Claws

by Ozzie Cheek

  When Stan paused for breath, Katy said, “A public hunt’s not what I expected. It’s not what I came here to do. You know that, Stan.”

  “I know ARK’s going to file an injunction.”

  “An injunction?” Katy said.

  “To stop the public lion hunt.”

  “Wow! You can do that?”

  “Maybe, maybe not,” Stan admitted. “But even filing the injunction gets us press and leverage. Maybe it’ll encourage people to donate money. It’s been a rough couple of years. When people lose their jobs, we lose their support.”

  “If you stop the public hunt and bring your rescue people up here, won’t there be trouble?”

  Stan laughed. “Katy, trouble is what I live for.”

  Late Monday morning the Roberts twins parked the black Chevy Suburban Jessup had left for them outside a modest ranch house. They knocked on doors, peered through windows, and called Ronnie’s cell phone. The knocks went unanswered, and the cell phone did not ring inside the house. A search of a Dodge Ram pickup parked in the driveway yielded no clues either. Then they split up and talked to the neighbors. Nobody reported having seen Ronnie since Sunday night, but more than one person told them that Ronnie owned a bike as well as the truck. The Dodge Ram in the driveway could mean anything or nothing. The motorcycle might be missing or in the garage.

  “We have to get inside,” Bill said once they returned to Ronnie’s house and compared interview notes. “I’m going around back again, and when I’m ready, you bang on the front door real loud. Give me two minutes.”

  “Copy that,” Dwight said.

  Bill then hurried to the back, and a moment later Dwight pounded on the front door. Even so, he still heard glass breaking. Before long, the front door swung open.

  The twins searched each room of the three-bedroom house but found nothing of interest except a pornography collection, mostly girl-on-girl, a wrapped gift addressed to someone named Maryann, and a box of papers pertaining to something called The Knights Of The Golden Circle. The papers included a notebook filled with writing that they couldn’t decipher.

  “It looks like a goddamn code book,” Bill Roberts said, thinking back to his days in the military. “What the hell’s this guy up to anyway?”

  Fifteen

  For the next hour Jackson dealt with routine matters – there was a DUI, a family fight, and some petty thievery to handle – but when he tried to update the duty roster, he couldn’t bring himself to simply replace Ed’s name on it. In the end he put the old roster sheet aside and started a new one. He then briefed two reserve officers on the route the funeral procession would follow from the church to the cemetery on Tuesday. He reminded himself to dig out his police blues and make sure his uniform was clean and pressed. He also told Sadie to find the black armbands they would all wear to Ed’s service.

  Next, he called Angie into his office and gave her a small, plastic evidence bag containing the necklace taken from Dolly. “See if you can find out where it came from,” he said. “May belong to whoever let the cats out.”

  “So you’re thinking a woman let them out?”

  Jackson said, “Could be.”

  “Or it could be Dolly’s necklace?”

  “That too.”

  “Not much for me to go on.”

  Jackson said, “Enough for a deputy-chief.” He said it dryly, but his lips twitched a grin and his eyes crinkled. He got out his car keys and put on his gray hat. “Not sure exactly when I’ll be back. You’re in charge.”

  “Should I ask where you’re going, just in case?”

  “Liger hunting,” he said. “What I heard anyway.”

  When Jackson pulled into the Sportsman Motel parking lot, he noticed more cars than he had seen there earlier, including cars with Montana and Utah tags. He figured someone’s hunting buddies had been tipped off and were now first in line for the safari. He knocked on Katy’s door.

  Some twenty minutes later, Jackson rolled to a stop outside the decrepit farmhouse at Safari Land. When she saw the place, Katy asked if he was playing a joke on her.

  “Oh, it gets worse,” said Jackson. “Wait to you see the animal cages.” He parked the Jeep in the same place he had parked two days ago – or was it yesterday? He had to stop and think. So much had happened so quickly.

  Jackson removed the Stoeger P-350 from the back of the Jeep and loaded it with slugs. His officers carried a Remington 870 12-guage pump, but he had brought his own shotgun from Colorado. While Katy retrieved the .375 from its padded carrying case, Jackson examined the land and the buildings, turning in a full circle.

