The Cat Dancers

56

It shrieked again and pounced at the nowclustered targets, mouth agape, front paws and claws spread wide, blotting out the sky. Cam barely managed to throw himself backward out of the way even as the dogs instinctively flattened, and the cat landed in the water, instead of on top of them. In an instant, it was swept away by the hungry current, even as it tried to turn back, legs thrashing, still determined to get at them. Cam, sitting on his backside, his elbows in the water, watched in shock as the mountain lion disappeared into the rumbling black river. He thought he saw its head pop up again quite a way downstream, but then he lost it again. Then the gravel under him shifted down into the current, and it was his turn to go for a ride.

He yelled for the dogs, but they just stood there as he was taken out into the middle of the incredible current, his lower body constricting with the sudden cold and his lungs refusing to work due to the shock of it.

Swim, his brain yelled at him, but nothing was working, and then his right knee whacked something underwater. It spun him around in a whirling pirouette, which completely disoriented him. He yelled again for the dogs to come, but he couldn’t see them and now had to concentrate on getting to the right side of the river and out of the powerful center current. He couldn’t swim, only thrash around while his brain tried to cope with the fact that he was hurtling downstream, totally out of control, the bank to his right a blur of trees and small rocks. He realized his body was shutting down, recalling all the blood from his extremities to his brain in response to the freezing water. The waterlogged parka was dragging him down.

“Gotta go, gotta go, gotta go,” he started chanting through chattering teeth, and he kicked out to get across the current, but the river kept turning him, so that every time he thought he was going toward the bank, he wasn’t. Then he heard someone shouting, and he caught a glimpse of Mary Ellen on the far bank, trotting downstream, yelling at him.

He hit another rock, and this one pinned him for a moment, causing a small tidal wave of water to rise up over his face. For just an instant, he thought, This is too hard. Just quit, just stop this fighting. He really couldn’t breathe, but launched out again, using the rock as a fulcrum, and actually made headway toward the bank. He hit another rock, this time with his stomach, and folded around it, helpless to straighten out and swim again. He kept his head above water and laughed hysterically at his predicament. The current was strong enough to pin him to the rock, and there was absolutely nothing he could do about it. His hands felt like two frozen bricks.

He looked up and saw that he wasn’t that far from the bank now, if he could only get off the damned rock. At that moment, he saw two black ears coming downstream at him. Frack swept by, a look of total terror on his face. Cam grabbed out for the dog and snagged his collar. The weight of the dog pulled Cam off the rock, and a moment later they were both rolled into the shallows by a standing wave in the current. Mary Ellen waded out into the water with a long branch in her hands. Cam grabbed at it with one hand and, holding on to Frack’s collar, she pulled the both of them to the shallows.

“Where’s Frick?” Cam gasped, not letting go of the black shepherd’s collar.

“Don’t know,” she shouted above the roar of the river. “Gotta get you dry, right now. You’re blue in the face. Let go of the dog.”

Cam pried his fingers off Frack’s collar and tried to sit up. All those soaking layers felt like a shroud, and he realized he’d been lucky they hadn’t drowned him. Then Frack barked and jumped through the shallows, stopping short of the real current. Cam looked. There went Frick, sailing by like a furry cork, ears and snout up like little sable periscopes, but much too far out in the center current. Cam yelled to get her attention, but she went on downriver and disappeared around a bend.

Cam got up and started to trudge down the bank. Mary Ellen caught up with him as he began to stumble badly, his leg muscles too cold to function adequately. Then the roaring in his head got louder than the river and he passed out.

He awoke to the sound and feel of a fire and saw Mary Ellen Goode coming back toward him with an armload of driftwood. He’d been dragged to a sitting position and placed against a large rock, and she’d built a fire in the gravel on the riverbank. The sunlight was no longer bright, and there was a cold gray haze. His parka lay in a heap next to him, his boots were upside down on sticks, and Frack sat on the other side of the fire, watching him intently. His knee hurt and he felt like he’d been punched repeatedly in the stomach, but all his extremities were responding to commands. The front of his clothes felt damp and stiff, but his back was still soaking wet. He shivered and coughed up some water.

