Raising her voice, she calls, “Shannon, would you come here a moment, please?”

The thud of jogging footsteps in the hall precedes the tech into the examining room, and the bobcat starts at the sound. It is hardly the first time that Koda has been the object of a crush-cum-hero-worship, but the young woman’s eagerness to impress is beginning to get a bit overwhelming. When Shannon opens the door, though, she is all professional calm. “Dr. Rivers?”

“Set up the X-ray, would you? I need a radiograph of Igmú’s right forefoot; it’s still tight. I can’t feel anything out of alignment, but let’s be sure.”

“She’s about ready for release, isn’t she?”

“Almost. But she’s got to have everything working. She’s a runner and a pouncer, and without that ‘spring’ in all four feet she can’t hunt effectively.”

Shannon steps out of the room to ready the machine, and Koda returns to her examination. Other than the torn tendons, now almost fully healed, the cat is in excellent condition, better than if she had spent the last lean months of winter in the wild. The fur under her hand is soft and sleek, rich with oils from the fish Koda has added to her diet of red meat and fowl. Firm muscles ripple beneath it. She is up to a solid twenty pounds, not bad at all for a young female with her full growth yet to come.

Every ounce of that twenty pounds balks, though, when Koda reaches for the syringe lying ready on the counter. “Easy, girl. Easy . . . easy. . . . Shit . . .”

The slick surface of the examination table works with her reluctant patient as she squirms and slides backward out of Koda’s one-handed hold. “Come on, girl, this is the last one, I promise . . ..”

” Funny, I never believed the doctor when he said that, either.” Koda looks up to find Tacoma standing in the doorway. He has changed his fatigues for jeans and flannel shirt, his belt festooned with tools, a hard hat dangling from one loop. “Let me help.”

Koda nods, and he crosses the space between the door and the table at a single stride. At the first touch of his hands, the struggle stops cold. From deep in Igmú’s chest comes a rumble like low thunder, and she butts her head against his chest, her great golden eyes half-closed in pleasure. He scratches her gently under the chin while Dakota lifts her scruff and administers her third and last feleuk vaccination. The purr never falters.

Koda strokes her now complacent patient’s ears as she pitches the empty hypodermic into the red biohazard pail hung under the table. “Do you have time to help with the radiograph? It’ll only take a moment.”

“Sure.”

Scooping the bobcat up, Tacoma follows her into the tiny X-ray room. A click and a couple whirrs later, he carries her back to hospital, leaving Koda to develop the film. When he returns, she has it up on the light box, staring intently at the bone where the torn tendons anchor. There is no abnormality, and she breathes a small sigh of relief. “Have a look,” she says. “Everything’s in place; she just needs a bit of exercise to strengthen the paw. I’ll move her out into one of the outdoor kennel runs during the day, and—”

“Dakota.”

“—she’ll be ready for release in a week or so.”

“Tanksi.”

“I know you’ll want to be there.” Very deliberately Koda unties her lead-lined apron and hangs it up. “Do you think you’ll be gone long?”

Tacoma’s hand moves in a small half-circle that Dakota knows means frustration, but he answers evenly, “Five or six days, depending on how much we can do on this first trip. Melly Cho is going with us to determine whether we can get Rapid City hooked back up to the grid.”

“She’s that electrical engineer the census turned up?”

“Yeah. We may have one of the electric company linemen, too. They’ll be a big help.” There is a small, strained silence, then he says, “Harcourt wants to hold an informal inquest on Dietrich when we get back. As soon as it’s over we can do what is right for Igmú Tanka Kte.”

“Where’s Dietrich? Is he in a freezer somewhere, too?” Koda cannot keep the bitterness out of her voice; she does not try.

“Yes. At the morgue. His family want to bury him now that the ground has thawed.”

“Well,” she says shortly. “That’s understandable.” She turns away from him and begins to arrange ampoules of antibiotics and vaccines on the shelf above the counter.

There is a long silence. Then, softly. “Look— Damn, Koda, I know I’ve done this all wrong— I’m sorry. I don’t know anything else to say, though. I’m sorry.”

Dakota turns to face her brother. “I know you’re sorry. I accept that. What I can’t accept is—” Her voice catches for a moment, then steadies. “How would you feel if it were your teacher? If it were Igmú Tanka in there?” She gestures toward the back of the clinic where the freezer holds the wolf’s body.

“It would tear my heart out,” he says simply. “But I would be glad to bring her killer to justice. I would be glad her children would live. And I think she would be, too.”

An old story tells that the black marks at the corners of a puma’s eyes are the tracks of tears shed long ago, in the time before time, in mourning for her stolen young. And that, she knows, is the heart of the matter. It is the one thing she has not allowed herself to consider.

It is not only the bobcat who will be ready for release in a little time. Day by day, the she-wolf grows stronger, grows closer to the time when she will be able to hunt and provide for her young. The pup, whose blunt features hold the promise of his sire’s features and coloring to come, waddles about the run on stubby legs, splashing through the water bowl in pursuit of drifting paintbrush petals blown in on the spring winds. If law is allowed to lapse, if the trapping of wolves and bobcats and coyotes becomes a normal part of life again, then the pup could die the same way his father did. And no one would be there to spare his suffering or claim justice for him.

What would his father want? Her friend?

Salt stings Dakota’s eyes, and she turns abruptly away. After a moment, soft footfalls cross the small distance, and Tacoma lays his hands on her shoulders. She stands stiffly for a moment, then allows herself to lean against him, accepting his grief, his comfort, his strength. Her rage has not gone out of her, but it has found its true mark, Dietrich and those like him who give no honor to other nations and prize none for their own.

