Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
EVIE
“Oh, sweetheart,” I whispered to the injured animal, lowering myself several feet away once I had a clear view.
It was smaller than I'd expected, with a long body covered in sleek dark fur, a narrow face, small rounded ears, and a long tail held close to its side.
For a second, my attention stayed on the blood and wire rather than what I was actually looking at, but years of studying wildlife eventually pushed the answer forward.
A tayra.
I'd seen them in field guides and caught fleeting glimpses of them in the wild before, but never this close. The dark coat and long, muscular body were unmistakable now that I could see it properly.
The snare had tightened around one hind leg. Blood had dried into the fur beneath the wire.
“Okay, we're going to get that off,” I told the tayra, keeping my movements slow while lowering my pack onto the damp ground.
Its head turned sharply toward me.
I paused.
Its eyes were an unusually bright gold, vivid even in the shade beneath the trees. The tayra watched me closely, its attention fixed on every movement I made.
“Hi,” I whispered to the tayra, settling onto one knee while leaving enough distance between us that it wouldn't feel cornered.
Its ears flattened as a low warning growl came from its throat.
“I know,” I told the tayra, holding my hands where it could see them as I opened the medical kit. “You're trapped and hurting, and now some stranger is coming toward you. I'd be angry too.”
The growl eased.
I paused with one hand over the open kit.
That timing was strange.
I pulled out the wire cutters.
“I need to cut this off your leg,” I explained to the tayra, keeping the tool visible rather than reaching toward it immediately. “It'll probably hurt when I move the wire, but once it's loose, I can clean the wound.”
The tayra's attention shifted briefly to the cutters before returning to me.
I frowned.
“You're watching me like you actually understand this,” I murmured to the creature, studying its expression for a moment.
The tayra blinked slowly and I let out a quiet breath.
“Okay, that's weird,” I admitted to the creature before moving carefully closer. It tensed when my fingertips first touched its leg, but it didn't snap or pull away.
“That's it,” I murmured to the tayra, keeping my hand gentle as I examined the wound. “Just stay still for me.”
The wire had broken the skin, but thankfully, the injury wasn't as severe as I'd feared. There was swelling and dried blood, but nothing suggested that the snare had reached tendon or bone.
Getting the cutters underneath it was the harder part. The tayra shifted when I moved the wire.
“I know, I'm sorry,” I whispered to the creature, stopping long enough for it to settle before trying again. “I almost have it.”
I adjusted the angle and finally managed to fit the cutters beneath the metal.
“All right, one second,” I warned the tayra, steadying its leg lightly while tightening my grip.
The wire snapped. The tayra immediately dragged its leg free and scrambled several feet away.
I backed off at the same time, giving it room instead of trying to follow.
“There,” I told the animal, lowering the cutters onto the leaves beside me. “You're out.”
It remained nearby, crouched low with its injured paw held off the ground.
I expected it to leave. Instead, its attention moved toward the gauze and antiseptic sitting beside my knee.
Then it looked at me.
I waited.
“You're going to let me finish?” I asked the tayra, reaching slowly toward the supplies while trying to decide whether I was imagining how deliberate its behavior seemed.
Its ears shifted forward.
I gave a quiet, disbelieving laugh.
“No one's going to believe this,” I muttered to myself as I picked up the antiseptic.
The tayra stayed where it was.
“If you change your mind halfway through, please don't take a finger with you,” I warned the creature, moving closer only after it remained calm.
It allowed me to touch the injured leg again. I cleaned the wound carefully, wiping away the dried blood and dirt. Its muscles jerked the first time antiseptic touched broken skin.
“Sorry,” I murmured to the tayra, loosening my hold so it wouldn't feel restrained. “That part always stings.”
The creature didn't try to move away. That was unusual enough without adding anything mystical to it. Wild animals sometimes froze when frightened or exhausted, but this didn't feel like that. Its body remained alert, and those bright eyes tracked everything I did.
I finished cleaning the injury, wrapped it with gauze, then secured the bandage without tightening it enough to interfere with circulation.
“There,” I told the creature, sitting back once I was satisfied with the wrap. “That's about as much as I can do out here without taking you back to the station, and I'm guessing neither of us wants to attempt that.”
