Panther on the Prowl

by Nancy Morse

  “The door’s in this direction.” He moved slowly across the room allowing her to get her bearings as she followed with her hand tucked in his. At the door he eased her forward and placed her fingers around the knob.

  Rennie opened the door to a warm spring day. Standing in the doorway, she drew into her lungs deep breaths of air that was sweetly scented by an early-morning shower. The sunlight felt soothing upon her face, its warmth like a tonic to her bruised muscles and aching sensibilities. She took a cautious step outside and was silent for several moments. Finally she said, “This place must be very beautiful.”

  John glanced at her with surprise. “What makes you say that?”

  “Because anything that feels this beautiful must be. Tell me what’s out there. What does it look like?”

  He looked skyward at the turkey vultures that carved arcs in the sky, and around them to the broad channel that ran past the cabin, monotonously bordered by mangroves. To the untrained eye they were surrounded by a million acres of soggy plants. It was hard to convince anyone of miracles in the absence of any visible evidence. But then, to find the miracles you had to have lived there all your life and have known where to look.

  He came to stand beside her. For the first time he noticed that her head came just to the top of his shoulder. A breeze captured one golden strand of her hair and tossed it about in front of her eyes. Eyes he knew to be as blue as the patches of sky that appeared between the thick cypress branches. He could not take his own eyes from her as he spoke.

  “In this spring light the saw grass is lime green at the bottom and yellowish brown at the top, with a rainbow of colors in between. The mangrove islands look like they’re hanging in the air. The shadows of the clouds turn the water silver and green and gold. I could watch the clouds for hours. Sometimes I feel like Meursault in Camus’s L’Etranger, who passed his time in prison waiting for clouds to drift past his ceiling grate. Western skies are expansive, I’ll grant you, but they’re interrupted by mountains. Here the view goes on forever.”

  He spoke with awe, as if he were seeing it all for the very first time and was profoundly moved by it, his softly spoken sensitivity telling Ronnie that he was the kind of man who saw things most others did not.

  There was so much she didn’t know about this stranger in whose care she had entrusted herself, yet she felt no fear. The only danger lay in the unseen attraction she had for him that tugged at her heartstrings and left her bewildered. With a sigh she ventured, “What else about you don’t I know?”

  John stiffened beside her. “What do you mean?”

  “Camus?”

  “I read a lot in college. Immersing myself in books helped take my mind off the fact that I was the only Seminole enrolled.”

  “It was pretty much the same for me,” she said, “feeling apart because of your background. I chose a local college rather than the Ivy League school my family wanted me to attend because I thought that being around regular, working-class people would help me forget that I wasn’t one of them.”

  “Did it work?”

  She gave just a little smile, partly because of the irony and partly because it hurt to smile too broadly. “What do you think?”

  “I think that no matter how hard you try, you can never get away from yourself.” It was something he had learned in the past eighteen months, but if he told her that, he’d have to tell her the rest. He didn’t want to think about it, and yet he couldn’t think of anything else.

  “The tribal council donated the money for my tuition. At that time I was one of the few of my people to even go to college, so I felt it was my duty to make them proud of me.”

  “Duty,” she repeated dispassionately. Yes, she knew all about duty. Duty to a mother who married both times strictly for money and who tried to convince her to do the same. And duty to a stepfather who insisted that marriage to Craig Wolfson was the best thing for her. Maybe that was her problem: believing someone else always knew what was best for her.

  “It’s a funny thing about duty,” she muttered. “While you’re busy fulfilling your duty to others, you can lose sight of your duty to yourself.”

  “Are you talking from experience?”

  “Some families are just more complicated than others,” she answered. “And you? Do you have any family?”

  He didn’t mind her questions, as long as they did not delve too deeply or were too difficult for him to answer. “My mother lives on the reservation. I have an older brother who raises cattle. He’s divorced. He has a son in high school who likes to dress in baggy jeans and hundred-and-twenty-dollar sneakers and who spends his time watching MTV.”

  “You sound as if you don’t approve.”

  “Seminole parents send their kids to public school so they’ll be able to compete, but too often the kids forget the old ways. I guess it’s hard for a kid to go to school and at the same time learn his own culture. Don’t get me wrong. He’s a great kid. He’s also Seminole and doesn’t know the difference.”

  “You don’t seem to have forgotten the old ways,” Rennie observed, “if that tea you made is any proof of it.”

  “That’s because my mother resisted every effort to Americanize my brother and me. When other parents were encouraging their kids to speak only English, my mother never gave up the old language at home. She taught us about healing, how to strain the poisonous juices from the otherwise edible roots of the coontie plant, how to clear brush for a garden, to gather palmetto fronds for thatching, to pole a dugout canoe, to hunt deer. Whatever I needed to know as a Seminole she taught me.”

  “And your father?”

  He replied matter-of-factly, “He ran out on us when we were kids.”

  “And here I thought I had it rough when my father died when I was eight. At least he didn’t leave on purpose.”

