The Cat Dancers

44

Cam opened his door and got his coat and overboots on while White Eye did the same. Cam looked at his watch. It was 3:30 A.M., but Mitchell’s grainy coffee brew still had him wide-awake. He put on gloves, a black watch cap, and then an adjustable ball cap on top of the watch cap. He patted the gun to make sure it was in his pocket, then quietly transferred the three bullets to the coat pocket from his trouser pocket when White Eye wasn’t looking. He stood down into the snow, as did White Eye.

“You going to leave it running?” Cam asked.

“Yep,” White Eye said. “Runs good, but sometimes she don’t start so good.”

Cam followed in White Eye’s tracks as they set off for the stand of pines about two hundred yards away. Mercifully, there was no wind, so the temperature didn’t seem that bad. The sound of their boots crunching through the snow filled the night air as they approached the pine stand. White Eye walked right into the pines, which looked a lot like the Leyland cypress Cam had planted around his house, with dense branches reaching all the way down into the snow. Cam followed him in, pushing a little to keep up as the other man’s figure disappeared into the mass of greenery. They’d penetrated about sixty feet when Cam broke into a small clearing. White Eye was waiting for him.

“Right here,” he said, and Cam looked around, not sure of what was coming next.

“What are we doing?” Cam asked.

“Gonna show you somethin’ about trackin’ a big animal out here in the real woods,” he said. “You wait here. I’m gonna go back, move that vehicle back into that little pass, and then I’m gonna come back through these here pines on foot. Not the same way we come in, okay? I want you to sing out when you hear me comin’.”

“That’ll be never,” Cam pointed out. “This soft snow and everything.”

White Eye shook his head, stepping around in the clearing, the crunching sound evident. “Got us ice crust in here,” he said. “Even so, I’m gonna come back in here and tap you on the shoulder ’fore you hear a fuckin’ thing.”

“And why are we doing this?”

“Cause you don’t understand how good I am at this shit,” the old man said. “You gotta ’preciate how hard this is ’fore I take you to see a real panther.”

Cam looked at him. “That’s where we’re going? To see a wild mountain lion?”

“You wanted to know what cat dancin’s all about, right? It’s about lookin’ a wild one in the face, so that’s what I’m gonna show you, mister. But first, I gotta see if you got any wood sense whatsoever. You stay here in this clearin’, and don’t go wanderin’ off.”

White Eye turned on his heel and disappeared back through the pine branches, leaving Cam to watch his own breath condense into tiny ice crystals in front of his face. He waited for a minute, trying to hear the other man’s progress through the pines, but now he heard absolutely nothing. Of course, White Eye might have stopped three feet into the dense pines to see what Cam would do, so Cam did nothing for a couple of minutes but move to the center of the clearing. It was twenty feet on every side to the nearest pine tree, so there was no way in hell that guy could come out of the pines and tap him on the shoulder without Cam seeing him first.

Then he heard the Bronco’s engine rev up in the distance and the sounds of the vehicle turning around. Based on the sound, which was difficult to locate through all the greenery, the Bronco was indeed going back to the entrance to the meadow, although it seemed to be taking an awfully long time. He fished the. 45 out of his pocket and fed the three bullets into it, checking the action to make sure everything was working. The metal was cold, and the cylinder turned sluggishly, but it did turn, and that was all that counted. He put it back into the pocket with a button flap on it and secured it. He listened for the Bronco, thought he could still hear it. It seemed a long way off.

Has that crazy old bastard left me out here? he wondered. He looked up at the sky for any signs of snow, but it was clear as a bell and filled with a million enormous stars. He pushed up the front of the watch cap and listened hard. He thought he could still hear the Bronco, but it could also have been his imagination. But clearly, White Eye had gone beyond the edge of the meadow. He left his ears uncovered, the better to hear the man coming back. And he would hear him, because the air was so still he could hear the fabric of his coat rising and falling with his own breathing. His right hand unconsciously patted the lump in his coat pocket.

