“No shit!” Aileen’s says. “Why don’t the two of you just crawl the rest of the way?”
“I can walk.” I start to get up, hoping I really can.
“The hell you will,” Tanya says. “You crawl with me.”
And so several minutes later we roll off the rails and into the snow. By this time I’ve figured out I’ve pulled a hamstring. I don’t think I could have done anything but crawl. I tell the women.
“Can you walk?”
“I’m going to have to.” I get to my hands and knees and then to one knee. “Help me up.” They each take an arm and I rise onto one leg. Gingerly I apply weight to my left leg. Pain flashes and I ease off. “Just give me a second and I’ll be fine.” My words are more to convince myself, I think.
“Put your weight on us and let’s see if we can walk it out.”
“I lost the bale hook.”
“I’ve still got the mine,” Aileen says.
“Do you still have the knife?” I ask Tanya.
“Oh! I threw it over here somewhere when I was trying to help you up.” She lets go of me and looks around with Aileen’s flashlight. “Got it.” She slips back under my arm.
“A beautiful woman under each arm,” I say. “One with a bale hook, the other with a big knife. Where the hell is a photographer when you need one?”
“He’s such a flirt, isn’t he,” Aileen says.
“And all these years I thought I knew him.”
I start laughing and then realize my head hurts like hell. “Romeo, eat your heart out.”
We all laugh and then Aileen says, “So much for being quiet.”
We drop to a whisper. “Let me try walking a little,” I say.
We progress forward for a time until the pain works out enough that I can walk with just Aileen’s assistance. They trade off a couple of times and then I insist on going on my own. I limp along slowly, looking at the field of unbroken snow ahead of me. We’re still following the road on which the truck brings the cows, pigs and feed. And then suddenly, I stop. The unbroken field of snow is no longer unbroken. The women stop next to me and we all look down at the huge cat tracks.
“Oh, shit,” Aileen says.
I turn around and look back the way we have come. I see nothing. The women are looking all around.
“Wha . . . what do we do?” Tanya asks.
“Keep going,” Aileen says. “We’re committed now.”
“Here is what we have to do,” I say, “and we should be okay. There are three of us so we should be able to look in all directions. The sabre-toothed cat, like the Bengal, will only attack from the rear. I’ll bet they also don’t like the human face.”
Tanya is trying to look in all directions at one time. She glances at Aileen. “Is . . . is that right?”.
“I’m not sure,” Aileen says, “but it’s a good possibility.”
“I’ll walk forward,” I say. “The two of you will have to sort of walk backwards. Aileen, put the spare coat on so you don’t have to carry it, and then let’s all hold hands as we walk. We need to appear as one big person with three faces.”
I hope the hell I’m right. I know I am with the Bengals, but with the sabres . . . I pray we don’t find out I’m wrong. I feel the bale hook in Aileen’s right hand. I assume the knife is in Tanya’s right hand. I want to have a weapon as well, but I certainly can’t take one of theirs.
I wish there was moonlight instead of snow. I can’t see very far with the flashlight because of the increasingly heavy snow. Walking out the muscle pull has helped a lot, but I’m still limping and I’m worried about the icy spots that I cannot see under the snow. When I find one I advise the women and we gingerly shuffle over it. We do this for probably a half hour. I’ve seen three more sets of cat tracks; one was a lot bigger than the others. Something about that concerns me.
“How are you guys doing back there?”
“I could think of one or two other adventures that would be more exciting than this,” Aileen says.
“I wish . . . we had . . . had . . . hadn’t . . . done this.” Tanya is shaking.
“Are you cold?”
“Na . . . na . . . no.”
“Breathe deeply, Tanya,” Aileen says. “Breathe deep and relax and think of how beautiful the snow is. Imagine a picture taken right now. The snow is probably piled an inch high on the top of your head.”
“Re . . . really?”
“Sure. look at Zach and me.”
“I can’t loo . . . loo . . . look away.”
“Just for a second. They’re just curious, out there watching. Just sneak a peek.”