  “I don’t blame my father,” said John. “Not anymore. He’s like the rest of us. We can’t help being who we are. He was the restless kind who tried his hand at a lot of things. Beekeeping, trapping, cane grinding, running an airboat, gambling. There was always a poker game going in the back room when I was a kid. But I guess the thing he was best at was roaming.”

  There was a faint fondness in his tone that children and grown-ups alike often have for a parent who has forsaken them, a love that suffers countless disappointments yet never quite goes away. To hear him speak about the father who deserted him, she realized that his feelings were no different from hers for the father who had died, and it made her feel a special kinship with him despite their differences.

  “Why aren’t you raising cattle like your brother?”

  Solemnly he said, “I guess you could say it’s my destiny to be here.”

  How could he explain that the lure of the wild Everglades was too much for him to ignore? That this was where his heart belonged and where fate decreed that he be? Destiny. Fate. Curse. Whatever he called it, it all boiled down to one thing. He and this land were entwined in the deepest and darkest sense.

  He touched his hand to her elbow and turned her gently around. “I think we should go back inside.”

  Rennie was curious about the enigmatic man, but other than a few superficial facts about himself, she knew she would learn no more from him for now, for in the taut silence that followed them back into the cabin, she got the distinct feel of a door being shut in her face.

  “If you’re not going to be around much, perhaps you should show me where things are,” she suggested.

  John’s dark, quiet gaze strayed to the window. Again he thought of nightfall, when the haunting from the swamp would grow and obsess him. It usually began around that time of day when it was no longer light but not quite dark, that lazy limbo in which time seemed to stand still. And then, almost suddenly it seemed, it would be dark, and the longing that haunted him quietly by day would turn into full-blown obsession.

  None of that would happen yet for many hours. But no matter how much he dreaded the approach of darkness, for the first time in a
long time he could not wait for it to fall across the land. All the wild things of the night could not be as dangerous to him as this slender, tawny-haired woman was right now. Sure, they liked the same kind of soup. And okay, so maybe the loneliness they each experienced at college was not so very different. And losing a father was always tough under any circumstance. All right, so for some crazy reason they had these things in common. It didn’t mean she would understand the part he played in Maggie’s death and not hate him for it as much as he hated himself. Where would he even begin to tell her about it?

  “John?”

  Her soft voice called him away from the window and his tortured thoughts. “I heard you. I was just wondering where to begin.”

  “Why don’t we start with the kitchen?”

  There was no way to avoid taking her hand again and feeling her heat as he guided her through the doorway into the kitchen. He took her slowly around the small room, waiting patiently as her hands moved tentatively and then grew more confident as they explored the refrigerator, the stove, the sink, the cabinets.

  “Soup,” he explained, when she examined the cans in the cabinet. “It shouldn’t be hard to remember that tomato is on the left, chicken noodle’s in the middle and minestrone is on the right.”

  Disheartened, she said, “My life has been reduced to right and left.”

  “There’s no guarantee that you’ll see again, but there’s no reason to think you won’t.”

  Her shoulders slumped. The world was a scary place when you couldn’t see. Not knowing what was out there and whom to trust. Sometimes it was even scarier when your eyes were wide open. When you let yourself be swayed by what others thought was best for you. When you were too blind to see the mistakes you were making.

  Rennie sighed and turned toward the sink. “Does this need washing?” she asked of the ceramic bowl in the sink.

  “Yes, but—”

  “Just because I feel like an invalid doesn’t mean I have to act like one.” Feeling around, she turned on the water, found a sponge and what she assumed was a plastic bottle of dishwashing liquid and proceeded to wash the bowl.

  John gave her credit for trying, even if she did leave soap in the bowl after rinsing it.

  “Where does it go?”

  “In the cabinet. Top shelf.”

  She reached up on tiptoe to place the bowl on the shelf, but when it wouldn’t quite reach, he stepped forward to give her a hand. His arms swept past her on either side to grasp the bowl that teetered on the edge of the shelf. The hard-muscled length of him came up against her as he leaned forward to push the bowl into place. For several moments neither of them moved. His hands came to rest palms down on the counter on either side of her. She could feel his arms coming to rest a hairbreadth from her body, which had gone all rigid.

  “Turn around.”

  The plea in his voice made Rennie catch her breath. She was confused and afraid. It was one thing to fantasize about him, but quite another to actually give in to this crazy attraction she felt for a man she couldn’t see.

  “It’s not what you think,” he said. “I want to say something to you, and even if you can’t see me, I want to say it to your face. Turn around.” His tone was demanding, the plea slightly more urgent than before.

  Rennie turned slowly around, brushing against his arms that did not withdraw until she was facing him. She knew that his eyes were upon her and felt herself melting from their heat.

  “Please understand,” he said. “I would have taken you in even if you weren’t as beautiful as you are. And as far as telling no one that you’re here, I’ll respect that. But don’t expect anything more from me. The fact is, I’m going to stay as far away from you as I can get. Believe me when I say it’s for the best.”

  Rennie was aghast. “If you’re assuming that I want more from you than a place to stay, you’re mistaken.”

