by Becky Norman
“I’m sorry,” she breathed, hoping he heard and understood. She set her fingers to the dial and switched to her country music station then chuckled in painful irony when she heard what they were playing. It was the one song Cody had really liked when he’d heard it on her barn radio earlier in the year – “I’ve Got the Scars to Prove It” by The Road Hammers.
Lori hadn’t heard it for awhile and felt a few unbidden tears burn her eyes when she processed the lyrics again now.
I ran on whiskey and burned like gas, I went too far, I went too fast – I’d light a fire just to walk right through it. Busted bones, dreams and tears, tattoo my heart like souvenirs – life is just a word till you go through it. I’ve got the scars to prove it.
She wasn’t sure if the song spoke more to Cody’s life or her own, but it seemed fitting today. And she definitely knew something about scars now, too. She sighed heavily and grabbed the radio, bringing it over to the doorway where she could hear it from outside.
As she was straightening up from adjusting the dial, Lori glimpsed an old pitchfork they kept in the garage for those unplanned-for tasks that always seemed to happen on the farm. With an impulse she couldn’t understand – and wouldn’t have been able to articulate – she grabbed it and carried it outside with her, leaning it up against the house near the basement window before she resumed her log assembly.
She transported wood and slid it down the chute with a steady rhythm, based on the songs she heard on the radio, humming along to Keith Urban, Brad Paisley, Taylor Swift and Lady Antebellum. She was totally consumed with the process and her eyes never strayed from the last remaining pile around her as she grabbed another piece and fired it down into the basement. The pace picked up as Rascal Flatts’ latest single began and Lori laughed as she realized she was going to finish the three cords on her own before the next delivery arrived. She was a well-oiled, log-stacking machine!
Still kneeling by the window, Lori watched the last log go careening down the chute and heard it hit with a solid “thunk” against another piece. She rocked back on her heels, wiped the sweat from her forehead, revelling in the feeling of accomplishment. Now all she had to do was stack this and she could call it quits for the day.
It was as she looked out towards the front of the driveway to check for the next delivery, that her heart froze. It was sitting not 30 feet away from her, its long tail wrapped around its feet and its golden eyes fixed on her every move the way only predators can watch prey.
Lori made an involuntary, primal sound of fear and backed up against the house, grabbing for the pitchfork even as her brain screamed, Cougar! to her. She realized the movement and noise were probably the last things she should have done but she could no more have controlled them than she could have the earthquake-like shaking of her knees. The mountain lion came at her with the intensity of a god, its large paws padding towards her with no sound at all, its eyes pinning her to the wall as though he held the pitchfork.
Lori whimpered then shouted in outrage and fear. “No!” she screamed. “You stay the hell away!” She brandished the pitchfork like it was Excalibur and kept the cat just out of range of striking her with those lethal claws.
It growled and hissed when it saw the weapon, but backed off, crouching down to assess this new turn of events. They stared at each other for a few, heart-pounding moments, Lori standing her ground even as the adrenaline flooding her system threatened to make her faint.
The cat was in good health. Lori knew he would be too powerful and too quick for her to try to outrun or fight him. The thought of turning her back on him and trying to get to the house or garage made all the hair stand up on the back of her neck, as though in defence of teeth sinking into her nape. What was she going to do? She couldn’t leave, anyway – she had to drive this thing away or he was going to go after the horses next. She had to get them into the barn as soon as she could, but that meant driving him off – if even for a few minutes.
She was starting to feel nauseous from the adrenaline as the massive predator just crouched there, staring at her. His eyes were pure killing power and his head was immense – his skull must easily span two of her hands spread apart. If she didn’t act soon, he was going to leap at her and then pitchfork or no pitchfork, she was dead. There was no way she’d be able to fight off 200 lbs. of sinew and muscle launched at her throat.
Experts always said make yourself big through noise and posture and go forward – don’t back down or away. Easier said than done when you had an animal in front of you that could kill you with one casual swipe of its paw.
Lori took a deep breath, exhaled, and took a firmer grip on the pitchfork. The mountain lion intensified his gaze at her movement and the tightly-wound muscles coiled even tighter.
“Go away!” Lori screamed again, raising the pitchfork in a menacing way and putting a shaky foot forward. She didn’t like the vulnerability of moving away from the house at all, but she couldn’t continue to have this stare-down with the cat.
“Go on! Get away!” she shouted, taking another step forward.
The cougar shrank down a bit as she went on the offensive, flattening his ears down onto his head and narrowing his eyes at her. Emboldened by the gestures, Lori came at him with more purpose, raising the pitchfork again and yelling nonsense at the top of her lungs.
The cat backed off, putting the earlier distance between them again, but stopped there and stood his ground one more time. He made a nasty threat of a growl, slashing at the air in front of the pitchfork and showing Lori the daggers he had for teeth at the same time. She hesitated, unnerved by the length of his fangs; she could imagine them sinking into her flesh all too easily.
She focused on every twitch of his fur until her eyes bulged, looking for any ripple of muscle to let her know which way he was going next. She had to keep him outside of pitchfork range or she was done. He’d try to come at her from behind now that she was away from the building. She had to be careful. She had to be quick.