Maybe I should move out of the clearing, get myself into the dense pines, instead of sitting out here in the middle, waiting to be tagged, he thought. But then he realized there was no way to do that without leaving a trail of footprints, which would point right at him. Well then, maybe-He stopped thinking and listened. He’d heard something out there.

He cupped his hands behind his ears and slowly turned his head like a radar antenna, trying to focus on that sound. Not footsteps, not the Bronco, something else. Then he heard it again. A low cough, overlaid with something else, something deeper. Coming from-where? There was absolutely no way to tell. And it was a sound he’d heard before. But where? Recently, he knew. And then he knew what it was.

Night-Night.

He’d forgotten all about White Eye’s panther, who had spent the last few hours trotting along behind Mitchell’s vehicle. Working up an appetite? Son of a bitch!

He heard another sound but couldn’t make it out. Whatever it was, it sounded closer. He decided not to hang around in the clearing anymore, not if that damned cat was coming. He thought frantically about which way to go. He and White Eye had come in from the meadow, and their tracks would still be visible. In the other direction, up the slope, were trees-real trees, with big strong branches. He stood no chance against the cat if it could catch him in this tangle of pines. But up a tree, with a. 45? Much better odds.

If he could get there.

He put his back to their original tracks and plunged into the dense pines, pushing his way through them for about fifty feet and then stopping. He turned around to see if he’d been going in a straight line, but the pines immediately blocked his view. He was pretty sure he was going straight, but it was very difficult to tell in the woods. He listened for sounds of the cat but heard nothing but his own labored breathing.

Go, he thought. Now.

He turned again in what he thought was the direction of the big trees and started pushing again, ignoring the sharp stings of needles on his face. He knew he was making some noise, but he no longer cared. He had to get out of this maze of green branches. It felt like the damned trees were closing in on him, resisting his efforts to escape, even as his brain told him to stop that shit.

After three minutes of effort, he stopped to listen again, this time for more than just a few seconds. He tried to slow his breathing. He wondered what the altitude was up here, then remembered his ears popping more than once on the way up. He should have come out of the grove by now.

Another cough.

That way. Closer.

Cam looked down at his feet to establish his direction, and he felt his face redden when he saw the two sets of tracks. He was standing in two sets of tracks. He’d gone in a goddamned circle. He felt sweat on his forehead, despite the freezing air. Now what?

Climb a tree. Climb up and see which way was out. But that wouldn’t work. The pines would simply bend over the moment he got halfway up.

The stars. Use the stars. Pick a star and keep it in front of you. But which goddamned way?

Any damned way. Any straight line, but he had to get out of this jungle. Even if it brought him out in the meadow, he could see again. But so could the cat.

The fucking cat doesn’t have to see, he realized. It knows where you are.

Then he realized his left foot was higher than his right foot. He was standing on a slope.

Uphill. The oak trees were above the pine grove. Go uphill.

Trying desperately not to panic, he turned in the direction he thought was uphill and began to push through in earnest now, not even trying to be quiet anymore. Just when he was about to give up and try navigating by the stars, he broke out of the pine grove, right in front of the blessed oak trees.

He stopped and looked carefully up and down the line of greenery marking the top edge of the grove. It was a good hundred yards of open snowpack to the nearest tree.

He tried a step. Deep open snow.

He listened, but there were no more sounds coming from within the pine grove. Where was that damned thing? Just inside the tree line, waiting for him to move out into the open? His mind formed an image of the great tawny beast loping across the snowpack behind the Bronco with perfect ease, doing it for miles and miles.

He scanned the trees ahead and extracted the. 45. Had he put the rounds in the right chambers? If he cocked the hammer, would he get a bullet cycling under it, or an empty chamber?