  “They won’t attack us here,” Katy said. “Too open. But you’re right to be careful. The cats associate this place with food, so they’ll return here if they’re hungry.”

  “May not be all that hungry. We’ve already had five reports today, everything from a missing Irish Setter to a pet llama to a pair of gray wolves found near a chicken house. The farmer said there wasn’t much left but the heads and some skin. I doubt if the chickens killed them.”

  “Sounds about right,” Katy said. “For whatever reason, big cats don’t always eat the head and the groin.” She couldn’t hide her tiny smile. “Ready?”

  Dix Wagner had lost money on cattle. When he tried raising sheep, wolves and mountain lions decimated his herd. He considered raising ostrich until buying one of the birds. The beast had nipped him. After he shot it, both Dix and his wife, Anita, discovered they did not like ostrich meat anyway. As a last resort, Dix tried goats. He soon discovered a thriving market for goat milk, yogurt, and meat, especially in Asia, and he now had a growing herd of Spanish, South African Boer, Nubian, Myotonic, and pygmy goats. There were over one hundred goat breeds that he knew of. Dix was experimenting to see which ones survived best in the rugged eastern Idaho climate.

  In midmorning a flurry of barks and yelps from Rufus, his border collie, and the howling and crying of his goat menagerie caused Dix to grab his rifle, an old Remington .30-30, and rush to the pens to see which of Idaho’s predators he would have to contend with now.

  When he got there, two female lions were gutting his Nubians; a large male lion was dragging away a live pygmy goat; and a fourth cat, another lioness, had Rufus by the throat. Dix shot the dog-killing lioness first. He hit her high in the head above the eyes, but she didn’t fall over like he expected. She did drop Rufus, but Dix knew his dog already was dead. Dix kept shooting even as the pride scattered, and the male lion carried off the pygmy goat in his mouth. The tiny goat was crying and screaming.

  Dix ran after them. That pygmy goat was his wife’s favorite of the herd. Fortunately for Dix, none of the lions turned back and attacked him. Unfortunately, Dix was sixty pounds overweight, smoked two packs of Camels a day, and took sixteen different pills for various ailments. After running a hundred feet he slowed; after another fifty feet he stumbled; after two hundred feet Dix fell over.

  Anita Wagner’s 911 call went to the County Communication Center in St. Anthony and was rerouted to the Buckhorn Police Station where Angie responded. The Roberts twins picked up the call on their police radio while on their way to talk to Maryann Fedder, the woman they had identified as the intended recipient of Ronnie’s gift.

  “Lions!” Bill said. “Hot damn! Let’s go!”

  “What about this?” Dwight indicated the gift.

  “Hell, leave it.” They were stopped at the road leading to the Fedder house. Bill nodded toward the mailbox. They had opened the gift to see what it was. Bill grinned and said, “We wouldn’t want to deprive her.”

  After showing Katy the ramshackle cages and then admiring her ability to curse in three languages, Jackson cut the yellow and black crime scene tape across the back door. County sheriff detectives had processed the house, but he wanted Katy to look through the files and charts. He hoped he was wrong about the number of freed cats.

  When they reached the office, Katy immediately was drawn to a framed diploma from the California Ins
titute of Technology, a small college that is home to many Nobel Prize winners. “Cheney went to Cal Tech? Really?”

  Jackson nodded. “Ted was a scientist. Genetics.”

  She said, “Impressive,” and replaced the diploma. After that, Katy began sifting through file cabinets.

  When Jackson’s cell phone rang, he left Katy in the dining room, walked outside, and listened to Angie tell him about the attack at the Wagner goat farm. Jackson resisted the urge to rush to the Wagner place. Instead, he said, “Let me know what you find over there.”

  “Did you see this?” Katy asked the moment Jackson returned. Her voice had an urgency that was lacking before.

  “See what?”

  “You remember me telling you about ligers?”

  “Enough to know they sound like sharks with claws.”