“Just get out of here!” she yelled again, her voice breaking from the strain.
The cat took another hissing, spitting step backwards. In this agonizingly slow way, Lori drove him another 20 yards down the driveway, the battle of wills being played out in slow motion for no one else to see.
Lori was just beginning to wonder how she was going to get all the way back to the house without him returning for her, when she saw the truck and trailer coming down the road with her next load of wood. She allowed herself to close her eyes in relief for one fraction of a second then continued her stare-down with the mountain lion. All she had to do now was wait – help was on the way.
When the men in the truck realized what was happening, they turned in and drove aggressively up the drive, honking the horn and hollering out their windows. That was all it took.
The cougar immediately dropped his stance, his belly and tail almost touching the ground as he leapt away to the right of Lori, then crossed the road in the distance. Lori slowly collapsed onto the driveway, using the pitchfork as a brace as she slithered down it, sobbing in relief.
**********
Within fifteen minutes, Lori had the horses caught and back in a tightly-sealed barn and the men had called neighbours, the police and the Ministry of the Environment. People descended on the farm and she told the story over and over again as they analyzed the cougar’s every action and behaviour. Search parties and men with tranquilizer guns and dogs were sent out to look for it, but Lori wanted only to curl up in bed and cry.
When peace had finally descended on the place again and everyone had departed, Lori went into the house and fixed herself a tumbler of straight whisky. She couldn’t stand the stuff and they had only kept it around because it was the remainders from an open bar at their wedding reception, but it felt good as it burned its way down her throat. She hoped it would finally quell the shaking of her hands, too.
She put off sleep, knowing th
at it would be a restless night – and one undoubtedly filled with nightmares. She stayed downstairs, with the lights turned on, the TV going and the kittens curled up on either side of her. It was there on the couch that she finally succumbed to the effects of exhaustion and the Michael Collins Single Malt, sleeping with her head propped up on the back of the sofa.
The dream started innocuously enough. Lori was back in the loft above the barn, sitting on the second-hand couch she and Cody had purchased at an auction shortly before they were married. She remembered it was rough under her hands, a durable brown tweed; she was sitting there, running her hands back and forth over the fabric. She felt safe here above the horses, comfortable. She was conscious of someone puttering around behind her in the kitchen as she watched TV, but she didn’t know who it was. He or she was making food and the clattering dishes and scent of frying onions only served to broaden Lori’s sense of well-being.
She was curled up on the couch, her long legs tucked in underneath her as she watched the program. Bear had suddenly materialized in the room like the Cheshire cat at that point – he was, without surprise on Lori’s part, in front of her on the floor, setting up a racket with his meowing. Clearly, the food smelled good – he was requesting a portion.
“Don’t yell at me,” Lori told him, looking down and smiling at the furry, walking stomach. “If you want something, go in there and ask for it,” she told the big tom cat as she pointed behind her to the kitchen.
Bear looked at her, quite discontent with her answer, but tucked his legs up under his chest and settled in on the floor to her side. He fell silent at that point, watching the images on the TV screen with mild disinterest. Lori’s attention was drawn back to the show and she didn’t look again at Bear for several minutes.
In the curious way of dreams, when she next did look down, Bear had changed into an enormous black panther. The big cat was sprawled out in front of her, resembling nothing so much as a rug in some big game hunter’s trophy room, but he was very much alive. His deep and mildly-foreboding brown-black eyes looked up at her as she leaned over to get a better look at him. Lori craned her head over the side of the couch, not in fear but rather in curiosity as to how this creature had suddenly appeared. The panther was huffing slightly, as though it were too warm in the room for him, and he extended a startlingly bright pink tongue and swiped it across a front paw that was easily the size of Lori’s skull.
He continued to clean himself, giving Lori only the merest glance of acknowledgement now and then with those all-knowing eyes, his wide head and thick neck bobbing with rhythm as he bathed.
For some inane reason, Lori reached down at that point and stroked her fingers through the panther’s sleek black fur. Her white fingers disappeared in the plush as she stroked his hip, clearly unafraid in her own actions. The cat flicked his tail at her touch and stopped his washing to narrow his eyes and flatten his ears slightly, but he didn’t attack or move away. He watched her hand for a few moments then lied down fully again on the floor with a contented “huff” and closed his eyes.
“When is supper going to be ready?” Lori called to her companion in the kitchen. She didn’t look back, obviously assuming the person was still there and well-known to her.
“When it’s ready,” an amused male voice answered. “My, but you’re an impatient thing, aren’t you?”
Lori smiled, her eyes never leaving the TV. “Not impatient – just hungry.”
“Well maybe if you ate when you were supposed to instead of spending all day in the roundpen you wouldn’t get this hungry,” he chided gently.
Lori’s grin grew wider. “And whose fault is that? If you would have just brought me a sandwich that I could have carried around in there with me...” she trailed off with a laugh.
“If you think for one moment you’re going to blame this on me, think again,” he responded. Except that his voice came from underneath her feet this time.
