One Came Home

by Amy Timberlake

  I averted my eyes by looking up, and that was where I saw unsullied nests. Way up high, the nests cradled between limb and trunk and then lined up one after the other on the strong, straight branches. I started counting the nests by twos (two, four, six, eight …). Twos were too slow, so I counted by threes (three, six, nine, twelve …). I got to fifty-one and then ninety-nine nests—all in one tree.

  I wondered what Agatha had made of this.

  The mule did not care for the nesting. He grew twitchier and twitchier, his ears shifting back and forth. Any rustle made him hop. (Yes, mules hop. I can testify to it.)

  I tried kindness. I stroked him and patted his side, telling him that what had happened on this land had happened long before we got there. I pleaded. I coaxed. I whined. I even sang him little mule songs made up on the spot.

  His antics had started to make me nervous. “You’re giving me the jimjams, Long Ears,” I told him.

  But Long Ears paid me no mind. He was mesmerized—mesmerized, I tell you—by scraps of sound. Far ahead of us, Storm strolled along, flicking her tail like she didn’t have a care in the world. I noted that the distance between us and Billy and Storm had lengthened substantially. Next thing I knew, they were completely out of sight.

  A mile or two later, I saw a swath of sunshine ahead on Miller Road. “Look, a clearing. That’ll be nice. You’ll feel better, right?” I said.

  But this wasn’t the woodland meadow I imagined. Instead, felled trees lay in spiky piles, left where they’d been chopped down. About thirty vultures perched, their fleshy heads picking at something they’d found in abundance. I drew my breath sharply when it finally occurred to me that these trees had been chopped down to get at the squabs, the baby pigeons.

  It was in that pile of trees that Long Ears began to shimmy from side to side.

  Then Long Ears stopped outright. He craned his neck.

  I saw it—a badger. It gulped something down, and slipped between two logs. Seeing one creature, I saw them everywhere: crows, raptors, skunks, and another badger. This forest crawled with carnivores. I pressed my heels gently into Long Ears’ side. “Keep moving. We’ll be fine,” I said quietly. I leaned over and patted him.

  But Long Ears became unbearable. I couldn’t keep him moving forward. He tried to turn around. He walked sideways (something I thought only trained circus horses did).

  I rooted around in my saddlebags until I found the sugar, and pinched a stuck-together chunk. I put it under his lips.

  Long Ears would not touch that sugar.

  I sat up. “I am doing my best. What is wrong?”

  That was when Long Ears turned one hundred eighty degrees. He backed up and brayed.

  I thought the two of us were finally communicating.

  We were not.

  Right there and then, a cougar leapt out of the woods.

  I froze. My body did, anyway.

  My mind, on the other hand, jumped over the moon and ran off with the spoon. It listed what it saw by every possible name. It thought the list forward: Catamount, cougar, American lion, painter, red tiger. It thought it backward: Red tiger, painter, American lion, cougar, catamount. My mind pinched the list in the middle, folded it over, and thought it again: Painter, cougar, catamount, red tiger, American lion.

  It distressed me to discover that running vocabulary lists was my mind’s behavior during direst need.

  In addition, no one sees these cats. As far as I knew, they kept to themselves. I was quite sure that Grandfather Bolte and Agatha had never seen one, because they would have talked about it for weeks.

  I had seen a skin once—claws attached, mouth propped open showing teeth as long as my pinkie. But let me explain: a floppy fur does not compare with what blocked the road, tail twitching.

  Long Ears had turned us around, so we were on Miller Road but facing the direction we had already come, toward Placid, Wisconsin. The cougar stood between us and Placid, square in the middle of the road. It was as tall as a butter churn. From head to hindquarters it looked about the length of our kitchen table. Both my arms put together didn’t make the thickness of that tail.

  I sat stiff as a twig on top of that mule and looked at it. It looked at us. The cougar didn’t threaten. It seemed merely interested. But its demeanor didn’t matter; I saw that cat and I knew things—for instance, where I lay in relation to the dinner plate. Georgie hocks. Georgie hambone. Georgina sweetmeats. Smoked Burkhardt bacon. Ground Georgina Louise. A rump of Georgie to roast.

