“Then the summer before I lost my reelection for sheriff, a ten year old boy wandered away from his parents’ campsite. To make that long story short, he walked into Sam’s backyard. I was first to respond to her call. That set up another epiphany. When I stepped into Sam’s place to take charge of the boy, the first thing I saw was that painting of her and the young sabre-toothed cat.”
“What did she say about it?”
“She said that she had it done on a whim or a joke.” He slows, waits for a little white car to go by, turns onto another road and then accelerates hard. “What do you think?”
I’m not expecting that question. Does he suspect something or have some idea who she really is? “I have no idea.”
“Well, I do.” He gives me a sidelong look. A county sheriff’s car approaches from the other direction. Instead of dropping his speed, Brian honks and waves out the window. The deputy or sheriff or whatever returns with two seconds of his siren. I glance back to ascertain he’s not slowing to turn around. In fifteen seconds he’s out of sight.
“You do?” I say. “How do you think she did it?”
“I believe she’s one of them.”
“Excuse me? You think she’s a sabre-toothed cat?”
He laughs. “No. Not exactly. The legend that my grandfather told me is that when the spirit returns she will bring with her a great cat with long knives for teeth.”
“Yeah. You said that.”
“It stands to reason then that the spirit would be able to walk among them.”
My attention to Brian’s driving is again lost for a few seconds. I stare at him with my mouth hanging open. He slows down. I close my mouth. “Are you saying that Sam is the spirit?”
“Precisely.” He turns onto his property.
“But she’s flesh and blood. Isn’t a spirit supposed to be like a ghost or something?”
“Who knows what a spirit is. Who’s to say a spirit can’t take on a human as a host while she goes about her mission?”
“It’s a big stretch. A bit out of this world.”
“Maybe, but who exactly is Samantha Sikorski? I’ve done a little snooping and all I’ve found is that before her arrival here, she didn’t exist.”
“Are you implying that she was plopped onto earth to save the Blackfeet territory?”
“I don’t know exactly what I’m implying. All I know is that prior to four years ago, Samantha Sikorski did not exist. It doesn’t exactly coincide with the arrival of our feline friends.” He parks next to my Blazer. “Still, it’s something to think about.” He gets out.
I get out and decide to stop arguing with him. It is, after all, a fair cover for who she really is. Why should I ruin that for her?
“I know you want to get back up there, and I have a meeting.” He nods toward a truck coming up the drive. “Can you find your way there okay?”
“Sure.” I have no idea.
“Go back to Highway 2 and head south. Five or six miles turn left after the three story white house with the red barn. There’ll be a broken down tractor near the road. You can’t miss it.
He reaches back into his truck and comes out with the radio we talked to Becky and Matt on. “Take this with you and see if you can raise them if they aren’t already back at Sam’s. It has about a four mile range. I’m not very comfortable with them being up there with the sabre-toothed cats in these parts, even though they don’t seem to target people. I just get a little nervous. Also, Matt may have a good head on his shoulders, but there is still a lot of horny kid in him. Your good looking daughter may cause him to do things different than he normally would.”
“What are you implying?” There is something rumbling in the pit of my stomach. “You think my daughter will cause your son to become aggressive?”
“No, no. He’d want to look good in her eyes. If she asked him to scale a sheer cliff, he’d probably try. Impress the girl. You know how things can get out of hand.”
I don’t like the turn of this conversation.
“I don’t want either of them doing something they’ll regret.”
“Don’t worry. Becky’s not going to do anything stupid.”
He smiles and then looks at the radio he handed me. “This is also a GPS unit. Have you used one before?”
I have the urge to tell him to stick his GPS radio up his smiling my-son-would-be-perfect-if not-for-your-daughter ass. I stare at the radio for a few seconds, direct my focus toward it in an attempt to force down my anger. “No. I’m familiar with them but have never used one. Becky knows quite a bit about them.”
“Matt’s a wiz with it so the two of them have something in common. I don’t have time right now to go over the GPS side of it with you. If you need that function for some reason, Sam can walk you through it.”
“Sure,” I say.
“I’d like to talk more about my theories about the legend, so don’t you head back to Texas before checking back in.”
“I’ll call.” I doubt I will.
“And in case we don’t meet up again, leave the radio with Matt or Sam.” He grips my hand and slaps me on the shoulder. “Good luck with Reba.”
He heads out to greet his contractor. I climb into my Blazer, turn it about and head out to the highway. First I need to go to my motel and change into dry clothes. I’d also better call Tanya.
Chapter 21
Reba
I stop and make like I’m enjoying the view across the mountains. What I’m really doing is allowing my lungs to catch up to my body’s overwhelming need for oxygen. I can’t seem to get enough and my heart is pounding at about a million miles a minute.
Matt steps in front of me. “Are you okay?” He looks no more tired than if he had been sitting back in a lounge chair. He’s not breathing at all.
I want so badly to pull off my pack and flop down in the grass. Instead I inhale as unobvious as I can and say, “I . . . ah . . . realized how fast we were moving, and that I was missing the beauty here.”
“Oh!”