“O . . . kay. I’ll try.”
She twists toward me. Her head and shoulders are covered with snow, and her face is death white. I force a grin, but there’s no reaction. She turns away. “La . . . lots of snow.”
I can’t believe how quickly she went from being upbeat, even joking, to flat out petrified, just by seeing the cat tracks. I have to admit it loosened my insides a bit but I still have my head.
“A Disney winter wonderland.” Aileen forces a chipper voice. “What about you, Zach? How’s the leg doing?”
“Much better, though we need to move faster.” What I don’t mention is the rapidly rising pressure in my chest, and the butterflies flitting about in my throat. The pressure started building fifteen minutes before. I hoped it had to do with my fall or with the stress of the situation. I should know better. Someone is going to die and unless we run into some other people out here, it’s going to be Tanya or Aileen. Maybe both. Maybe all three of us. “Just keep your face pointing out, keep your wits and keep going. How far to the fence?”
“I don’t know,” Aileen says. “Did you see those last tracks?”
“Yes.”
“Have you noticed the differences in size?”
“Yes. What does that mean?”
“I think they’ve released the triplets.”
Seven against three. Not good odds. But we’ve got a bale hook, a knife and three human faces. What odds would the bookmakers give us?
“How you doing, Tanya?” We’re moving but there’s no answer from her. “Tanya?” I shake her hand. “Tanya!”
“Wha . . ?”
“Are you okay? Talk to me.”
“I’m . . . o . . . kay.”
“Good girl.” I squeeze her hand. “Are you cold?”
“I . . . I . . . think . . . so.”
“Are you warm?”
“I . . . I . . . think . . . so.”
Aileen squeezes my other hand and pulls on my arm. I turn toward her and she twists back and whispers in my ear. “She’s not going to be able to get over the fence.”
“She will,” I whisper back, but my private thoughts say otherwise. “I’ll get her over it.”
“I’m sorry,” she says.
“For what?”
“For all of this.”
“I’m the one who should be sorry. This wouldn’t be happening if I hadn’t come here.” My chest tightens again. If I were alone I’d be wishing for a heart attack to get it over with.
There are more tracks and we fall back into our position. They are all fresh meaning they are pacing back and forth ahead of us, just out of the range of our sight, which may be as little as ten feet. The snow is getting heavier by the minute, yet the tracks are not being covered. Aileen is right. Both the mature males and the three young triplets are out here and they are probably drooling as they watch us. Are they not attacking because of our faces, or are they just biding time?
Chapter 30
“Wha . . . wha . . . what’s a . . . a triplet?”
“Don’t worry about it, Tanya.” Aileen’s voice is edgy.
“We’ll tell you about it when we’re out. Right now we just have to keep moving.”
“That’s weird!” Aileen suddenly says.
“What?”
“Smaller tracks yet. They must have released Simon and Tricia.”
“Who is . . . Si
mon and . . . Tricia?” Tanya asks.
“Little Sabre-tooths,” I say. “They’re still kittens. Don’t worry about them.”
A shape moves from my left side and crosses in front. It fades into the snow and darkness. Aileen jerks on my hand. “I know–keep moving,” I say. I’m surprised how well I’m keeping my head. Maybe it’s because there’s something that’s driving me to get both of them to the fence and somehow get Tanya over it. I’m determined to make the premonition building inside of me a lie. In the past I never knew who the disaster would strike, just that it would. I’ve never had the opportunity to stop it. Can I now? Can I protect them both, and myself? Can I change fate?
Although my pulled muscle doesn’t feel too bad, other muscles are starting to cramp from the strain of walking slow and avoiding ruts and ice hidden under the swiftly growing blanket of snow. “How are your legs doing, Tanya?”
We move a few more steps but she doesn’t answer.
“Tanya!”
“Wha . . . what?”
“How are you doing? Do your legs hurt?”
“My legs are . . . are fine.”
“Wonderful. How about you, Aileen? Are you getting any cramping walking half sideways?”
