Dr. Holman had made house calls for her first exams. She’d brought along a dart gun with ketamine-filled projectiles to tranquilize the wolf, but Shadow had learned to find redoubts in the trees that made it impossible for Lizzie to get a shot at him.

“I still don’t understand how you think you’re getting Shadow into a crate,” Billy said. “That animal is smarter than 80 percent of the guys in my prison quad and 90 percent of the guards.”

Now it was my turn to smile. “You know me. I’ve always got a plan.”

I pointed at the frozen ground where a snaking length of orange extension cord twisted and turned from the house all the way to Shadow’s enclosure. I had positioned the kennel just inside the fence. The electrical cord led to the box and disappeared though one of the air holes on the side.

“Try not to make any noise,” I whispered as we descended the stairs.

Billy could move through the underbrush as silently as a deer.

Of course, I was the one who stepped on a twig.

The sound didn’t cause Shadow to bolt. His snoring continued from inside the crate.

I had tied a length of Kevlar cord to the open door of the kennel. Now I gave it a hard yank and the gate swung shut, and there was a click of the latch fastening. Shadow arose inside the box and growled, but he didn’t fight against his sudden confinement. That had been my biggest worry—that he would injure himself trying to escape.

“I put an electric blanket in there last week. He started sleeping inside a couple of nights ago when that polar vortex came through.”

Billy let out a laugh that frightened the remaining siskins from the trees. “Did Charley suggest this?”

“I’m capable of coming up with my own harebrained schemes without Charley Stevens’s input,” I said with false affront. “Besides, a scheme is only harebrained if it fails.”

“This one worked.”

“I can’t take full credit for it, though. Shadow is smart. I think he remembers what this crate means—that he’s going for a ride. Maybe he senses there’ll be a chance to make a break for it.”

“This place isn’t a jail, Mike. I can say that from personal experience. You’ve given him a good life here.”

I could easily have refuted Billy’s assertion. How many tunnels had Shadow started over the past sixteen months? All those holes dug in vain.

“I need your help getting the kennel into the Jeep.”

Nearly all wardens drove trucks, investigators included, but my superiors had leased the Compass Trailhawk for me so I could sneak down Maine’s scofflaw peninsulas without word getting out that a game warden had been spotted.

Billy gestured toward my personal vehicle. “Why aren’t you taking your Scout?”