  Then something Grandfather Bolte once told me bellowed through my head: “By the time you see a catamount, that catamount has been following you for at least half an hour.”

  That cat had eyed my neck! It’s a skinny little neck too.

  Then the cat began to pace back and forth, its eyes on me.

  Long Ears took a step backward. The movement jarred my body awake. “Whoa!” I grabbed the reins and pulled, meaning it for the first time in our acquaintance. Lo and behold, Long Ears stayed put.

  Gun.

  A thought—hallelujah! I’d begun to believe my mind’s only talent was chitchat and parlor games.

  I reached into the holster and pulled hard on the butt of the gun.

  I pulled much too hard.

  The gun came out of the holster quick, hopped on my hands (as I tried to grab it), and landed at the feet of the mule. It lay in muck two feet below my right foot. It might as well have been in San Francisco—I could not get off that mule to get it.

  I looked at the cougar. The cougar hissed. Its ears went flat against its head. It took a step toward us. Then one more.

  Help me, God. My heart scampered in my chest.

  Long Ears started to rotate. He was thinking of turning our collective back on that cat. I knew that was a bad idea.

  I pulled on the reins a second time, yanking his head around so that he faced the cat. I clamped my heels into his sides. Once again—I could barely believe it—Long Ears listened to me. He did as I asked.

  But now that I was facing the cougar, what was I supposed to do?

  The Prairie Traveler.

  This was the thought that came. I know what you’re thinking—I thought it too. It was hardly the time for flipping through an index! Is it under “catamount,” “lion,” or “painter”?

  Still, my right hand reached into my saddlebag and grasped The Prairie Traveler, all 340 pages with maps, illustrations, and thirty-four itineraries for the principal wagon routes between the Mississippi and the Pacific.

  And then, seemingly without permission, my right hand threw it. The Prairie Traveler spread its cardboard wings, flapped once, and made a satisfying smack on the cougar’s snout.

  The cougar batted it away. The book twisted, hit a tree trunk, and plunked down in pigeon lime.

  Now the cougar paced. Back and forth it went, hissing all the while.

  Again I reached back. And again. And again.

  Everything I touched I threw: my tin cup, my plate, the gray-striped blouse, a fork, my jacket, rope, a jar of jam, the sewing pouch, a bar of castile soap, the whetstone and belt knife. The soap and jam made contact with the cougar’s hide. The plate skipped like a stone and veered east. I had some luck with the belt knife, though. I threw it like the lady knife thrower I’d seen at the circus. It struck the cat’s paw. Unfortunately, that only made the cougar spit in a fearsome manner. It drew back its lips, revealing molars, incisors, and fangs, all of significant proportions.

  I kept at it, though. As I threw, I yelled: “Get out of here, cat! You don’t belong here, cat! Go home, lion! I’ve had it with you! Get! You evil, nasty thing! Get!”

  I waved my arms, shook my fists. The movement heated me up. If that cougar had so much as touched me, I would have ripped it apart with my bare hands. And I’d have done one better than Samson of the Bible. I would not leave a cavity large enough for bees making hives.

  Long Ears jerked this way and that. But he obeyed me when I pulled him square. I made sure to keep our e
yes fastened on those tawny ones.

  Then my extra pair of bloomers flew from my hand. The bloomers punched out on a puff of wind, and I noted how each of Ma’s hand-sewn pleats looked like a fold in a cloud.

  What I am saying is that I looked away from the cougar.

  Long Ears brayed.

  I realized my error and twitched to look back, but the damage was done: the cougar had crouched. Everybody knows that isn’t a good sign.

  “Billy!” I yelled. (Don’t know why I didn’t think of that sooner, but I did not.)

  As the cat shifted onto its left rear paw and then its right, time slowed to a dirge. Faces played like a magic lantern show: Ma, Grandfather Bolte, the sheriff, all the McCabe boys lined up tallest to smallest, and, of course, Agatha, Agatha, Agatha.

  The cougar and I eyed one another for a long moment. I gave that animal my meanest stare.