I don’t understand it. Put me in a pool and I can do a 200 butterfly and then turn around and swim for a mile as a cool down. Why am I out of breath just walking? I feel more like I tried to do a 1000 butterfly. A breeze whips up for a second and I feel it pull the heat from the surface of my skin. It feels good but I’m still sensing some light headedness. I give in and let the pack slide to the ground. I then extract my water bottle and drink—probably more than I should.
“What college are you going to when you finish high school?” he says.
I give him my sternest look. “I graduated some time ago.” More than a month is a long time. “I’m taking some time off before heading on to the university.” He sits down and I gratefully sit down next to him. “What about you? What are you doing after high school?”
He laughs. “I did a year off to help dad out and then started college. I’m in my second year at MSU.”
“Montana State?”
“Yeah. You know it?”
“A little.” For some reason I refrain from mentioning that I applied there. Mom and Dad don’t know. They’d both go ballistic.
My heart rate is slowing but now I’m not feeling so good.
“I’m studying veterinarian science,” he says.
“That’s cool.” I lean forward and prop my elbows on my knees.
“Are you sure you’re feeling okay?”
I want to say I’m feeling fine and I’m ready to get up and go some more. I don’t want him to know that I’m worn out by this little bitty hike. “I’ve got a headache for some reason. I just need a few minutes.”
“Works for me,” he says.
He pulls off his pack then stretches out and uses it for a pillow. Once he has himself comfortable he fools with his GPS unit for a while and then pulls his hat down over his eyes and appears to fall asleep. I try to will my body back to health but the headache feels like a bunch of little people are on the inside of my head trying to break out with big sledge hammers.
On top of that my stomach is becoming a tad disgruntled with the power bar I ate, or maybe the earlier eggs and sausage. I stuff the iPod back into the side pocket of the pack, and then stretch out flat on my back with my hat on my face. The seconds, and then the minutes tick by until I can feel the contents of my stomach began boiling in an effort to locate an exit. I come to my hands and knees and then push through the headache to my feet and stumble away. I get as far as a fallen tree and manage to dump the contents of my stomach over the other side. When I’m done my stomach feels better but my head still feels like it wants to expel its contents.
I wipe my mouth and turn around. Matt is looking at me, a big question mark plastered to his face. “Dallas, Texas, right?”
“Yeah.” I retrieve my water bottle and rinse out my mouth. He’s doing something with his GPS unit again. I sit down and put my head in my hands. I don’t care any longer about trying to hide how I feel. He just watched me vomit, so what’s the point?
“What’s the altitude in Dallas?” he asks.
I think I know that but my head hurts too much to think. “I don’t know.”
“A couple hundred feet?”
“Yeah, I guess. Four hundred maybe.” I lie back down.
“We’re at seven thousand fifty-four feet here. I’d say you have a slight case of altitude poisoning.”
“Can’t be. I’m in great shape.”
“That has nothing to do with it. It’s a matter of your body not knowing how to cope with the thin air.” He stands up and picks up my pack. “Come on.”
“Where?” I have no desire to move at all “I’ll just wait this thing out.”
“If it is the altitude, the only cure is to get back down.”
“Down?”
“Get to a lower altitude. If we can get back down to Sam’s you should start feeling better. Do you have any idea how far we’ve climbed since leaving the house?”
I start to shake my head, but it hurts. “No.”
“Over three thousand feet. You’re right; you are in great shape. You damn near wore me out, and that takes some doing.”
“Oh.” I feel a tad of pleasure around my pain.
He puts his hand under my elbow. “I’ll help you up.”
“I can do it!” He backs off. I push to my feet. My head pounds a couple of times and then eases off. I reach for my pack.
“I’ll carry it,” he says. “You don’t need the extra weight.”
“Fine!” The hat on my head hurts, but I need it to keep the bright out of my eyes, which hurts more. I look at my feet and start walking. It’s all down. Three thousand feet! And I pushed it hard all the way. I’ve had headaches after hard swim competitions, and I even threw up once. In this case the thin air aggravated it. I just need to rest, that’s all. I don’t want to go back to Sam’s. If I do I’ve got to deal with her and my car, and my dad. I focus down at the ground, intent on placing one foot after another, avoiding holes, rocks, and tree roots that might send me tumbling forward. I adjust my camera hanging under my arm. “Tell me when we’re below five thousand feet,” I mumble. Maybe I won’t have to go all the way back.
“Sure,” he says and keeps charging on.
A squirrel chatters and I stop for a moment to search among several trees for him.
“What?” Matt is stopped and is looking back at me.
“Looking for the squirrel.”
He scans one tree and then points. I see him. As if knowing he was spotted, he suddenly sprints farther up the tree. “Cute,” I say. “I’m feeling better.”
Matt looks at his GPS. “Fifty-one forty-six. Let’s keep going.”
We continue on in silence for a long time, until . . .
. . . he suddenly stops. He puts his arm out to keep me from going past. He’s looking down.
We’re at the spot where he showed me the grizzly bear poop. “What?” I say, and then see what he’s looking at. It’s a very dusty stretch of the trail where we can easily see our boot prints where we came up. On top of our boot prints is a larger set of prints. “Shit to hell!”