“A little, but that’s the least of our problems.”
“I have to pee.” It’s the first complete, unbroken sentence Tanya has said since we first saw the tracks.
“Try to hold it, Sweetie. There’s no place to go out here.”
“You have two girls; is that right, Tanya?” Aileen asks. There’s a growing tension in her voice.
“Yes.”
“What’re their names?”
Another dark shape appears and then disappears. They’re getting closer, bolder.
“Christi and . . . ah . . . Becky. No . . . ah . . . Reba.”
“Reba?” Aileen tries to be upbeat.
“She . . . she changed her name. It . . . it’s Rebecca. She wants to . . . to be called . . . ah, ah . . . Reba.”
“That’s neat. I wish my mother would have let me do that. I wanted to change it to Charlie but she wouldn’t let me. Don’t you think that’s funny?”
There’s no answer.
“Tanya!”
“What?”
“Don’t you think it would have been funny if my name was Charlie?”
“I don’t kno . . . know. I like Aileen.”
My ears and toes hurt. My fingers are cold. My nose doesn’t feel anything. Tanya is probably frozen, even with the hood tied up tight. “We need to move a little faster.”
“We’re doing the best we can!” Aileen snaps. Suddenly she slips and falls.
I pick her up by one arm. “You okay.”
“Fine! I can’t go any faster.”
Several minutes pass and I see nothing except the occasional track. Maybe they’ve backed off.
All of a sudden Tanya starts trying to jerk away. “Oh God!” she yells. I tighten my grip on her and look back. I don’t see anything.
“What?” Aileen is twisting from the other direction.
“I saw it! I saw something . . . ah . . . big cat. Oh God! I saw his face.”
“He’s gone now.” I try to sooth her. “They’re only checking us out. I’ve been seeing them for a while. Just look back at them. Make sure they see your face.”
“I can’t.”
“Your life depends on it. You have to.”
“I can’t. The face. Awful . . . teeth . . . oh God!”
“Yes you can.”
“Ah shit!” She starts crying.
“It’ll be okay. What we’re doing is working. They wouldn’t have let us get this far if it wasn’t.”
“I’m sorry.” She’s sobbing.
“Let’s hook our elbows.”
Aileen agrees and we pull our arms up tighter on each other. The moving is slower but I feel I have better control of Tanya now.
“I’m sorry,” Tanya cries again.
“You don’t have to be sorry for anything,” Aileen says.
“I peed my pants. I’m sorry. I . . . I couldn’t stop it.”
“Nobody gives a shit!” Aileen yells. “I peed mine a long time ago and you don’t hear me whining about it do you?”
I yank on Aileen to calm her down. She’s not calming. “Pull your shit together, God damn it or you’re going to get us all killed.”
Tanya is crying even harder, sobbing uncontrollably like a child. I yank on her and start to tell her to shut up, but Aileen beats me to it.
“Shut the fuck up!”
I’m starting to get extremely irritated by both of them. I’m the one with the bad leg and I’m having to drag them along like a couple of children.
“You shut the fuck up!” Tanya screams. “This is your fucking fault.”
“Stop it!” I yell, “or I’m going to let loose of you both and let the cats have you!”
Aileen tries to jerk her arm free. “Fine! Let me go so I can get it over with.”
She has let loose of Tanya and is virtually battling me now.
“NO!” I scream. Tanya slips from me. I turn to grab her and lose Aileen, but Tanya isn’t there.
“Stop it!” Tanya yells. “I’m sorry!”
I turn around and find Tanya has a hold of Aileen’s coat to keep her from running away. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” She yells.
Aileen is struggling to get loose of the coat–it’s the extra one she put on. She slips and falls face-first into the snow. Tanya falls back onto her butt with the coat. I attempt to grab Aileen as she tries to get back to her feet, but manage to get only her foot. She falls flat into the snow again. “Help me, Tanya,” I yell. I expect her to say to hell with her. Let the cats have her, but she doesn’t. She jumps on top of her and slicker than professional wrestler, rolls her onto her back and slaps her in the face.
