Cat Breaking Free

4

When, within the pine woods, the fleeting shadows grew bolder, Bucky snorted and bowed his neck, nervously staring. Another sprint of shadows flashed among the trees to vanish behind a tumble of deadfalls; then across the leafy carpet, a stealthy creeping so subtle it might be only light shifting among the foliage as the sun rose. If there was something there, it was small and quick. But what kind of small animals would follow them? If they were in Ireland, Charlie thought, she'd imagine being tracked by some impossible mythical creature. Beside her, Ryan and Hanni watched intently. She was glad Ryan hadn't brought her big Weimaraner. Rock was becoming well trained, considering his uncontrolled first-year running wild and unwanted. But he still had moments when his highly bred hunting instincts and keen sense of smell-and his macho nature-tore him away from all commands and sent him, defiant and disobedient, racing maybe fifteen miles or more before Ryan could find him and bring him home again, the big silver dog worn out, deliciously happy, and not at all contrite. If Rock were here, he'd be running now, chasing those mysterious cats-and cats they were, she felt certain.

Though Rock would not normally hurt a cat, if they ran from him he would chase them. Any dog would. And who knew how far? This wilderness land went on for many miles.

Another shadow flashed through the mottled light, small and swift. If these were cats, they were not the three cats Charlie knew. Those three would not follow them secretly, they'd be right out in the open running beside the horses, begging a ride home across their saddles. Charlie had taken the young tortoiseshell up on the saddle with her several times, and the kit quite liked that excitement. Anyway, those three wouldn't be clear out here, miles south of Molena Point. Even on horseback, the riders were still a good hour from home. They were well south of Hellhag Hill, which was as far south, she thought, as Joe Grey or Dulcie ever ventured. Though the kit had come from much farther south when she first found the village, escaping from just such a band of feral cats. Small and hungry and troubled, Kit had taken refuge on Hellhag Hill and there, frightened and nearly starved, she had found the first two humans she'd ever been willing to trust.

Edging Bucky off the trail, Charlie looked back at Ryan and Hanni. "Go on. Whatever is there is small, I don't want to frighten it. I'm just curious. I'll catch up." And she headed alone into the woods, the buckskin stepping with exaggerated care and snorting. Behind her, the two women moved away, their horses' sorrel and gray rumps bright in the morning. Ryan glanced back at her once, frowning, then moved her mare up to match the gray's hurrying walk.

Charlie was glad Max wasn't there. If this was the feral band, Molena Point's police chief didn't need any more close encounters with speaking cats. He got plenty of that at home, though all unknowing. It was hard enough to keep the three cats' secret from him, without other sentient cats appearing. Approaching the dense woods, Bucky continued to stare and fuss, but he moved ahead sensibly. Bucky was Max's gelding, he was well trained and reliable. Though he would not so willingly have approached a band of coyotes or an unusually bold cougar. Cougars had attacked several hikers this year and, in one instance, a lone rider, raking and tearing the horse badly before the wounded rider shot him.

The three women were armed against that kind of danger. Three females traveling alone did not, to Max Harper's way of thinking, go into the California wilderness unprotected from some strange quirk of nature or a marauding human. These days, there could be a nutcase anywhere, the wild hills no exception. Particularly with marijuana growers squatting on state land, angry men who would kill to protect their lucrative illegal crops.

Charlie was police-trained in the use of a weapon and not, in any way, hasty or hot-headed. And Ryan and Hanni, having grown up in a law-enforcement family, had been well schooled from an early age. All three carried cell phones, but it would take a while for outside help to reach them. A Jeep could manage these hills, but they were riding the old original highway that had deteriorated over sixty years into a rough dirt track with patches of broken, washed-out blacktop-an impossible road for any car with only two-wheel drive. She entered the wood where the trees grew thick, the gelding picking his way among deadfalls, dry, rotting invitations to forest fire. Around them, nothing moved.