“You can say that again. This guy was following us.”
We are suddenly both looking around. “Is this . . ?” The words get caught in my throat. With the size of the track, I can only imagine how big the animal is.
“Sabre-tooth,” he says for me. “This is the second time I’ve seen these tracks. The first time was when Jake’s stallion was taken. I helped dad with that.”
“It can’t be something else?” I’m excited and scared at the same time.
“From the size of this print and what I’ve learned from Sam, this guy can weigh in at better than seven hundred pounds. There are no cat-pawed animals in the world that can get that big.”
“What about the Bengal?” I ask for some dumb reason.
“The Bengal is a tiger, but even he doesn’t get quite this big. Besides, this isn’t Bengal country. But it is sabre-tooth country.”
I’m speechless.
“Let’s move!” He steps around the tracks without disturbing them. I flip the switch to power up my camera and look up and down the trail. He’s gone thirty feet before he realizes I’m not with him. “What are you doing?” he calls back.
“I’m going to take a couple pictures of these prints.”
“Why?”
“It’s my first evidence that the sabre-toothed cat exists.” I feel his impatience and sense his eyes rolling. That’s the first psychic-based impressions I’ve gotten from him. “Don’t let your mother see you roll your eyes like that,” I say as I move around the cat prints to get the best angle.
“What?”
When I have three pictures I look up and walk toward him. “When my mother catches me rolling my eyes, she has a royal fit. You’d think I’d given her the finger or something.”
“What are you talking about?”
I take my backpack from him. “You rolled your eyes at me when I said I was taking a picture of the paw prints.”
“I probably did. So what? There may be a sabre-toothed cat stalking us and you decide to waste time taking pictures of his tracks.”
“And now you’re wasting time standing here complaining about it. Go! Go! My headache’s better and I’m ready to move fast. What’s the holdup?”
He clenches his jaws, rolls his eyes again and then turns and starts down the trail. I slip into my backpack, I pause to take a picture of his backside, and then follow with a grin on my face. The grin doesn’t last very long.
Chapter 22
Zach
“First of all, she’s safe.” When I first called Tanya after leaving Brian’s, she was with a patient, or so I assumed. She had said she would have her phone in her pocket, so when she didn’t answer, it had to be a patient. I was at the motel, just getting out of my clothes before getting in the shower, when she called back. “She’s staying with a woman,” I tell her. “I’ve met her. She’s okay.” I suddenly feel like I’m lying to her; that male guilt when there’s nothing to be guilty for; or almost nothing. “Her name is Samantha Sikorski.”
“Who is she?”
“What do you mean, who is she?” I immediately have to remind myself not to get defensive. That will only turn on her sixth sense, a woman’s ability to read their husband’s mind, even over the phone.
“What does she do? Does she normally take in stray teenage girls?”
“I don’t think so. She and Becky hit it off because they both have an interest in the sabre-toothed cat. That’s all.”
“That’s all? She didn’t say anything about the sabre-toothed cat when she called this morning.”
“What did she say?”
“Nothing except that she was okay and that she didn’t want us worrying. The call was short because I don’t think she wanted to answer any of my questions, or fight with me. I tried calling her right back but she had already turned off her cell phone.”
“She was pretty shocked when she saw me.”
“I’ll bet. So
, what’s this Samantha’s phone number? I want to talk to her.”
I almost stutter. I let the silence hang way too long before saying, “I don’t know.” There’s another silence while her sixth sense comes alive. “I never thought to ask.”
“Where are you? Is there a phonebook nearby?”
“I’m at the motel. As soon as I shower and get into dry clothes, I’m going back out to where she is.”
“Dry clothes?”
I wish I hadn’t said that! Now I’ve got to go through the explanation. “I fell in the creek.”
“What creek?”
“The creek that runs behind her house.”
“She has a creek?”
“She has an entire mountain. Her place is not far from Glacier National Park.”
“And you’re going back up there?”
“That’s where Becky is.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know. She’s hiking with Matt right now.”
“Who’s Matt?”
“Brian’s son.”
“Who’s Brian?”
“Sheriff Shwartzberg, only he’s not the sheriff anymore.”
“How does he fit into all this?”
“This is getting to be an awfully long story. Basically, Becky is at . . .” My heart skips a double beat as I catch myself ready to say Aileen’s. “. . . Sam’s. She was mad at me so she took off up a trail with Matt. He’s a good kid.”
“Who is Sam, and what trail?” Her voice has shifted to the ‘I’m getting impatient because I know there is plenty you’re not telling me and I’m getting suspicious about something,’ level.
“Sam is Samantha Sikorski. Everyone calls her Sam.”
“Everyone? Who is everyone? Who else is there?”
I take a deep breath. “Brian took me up to her place because she heads up a group that is interested in saving the sabre-toothed cat. They were having a meeting. I guess he thought I’d be interested. I wasn’t but it just so happened that Becky was there.” I pause, waiting for a comment or another question. There’s nothing but breathing. “Tanya?”
“Yeah!” Her vocal cords have jumped to another level. “I’m here, damn it. What’s her phone number?”
Sabre-Toothed Cat Trilogy Page 51