Kenzie’s heart broke for the beautiful creature.
Winona spoke to the eagle in Lakota, her mother tongue, then wrapped it gently in a towel and carried it to the back. When she returned ten minutes later, Kenzie was still wiping tears from her eyes.
Win gave Kenzie a hug. “It’s awful, isn’t it?”
Kenzie sniffed. “How do you deal with things like that?”
She’d never seen Winona lose her composure over the animals in her care.
“Sweat lodge helps. I pray. I do everything I can to help the animals that come to me and leave the rest to Creator.” Win handed Kenzie a tissue. “Your job comes with some pretty tough days, too.”
“That’s true.” Kenzie owned a dog kennel andtrained search dogs, volunteering for the Team with her golden retrievers, Gizmo and Gabby, for SAR and HRD work—search and rescue and human remains detection.
When she got toned out, someone was either missing or dead.
“Let’s go to my office.”
Kenzie followed her to the back. “How is Shota dealing with the heat?”
Shota was Winona’s wolf. Stolen from the wild with the rest of his litter by poachers who had killed his mother, he’d been the only pup Winona had been able to save. Now fully grown, Shota was fiercely protective of Winona—and a potential danger to everyone else. He lived in a large enclosure behind the house where Winona lived with her brother, Chaska, and her sister-in-law, Naomi. Sometimes the wolf howled at night—a primal, haunting sound—and the dogs at the kennel howled back.
Kenzie wondered what they were saying to each other.
Hey, I’m a big wolf.
!Hola! I’m a Chihuahua, but my ancestors were wolves.
Kenzie loved the howling, but it probably drove their neighbors crazy.
“He sleeps a lot and stays in the shade. I’ve been giving him ice blocks to lick.”
Kenzie and Winona talked through a list of restaurants they hoped they could talk into donating free food for the fundraiser in exchange for advertising in the program and on the Team’s website.
“You know Joe will say yes, so we don’t even have to wonder about Knockers.”
Joe Moffat was Scarlet’s homegrown philanthropist. His family had grown wealthy off the silver mine up at Caribou, where most of their ancestors had worked back in the day. He had always been one of the Team’s greatest supporters.
“What about that fancy new place on Pearl Street in Boulder—what’s it called?” Kenzie tried to remember. “Something like Terror.”
Winona fought back a smile. “You mean ‘Terroir’? Let’s add them to the list.”
They needed ten food sponsors, so they came up with a list of twenty restaurants. Then they divided the restaurants between the two of them to start making calls.
Getting people to do things for free for the Team wasn’t difficult. It was a nonprofit, and it had the reputation of being the best search-and-rescue team in the country. People in Colorado were obsessive about outdoor sports, which made them sympathetic to the cause. They all felt safer knowing the Team was only a phone call away.
Winona’s receptionist popped her head into the room. “Brandon Silver is on the line from the fire department. There’s a fire west of town, and he wants to know if you’ve seen Bear.”
Winona shook her head. “I haven’t seen him for a few days.”
Kenzie hadn’t seen Bear, either. “I hope he’s not in danger.”
“Bear is wiser than any of us when it comes to survival in the mountains,” Winona said. “If there’s a fire nearby, he’ll know to get out of its way.”
Kenzie hoped Winona was right. “Harrison just got toned out with the rest of the Team—a woman with a broken leg. They’re west of town, too.”
Kenzie’s husband, Harrison Conrad, had only recently returned from climbing Nuptse, Mt. Everest, and Lhotse by himself in just five days—the first man in history to do so. He hadn’t done it for glory, but to heal emotional wounds and to claim the Khumbu Triple Crown, as some called it, for a lost friend. Kenzie had been scared to death for him every day of those five days, but she’d known it was something he had to do to find peace.
“Megs won’t let them put their safety at risk,” Win said.