Where the trees parted sufficiently, thin shafts of light grew brighter as the sun rose. Away at the far side of the hill, the woods dropped into a ravine. Bucky's ears flicked and twisted, and his skin rippled with shivers. She could hear behind her the faint hush of the sea, then a distant click as one of the retreating horses stepped on a pebble. The pine forest was cold; she drew her jacket close. And suddenly for no reason she wanted to turn back. At the same moment, Bucky froze.

Something shone ahead, unnaturally bright between the trees, something glinting like metal. She frowned at the long silver streaks half hidden within the dark bushes.

No rock would glint like that, with those long, straight flashes where the sun shot down. Pushing Bucky closer, booting him deeper in among the crowding pines, she approached the bright gleams where a shaft of slanting sun picked out metal bars.

An animal cage. A trap. A humane trap, made of thin steel bars, not wire mesh as were most such cages. Its top, sides, and back had been covered with a heavy towel so that a trapped beast would settle down in the darkness and not harm itself lunging and fighting. A friend who worked for a cat-rescue group had told her that a trapped cat would fight its cage until it tore off hanks of its own skin, injuring itself sometimes so severely that it must be destroyed. The towel did not cover the front of the cage. She could see a cat inside, a big cat, crouching and silently hissing, its eyes dark with fear and hate.

Sliding off Bucky, she knelt to look. The cat fixed her with an enraged glare, a furious stare from keenly intelligent eyes. This was no ordinary cat. He watched her with intent human comprehension, and everything about him was demanding. Much as Joe Grey would have stared if he were caught in a trap. Though she could not imagine such a thing happening. Joe was far too wary.

How had this obviously intelligent creature let himself be caught? The huge, broad-shouldered tom exhibited such a deep and violent rage. This was a wild, rebellious intellect trapped not only in the cage but in a feline body with physical limitations that had betrayed him. With no hands to manipulate that complicated lock, he had no hope of escape. He glared at Charlie as if he would tear her leg off.

His rough coat was a mix of gray and tan and dirty white; his broad, boxy head scarred as if from fighting, his ears torn, his yellow eyes fierce. She had no desire to touch her fingers to the cage to see if this might be a domestic cat, an angry lost soul who might be longing to trust her. There was nothing lost about this soul. Enflamed, bedeviled, not to trust or be trusted.

His eyes never left her. His teeth remained bared in a snarl as lethal as that of any cougar, eyes like an imprisoned convict. She could see him debating how he could best use her, how he could force her to free him. Stepping away from the cage, she put her hand on Bucky's shoulder, steadying herself against the solid buckskin gelding. She stood silently for a long time watching the cat as he continued his careful assessment of her.

At last she knelt again, and spoke softly, though the other riders were on down the trail. "You run with the wild band. With the band that, almost two years ago, came to Hellhag Hill." Even as she said it, she thought, alarmed, that if he was one of that band, they might have come back searching for the kit.

But why would they? To take the little tattercoat back into their clowder? Why would they want her back? She had been nothing but an outcast.

Would they want to remove any cat of their kind from human company? Would they hurt Kit to keep their secret?

But that didn't make sense. If that was the case, why had they ever let her stay in the village? Why hadn't they taken her away at once?

Or was this a new and stricter leader? Charlie knew from Kit that the band had been ruled by a tyrant. Was there now a worse dictator, a beast even more predatory and controlling? Kit had said the leaders changed whenever a stronger male killed the old one. Was this tom even more anxious to keep his kind from being discovered? The cat continued to glare.

"If you will talk to me," she said, "if you will tell me why they trapped you-tell me how they managed to trap you-and if you'll tell me why you are here, I'll set you free."

His snarl rumbled.

"I promise I'll free you," she whispered.

In order to free him, she would have to handle the cage. If he chose, he could slash her fingers to ribbons through the bars before she could ever release the door and push it in.

Rising, she slipped her hoof pick from its little case on the saddle and fished her knife from her pocket. Because Bucky was tense and snorting, she was afraid he wouldn't stay ground-tied. She undid her rope from the saddle and tied him to a deadfall.

Opening her saddle bags, she found her leather gloves and slipped them on. Crouched again before the cage, studying how best to spring the latch, she heard Ryan call her from far up the trail. Oh, they mustn't come back.