After a long moment, she raises a hand to cover her brother’s. She says, “Take care of yourself, thiblo. The wind farm is an obvious place for an ambush.”

“Don’t worry. We’re taking plenty of firepower.”

“Is Manny going?”

“He wants to. Allen won’t let him.” A hint of laughter runs under his words. “He knows she’s not going to throw him to the dogs. She just wants him to think she might.”

A light pressure of his fingers, and he is gone. She remains standing by the counter, her eyes wide and unfocused. Time has slipped again, in a way she knows long since. She sees not an array of bottles and ampoules and pill bottles, but a summer hill where a litter of wolf cubs tumbles squealing over each other, over their long-suffering parents. The female, almost entirely white except for grey about her ruff and on her ears, she does not recognize. The male, the alpha, who dozes in the overhang of the den behind them, is the pup now in her care, the other adults who sprawl on the rocks, their bellies bulging with fresh elk, his grown sons and daughters. A sycamore stands against the sky beside the den, and a hawk wheels against the high blue.

The vision fades, leaving behind only the certainty of its truth. With a heart lighter than it has been in days, Dakota heads back to the ward to check on a coyote with a short, absurd tail.

*

Kirsten finds herself moving toward the clinic at a clip that could technically, she supposes, be called a jog. With a flush of embarrassment, she slows to a walk, then quickly ducks behind a large tree as the clinic door opens, its glass sending out bright flashes of light as it catches the sun. Tacoma slips outside, well-muscled arms swinging easily with his movements. His head turns briefly in her direction, and Kirsten fancies he spies her, though she’s pretty sure she’s adequately hidden.

After a second, he turns away and Kirsten sags against the tree in relief, not at all wanting to tell Tacoma something she doesn’t even know the answer to herself. She watches him walk away. The ease of his stride and the proud tilt of his head reassures her. It is a one hundred eighty degree change from the sorrow-filled man she’s seen the past couple of days. This can only bode well for Dakota’s state of spirit as well.

Which, of course, renders pretty much useless her need to be here in the first place.

“Alright, smarty,” she mutters to herself. “What now?”

Back to the jury selection? Home? A quick jog around the perimeter?

Her feet answer the question for her as they step around the tree and continue in her intended direction, toward the clinic. She looks down at them, traitorous things that they are, and frantically casts about for plausible excuses, discarding one after another the way a baseball player discards the shells of sunflower seeds he’s consumed.

“Shit!” The door’s to hand, and her mind is a complete blank. A tabula rosa, as her mother used to say when into her wine. The warm memory brings a brief grin to her face as she slips inside the cool, antiseptic scented clinic.

Shannon, from her position behind the reception desk, greets her with a warm, welcoming grin. “Hi, Doctor King!”

“Kirsten, remember?”

Shannon blushes. “Ok, Kirsten.” Her smile returns. “Dakota’s in the back finishing up with mama wolf and her baby. You can go back if you like.”

“That’s ok,” Kirsten demurs, still feeling a bit the idiot for having come all the way over here without a suitable excuse. “I’ll just wait…out here.”

“Okay, then. She shouldn’t be long. Do you want some coffee? I just made some fresh.”

“No. Thanks.”

She shrugs as if to say ‘suit yourself, then’ and returns to her paperwork.

Several quite uncomfortable moments later, the door opens, and Dakota steps through, wiping her hands on a white towel. The smile she sports upon seeing Kirsten wipes every bit of embarrassment and self recrimination from the young scientist’s mind. She rises to her feet quickly, grinning herself as Shannon looks between them like a spectator watching a tennis match from the front row.

Kirsten casts about for something to break the silence. “I…um…I was in the neighborhood and figured I’d drop by.” God, Kirsten, could you possibly sound any more lame?

Taking the comment in stride, Koda tosses the towel into the laundry chute. “How are the selections going?”

“Boring as hell,” Kirsten answers truthfully. “Plus, I think I was making the potential jurors nervous. Nothing like having the de facto President around to make it damned difficult to try and squirm out of jury duty.”

Both Shannon and Koda chuckle at her feeble attempt at witticism, and Kirsten feels unaccountably warmed for it.

“So,” Kirsten casts again, “have you had lunch yet?”

Koda shrugs. “I was planning on going over to the mess. Our cupboards are pretty bare.”

“Mind some company?”

Once again, that smile comes; a smile that knocks all rational thought from Kirsten’s head and leaves her reeling in a whirlwind of pure emotion. The hand suddenly clasping her own grounds her like a lifeline, and she willingly follows wherever Dakota may lead.

*

“How about some fish for supper?”

Kirsten looks sharply up at Dakota. Long lashes veil her improbable blue eyes, but even in the gathering dusk, the small smile twitching at her mouth is unmistakable. She is not sure where the joke lies, but she knows better than she cares to that there is no fish in the refrigerator at home. For days, there has been no protein except for dried beans, eggs produced by a neighbor’s hens and the disgustingly spongy “cheese food” salvaged a month ago from the local USDA surplus station. The trouble with being a geek, she reflects, is that you become every Tom, Dick and Harriet’s straight woman. “Okay,” she says, “I’ll bite. Yes, I’d like some fish for supper.”

The twitch almost becomes a smile, and Koda says, “We don’t have any.”

“So why are we talking about it?”

“Because if we take a couple rods down to the water in the morning, we might have some tomorrow. Do you fish?”

“No. I just bite.”

Koda bursts into laughter, and Kirsten joins her, incredulous. I made a joke. And someone’s actually laughing at it. Love does weird things to people. It’s doing very weird things to me.