Free Wild Sorrow by SANDI AULT

mind if I let him out? I’ll put him on a lead.”
    Lorena set the carafe down. “A wolf?” She hurried for the entry and grabbed a coat from the hook by the door. “I can’t wait to see him. Come on, Scout, there’s a wolf out there!”
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    Later, after Mountain had met the ranch dogs and peed on every bush and post on the ranch house lawn, I explained to the Coldfires that unless we trapped the cougars, they probably would not survive.
    â€œMy father and grandfather would have rejoiced at the prospect,” Scout said. “Fewer mountain lions to take our beef.”
    â€œAre predators attacking your cattle?” I asked.
    â€œNot often. And I’m not my father or grandfather, either. I’m starting to get that we need to leave room for wildlife. Of course, that’s to a point. If I start losing cattle, I’m going to—”
    â€œOh, we haven’t lost any for a long time. I wonder if we shouldn’t let her put out her traps for the pumas,” Lorena said.
    â€œWhat about if you do get them in your traps? Where will you release them after you’re done with them?”
    â€œI’m going to call the Department of Game and Fish agent for this area, Charlie Dorn. We will talk to him about that.”
    â€œOh, yeah, we know Dorn. He’s a good guy. He helps me keep my ponds stocked, and he arranged for some folks to do an owl study here one time—they released a pair up in those foothills.”
    I didn’t tell the Coldfires, but now that I had been to their property, I believed the wounded cougar and her cubs were more likely to have moved there than onto the high mesas of the reservation. The Coldfire land offered safety in its wooded areas and rocky clefts where there would be sheltering caves.
    â€œI’m sure the cougars have left the den at the ruin permanently because of all the recent noise and activity there,” I said. “I don’t think that little family will survive if we don’t trap them and try to save them. The cubs are too young to hunt alone, and the she-lion is wounded. And she was awfully thin.”
    Lorena and Scout looked at one another. I knew we’d reached the point where I dare not be the next one to speak. When I was young—before an accident had taken his arm, and drink had taken his soul—my father, a Kansas farmer, had frequently demonstrated the principle he called “the next person who talks buys it.” When dealing on the price of a tractor or a dozen eggs, he knew that when both sides had stated their case, the next person who spoke would be the one to give up ground.
    â€œI’m just wondering: how would you get them to come to the traps?” Lorena asked.
    Cha-ching!
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    I drove my Jeep cross-terrain along the Coldfire Ranch boundary where it joined the BLM Pueblo Peña parcel, looking for a good spot to set traps. I stopped near a spring that had formed a small ice pond no more than ten feet across. Sheltering berms formed a crescent shape around the seep. Although Scout Coldfire had stated that the only way the ancient Puebloans could have gotten water up to the ruin on the canyon rim was by bringing it up from the river, I recognized this place as an archaeological site. The ingenious ancient ones had learned to build check dams on plateaus to collect rain and spring snowmelt, and huge earth mounds like these to protect modest springs and encourage the scarce water to pool. They had irrigated the arid land in the most hostile places and created scarified crop fields. I knew this watering hole would be an attraction to the cougar, and since it was near to the ruin, she probably knew about it and had used it as a water source. It seemed a good place to set some traps. I was careful not to spread my scent along the ground, and I didn’t let Mountain out to do so either. I got my field glasses out of the Jeep and scoped the site.
    I heard the whine