is empty. Harcourt shoots Koda a reproving glance, and she says, “She caught a pigeon.”
“Rock dove,” he corrects her absently. “At least that’s a good sign she can begin to fend for herself.”
“With luck I should be able to release both of them in a week or so. I’m going to wait for Tacoma to come back from the wind farm so he can help with her. She’s getting pretty feisty now that she’s doing better.”
“You mean uncooperative.”
Dakota grins at him. “With everyone but Tacoma, I mean she barely tolerates us. She’s picky.”
“And these—?” Harcourt gestures toward the run where the mother wolf lies sunning herself on the concrete, while her pup repeatedly flings himself up the incline of her shoulders and as repeatedly slides downward to bump his stubby tail on the hard surface. A sharp yap announces his frustration, but his mother barely twitches. Finally he trots around her, taking the long way at last, and settles down to nurse, nuzzling at her belly. She rouses, licks him absently, and resumes her nap.
“Wa Uspewicakiyapi’s mate and surviving pup. They’re almost ready for release, too.”
“Excellent,” he says, quietly. “Shall we go in?”
Shall we open the freezer, he means.
Koda feels a chill pass down her spine. She has not unlocked the unit since Kirsten brought her the keys, that day by the streamside. She knows what she will see and knows that, gash for gash and shattered bone for bone, she has seen far worse. The shock was in discovering what Tacoma had done; it is long past and keeps no hold over her. Stiffly her fingers close about the small bit of metal in her pocket. “All right,” she says shortly, and turns toward the door.
Her hands are steady as she turns the key in the lock. As the lid comes up, a cloud of frosty air rises up to meet them like fog, obscuring the contents of the freezer. With it, faint with the cold, comes the sick-sweet odor of death. When the condensate clears, a bundle perhaps a meter long, wrapped in heavy plastic, lies visible at the bottom. Koda bends down to grasp it at the middle, but Harcourt says, “Allow me,” and takes hold of one end, leaving Koda to lift the other. Together they carry it to the metal worktable normal used for such chores as mixing plaster casts or clipping fur from the cuts and scratches of recalcitrant patients. They set it down gently.
A moment’s inspection reveals that the plastic is not wound about the body but folded over it in several layers. As gently as if she were smoothing the bedcovers of a child, she loosens the tape and lays back the heavy, transparent plastic, frosted with the cold. At the last, the outlines of the wolf’s form clearly visible through it, she hesitates for a breath. Then, firmly, she folds it back.
Though Manny and Tacoma had been quick, rigor had apparently come and gone by the time they found the wolf’s remains, and temperatures had been just high enough not to freeze them where they lay. There can be no illusion that Wa Uspewicakiyapi seems only sleeping, yet he is decently laid out, his spine slightly curved, his head on his paws, his tail curled over his flank to expose the terrible wound in his leg.
Harcourt rounds the table for a closer look. Even frozen solid, it is clear that the teeth of the trap have torn the flesh down to the bone, abrading tendons and muscle and nerves over time enough for the edges to become dried and bloodless. Fragments of bone show through the shredded flesh. The fur, mingled grey and white, remains clotted with crimson. On his belly, the blood is frozen in a thin, smooth sheet, only the edges of skin showing white where the torn organs have been replaced. The position of the head hides the worst of the wounds to the neck, but streaks of blood stain the ruff, a necklace of deep garnet. As Harcourt leans closer to look, his face becomes as still as the wolf’s own, and as cold. But he says only, “Dakota, would you please bring the camera? We need to have a permanent record.”
In the examination room, Koda checks the camera for film and is grateful for the few minutes necessary to find and slip a new packet into place. Her hands are numb from the cold, and she fumbles twice as she closes the back. The numbness about her heart has begun to shift, the first cracks appearing in the blue ice that has crept through her veins since the moment she found Wa Uspewicakiyapi bleeding his life out into the snow. In its place anger rises, a rage as white and searing as sheet lightning. She fumbles again as she turns toward the door, knocking a box of gauze sponges to the floor. As she stoops to pick them up her vision narrows, centering only on the small circle of light that contains her hand, lifting the box, meticulously setting it back down on the counter. Hunter sight.
But her prey is dead already, lying frozen and cold as his victim in the hospital morgue. You should have left him for me, cousin. If she cannot have him, she can at least make sure that others do not follow him.
Never. Never again. I swear it.
Gradually light invades the darkness that has gathered around her, and her field of view returns to normal. Carefully she steps around the examination table and returns to the workroom where Harcourt waits for the camera. Wordlessly she hands it to him, allowing him to record the evidence of brutal death. When he has done, the photos slipped into a pocket, he says quietly, “I need to ask you a question, Dakota. It’s one I will need to ask you again, at the inquest.”