Tibbet’s mouth tightened and he walked down to the lagoon with Eh to get Kat.

As the three men lugged Kat in the stretcher up the stairs to the pool, it became abruptly clear just how small the pool was. Kat was 10 feet long from beak to tail. They slid her in and she twisted quickly in a tight circle, but still her shoulder and flipper thumped into the far wall. Even with the pool filled to the rim, her dorsal fin stuck out into the air. It was like a human in a very small prison cell, or perhaps more like an athlete locked in a closet.

Kat circled in the water, terrified, looking for any way out, searching for some way to get back to the other dolphins. The water sloshed about, spilling in sheets out of the pool, reducing the depth so she had even less room to maneuver and felt more panicked. She was making distress squeals (like terrified styrofoam). These sounds were loud enough that, even this high-pitched, Cora could hear them. Touching her fingers to the pool’s side, she could also feel the vibrations.

The other dolphins called back to her from the lagoon below, the volume intense. They must have their heads out of the water to be this audible.

Please go inside—Cora said to the men.—I’ll calm her down.

Blum ushered the men into the house and closed the door. She knelt by the pool and placed one hand in the water, murmuring—I’m here. I’m here. I’m here.

She talked to Kat without pause, kneeling there. Kat let her side brush up against Cora’s hand again and again as she circled the pool. Perhaps she took comfort from the contact, or maybe there just wasn’t enough room to avoid the touch. Over the next thirty minutes, Kat began to slow, making fewer distress calls and rubbing more purposefully with each rotation against Cora’s hand.

However, if one of the men stepped out of the house, Kat would bolt forward in her tight circle, frantic again, squealing. Hearing her, the other dolphins would call back.

Cora stayed beside the pool, talking quietly with Kat. She left the hose in the water, the pump going. This kept the pool filled. Before dinner, she saw Kat poop, the substance squirting out from underneath, a watery cloud. Cora grabbed the pool skimmer and scooped out as much as she could, but much of it was too liquidy to catch. New seawater poured in all the time through the hose, but this tended to freshen only the water at the top. The thicker effluent sunk to the bottom.

At 9 P.M., Cora stood up to head back to her boarding house room in town to sleep. As she stepped away from the pool, Kat began to utter distress squeals again. Dolphins were social creatures, rarely alone. She was currently trapped in a small pool next to a house filled with men who, in the past, had forcibly hammered holes in her head. Cora continued to walk away, but the squeals echoed, following her up the driveway, high-pitched and terrified. Before Cora got to the road, she turned and came back to the pool.