The tayra lowered its head and sniffed the clean white bandage.
“You're probably going to pull that off the second I'm gone,” I said to the tayra, gathering the used gauze and broken wire from the ground.
The creature raised its head again.
“I'll choose to believe that means you won't,” I told it, tucking the rubbish into an empty plastic bag inside my kit.
It stood carefully and tested the injured leg. There was a limp, but after several attempts, it managed to put some weight on the paw.
Relief loosened the tension across my shoulders.
“That could've been much worse,” I murmured to the tayra as I closed the medical kit.
The tayra turned toward the deeper forest.
“Good luck,” I called after it, pulling my pack upright as it began walking away.
It went several yards before stopping.
The tayra turned back toward me.
I waited with one hand resting on the top of my backpack.
“What?” I asked the creature, expecting it to continue once it had checked that I wasn't following.
Instead, it walked a little farther, stopped again, and looked back.
Understanding slowly settled in.
“No,” I told the tayra, shaking my head as I stood. “I already left the trail for you. We're not adding another bad idea to the afternoon.”
Its tail moved once.
“No, I'm not following you,” I repeated to the creature, pointing toward it even though I was fully aware of how ridiculous I looked.
The tayra continued deeper into the trees.
Then stopped.
Again.
“You have got to be kidding me,” I muttered to the tayra, resting one hand on my hip while it waited.
I checked behind me. I could still remember the direction of the trail, but the colored markers were hidden by the vegetation. Following a wild tayra deeper into a rainforest I'd arrived in only a few hours earlier was objectively stupid.
Unfortunately, curiosity had caused a significant portion of the questionable choices I'd made throughout my career.
“I have spent almost a decade working with animals,” I told the creature, pulling my backpack onto my shoulders. “I should be harder to manipulate than this.”
The tayra made a short sound.
I narrowed my eyes.
“Don't get smug,” I warned the tayra, adjusting the straps before stepping carefully over a root.
It started walking.
“Five minutes,” I called after the tayra, following several yards behind. “After that, I'm turning around.”
The creature didn't bother acknowledging me.
The farther we moved from the maintained trail, the thicker the vegetation became.
Moss covered fallen wood and exposed stones, while large roots forced me to watch my footing.
Several vines hung low enough that I had to duck beneath them, and the narrow path the tayra followed would have been easy to lose if I allowed it to get too far ahead.
Then I noticed the sound.
Or rather, the lack of some of it.
The rainforest hadn't become silent, but the constant noise had thinned. I couldn't hear the capuchins anymore. Bird calls were less frequent, and even the insects seemed quieter than they had closer to the trail.
I stopped long enough to listen. Nothing about the forest looked threatening.
Still, the change made me uneasy. I checked the GPS clipped to the outside of my pack.
The screen flickered.
I tapped it once with my finger.
The display returned to normal.
“That's reassuring,” I muttered to myself, waiting until the location marker stabilized. The tayra glanced back from several yards ahead.
“Don't look at me like that,” I told the creature, falling into step again. “You're the reason I'm out here.”
It slipped beneath a thick curtain of hanging vines.
I followed.
“Where exactly are we going?” I asked the tayra, pushing a branch away from my face while trying to keep track of our direction.
The creature continued walking without slowing.
“Right. Still can't answer me,” I murmured to the tayra, ducking beneath the last of the vines after it.
I stepped through.
And stopped.
A clearing opened in front of me. It wasn't especially large, but after the tightly packed trees and vegetation we'd just crossed, the sudden open space was impossible to miss.
An enormous tree stood near the center. Its trunk was wider than any I'd seen since arriving, separating into several thick sections that twisted together as they rose toward the canopy.
Huge roots extended across the ground, creating natural spaces where ferns and flowering plants had grown between them.
A shallow pool rested at the base of the tree. The water was so clear that individual pale stones were visible along the bottom. Flowers grew around most of the clearing. Some were orchids I recognized immediately. Others weren't familiar at all.
What caught my attention was the variety. Several of the plants shouldn't have been thriving beside one another, particularly in this much shade, yet none appeared unhealthy.
My hand went automatically to my camera.
I lifted it halfway.
Then hesitated.