  And then—I swear—that cat lay down. Right there in the middle of the road, it lay down like it might take a nap. Like a big old barn tomcat. A moment later it got up and walked off the road.

  That made me mad. After all that—after it crouched down and made my heart rattle against my ribs—the cougar walks? I found a spoon in a saddlebag and hurled it at that cat. I said things loudly that I do not care to repeat. Anyway, the cat was out of my throwing range. It bounded up the hill on my left, sprung over a log and around a rock, then strolled up the rest of the hill.

  Billy arrived full gallop, gun across his lap.

  He pulled Storm up, and followed my gaze. When he saw the cougar, he shouldered his gun and fired once, twice, three times. The cat mounted a rock, gave us a backward glance, and disappeared over the crest of the hill.

  “It’s out of range,” I said, my mind displaying its genius once again, since this was obvious. I looked at him. “Particularly for a repeater.”

  Billy tugged at my holster. He looked around. “What happened to the Springfield?”

  “I drew it too fast. Didn’t load it either.” My voice shook. My body followed suit.

  Billy noticed, and laid a hand on my shoulder. “I’d like to see that thing dead,” he said.

  “I never thought I’d catch sight of one,” I said.

  Then Billy got down from his horse and picked something up. He wiped it off with a sleeve and walked over to me. He handed me The Prairie Traveler.

  I took it. I felt so grateful for that book’s fortitude that I welled up.

  “You seem to have lost a few of your things,” he said.

  I looked around me. Everything I owned lay strewn about, most settled in pigeon muck. Half of it I did not remember throwing. My colored handkerchief lay in the middle of the road, emblazoned with hoof marks.

  I got down off the mule. I picked my white bloomers from a wild rosebush and waved them like the flag of surrender. “Thought I was done for,” I said.

  I was trying for a joke. It did not work. I gasped, covered my face with one hand, and cried.

  Billy put his arm around me, and I leaned into him.

  The nesting ended in stutters—a walnut tree with twenty nests in it, a scrub oak with eight. The smell remained heavy as lead. But there came a moment when I removed my dirty, hoof-imprinted handkerchief. It was well into the afternoon by then, the light starting to soften.

  Most of what I remember about that time is how I trembled after that cougar. I kept envisioning oversized barn cats amusing themselves with half-dead mice. Billy rode behind me—a necessity because the hairs on the back of my neck stood up like lightning rods. Snaps of sound made me jump.

  Then the shadows lengthened another foot and we arrived at a secluded cove along the Wisconsin River. I looked at Billy and he nodded.

  I pulled Long Ears to a halt, got myself disengaged from the saddle by yanking on my left knee (my stiff muscles produced a yowl that caused me to see red), and then proceeded to free Long Ears from tack of every configuration.

  Billy rode Storm straight into the Wisconsin River. When I looked over at the two of them, I saw him cleaning pigeon lime from Storm’s legs and from under her belly.

  I appraised Long Ears. He was in worse shape. My mule was shorter than Storm, and therefore had been closer to the pigeon ordure. That run-in with the cougar probably hadn’t helped either. Still, this mule had done his part. More than that, he’d tried to warn me when danger lurked. Now he stood patiently, waiting for me to finish my task, despite the slowness with which I did it. I smiled at him and ran my hand down his side and then his muzzle. This mule might have had an unfortunate face, but otherwise he possessed a cornucopia of admirable characteristics. I decided then that I did not care to ride any other animal. Long Ears had done me a good turn.

  “Sweet, sweet mule,” I whispered into one of his absurdly large but velvet-soft ears.

  Then I led him down to the river to clean up.

  Billy came over with a hatful of water and drizzled it over Long Ears’ back. Long Ears grunted and lifted his muzzle toward Billy.

  “On your head, is that it?” Billy cooed as he poured the water down the mule’s face. I swear Billy came close to kissing that mule.

  That was enough for me. (If you must know, I felt a touch of jealousy.) “If you’re going to care for Long Ears, I’m taking a bath,” I said loudly. Perhaps I said it a little too loudly. After that cougar, the only thing I wanted was to scrub that day off my body.