Gotta move sometime, he thought. He stared at the distant trees, trying to pick one out with branches low enough to get into. He spotted a likely candidate, then turned around so he could walk backward up the hill, keeping the entire pine grove in his sight. He held the. 45 close to his belly to keep it warm as he trudged backward up the hill, trying hard not to look over his shoulder to see what might be behind him. It was tough going as the hill steepened, and the snow felt like it was three feet deep, even though he knew it wasn’t.

He stopped, breathing hard as he thought he saw something move out on the far right corner of the grove. He stared hard, his eyes watering with the effort, but there was nothing there. He scanned the whole grove again, watching for any signs of movement. Nothing. He looked over his shoulder. His target tree was twenty feet away. It was bigger than he’d thought, with a huge gnarly trunk some seven or eight feet in diameter.

Behind which was-what?

Look at the snow, his brain told him. He did. No tracks near the tree.

He scanned the pine grove again, his eyes moving from left to right, even as he started moving backward again, his mind chanting a simple mantra: There’s nothing behind you except that tree. No tracks, no cat. Damned thing can’t fly.

He kept watching the pine trees, staring hard into those deep shadows at their bases. Wrong, he told himself; watch the tops. If something’s coming through those trees, the tops will stir.

And, oh shit, they were-right in the middle of the grove, right where he’d come out. Tiny little movements in the moonlight, but the tops were definitely moving. Something coming through there. And there were his own tracks, pointing right at him.

Night-Night? Or White Eye? Both?

Then something slammed into his back and he let out a little yelp before he realized he’d backed into his tree. He took one last look around, jammed the gun back into his pocket, and started trying to climb it. The limbs, which had appeared to be close to the ground before, were not so close now that he was right here. He circled the tree, searching for a handhold, looking frantically at the next tree, and then one on the other side, then back at the pine grove.

Where the big cat had just come out of the grove and was bounding up the hill, right toward him, eyes flashing in the bright moonlight.

Propelled by a sudden blast of adrenaline, he crouched down into the snow and then leaped straight up, high enough that he could grab a small branch, which broke, dropping him into a heap in the snow. Peering out of the corner of his eye, he could see that the cat was halfway up the hill, coming strong, right for him.

He jumped again and grabbed the stub of the broken branch. This time, it held and he did a one-armed pull-up into the first branch junction. With a second handhold, he was up, off the ground, and scrambling higher.

The cat screamed at him from beneath the tree, causing him to lose his footing and almost fall. He scrabbled around the trunk, looking for more branches, discarding his gloves to get a better hold, while the panther growled at him as it circled the tree, looking up at him-and at the branches.

Oh shit, Cam thought as he pulled himself up into the third tier of branches, some twenty feet above the ground now. Cats can jump. And climb.

He kept circling the trunk now, not trying for any more height but, like a squirrel, attempting to keep the trunk between him and the cat’s sight line. The panther circled below, more patiently now, watching him, silent as it concentrated on its prey, its breath making little puffs of vapor.

Fucking thing’s working it out, Cam thought. Picking which branch. That bastard’s coming up here.

He found as secure a position as he could and put his back to the huge old trunk and his legs out on two separate wide branches. He drew the. 45. The walnut grips were cold in his bare hands, and he knew better than to touch the metal.

The cat circled one more time, came around to the side where it had a clear view of Cam, and sat down on its haunches. For an instant Cam thought it had decided to give up. And then it came straight up in one graceful leap to grab onto the trunk with all fours at the same branch intersection Cam had first grabbed. It hung there for no more than a split second, then pulled itself onto the branch stub, never taking its eyes off Cam, not even looking where it was placing its enormous feet, its claws tearing off bits of bark that rained down on the snow.

With another effort, she climbed into the second tier, eyes blazing in triumph as she came up, her breath steaming in the moonlight, total certainty in her eyes. Got you now, human. Chow time. He could smell her wet fur and urgent breath. Got you now.

