Victor reached out to wrap the still body in an old canvas jacket. His fingers touched the stiff fur at the back of the cub’s neck. Beneath the rough icy crust, close to the skin, a tiny vein was pulsing. Barely. Faint and uneven.
He jerked his hand back. Mary was beside him in an instant. In the total quiet of the house, broken only by the low hum of wind in the chimney, came a soft whistling exhale. The bundle on the red wool blanket gave the slightest shudder.
Mary didn’t say a word. She rushed to the old kitchen hutch. The rusty hinges squealed as she yanked open the heavy wooden door. From the back of the lower shelf, under a stack of yellowed newspapers, she pulled out a glass baby bottle and a yellow rubber nipple.
She poured cow’s milk from a gallon jar kept in the cold mudroom into a dented aluminum saucepan. Then she cracked a raw egg against the edge of the table. She lit the gas burner from the heavy red propane tank. Blue flame hissed around the metal bottom.
The close air in the cabin quickly filled with the smell of warm boiled milk. Mary stirred constantly with a wooden spoon so it wouldn’t scorch. Victor carefully rolled the cub onto its back. The animal reflexively curled its clawed paws and caught hold of the thick fabric of his work pants.
Its eyes stayed shut. Mary fitted the yellow nipple onto the narrow neck of the bottle and shook a drop of the warm mixture onto her wrist. Then she knelt by the hot cast-iron stove. Victor gently pried open the cub’s cold clenched jaws with two fingers.
Mary slipped the rubber nipple into its mouth. For a second nothing happened. Then came a loud sucking sound. The cub latched onto the yellow rubber with desperate force. He gulped down the warm mixture greedily, sputtering and snorting between swallows.
Tiny sharp teeth bit through the edge of the nipple. Victor watched the level of white liquid slowly sink in the clear glass bottle. By morning the hard wind had died down. A dull gray light of dawn pressed through the frosted windows.
The house had cooled and needed more birch logs. The cub slept in a cardboard TV box, wrapped snugly in the red wool blanket. Beside it on the floor lay the empty bottle with the chewed nipple. Victor pulled on his quilted work coat and took the shotgun down from the wall.
The front door opened with effort, carving a deep groove through the drift piled up overnight. The freezing air burned his lungs. On the porch steps was a large frozen pool of dark thick blood. The trail led toward the far stand of spruce.
It was a broad groove pressed deep into the fresh snow, with red frozen drops along the edges. Victor followed it for more than an hour, sinking to his knees now and then. The winter woods stood utterly still, locked tight in January cold. At a deep ravine, the blood trail ended.
The snow there was trampled by heavy boots with deep tread. Nearby were clear tire tracks with an aggressive pattern—from a heavy four-wheel-drive SUV. Victor bent down. In the blinding white snow, brass gave off a dull glint…
