Part Three: The Water
The river was colder than it looked.
This is always true of rivers in the days after significant rain — the runoff brings water from higher ground, water that has traveled quickly and has not had time to warm. Samuel felt it immediately, the specific shock of cold water on a warm body, and he gave it approximately the half-second of acknowledgment it required before he began to swim.
He was a strong swimmer. This was not accidental — he had become a strong swimmer deliberately, in the years after a situation in his first year of guiding when he had not been strong enough and when the memory of that inadequacy had been sufficient motivation to ensure it did not recur. He swam in the reserve’s rivers regularly. He knew their currents and their channels and the specific techniques required for each.
The center channel was working against him. He angled his body the way he always angled it in current — not directly toward the target but upstream of it, allowing the current to carry him sideways while he closed the distance, using the river’s energy rather than fighting it. This took longer than a direct approach and covered more distance, and it was the correct technique.
He reached the cub in approximately forty seconds.
The cub had almost nothing left.
He could see this clearly in the quality of its effort — the paddling had slowed, the intervals between the head going under had compressed further, the eyes when they were visible had the glazed, diminishing focus of something that is using its last reserve. He got his hand under its body, lifting it clear of the water with the movement he had imagined on the bank — swift, decisive, transferring the cub’s weight to his chest, then getting it up onto his shoulder where the weight was more manageable and the cub’s airways were clearer.
The cub coughed. A small, desperate sound. Then another, less desperate. Then it made a sound that was not quite a cry and not quite a cough but something between the two, and Samuel felt the small body against his shoulder with the specific quality of something that is still alive and is processing that fact.
He turned toward the bank.
And stopped.
