I stood, brushing dust from my knees. The numbers weren't bad. They also weren't invisible. Someone with a stopwatch and patience could build a response profile from a single test.
"They weren't trying to get in," I said.
Elias nodded. "They were timing us."
Daniel's voice crackled over the radio. "Nick, I've got snare material out here. Thirty meters past the vehicle tracks. Not fully set—looks dropped or staged."
I looked back toward the fence.
Snare material meant wire. Wire meant animals. And staged wire meant a message. Men who left it where rangers would find it weren’t only hunting. They were reminding us they could choose the terms.
The animals weren’t the issue. They were reacting to one.
"Mark it," I said into the radio. "Don't touch it. I want photos before anyone moves anything."
"Copy."
I turned to Elias. "Increase patrol frequency on the eastern boundary. Pull one vehicle from guest transfer duty if you have to."
"That's going to slow down departures."
"I know."
Delayed guests complained. Missed fence reads got animals killed. One problem had volume. The other had teeth.
"Check the southern service road for parallel movement," I continued. "And I want trail cam footage from the last forty-eight hours reviewed before noon. Every camera on the eastern grid."
Elias made a note. "What do I tell Sarah about the guest timeline?"
"Tell her the road opens when I say it opens."
Elias didn't check the time. He moved toward the vehicle.
I stayed at the fence line. The wire didn't change under my stare. It remained a question mark in steel. The thorn scrub held quiet. Birds stayed buried in the branches, and the flies worked the torn ground.
Someone had tested us and left proof in the dirt.
Daniel drove me back toward the lodge while the sweep teams continued their grid. The radio stayed active—short codes, position updates, nothing urgent but nothing comfortable either. I kept my window down, letting the hot air push against my face while I sorted the operational problems into categories.
Guest departures: delayed but manageable. Eastern boundary: exposed until I could shift resources. Animal movement: unknown until I got the trail cam footage. Snarematerial: confirmed poaching interest. Lodge messaging: calm and vague until I had facts.
The list was clean. Juliette didn't fit anywhere on it.
I pushed the thought aside and checked my phone.
Two messages from Sofia.
The first had come during the fence inspection:
SOFIA:u said later
The second, twelve minutes after:
SOFIA:does later mean today or adult-later?
My thumb hovered over the screen. My next breath caught halfway in before the radio cut through.
"Nick, we've got rhino movement on the eastern drainage. The whole crash shifted overnight. They're closer to the service road than we've seen in weeks."