  Billy looked at me with eyes gone soft with pity. I saw he understood I’d been badly scared.

  I couldn’t have that, so I gave him my sternest stare. “I’d like to see these animals hobbled and a cooking fire started by the time I’m through bathing. Then I’ll make dinner for the two of us. Think you can manage that? Or is that too much responsibility for Billy McCabe?”

  That wiped all the pity out of his eyes. Billy pretended to be startled, stood up straight, and then made a deep, deep bow.

  “What does that mean?” I said, making sure to spice up my tone with some whiplash.

  “Not one thing,” said Billy. But as I walked away, Billy whistled “God Save the Queen.”

  As soon as I was out of Billy’s sight, I knew I’d made a mistake by leaving him. The shakes came back strong. A blade of grass would shift and I’d notice. Every odd breath of wind made me flinch. I nearly yelled when leaves brushed up against one another.

  But cougar or no cougar, I craved a bath. I tucked myself behind a grassy bend in the river where I could see a scrap of Billy. (I hoped he could not see me.) I tore off my garments, and scrubbed my body and clothes hard.

  After I’d scoured myself raw, I wrung out the clothes and pulled them on wet (I would not wear undergarments in front of Billy), and hurriedly washed everything I’d tossed at the cougar. I laid these out flat on bushes to dry. Finally—hallelujah—I was done. I stumbled back to Billy as fast as my sore muscles would take me.

  When Billy asked if he could take a bath before dinner, I said “Fine with me” as casually as I could, but it was all I could do to not run after him.

  “Cat got your tongue?” said Billy. At his words, heat rose up my neck and bloomed in my face. I’d twitched my way through his half-hour bath, feeling stalked at every moment. Now that he was back, I did not want him out of my sight.

  Then Billy stretched out his long legs and pushed up the brim of his hat with the back of his hand, and I saw it. I finally perceived what every girl saw when she glanced at Billy McCabe: the square chin, the eyes that became half-moons when he smiled, the muscles in legs long as the horizon. Billy McCabe was well made. It was like looking at woodwork done by a true craftsman. And truth be told? I enjoyed gazing upon him.

  Now, do not get any ideas. I knew Billy McCabe. I knew every one of his opinions, presumptions, and annoying traits. How I wished Billy McCabe was only a block of carved wood!

  Billy squinted at me, concern written across his face. “I’m sorry, Fry. I should not have said ‘cat.’ I don’t know what I was thinking.”

  I’d forgotten that
he’d said “cat got your tongue.” I nodded. (Nodding being about all I seemed to be able to do.)

  I studied my dinner plate. It startled me. I’d concocted a meal of noteworthiness. I’d fried up the last of the bacon, broken it up into bits, poured in canned beans, and tossed in my version of biscuits (store-bought) so they’d soften. The label read MADE TO TRAVEL. I was sure those biscuits would soften in the beans and be suffused with the savoriness of bacon—as delicious as Billy’s homemade biscuits had been that morning.

  I looked over at Billy and felt something cozy.

  I had to admit the feeling felt overly cozy.

  Gratitude—that’s all it is, I told myself. It was to be expected after the day’s events.

  Billy put one of those biscuits between his teeth and bit down. It worked like a doorstop; his mouth stood ajar. He removed the biscuit with two fingers and placed it on his tin plate. The biscuit pinged.

  But what had Billy done to make me feel so grateful? He hadn’t scared away the cougar. I’d done that myself.

  Still, I could not seem to talk to Billy. My tongue would not work.

  Good gravy, I needed to clear my head. The best way to do such a thing was to come directly to the point. So I cleared my throat (to make sure I was capable of language) and then said: “Polly will not be happy when she finds out you’re traveling with me. So what is it, Billy? Why are you risking your engagement? I’m guessing you still love my sister. Tell the truth. I’m done with wondering.”

  Say something like that and you expect a reaction.

  I did not get it.

  Frankly, Billy seemed unperturbed. He held the biscuit to a back molar, tried gnawing it, and then set the biscuit on the plate. Again, it pinged. “These biscuits are harder than diamonds.”

  “Guaranteed to keep six months,” I said.