“Welcome back,” she said, dropping the driftwood near the fire. “We thought we were gonna have to leave you out here.” She pointed with her chin at the massive dark cloud bank building up behind the high ridge.

“Any signs of my other dog?” Cam asked.

“Not yet, but she was swimming strong,” she said. “That cat probably made it out, too.”

“You saw it?”

“For about a second,” she said. “I had binocs on you when you came out on the point over there. I was trying to figure out how to get your attention, but I didn’t bring a gun. That was pretty close.”

“We’d met before,” Cam said. “Where’s Marshall?”

“Up at camp on the sat phone, hopefully getting a helo in. The weather jumped the gun on us. Where’s your deputy?”

Cam just shook his head. He didn’t want to deal with that right now.

“Did you find him?”

“He found me. That’s where I went last night.”

She nodded. “We kinda figured that out when we saw two sets of tracks. Marshall just thought you’d decided to go in on your own. I was disappointed. I wanted to go up there with you. See if this stuff was true.”

Cam thought about the camera in his parka, but he decided he’d keep that factor off the table right now. He rather doubted the film had survived immersion, even with the shrink-wrap. It was, after all, just a cheap disposable.

Mary Ellen hunkered down by the fire and pushed coals together. “We heard the shots,” she said. “But the river had come up by then. We had no way to get across.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Cam said. “You got me and Frack out of the river. Thank you.” Then he began to shiver uncontrollably.

She came around the fire, sat beside him, and folded her arms around him. He sank into the warmth of her gratefully, and she held him until he stopped shivering. Then, hearing distant shouting, they drew apart.

Marshall came down across the open meadow and joined them by the fire. “Three hours,” he said. He eyed Cam and the waterlogged shepherd. “Been swimming, I take it. Where’s your deputy?”

Cam looked out at the rushing current and said only that Sergeant Cox was dead. Both rangers just stared at him in surprise.

“You mean he’s in the river?” Marshall asked, glancing sideways at the rumbling water.

“Yes,” Cam replied.

A sudden gust of cold wind made them look over at the ridge, where the approaching front looked like a black wave building up on the distant back range. Cam thought he saw a flicker of lightning off to the right. The rock on the eastern face was changing colors in the intermittent sunlight.

“How high’s that ridge?” he asked.

“Almost five thousand feet,” Marshall said. Another cold gust blew down from the meadow in the direction of the approaching system, flattening the dying grass. “Three hours is going to be close. They asked if we could ride out the frontal passage. I told them no.”

“Good answer,” Mary Ellen said. She studied the cloud bank again. “We could, I suppose, if they have to abort. But that mess could be wild when it comes down this side.” She turned to Cam. “Can you walk?” she asked. He said he could.

“Good. We need to get back to the camp, get it ready for load-out.”

Cam lurched to his feet, grunting when he put weight on the knee, and then helped Marshall douse the fire. It wasn’t hard, as the river had risen to within five feet of where he’d been sitting. Cam took a last look downstream to see if Frick was coming, but there was no sign of her. He dreaded the thought of leaving her out here.

“Can you guys do the camp?” he asked. “I’d like to go look for my dog.”

Marshall looked at Mary Ellen, who nodded. “Okay,” he said, “but be back in two hours-max. And if you see that thing start down the slope, run back to camp. The tops of that ridge are about twelve miles away, believe it or not, but that storm may come down like an avalanche.”

Cam gathered up his wet parka and put on his boots, then went to look for Frick.

Two hours later, he trudged back up the hill toward the waiting rangers, Frack alongside, but no Frick. He’d scoured the riverbank, tramping downstream for an hour, then reluctantly turned around. The sky above was getting dark gray now as the approaching front began to descend over the mountain. The temperature had actually risen a bit and the air smelled of moisture. He’d put the parka back on; it was almost dry now. His head felt like it did when he had a bad cold coming on. The rangers had most of the camp taken apart and bagged up, but they’d left the larger tent up in case the weather did manage to beat out the helicopter. Mary Ellen handed Cam a cup of hot soup from the Primus stove.