  “That’s not a bad description,” she said. “I don’t really know all that much about them, but I do know the difficulty in raising ligers is getting them to breed. The male is usually sterile. Some people claim they’re always sterile. Female ligers have reproduced, but only with a lion or tiger, never with a male liger.” Katy waved the file in her hand. “Safari Land has two ligers, and according to this paperwork, the female is pregnant and due anytime.”

  “And that changes things how?”

  “It says that Kali, the female, is pregnant by the male liger named Shaka.” Katy paused like she was waiting for the drum roll and said, “If two ligers have bred for the first time in history, it means we have to save them.”

  After spending the night and Monday morning near Brown’s Creek, Kali and Shaka reached Jackson’s farm at mid-morning. At first the ligers were cautious and stayed out of sight, but before long, they explored the corral, the barn, and the outside of the house and the few sheds.

  Their exploration complete, they hid in a patch of Great Basin Wild Rye grass that was six feet high. The rye grass was part of a two-acre prairie south of the house. No grasses, bushes, flowers, or trees existed here that were not native to the Idaho prairie in the early 1800s. The prairie was a restoration project for Jackson and his daughter. Jesse had done all of the research herself. The prairie was never cut, although Touie and Boots and Blaze, Jackson’s two quarter-horses, were turned out to graze on the land and to fertilize it with what they left behind.

  In hot climates big cats lay up during the day, but after Kali rolled around to flatten a small patch of dry grass and the ligers had rested, they went off in search of food. They soon smelled water and, knowing that all animals eventually end up at water, headed east toward it.

  On the drive to the Wagner farm Angie used the flashing lights in the Dodge cruiser but not the siren. Still, she went as fast as the two-lane road with an abundance of curves and dips safely allowed, especially knowing that she was pissed off and distracted again.

  Before leaving the station, Angie had gone to her locker in the big bathroom. There was a stack of half-lockers there, six up and down. Not all of them were in use. Her locker was up top and on one end. The moment she gripped her combination lock, it fell open. It had been cut. Stuck to the inside of her locker door was a pinkish, rubber dildo that looked like Pinocchio’s nose. When she tried to remove it, the dildo wouldn’t budge. Super Glue, she thought instantly. She had wasted valuable time getting rid of the thing. If she found the person who put it there, she might cut off more than a rubber dick.

  At the goat farm Angie encountered a pair of troopers that looked like clones and the same two emergency medical technicians she had seen at the Placett farm on Saturday. The EMTs were struggling to get Dix Wagner off the ground and onto the gurney. A woman stood nearby watching. Angie tried to remember her name. Dix had an oxygen mask over his nose and mouth. At least he’s still alive, Angie thought. Anita, that’s the wife’s name, Angie recalled.

  On her way to the field Angie walked past the goat pens. Splotches of dirt were stained reddish brown from dried blood. A dog and a couple of goats lay on the ground, all dead. The wetter blood spots and a pile of entrails still attached to one of the goats were covered with blue flies. The gore in the pens reminded her of the ‘slasher’ movies Sharon liked to watch. She hated them.

  As she strode across the mowed hay field, Angie felt the small, plastic evidence bag in her shirt pocket bounce with her breasts. Why was Dolly clutching the necklace, she wondered? Was it a plea to God to help her? Did she rip it off someone’s neck? Was she trying to tell them something, like a murder victim writing the killer’s name in his own blood? A moment later Angie stopped, nodded to the twin troopers, and then greeted the emergency medical techs before asking them about Dix Wagner’s status.

  “Looks like a heart attack,” the youngest of the EMTs told her. “But I’m not a doctor, so we’ll have to see.”

  “I’m Deputy Police Chief Angie Kuka,” Angie said to Anita Wagner. “Can you tell me happened here?”

  Sixteen

  Dell’s bank office was spacious and festooned with trophies. Trophy heads were not unusual in the west, although some people preferred antlers only to the glassy-eyed stare of a deer or elk head. But no other room in Idaho, Dell informed Katy, also had a grizzly bear, moose, gray wolf – legally shot, he insisted, mountain lion, bighorn sheep, a number of birds in flight, and the coup de grace of a Cape buffalo, a kudu, and an African lion.

