Koda drags the chair from the examination room into the postage-stamp size space beside her own in front of her desk. “Have a seat, Fenton.”

He remains standing, silent, until she sits, then follows suit, taking his tobacco pouch from his pocket. Without speaking he loads the pipe, reaches for the lighter and pauses, his eyes darting around the room. “Go ahead,” Dakota says. “The nearest oxygen tank is two rooms over.”

He gives her a grateful look, and it is only when the fragrant smoke begins to curl up from the bowl that he says, “We have a problem.”

Koda snorts. “Just one? Thank you. What did you do with all the others?”

“We have a judicial problem,” he amends, giving her a sharp look beneath bushy brows. “To wit, the Dietrich family, specifically his son.”

“Let me guess. They want charges pressed.”

“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.”

She nods, waiting.

“In your professional judgement, and strictly in your professional judgement, were these injuries sufficient to cause death?”

Shutting out the sight of the dead before her, shutting out the memory of her friend struggling in the trap, she nods. “When I found him, he was shocking from blood loss and exposure. Infection and frostbite had destroyed muscle and organ tissue. The left tibia and fibula, as you can see, were both shattered past the point where they could have been pinned.”

“Had you found him earlier, could surgery have saved his life?”

She answers, not quite able to keep the anger from her voice. ” If I had found him much earlier, before he was attacked by whatever tore him open—yes. His life, yes. But not his life, Fenton. Even if the other wounds could be repaired or had never happened, even if the infection could be fought down, the leg was unsalvageable. Only a sadist would have condemned him to that.”

The judge raises one hand, palm outward. “Bear with me a moment longer, please. Quality of life aside, why did you not bring him back and attempt the operation?”

“Because his respiration was depressed and his blood loss so heavy that, in my professional judgement,” she bites the words off, “he would not have survived transportation, much less anaesthesia.”

‘Thank you. Now allow me to help.”

Together they fold the plastic back into place, taping it firmly. Gently they lay Wa Uspewicakiyapi back into his chill resting place. Her hand lingers for a moment on the bundle. Only for a while, old friend, she promises silently. Only until justice has been done.

We will not fail you again.

In the silence of her mind, a wolf howl rises to the floating moon.

*

The witness room, four generically off-white walls topped by a yellowing acoustic–tile ceiling, fits only a bit less snugly than a coffin. Three paces long, three paces wide, its furnishings consist of one small table, one spine-cracking folding chair of undetermined but ancient vintage and one 60-watt light bulb further dimmed by a frosted glass globe. It bears a decided resemblance to the classic police interrogation room. According to her watch, Koda has been here for almost an hour, apparently going on all morning.

Good thing I’m not claustrophobic. Yet.

A jury for the trial of the Rapid City jail rapists was seated yesterday, with final selection in the morning and opening statements after lunch. The prosecution has begun its case this morning with accounts of the raid from the participants, to be followed by testimony from the victims in the afternoon. She has reviewed her testimony twice with Alderson, the last time before the opening gavel more than two hours ago. Larke and Martinez have already given their accounts; Andrews is up now, with Koda held back for last. The strategy may be transparent, but its effectiveness is undisputed. As the hero of the Cheyenne, she is the pièce de resistance. She is also mortally bored with the tedium of waiting.

Checking her watch one last time—Damn, he said we’d be out of here by eleven.—Koda sinks crosslegged to the relative comfort of the floor, opens Spengler at her bookmark, and begins to read.

She had snatched this particular book up on her way out her house all those months ago, not sure why then, not really sure why now. Then it had seemed a token of the past, a link to connect her to the spacious library that occupies a third of her home, something to remind her of—and call her back to—the comfortable life she and Tali had built between them. An incomplete farewell.