The next day she went back to work.
Cam wasn’t there when she came in, and she was glad. She picked up the phone and called the lab and gave them the reference number for the blood sample.
“The bird was injected with a very strong tranquilizer called chlorpromazine,” the technician said.
Juliet corrected her. “It was an implant,” she said. “Does Cam know?”
“He knows,” the technician said. “He called last week.”
Juliet thanked the woman and hung up the phone. Two minutes later it rang. It was Cam. He was calling from the phone in his van.
“Could you come?” he asked. “I need your help.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m in the park, by Medicine Lake, and I’ve got a very sick mountain goat here. The van broke down and I need you to come and get us.”
Juliet wrote down the exact location and drove toward the park.
She found him easily. He was kneeling on the ground just where he had said he would be. The goat was lying beside him. He was very still, but when Juliet touched him gently, he stirred and tried to look up at her. He was very heavy, probably 250 pounds, and it was not easy to carry him to the jeep, but together she and Cam managed it.
Juliet drove back to the office slowly. They carried the goat inside and placed him gently on the table. He was almost frozen, and so they covered him with blankets and warmed him until he was fully awake. When he opened his eyes they could see that he was in pain.
“Something’s probably broken,” Juliet said. “I wonder what happened to him.”
“A fall, probably,” Cam said. “A bad fall from the looks of it, but not bad enough to make him immobile. Somehow he made it to the road before he dropped.”
They took turns running their hands through his shaggy, yellowish-white coat, searching for a break. When Juliet examined his right rear leg he jerked in pain and they knew they had found it.
They anesthetized the goat, set the bone without speaking, and moved the goat into a confined recovery area. Then they went into the other room and sat in chairs on opposite sides of the room.
“I called your home first. Your father said you were back. How was the trip?”
“It was all right, I guess. I learned a few things.”
“Like what?”
“I learned.....” She hesitated. She didn’t want to tell him, but then she did tell him, slowly, and when she was finished she knew that she had done the right thing.
“Someone’s putting implants in those birds,” she said. “Some of them are being tranquilized, and some are filled with amphetamines. The question is why.”
Cam stayed up with the goat that night, and when Juliet returned the next morning the goat was awake and annoyed that he couldn’t walk. Once when Juliet turned her back for a moment, the goat pulled himself up and seemed quite surprised that one of his back legs didn’t work. He teetered for a moment before he tried to move, and then, when he did, he crumpled and settled back into a corner with eyes filled with terror.
But he was a determined creature, and so he tried again and again until his confusion and terror changed to impatience.
“Give it time,” Juliet told him softly. He hobbled wildly until Cam sedated him.
“I’d like to go to Alberta tomorrow,” Juliet said.
“All right.”
“Don’t you care?”
Cam shrugged and smiled an understanding smile. “Of course I care,” he said. “But you need to go, and I can’t stop you. I’ll tell you when I can’t handle the animals without you, and when that happens you’ll probably still want to go, and then you’ll stay and hate me, but until then it’s all right.”
He’s changed, Juliet thought. He’s become nice, and for the first time she realized that she was coming to like him. But all she could think to say was, “Oh.”