Lori leaned over and smiled down at the black panther, who was now talking to her. “I’m not here to ensure your bodily needs are met, nor am I here to assist you in some twisted fashion with your horse training. Lest you forget,” he added with a twitch of his tail.
She reached further over and ruffled the big black head with deep affection.
“I love you, you grump,” she told him.
The black panther smiled and twitched his tail in answer.
**********
Lori came awake slowly, confused about where she was and inadvertently squeezing the kittens who had each chosen a hand to curl up against on the couch. They both made small sounds of discontent, arched their backs in the classic cat stretch and jumped down after huge yawns.
“Sorry, guys,” Lori muttered as she leaned forward into a proper sitting position. She groaned as the crick in her neck became evident then clasped a hand to the ache. With the other hand, she scrubbed furiously at her face, trying to wake up. She yawned, too, and stretched both arms up above her head, thinking about her dream. When she realized how the dream had ended, she looked instinctively down to her feet, but there was no panther there. Even the kittens had moved off in search of kibble or a litter box.
“Good grief,” Lori said in exasperation, “isn’t it enough to have a cougar on the property? Why do I have to dream about cats, too?”
She slouched off to the kitchen, put a kettle of water on to boil for tea, threw a couple of slices of bread into the toaster, and headed to the bathroom on the main level. The water wasn’t as warm as she would have normally taken it, but splashing a bit of cold on her face wouldn’t harm her after a dream like that. She needed to wake up a bit and plan her day. The horses were still going to need exercise – even if she couldn’t turn them out until they trapped the cougar – so she supposed the next best thing was going to be to take them to the indoor arena and let them loose in there for awhile. She needed to start getting that prepared for winter use, anyway, so while they sniffed around and played, she could oil hinges, double-check the chain on the garage door pulley, look for any leaks and get a hitching post set up at the side. If she remembered correctly, the tools for that were up in the loft – she’d have to take a walk around up there and see what else had been put into storage.
Thinking of the loft brought her back to her dream and Lori shook her head in bewilderment. What an odd sequence of events. For one thing, why was she living in the loft? For another, who was making her supper? His voice sounded very familiar and there was a part of her that wanted it to be Cody, but she knew that wasn’t the case. She couldn’t understand why she didn’t know who it was in reality or why she hadn’t looked at him. And then for Bear to appear, turn into a black panther – and a talking one at that – was just too bizarre.
Lori snorted and shook her head again. No more whisky for her, she thought, as she grabbed for the hand towel on the ring next to the sink. She lifted her head as she patted her face dry then looked into the mirror. She gasped at what she saw, her hands involuntarily clamping down on the terry cloth.
Where the eight grey hairs had been there was now a pronounced patch of silver. The spot was roughly the size of her fist, nestled comfortably at the corner of her hair where the top of her scalp met temple.
“Oh, my God,” Lori whispered as she gingerly reached up and touched the hairs. She felt slightly nauseous as she pulled them from side to side, inspecting the roots, her mind frantically working. This wasn’t just about being vain anymore – this change had happened literally overnight. What was going on?
Lori let the silver hair slide through her fingers as she pulled the strands away from her head. Grey, all the way to the tips. She tried to slow her breathing, willing herself not to panic. What was happening to her? Was she sick? Should she go to the doctor?
Shannon had said she had known people who had gone through something similar after traumatic events. Well, she supposed having a cougar attack her would qualify. Maybe it
was just her body’s way of reacting to all the excitement around here lately. She lowered her hand and shakily hung up the towel again. She forced herself to calm down and didn’t look at the mirror again as she left the bathroom. Once everything settles down around the farm again, this will stop, she told herself. It’s just a little bit of grey hair. Relax.
She did eventually put it out of her mind, at least for a little while. But when Lori went to the grocery store later that day, she bought a bottle of black hair dye. She might give in, but not without a fight.
**********
Lori set the phone down gently after she disconnected from the call. It hadn’t been good news. The police had called to say they still hadn’t found the cougar but fresh tracks had been seen just a mile away going through a dairy farmer’s field. “Take every precaution” the constable had said. Meaning, don’t let the horses out yet and carry a gun or pitchfork with you when moving around your property.
Lori didn’t relish the idea of phoning her parents back with an update. While her mother had remained supportive after hearing the first account, her father had grown increasingly more frantic with every report she brought him. He was putting the pressure on heavily now to sell – or at least move back home with them immediately. Lori held fast to her resolution to remain where she was, but was scared enough without listening to her father voice his own fears.
They just had to find that mountain lion soon. She might even lose clients because of it. Someone had called yesterday, wanting to know if she would break in a 2-year-old for him over the winter and she had felt obliged to tell him about the current conditions on the farm. He had understood and hadn’t ruled out the possibility altogether, but had told her he wouldn’t bring the colt until the cat was gone. No person in their right mind would willingly send their horse to her to be trained right now – not knowing that there was a predator on the loose. Lori looked out the dining room window and bit her lip. There was another alternative to sitting around here, waiting for the government to find the cat, but it would require a leap of faith on her part.