He braced his back against the tree as she maneuvered underneath him, no more than eight feet away, balancing like it was nothing, with all four feet on a single branch, looking, evaluating. She was huge.

He lined up the gun sight between her eyes and then his training took over. No fancy shooting here, center of mass. The chest. Go for the chest.

The cat gathered herself again, crouching down on the branch, rumbling in her throat as she prepared to make the final leap up to where he was, and he thumbed back the hammer.

All the muscles on her front and shoulders quivered as she got ready. She stared right at him, daring him to move, to run, to even try to escape. The words aim and shoot thundered through his head, and he fired.

The shot boomed out over the meadow and the panther transfixed the mountain air with her death shriek. She tumbled down onto the snow at the base of the tree in a rain of bark. Cam felt the thump of her body hitting the ground. He instinctively cocked the hammer back for another shot, but it wasn’t necessary. The huge cat was crumpled in a heap at the base of the tree, its lungs clearly blowing red spray out onto the snow. Cam heard another sound then, yelling and shouting. He turned and saw White Eye reeling through the snow, heading across the open ground between the pine grove and the tree line. He was shouting, “No, no,” his arms flailing as he tried to run through the snow like a wild drunk, still yelling. Cam pointed the gun at him as he came up, but the man wasn’t even looking at him. He was running to the cat, which was trying to get up but couldn’t. There was an awful wet roaring noise rising in its red maw.

White Eye stumbled to a stop, glared up at Cam, and then dropped to his knees next to the cat. Cam expected the cat to try to crawl to its master, but that wasn’t what happened. The panther rolled sideways and then back in its death agony, focused its eyes on White Eye, and, in a move too quick for Cam to see, lunged at Mitchell with its front paws, hooking viciously, smashing White Eye’s head repeatedly like a boxer working a speed bag before collapsing in the snow with a great groan and a final spray of bright red blood from its gaping mouth.

Cam stared down at the bloody spectacle below him. The cat was now on its back, obviously dead, even though the large muscles in its legs and haunches were still jerking. White Eye was sprawled on his back, his staring eyes wide, the sides of his head not really there anymore, hands clenching and unclenching in the spotted snow.

With shaking legs and with his heart still pounding, Cam began to climb down. It took him longer than expected, and he checked the cat once more to make sure it was finished before making the final drop on all fours onto the ground. He extracted the gun and stayed down for a moment, gathering his wits and making sure that thing didn’t get up again. He finally came around the tree trunk and stopped. The cat’s body was no longer twitching, but White Eye was. Cam knelt down beside him, trying to ignore the mess the cat had made of the old man’s skull, which looked like a broken crock of Jell-O. There’s no way he’s going to survive this, Cam thought. He looked into Mitchell’s eyes, which, after a moment, focused on his. White Eye opened his mouth to speak, but then he choked on fluids rising in his throat. He turned his head sideways for a moment, coughed wetly, and then looked back at Cam.

“God damn you,” he gasped.

“You killed her, not me,” Cam said.

White Eye blinked, as if he didn’t understand.

“When you sent her after me,” Cam said

“Had your rounds,” he gasped. More blood welled out of his shattered head every time he spoke.

“Picked your pocket,” Cam said. “Don’t talk anymore.”

Mitchell tried to reach up and touch his head, but his arm wouldn’t work.

“How bad…” he whispered.

Cam shook his head. “Will you tell me who the cat dancers are?”

White Eye made another gargling noise in his throat, which was when Cam realized the cat had opened that up, too. Then he was looking back at Cam. One of his strange eyes rolled away for a second before it came back into focus. His right leg had begun to twitch uncontrollably. Brain shutting down, Cam thought.

“Don’t know,” he said, and Cam had to bend closer to hear him. “They’s all cops. Same as you. God damn your eyes.”

Then his eyes lost focus as he choked once and stopped breathing.

Cam sat back on his haunches and swallowed hard. The cat dancers were all cops. Finally, he thought he knew what was going on.