Chapter 2
Camera eight monitored a natural bottleneck where the creek narrowed between two ridges.
Game trails converged here, creating a wildlife highway that had already yielded some fascinating footage.
Janice went through the familiar routine of checking the battery and verifying the camera angle hadn't shifted.
Movement upstream caught her eye. A pine marten flowed along a branch like liquid shadow, pausing to study her with bright, intelligent eyes before disappearing into the canopy. She grinned, feeling that familiar surge of joy.
The path to camera nine took her deeper into the forest, where the spruces grew closer together, and the underbrush thickened. This was her favorite stretch, where the modern world felt impossibly distant, offering just the whisper of wind through needles and the occasional call of a raven.
She'd positioned camera nine to overlook a small clearing where the creek formed a beaver pond.
The industrious rodents had transformed this section of forest, creating habitat for dozens of species.
Their engineering prowess never failed to impress her, for they were nature's own climate-adaptation specialists.
She sat on a fallen log to update her field notes.
The sun climbed higher, warming her face despite the chill.
Somewhere nearby, a woodpecker hammered out its territorial claim on the side of a tree.
She dictated quickly, documenting the water levels, the changes in vegetation, and the subtle signs of larger transformations.
A splash drew her attention to the beaver pond. One of the colony's members surfaced near the lodge, its sleek head breaking the water's surface before disappearing again with a slap of its flat tail. Janice watched, fascinated as always by these remarkable engineers.
Movement in her peripheral vision had her turn her head. The red fox had returned, sitting at the edge of the clearing, watching her with that same curious intensity.
"You're persistent, I'll give you that," Janice said, smiling at the animal. "Trying to figure out what I'm doing?"
The fox's ears twitched, but he didn't flee. Just watched, as if he found her as interesting as she found him.
Her phone buzzed again. She glanced at it and grinned. “Hey, Mom.”
"Just checking on you. Dad says hello, too."
“I’m good. Out in the field now, so the call will probably drop.”
“Going into town soon?”
“Yes, and when I do, I’ll make sure to call you from there to talk longer.”
“Okay, sweetie. Love to you.”
“Love to you and Dad,” she managed to say before the call dropped.
She pocketed her phone and stood. Her parents supported her work, even if they worried about her being so far from home.
Growing up with two veterinarians for parents, she'd been destined for this kind of life.
They understood the pull of working with animals, of being where you were needed most.
The fox was still there, watching. On impulse, Janice spoke to him.
"My parents run a mixed practice back in Washington.
Dogs, cats, and the occasional exotic pet.
Dad's got a way with animals that's almost magical.
Mom specializes in wildlife rehabilitation.
I grew up with injured owls in the bathroom and orphaned fawns in the backyard. "
The fox cocked his head, as if considering her words.
"That's where I learned that wild animals deserve our respect, not our interference.
Mom always said the goal was to heal them and send them back where they belong.
Never to tame them or make them dependent.
" Janice smiled at the memory. "You'd like her, I think.
She'd appreciate how well you're doing on your own. "
The fox trotted off into the forest. Janice watched him go, then turned her attention back to the beaver pond. She raised her binoculars again, scanning the far shore, and froze.
There, partially hidden by willows, lay a moose calf. It wasn't moving.
Janice's stomach tightened. She focused the binoculars, studying what she could see of the animal.
Young, maybe four or five months old. Lying on its side in an awkward position that suggested it hadn't chosen that spot to rest. No sign of the mother, which was unusual.
Cow moose were fiercely protective of their calves.
She needed to get closer, but approaching a moose required caution. And if the mother was nearby, Janice could find herself facing down an animal that could kill her with a single kick.
Still, her veterinary training wouldn't let her walk away without checking. The calf might be injured, sick, or dying while she debated the risks.
Janice circled the creek carefully, moving downwind so her scent wouldn't alert any animal of her presence. She kept her movements slow and deliberate, pausing frequently to scan for the mother. But the forest remained quiet, showing no sign of an adult moose.
As she got closer, her worst fears were confirmed. She could see its rib cage moving, so the calf was breathing, but something was clearly wrong. It lay too still, too unresponsive to her approach. A healthy calf would have scrambled to its feet and fled by now.
Janice stopped about twenty feet away, close enough to observe but far enough to retreat quickly if needed. She pulled out her binoculars again and studied the animal more carefully.
The calf's coat looked dull, lacking its normal healthy sheen. Its breathing was labored and shallow. And there, on its neck, was a wound. It was hard to tell from this distance, but it looked like something had torn the skin.
Wolf attack? Possibly, though the pack usually targeted sick or weak animals, and a calf this young should have been protected by its mother. Bear? Less likely this late in the season, since most bears were preparing for hibernation.
Janice's mind ran through possibilities, her training cataloging symptoms and potential causes. But without getting hands-on to examine the animal properly, she was just guessing.
She pulled out her camera and began documenting what she could see.
Then she carefully, quietly, retreated the way she came.
There was nothing she could do for that calf.
She had no way to transport it, no clinic to take it to, no medications or equipment to treat whatever was wrong.
And interfering with wild animals, even to help them, often did more harm than good.
But the image of that young moose lying alone and suffering would haunt her. It always did. The hardest part of being a wildlife veterinarian was knowing when you had to let nature take its course even when every instinct screamed at you to intervene.
She took one last look around the clearing.
In four months, this place had become hers in a way she hadn't expected.
Every day brought discoveries and new patterns to document.
The caribou migration was still weeks away, but she was already seeing changes in the smaller mammals' behavior, adaptations to the warming temperatures, and shifting seasons.