  “All I’m saying is, the imagination can play powerful tricks on us, and we all make mistakes when we’re feeling helpless.”

  “I see,” she said tersely. “And I suppose that was my imagination just now when you leaned against me? That’s funny, because it felt more like—”

  “I never said I wasn’t attracted to you,” he said. His arousal had been instantaneous and her alluding to it was embarrassing. “But let’s be frank. You didn’t exactly move away, either. And that’s the problem.”

  “If there’s a problem here, it’s yours,” she said. “I’m not in the habit of passing myself around like a dish of salted peanuts, and certainly not to a man I don’t know.”

  “And if I were to kiss you right now, what would you do?”

  What would she do? Scream? Slap him? Melt into his arms and cling to his strength as if for dear life? For all she knew, the man resembled Godzilla. But what difference did that make? It wasn’t his face she was attracted to. It was his strength, his kindness, his difference. Even the distance he placed between them only drew her closer. It was the way he asked no questions. It was the honesty with which he confessed his own attraction to her. It was the plea in his voice when he said it, as if he were begging her not to test him. It was all that and everything she didn’t know about him. It was, simply, him.

  How was it possible to feel such attraction to a man she couldn’t see, or to feel a longing for a man she had known for only a brief time? It had to be that she was feeling lonely and vulnerable in the aftermath of her experience with Craig.

  “I’m tired,” she said. “I’d like to lie down.”

  She made her way out of the kitchen on her own. With her hands outstretched before her, she groped her way back to the bed and sank down onto the soft mattress.

  John let her go without offering assistance. She was right, it was his problem. He had created it a year and a half ago and now he was suffering the consequences of his actions in a way he never could have imagined. It was useless to deny his attraction to her, yet he could do nothing about it, and maybe that was the price he had to pay for his guilt.

  Her voice from the bed called him away from his dark thoughts. “You’ve done so much for me.”

  The soft, lilting tone should have warned him that it wasn’t as simple as that, but there was something about her vulnerability that drew him, and he heard himself say, “If there’s anything else I can do…” his words trailed off awkwardly. What could she possibly want from him other than a place to stay?

  “Actually, there is. You can help me with my work while I’m here.”

  “I don’t know much about anthropology.”

  “Maybe not, but you must know about Seminole folklore.”

  He looked at her curiously. “Why do you want to know about that?”

  “I was recently awarded a grant to study the myths and legends of the Seminole people. That’s what I was on my way to do when my plane went down. I was looking for an airstrip. There’s supposed to be one at about 25© longitude.”

  “You mean that beat-up little strip over in the next county? I didn’t know anyone even knew about it.”

  “The night watchman at the university told me about it. He’s an old Seminole with family on the reservation. He said to call him when I arrived and he would have one of his relatives pick me up and take me around. He told me I could stay with them on the reservation while I was doing research.”

  The hairs at the back of John’s neck were rising. “I can tell you some of the legends, sure.”

  “That would be great. I can’t thank you enough. And once I’m a little stronger, do you think you could take me around so that I can speak to some of the people? No offense, but you don’t sound very old, and we both know that it’s the elders who carry on the oral tradition of any indigenous people.”

  Misinterpreting the taut silence that greeted her request, she said, “I said before that I could pay you. Not all of my money was buried beneath the wreckage.”

  “No.”

  “Well then, perhaps I could make a contribution to the Everglades Research Ce
nter.”

  “I mean no, I won’t take you around.”

  He knew now what more she could want from him, and it was far worse than he could have imagined. Suddenly she was so much more than merely a beautiful, vulnerable woman who had tumbled into his life. She was dangerous.

  If she delved deeply enough, she might uncover the legend about the panther, a tale his people fiercely guarded from outsiders because of its frightening implications. But worse was the possibility that she might discover the truth about him and loathe him for it. He feared that she might see something of him in the legend, as he had come to see himself. That the same proud arrogance that sealed the ancient warrior’s fate had doomed him, as well. That the warrior’s curse to wander the earth as only part human was no worse than his own fate to live his life only partly alive.

  He fought to keep his voice level so that she would not know the turmoil into which her unwitting request had plunged him. “The swamp is no place for someone who can’t see.”

  “That’s why I’m asking you to help me.”

  Damn it. Did she have to sound so unprotected? So in need of his help? “We’ll see,” he said roughly. “Maybe when you’re feeling better.” His mind worked rapidly to figure a way out of this mess he was suddenly in. Who knew how long it would be before she was strong enough to journey anywhere? Hopefully, by then she’d be so eager to get out of this place that she would abandon her crazy notion. If not, maybe the best thing for him to do would be to take her to the places she wanted to go. In that way he could steer her away from getting too close to the truth.

  There were no clocks in the cabin, but John didn’t need one to know what time it was. He had merely to glance at the window and the shifting light beyond. He’d been so preoccupied with Rennie that he hadn’t noticed it was getting dark. The time of day he dreaded was approaching. It was time to brew more tea so that Rennie would sleep peacefully and not notice his absence…or ask more of him than was safe for him to give.