  “I still want to complete the big five,” Dell added. He was shy an elephant and a leopard kill. “Maybe I’ll return to Africa and go on safari with you, Katy.”

  Katy answered with a tight smile. Jackson and Katy were seated opposite Dell’s desk in a pair of leather chairs with brass studs, like any other bank customer.

  “Check this out,” Dell said, as he went to a closet and removed a large caliber rifle. “A Weatherby Mark Five elephant and hippo gun.” He pointed the gun at the head of the Cape buffalo. “One of my customers wanted to see it so I brought it from home. You ever hunt with one of these?” he asked Katy as he handed her the gun to admire.

  “I never use four-sixty-magnums or five hundreds,” she said. Jackson was lost and looked it, so Katy explained, “This gun is bored to shoot the most powerful sporting cartridge you can buy without a special permit.”

  “These babies right here,” Dell said, producing a rack of cartridges. They were over three inches long and fat. “Just one of them can bring down a grown elephant.”

  “Any big game rifle can if you’re good,” Katy said.

  “Now that sounds like a challenge to me,” Dell said with a laugh. “Wouldn’t you say so, Jackson?”

  Katy sniffed the barrel. “Well-cleaned or unused?”

  “Not many elephants around here.” Dell took the gun from her and put it away. “Well, since you’re not here to admire my trophies, what can I do for you folks?”

  “You can help me save Kali and Shaka,” Katy said.

  “Who?”

  “The two ligers.” She told him what she had discovered at Safari Land and the importance of the ligers surviving. She finished by saying, “These two ligers are like the Adam and Eve of a new sub-species of big cats.”

  “Adam and Eve were created and man was given dominion over the animals,” Dell said, “including life and death.”

  “Dominion also means protecting what’s special,” Katy said. “We can do that if I capture them. I’ve done it before, brought down large animals with a tranquilizer gun. I just need a chance to find them.”

  “Then find them. Nobody’s stopping you.”

  Katy glanced at Jackson, but he just tipped his head to tell her to keep going. “I’d like you to exclude the ligers from this public hunt that’s starting.”

  Dell laughed and shook his head. “Everybody coming here wants to shoot the monster cats.” He picked up a stack of paper a quarter-inch thick. “These are inquiries and deposits. And we’ve got a web site up and running now. Already sold two hundred licenses at a thousand dollars each, and we’ll sell even more tomorrow. So what do we tell people? Huh? If a
big, dangerous cat is charging you, hold your fire until you’re sure it’s not a liger? Hell, half these people can’t tell a lion from a tiger. We’ll get sued from California to Connecticut.” Dell looked to Jackson. “You know I’m right about this.”

  “I just want the cats gone,” Jackson replied.

  “So do I,” Dell said. He paused and then said to Katy, “Look, you’re a professional hunter. Surely you’re not worried a few ranchers and bankers and weekend hunters can beat you to these ligers? You want to save them, go find them. Blow them away or dart them, your choice.” Dell smiled at her. “Think of it as a challenge.”

  Upon leaving the bank Jackson and Katy drove to Jackson’s farm so Katy could pick up the Ford 350. For a while Katy was silent as she looked out at the parched, dusty land. Halfway there, she suddenly said, “On safari Dell is the kind of customer I worry about. He’ll take chances, unnecessary risks. It’s why I have strict rules and follow them. It keeps me alive.” She looked at Jackson. “Funny how his type attracts so many women.”

  Yeah, funny, thought Jackson. “But not you?”

  “Against my rules,” she said without humor.

  When they arrived, Jackson took a county map out of the truck, and they went inside. He briefly showed Katy the house, but they didn’t spend much time on a tour. In the kitchen Jackson spread the county map on the table and pointed out the major roads. “There aren’t that many roads to show you,” he said. “Lots of logging roads and private roads, but they’re not on the map.”

  “I’ll manage,” Katy told him. “Show me where the cat attacks and sightings have been?” Jackson indicated the Placett farm, the Bailey place, Wagner’s goat farm, and his own farm. “All of them are bunched near you,” Katy noted. “It could mean you’re simply convenient. Or it could mean the cats are drawn here for food or shelter.”