The trek back to her cabin took thirty minutes through terrain she was still learning.
She moved carefully but confidently, her body adapting to the rhythm of this life.
As the small structure came into view, she smiled.
The weather-worn logs with a metal roof, solar panels, and a satellite dish were a welcome sight.
This was temporary housing, but it was becoming home.
Inside, she hung her gear on hooks she'd installed in her first week and started the coffee pot on the propane stove. While it perked, she powered up her laptop and began the ritual of downloading images from the memory cards. Hundreds of photos flickered past before revealing the treasure. A lynx padding through the frame. A cow moose browsing on willows. A great horned owl, caught mid-flight. She didn’t fight the desire to swing her hips in an impromptu dance of joy.
Then an image made her pause. The red fox, captured by camera six just yesterday evening.
And there, in the corner of the frame, was another fox…
smaller, more delicate. A female. The white-tipped tail on the male was clearly visible, confirming it was the same individual she'd encountered this morning.
Janice smiled, her heart warming at the realization. Her persistent follower had a mate. They were probably establishing territory together, learning to hunt as a pair, and preparing for the possibility of kits next spring.
"Good for you," she murmured at the screen. "You found someone."
Each image added another piece to the larger puzzle she was assembling. Climate change wasn't just about temperature readings and ice measurements. It was about these creatures, whose patterns were disrupted and whose careful adaptations were challenged by the speed of change.
She poured coffee into her ceramic mug and settled in for hours of cataloging.
The images from camera seven included several shots of the wolf she'd seen tracks from earlier.
Magnificent animal, probably around five years old, in his prime.
His coat was thick and healthy, his body condition excellent.
The pack was thriving, which meant their prey base was stable for now.
Camera eight had captured a family of snowshoe hares, their coats already turning white for winter camouflage. Camera nine captured footage of the beaver colony, including shots of their nocturnal activities.
And then she saw it. Camera nine, time stamp from three days ago, middle of the night.
The moose calf, walking unsteadily through the frame, its mother nowhere in sight.
Even in the grainy nighttime footage, Janice could see something was wrong.
The calf's gait was off, and its head hung lower than it should.
She scrolled through more images. The calf appeared again the next night, looking worse. And then, in yesterday's footage, it was lying down where she'd found it this morning.
Janice's throat tightened. She pulled up the images she'd taken today on her phone and transferred them to her laptop, creating a new folder labeled "Moose Calf - October 15." She would document this, track what happened, and add it to her research data.
Outside, clouds gathered on the horizon, promising a change in the weather by evening.
Tomorrow she'd check the southern camera line.
Thursday, she'd drive into Cantwell for supplies and a hot meal at the small diner, where the locals now recognized her and called out their greetings to “the vet lady.”
This was her life now. Not forever, but for now. Long enough to make a difference, to gather data that mattered. Her phone buzzed again, and she spied a text from her mother. The Johnsons' golden retriever had puppies.
She smiled, remembering the life she'd left behind temporarily. The family practice, with rural clients ranging from pampered pets to wildlife. Important work, but different from this. Out here, she was documenting something bigger, something that couldn't be fixed with antibiotics or surgery.
But as she viewed the first batch of images on the server, her mind kept drifting back to that moose calf. To the fox with the white-tipped tail and his mate. To the beaver kits learning to swim. To the wolf pack thriving in these hills.
This was why she'd become a veterinarian.
Not to control nature or tame it, but to understand it.
To bear witness to the intricate web of life that sustained itself without human intervention.
To document the changes that human activity was forcing on these animals, whether they were ready for those changes or not.
By the time she left, she'd have six months of data. The scientist she’d replaced had come last winter and worked through late spring.
She hadn’t envied him being here in the worst of the cold and snow.
But with his data and now hers, they would have enough information to start seeing the real patterns, the subtle shifts that spoke of massive change.
Leaning back, she sipped her coffee and thought about what to fix for lunch.
She had supplies but knew it was soon time to take the twenty-five-mile trip to Cantwell.
Glancing at her schedule, she decided she could wait two more days before going, though she would start her SUV this afternoon to keep the battery from dying.
And maybe, on her way to check the southern cameras tomorrow, she'd swing by the beaver pond again. Just to see if the moose calf was still there, and document what happened next.
Because that was her job now. Observer. Recorder. Witness to the wild.
The isolation that had seemed so appealing months ago when she'd volunteered for this assignment still felt right.
Back in Seattle, well-meaning colleagues had questioned why someone with her experience would choose such a remote posting.
She'd given them the expected answers about the importance of the research and the opportunity to lead the project. All true, but not the whole truth.
She hadn't mentioned the man she’d dated for several months.
She left out why they broke up and why she needed space from Ryan’s suffocating certainty that they were fated to be together.
He'd been so sure she just needed time, just needed him to be patient, just needed to see what everyone else apparently saw…
that they were perfect together. Except she hadn't felt the spark with him.
He was a good man, kind and stable, everything she should have wanted.
But watching him plan their future while she felt nothing but friendship had made her feel like she was slowly drowning.
Then he was offered a job on the East Coast and wanted her to come with him. At that time, it was an easy decision. He left, and she volunteered for an assignment that gave her plenty of time alone to think about what she wanted to do.
Before she left, she explained that this wasn’t a temporary breakup. Distance had been the kindest gift she could give to both of them.
As she took her empty coffee cup to the sink, she gazed out the window and smiled.
She had found her temporary purpose surrounded by cameras, creatures, and the endless cycle of wildlife.
This wasn't permanent, but it was exactly where she needed to be for now.
The work mattered. And for now, that was everything.
.