"I'm fine," she shouted. "I'm coming. Give me a minute."

She had thought at first the cage belonged to one of the animal-rescue groups that trapped feral cats, that gave the cats shots and "the operation," then turned them loose again. But this cage wasn't like theirs. Though of the same humane design, it had stainless steel bars instead of wire mesh, and a different kind of tripping mechanism, too. A different way to release the door, and a far more complicated latch. But what gave her chills was the bungee cord.

The strong elastic cord was used to keep a trap open for many days so the victim would grow used to going inside for food. Normally, the cord was then removed, and the trap set. An ordinary cat would not realize the difference, but would go on in and trip the trigger, slamming the door shut before it could escape.

But this bungee cord hung in three pieces, frayed apart. It did not look chewed, but tampered with. The door had been sprung while the weakened cord was still in place, and it had pulled apart.

She looked into the tom's blazing eyes. "Was the cord on when you went in? So you thought it still held the door?"

The cat blinked, as if to say yes. It glared, and would not speak.

"You didn't chew it in two? It doesn't look chewed."

He lashed his tail, reluctantly letting her know he understood, but still unwilling to speak. This was too bizarre, kneeling in the wilderness talking to a trapped cat from whom she fully expected answers. This was a scene out of Alice, crazy and impossible.

But it indeed was quite possible.

"Tell me," she said impatiently. "Just tell me, and I'll free you! There are two more riders, they'll be over here in a minute. We can't talk in front of them."

The big cat studied her, ears back, teeth glinting.

She said, "This trap was not set by the rescue people. Whoever set it knew you, knew that he was setting it for an animal as smart as himself." She was studying the heavy, complicated latch when Ryan began calling again.

"Tell me now! Quickly! Speak to me now, and I'll free you. Otherwise I'll leave you. I swear I will."

The cat smiled with teeth like ivory daggers. His look said, Isn't this proof enough? My smile, my cognizance? That is all the proof you need, so get on with it.

Rising, she turned and swung onto Bucky and headed out, meaning to stop Ryan. She could feel, behind her, the cat's alarm.

Ryan had left the trail. Behind her, Hanni waited. "Go back," Charlie said. "It's all right. A feral cat in a cage, I don't want to frighten it. Looks like it's been there a long time. I'm going to free it; I think I can spring it all right."

"Let me help, I'll be gentle." Ryan booted her horse, moving beside Charlie before Charlie could stop her, and sliding from the mare. The cat, now crouched at the back of the cage, snarled and spit. Now its eyes were shuttered, giving away nothing. Charlie, opening her folding hoof pick and knife, began to work on the lock.

No cat could have opened this, it was hard even for her, with the simple tools she had. As she wedged the pick into place, Ryan forced her own knife into the moving part of the mechanism; Ryan's knife was heavier and sturdier than Charlie's. By wedging in both knives, they were able at last to spring it. The moment they did, the cat surged forward against the closed door. But then, realizing he must get out of the way for it to be pushed open, he moved back. Ryan stared at him, puzzled. Immediately, he began hissing and growling as if frightened, trying to hide his too-intelligent behavior.

"I must have scared him," Charlie said, "when I stood up." Retrieving a fallen branch, she lifted the cage door.

As Ryan, using a second stick, pressed the door back into its open position, the cat moved a step toward the opening. He paused, looking fiercely up at them. Neither woman moved. He took another step. Another, toward freedom. His eyes never left them. He watched them secure the door open, wedging the branches in. Watched them back away from the cage. And he streaked out and through the woods-a flash and he was gone, they were looking at empty woods.

But then, from the shadows where he had vanished, the whole woods seemed to shake and shift, a violent stirring that came from every direction like silent small explosions. And then gone, the woods utterly still.

"What was that?" Ryan said, swallowing.

"I don't know," Charlie whispered, seeing in her mind's eye the swift, cat-shaped shadows vanishing among the trees. She watched the woods as Hanni joined them, her gray gelding prancing and fussing. Hanni took in the scene, the empty trap, and the woods beyond. The widening shafts of sunlight showed nothing alive, not even a bird flitting.