“No luck,” he said as he wrapped both hands around the hot metal cup. She handed him a bologna sandwich as he finished the soup. He ate half of it and then pitched the other half to Frack, who was waiting outside the tent’s front flap. “I didn’t find any bodies, either,” he said. “Except for one deer.”

“Mary Ellen says she saw the mountain lion,” Marshall said. “So I guess it’s official.”

Cam nodded, still not wanting to talk about what had happened to Kenny. Marshall cleared his throat.

“We’re going to have to file a report,” he prompted.

“I know,” Cam said. “And I’ll give you a debrief at the appropriate time. Do you guys have a secure phone at the station?”

Marshall laughed. “We’re the Park Service, remember?”

“The Sheriff’s Office will have one,” Mary Ellen said.

Cam nodded. “I’m going to make a report when we get back in. How about I let you guys listen in to that? Save me from having to do it twice?”

“That’d be fine,” Marshall said. “I mean, I know we’re not-”

Cam cut him off. “Yes, you are. You need to know this. My deputy was killed by that cat.”

Marshall blinked. “Oh” was all he could manage.

“But it wasn’t the cat’s fault,” Cam said. “Kenny was cat dancing.”

“Oh my God,” Marshall said. “That’s real?”

They all heard the sound of an approaching helicopter at the same time, which ended their conversation. They came out of the tent and started taking it apart. The wind was rising, and there was more of the cloud bank on their side of the ridge now, although it didn’t appear to be roaring down at them yet.

The helicopter came in from the east, circled the landing zone once, lined up with the wind sweeping across the meadow, and then put down just below where the camp had been. It was the same crew who’d brought them in.

They began throwing bags into the hatch as soon as the crewman got it open, crouching to keep below the rotor blades. Cam definitely saw lightning flash across the big ridge and down into the Chop, which by now was ominously dark. When all the gear was loaded, they put Frack aboard and climbed into the aircraft. The crewman took one last look around the landing area, spoke into his intercom, and then hopped aboard. He slid the hatch closed and checked that they had fastened their seat belts.

The helo rose smoothly and immediately banked down toward the river. Cam looked out across the snow-covered meadow and saw the unmistakable shape of a German shepherd bounding across the frozen snow in pursuit of the helo. He yelled to get the crewman’s attention and then pointed below them. The crewman looked out, said something on the intercom. Frack, in the meantime, had spotted his partner out the window and started barking. The crewman listened and then shook his head.

“No go,” he shouted. “Pilot says we’re outta here.”

“Bullshit,” Cam yelled back. “You can’t leave her here to starve.”

The crewman tried again as the helo gained altitude. Below, and now behind them, Frick valiantly tried to keep up, as if she knew they were in the aircraft.

The crewman made a disappointed face and shook his head again. This time, Cam unbuckled, got up, signaled for Frack to follow him, stepped past the strapped-in crewman, and opened the hatch between the crew compartment and the cockpit. He signaled Frack again and the big dog went through the door and began doing the monster mash on the two pilots: furious barking, lots of snapping teeth, saliva spraying the sides of their helmets. Cam had to steady himself as the helo swerved violently a couple of times, and then the pilot, clearly getting the message, turned the bird around and prepared to put it back down on the ground. Cam called Frack back into the cabin, ignoring the amazed look on the crewman’s face. He thought he saw Mary Ellen grinning from behind her oversize sunglasses.

They landed again and the crewman slid open the door. Cam jumped out and called to Frick, who was a good hundred yards away but still gamely coming on. She put on a few extra knots and managed to jump right into the hatch once she got there, claws scrabbling on the metal deck. Cam got back aboard and buckled in after some serious reunion greetings from both dogs. The helo lifted back off with an angry lurch. There was some lengthy conversation on the intercom between the pilots and the crewman, who kept eyeing Cam and the two shepherds. Cam hauled his. 45 out of the parka pocket and began popping empty shells out of the cylinder. The crewman stopped talking when he saw the gun, and for the rest of the flight back to Pineville, he sat as far from his passengers as he could, his sun visor pulled completely down. Behind them, the winter storm finally spilled over the ridge and buried the Chop under the first winter storm of the season. Cam hunched into his still-damp clothes, remembering the feel of Mary Ellen’s arms around him. It had been a long time.