Conspiracy

14

The lion had used the commotion to jump from the tree, wrestling briefly with one of the hounds before making its escape. The dog had two long, deep cuts in his flank but was actually very lucky. He hadn’t lost much blood and could easily have had his neck snapped in the confrontation.

Sleeth worked on the dog’s wounds carefully, cleaning and dressing them, all the while nuzzling the animal to comfort him. The hound had belonged to Sleeth’s father, who’d retired as a guide just the year before.

“Good lion hound’s worth a fortune,” said Sleeth, but Dean sensed that his concern for the animal had nothing to do with money. “I don’t think I have to put him down. I’d hate to.”

“We can make a sling and carry him out,” suggested Dean.

“Be heavy carrying the lion, too.”

“We can do it. If we can’t, the dog’s more important.”

“I appreciate that,” said Sleeth. “I really appreciate that.” His other dog circled as they rigged a stretcher. They took the animal up the hill to the dead lion. Sleeth had a collection of metal poles that he used to sling the dead animal for carrying. The poles were thin and Dean didn’t think they’d hold the weight of the cat, which topped a hundred pounds. But the pole hardly bent at all, even when they tied the dog as well.

“If it’s too heavy, let me know,” said Sleeth, starting out.

Dean grunted. It was heavy, and the truth was, he didn’t really care that much about having a trophy. But leaving the lion felt like admitting defeat — or, worse, like an admission that he was old, as Sleeth had commented earlier.

He was old. But still strong. And stubborn.

More the latter, maybe.

He could still see the lion charging at him. It was almost as if it had happened twice — once he made the shot; once he didn’t. And there was a fork in reality: in one version he’d been mauled; in the other he’d emerged victorious, barely scratched.

But it had all happened together. There had been no turning point, no choice, just reaction. Everything scrunched together.

And how the hell had he missed that shot?

The sun was edging below the horizon, leaving the mountains in deep shadow. Sleeth aimed toward a dried streambed about two and a half miles away, where his wife could meet them with her pickup truck. They walked in silence, avoid-ing the roughest terrain, neither man admitting how heavy the double burden was.

An hour passed. By now it was fairly dark. Sleeth checked in with his wife on the radio and told her they were still about a mile away.

“If it’s too heavy for you, we can come back with some help at dawn,” Sleeth said to Dean.

“No, I’m all right.”

They climbed for about fifteen minutes, struggling up a rocky gorge. Dean lost his footing near the top; his knee twisted out beneath him and he fell sideways, the dead cougar’s fangs tapping against his face — a reproof, it seemed.

He pushed himself to his feet, shouldered the metal stick, and clambered with Sleeth up the hill. Once they reached the top, the path was easy, wide spaces between trees and a gentle slope to the creek bed where the truck waited.

“More than you bargained for, Mr. Dean?” asked Sleeth’s wife as they drove back toward the Sleeth house. Sleeth was with the dog in the back.

“It was interesting.”

“What do you do for a living?” she asked. A few years younger than her husband, she had a thick neck and well-defined biceps and forearms, and a face prematurely aged by the sun.

“Own some gas stations,” said Dean. He’d sold the stations when he went to work for Deep Black, but of course he wasn’t about to mention what he really did.

“This is a bit more interesting than your normal day’s work, I’d guess,” said Mrs. Sleeth.

“You’d be surprised,” said Dean, propping his arm against the window of the truck.

A few hours later, the dog patched up and the mountain lion prepared for the taxidermist, Sleeth joined Dean in the living room.

“I’m refunding your money,” said Sleeth, sitting down in the leather chair across from Dean.

“Why?” asked Dean.

“I almost got you killed. I was sloppy. I did a terrible job.”

“Nah.”

“I should have known there was another animal there.

Male and female lions will hunt together when they’re mat-ing. I should have known.”

Dean, no expert on mountain lions, studied the Scotch in his glass, then took a sip, savoring the Glenfiddich as it burned in his mouth.

“You were really cool up there, dealing with the cat,” continued Sleeth. “A lot of guys—”

Instead of finishing his sentence, Sleeth got up and walked to the sideboard nearby, fixing himself a drink.

Dean took another sip of his Scotch.

What if he’d missed on the second shot as well?

He wouldn’t be here to think about it, probably. Or maybe he would be, waiting for a medevac he li cop ter, eyeball dangling from its socket.

Sleeth sat back down.

“It’s unusual for a lion to attack humans,” he said. Maybe there was something wrong with it, or maybe it had attacked before, or maybe it saw them as rivals for its mate. Ordinarily, the cats didn’t attack unless cornered, not even to protect their young. The words drifted past Dean’s head.

Maybe he’d missed that first shot because Sleeth was right: he was getting old.

Dean’s sat phone began to ring.

“I just want to check this. Excuse me,” he told Sleeth. He got up, pulling the phone out as he walked to the door.

“Dean,” he said outside.

“Charlie, this is Chris Farlekas. I’m afraid you’re going to have to cut short your vacation. There’s something urgent that we need your help on. We’ll have a plane meet you at Le Havre Airport. OK?”

“What time?”

“As soon as you can get there. It’ll be on the ground in half an hour.”