"I didn't know there were trappers up here," Hanni said. "But why a humane trap? If they're trapping for fur…?"

"Cat trap," Charlie said. "Surely a 'trap and neuter' group."

"Why would they work way up here? How often do they check their cages? To leave a cat like that… No food, no water…" Hanni knew as well as Charlie that no animal-rescue group would have left a trap there unattended. "How long was it in that cage?"

Leaving Bucky tied, Charlie walked deeper into the woods, searching until she found a large stone. Returning, she knelt and began to hammer the cage, bending the bars as best she could; the metal was thick, hellishly strong. When her arm grew tired, Ryan took the stone. Stronger, from years of carpentry work, Ryan struck with a force that soon collapsed the sides and sprung the door. When the cage lay bent beyond use, its lock and hinges broken, its door twisted into folds, Charlie carried it through the brush to where the land fell sharply, and heaved it down the ravine into steep, jagged rocks among a tangle of bushes.

By the time it rusted and the bushes grew over, it might never be noticed. Who knew what was hidden down in these draws? A rancher could lose a wily steer down there, or an old cow hiding her calf-a smart cow who would bring her calf out again only when the riders were long gone. Charlie wasn't sure why she had thrown the trap down there. It made more sense to leave it for whomever had set it, let them see it crushed. Yet she felt, for some reason she couldn't name, that she didn't want the cage found.

Behind them when they left the woods, there was no trace of the trap, only the trampled grass that would soon right itself; and their hoofprints, which Charlie wished she could brush away. She would not do that in front of Ryan and Hanni, drawing questions to which she had no answers.

Back on the trail, Charlie rode nearest the woods, but saw no further movement. Maybe the cats, having regained their own, had headed away into the wild interior. She hoped they stayed away, prayed they wouldn't come down into Molena Point. Now, beneath the horses' hooves, where pieces of the macadam had washed away leaving only dirt, they found themselves following fresh tire marks. A single track, like that of a motorcycle.

Ryan frowned. "Do ranchers use motorcycles these days?" As they descended a steep slope, down into the blanket of fog, the horses began to shy and wanted to turn back. It was not the mist that made them spooky. Urging Bucky on into the thick mist, Charlie smelled the stench that had Bucky snorting and rearing.

Holding their breath, the riders forced their horses to the lip of the narrow ravine, and sat studying a swath of broken bushes and torn-out grass that led from the edge down to the bottom.

A motorcycle lay down there, flung onto its back, its bent front wheel pointing toward the sky, its rear tire stripped away in shreds leaving bare, twisted metal. The sweet stink of rotting flesh made Charlie want to throw up. A man lay beneath the bike, his black leathers dulled with dirt, his body swollen with the gases that form after death, his long black hair tangled in the ruined tire. The three riders reached for their cell phones.

"I'll call," Charlie said, leaning over Bucky, letting him spin away from the ravine as she dialed, giving him his head. She felt ice-cold. She prayed they had moved back into the coastal calling area. Listening to the first ring, she pulled Bucky up, and turned to scan the ravine and the land above it. She felt as if they were being watched. She was so unsettled that when Mabel Farthy picked up the call, Charlie had trouble finding her voice. Glancing at Ryan, tasting the sick, sweet smell, she told Mabel their location and what they had found.

Max came on the line almost at once. Her tears welled at the sound of his voice. All she could say was, "I need you up here, we need you." She could hardly talk. She felt so stupid, so weak and inadequate. You're a cop's wife, Charlie! Straighten up! "Can you get the cars up here?" she said. "On this old road? We could bring the horses down for you…"

"That's the sheriff's jurisdiction," Max said. "He has four-wheel, we'll be with them or in my pickup. You okay?"

Charlie nodded. "Fine."

"Hang on, we're on our way," he said. Was he laughing at her? Then, in a softer voice, "I love you, Charlie."

But Charlie, clicking off the phone, sliding off Bucky to hurry away and throw up in the bushes, felt like a failure, like she'd been no use at all to Max.