I scan the slope, looking for a target. The black Beta is leading them. He pauses behind a boulder, testing the wind.
And then, I see it.
Movement. Not below us. Above us.
I shift the scope, aiming toward the higher crags, the jagged, inhospitable peaks that rise another five hundred feet above our position.
There, standing on a narrow shelf of rock that looks too small for a mountain goat, let alone a seven-hundred-pound cervid, is Waldo. His cows are strung along the bench below him, heads up, already wary.
The breath sticks in my throat.
"Nash," I hiss. "Twelve o'clock high. Look at the ledge."
Nash risks a glance upward. "No way."
"He's fifty miles from the box canyon," I whisper, the pieces snapping into place. "After the attack he didn't go down to the valley. He went up, and he kept moving—high routes, the whole way to the coast."
"Why?" Nash asks. "There's no food up there. It's just rock and ice."
"Wind," I say, connecting the dots. "The wind scours the snow off the lichen on the high peaks. It's the only place where the grazing is exposed. It's a high-risk, high-reward strategy. He traded safety for calories."
It's brilliant and suicidal. And it's exactly what I predicted in my grant proposal.
But right now, it's a problem.
Because the wolves have smelled him, too.
The black Beta lifts his head. He sniffs the air. He looks at us, the dangerous, armed humans who killed his Alpha. Then he looks up at the ledge where a fat, trapped caribou bull is standing.
The math changes instantly.
Predators are economists. They calculate risk versus reward. We're high risk (guns). Waldo is high reward (meat) but hard to reach (cliffs).
The Beta makes a choice.
He barks, a sharp, yipping command.
The pack splits. Three wolves continue toward us to keep us pinned. The other three, including the Beta, break right. They scramble up the scree, heading for the chimney that leads to Waldo's ledge.
"They're going for the herd!" I yell.
"Let them go," Nash says. "If they chase the caribou, they aren't attacking us. It buys us time."
"No," I say.
I don't make a conscious decision. I've tracked that animal for three years. I know his silhouette the way I know my own handwriting. I've watched him outsmart winter, floods, and famine. I will not watch him get torn apart on a cliff edge because I was too scared to intervene.
"Aris, don't," Nash warns.
"I am the lead researcher," I say, chambering a round. "And that is my subject."
I shift my aim. I ignore the wolves coming toward us. I track the Beta climbing the chimney.
He's fast. He's scrambling up the loose rock, closing the distance to the ledge. Waldo is trapped. He has the cliff at his back and the wolves below.
"Hey!" I scream at the wolf.
I don't shoot to kill. The angle is bad; if I miss, the bullet could ricochet off the rock and hit the herd.