“Stop it!” She slaps her again. “Stop it!”
The struggling ceases and I’m on my feet, crouched low, looking all around, expecting something to come flying out of the falling wall of snow. Nothing comes. I don’t even see dark shapes. Maybe our fight scared them back. Maybe they think we’ve gone mad and our meat might not be good. I stay on guard, trying to keep my face visible in all directions at one time. Tanya gets off of Aileen, who then sits up and feels her face.
“Shit that hurt. What the hell did you hit me with?”
Tanya holds up her gloved hand. The glove is covered with chunks of ice.
“I’m going to have a big bruise–probably a black eye too.”
Tanya crouches down beside me and looks in the opposite direction. “Get me the hell out of here!” Something has snapped again and it scares the shit out of me. She went from feminine to masculine between peeing her pants and slapping Aileen around. Her voice is low and rough, not so much demanding, but in control.
“I’m sorry,” Aileen says as she stands up.
“Apology accepted,” Tanya says and we stand upright together. “Let’s do the elbow thing and get going,” she adds as though she’s the foreman on a construction site and break time is over.
I’m continuously looking for trouble beyond our circle so I don’t really look at the women. When I do take a glance I see that Aileen looks like a snow woman. She’s covered head to foot, front and back. There’s blood on her cheek, just below her eye, and a bruise is already showing.
We hook up and I lead.
“Aren’t you going to say you’re sorry?” Aileen says.
I tense against Tanya’s response.
“I’m sorry I lost the knife. I’ve nothing else to be sorry for.”
We have moved ten, maybe fifteen feet. My judge of distance is pretty bad right now, let alone direction. I want to say to Aileen, “Just let it go,” but even with what little I know about her, I’m certain letting it go is not within her bag of tools anymore than it is in Tanya’s.
“What the hell do you mean you have nothing to be sorry for? You’re a sniveling little pussy who is more worr
ied about peeing her pants than the threat of man-eating cats!”
“Who the hell are you calling a pussy? Who sat on who and slapped whose face?”
Aileen tries to jerk her arm away again, but I’m prepared this time.
“If I could get my hand free I’d deck you like no tomorrow,” Aileen screams, “you fucking pussy.”
“You cock-suckin’ husband stealing bitch. You just try it.”
“You’re a mother-fuckin’ whore.”
“Stop it!” I yell above them. When that doesn’t work I hook their arms as tight as I can and twist until I hear . . .
“Heyyyyyy! Owwww! Shit . . . what’re you doing.”
“Knock it off, NOW!”
“Alright,” Tanya shouts. “Ease up already.”
“Not one more word between you two!”
“Okay! Okay!”
“Aileen?” I wait for her to answer as I continue to apply pressure to her arm. Finally she relents.
“Yes! Yes, God damn it.”
I ease up. “Jesus Christ already. How the hell did I get myself into this–refereeing between two women? I’m the one who should be running off into the dark asking a sabre to end it all.”
“Go for it.”
I wince at Tanya’s words. “Seriously, right now I think the only reason that I don’t just let you both go is there would be no one to watch my back.”
“Ditto on that.” Tanya again. Aileen’s mouth remains shut. As a matter-of-fact, after the ditto, we all shut up and our progress, despite the deepening snow, is the best since we started this strange looking threesome. The pain in my leg is now but a minor irritation and my limp is almost unnoticeable. The pain in my toes, except for a little on my left foot, has eased up. I don’t know if that’s because my feet are warmer–not imaginable–or because frostbite has set in and the nerves are dead. I try not to think about that part because I get a picture of a doctor with a four-foot tree trimming tool, excising my toes. I’m kind of glad I can still feel my face.
“Let’s sing.” It’s Tanya. She has never been a singer; hates karaoke. It’s totally out of character. “Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream. Come on. Merrily, merrily quite contrary life is but a dream.”
“Quite contrary?”
Sabre-Toothed Cat Trilogy Page 26