She looks away, off toward the mountains. She’s turning the concept over in her mind. I actually consider reaching in to learn what she is thinking. The consideration doesn’t last long. My promise to myself that I won’t do that is pretty strong. The fact that I received the vision of her rape doesn’t count because I didn’t initiate it. We start walking again, turn up Seventh and head back toward the campus and the warmth of Hapner Hall. We are going to make it just in time for me to get a shower and take my duty at the front desk. I may skip the shower because I don’t want to leave Mandi alone. I also have to unload, and hide the gun, which is currently residing under my mattress. That scares the shit out of me. Don’t know if I’ll be able to figure out how to unload it without accidentally shooting it.
“Thank you.” Mandi slips her arm through mine.
I think she’s going to be okay now, but I’m not taking any chances. I’m not sure she didn’t see me stash the gun. “Why don’t you come with me this afternoon. I’ve got duty. We can play Scrabble or something.”
“Okay. That might be fun.”
Yeah, I think. It might be.
Chapter 5
May 1, 2009 – Friday
Mandi and I walk together around the campus; like two peas in a pod, as my mother would have called us. MSU sweatshirts and blue jeans, same hair style and color. From a distance most people can’t tell us apart. We could be twins. After the Christmas day near-disaster, we became very close. I know all about her life. She knows a lot about mine. I share with no one my talents, not even Mandi, my best and only friend.
She is also one hell of a Scrabble player. I can’t beat her. Her head is like a dictionary full of words I’ve never heard of. I’ve given up trying to challenge a word she uses. She’s always right.
Today is the last day of classes. “Don’t you love the sun? Sometimes I think I could be a sun worshiper, especially after a winter in this place. Hurray for the summer!”
“Summer is over a month and a half away,” Mandi points out.
“Yeah, I know. Figure of speech. Winter can rear its ugly head again any day now. That’s what you keep telling me. Right now it’s a beautiful spring day and tomorrow we’ll be in our first ever house, all by ourselves.”
“And then what?” Mandi looks at me.
“We may or may not get jobs. You’re worried again.”
She shrugs. “I feel so . . .”
“Free!”
“Liberated!”
“Independent!”
“Unfettered!”
“Ah . . . carefree!”
“Unregimented!”
“Ah . . . at liberty!”
“Emancipated!”
“Ah . . . you win. You always win.”
She shrugs.
“We survived our first year of college; chemistry, calculus—I thought I was going to drown in integrals—analytical geometry, physical geography.” I put up a finger for each one. “Despite our early on pessimisms. We now have a whole summer to put it behind us. And I got to take dinosaurs and you got to take, what?”
“Nothing that had to do with snow.” She makes a pouting face.
Mandi and I are both in the Department of Earth Sciences. She is Snow Science; I’m Paleontology. “What is snow science anyway?” I ask her. “I had no idea that snow even had a science. It falls down, makes everything beautiful, and cold, for a long time and then melts and makes everything wet. How much science can there be?”
She laughs.
“You got to take physical geography.”
“True.”
“Thank God you were there or I wouldn’t have made it through that class.” I give her a long look. “You’re depressed.”
“A little.”
“Look at it this way. It’s not that you can’t go home. It’s that you don’t have to go home. You don’t ever have to see your step dad again.”
“Yeah, but I miss my mom.”
That blows the wind out of me. My shoulders sag and I make my own pouting face. “I miss mine, too.” Technically I could go home if I pushed it, but I really don’t want to face Dad, who I miss dearly. Other than Christi, there is no one else to go see. I doubt Aunt Suzie has changed her opinion of me. Neither Mandi nor I are going home. We have put money down and signed a rental agreement on a small duplex over on South Wilson. It’s being vacated tonight, maybe as we walk and talk. My car is already packed with nearly everything the two of us own.
“Let’s go hike Hyalite Canyon,” I suggest. “It’s only noon, we’re all packed, rooms are cleaned; at least our sides of them. We’ve taken our last final. I feel like a bird and I’m going to go nuts sitting around waiting for tomorrow morning. Let’s go up to Grotto Falls and stand in the spray.”
Mandi laughs at me. “You who can’t stand to be cold want to go stand in cold spray? You’ve flipped.”
“Okay then. Maybe I’ll stand where I can see the spray.”
Mandi’s mood is shifting. I was starting to get worried that she’d pull me down. “Fine. We’ll go,” she says. We cut between buildings and head for my car, Mom’s car. I have a hard time calling it my car. It’ll always belong to Mom in my mind.
Mom’s car is a Buick and a gas guzzler. I wanted to ask Dad if I could sell it and get a hybrid. I looked into it and figured that if I was lucky I’d have to shell out $12,000. No thank you. Didn’t really want to talk to Dad anyway. I’d drive the Buick gas guzzler as little as possible. It ended up not being a problem seeing as it was buried under snow from early December until barely over a month ago. I didn’t know what to expect when I went out to start it on April Fools Day. It actually started. If Mom is watching I’m sure she is not happy with me about her car. She always kept it in the garage and got it washed regularly. That was the first thing I did. I took it and got it washed. I couldn’t believe how much that cost.
With the car packed there is barely enough room for the two of us to get in. “Where did all this stuff come from?” Mandi says.
“I don’t know. I came with hardly anything.”
“Me too. And I certainly couldn’t afford to buy much.”
“Neither could I.” We both look over our shoulders at the back seat and shrug. “Whatever. Let’s go.” I start the car. “How about we spend the afternoon poking around the trails and then come back for an end of school celebration at a cool restaurant?” Mandi agrees and we head out, stopping only once for a supply of energy bars and to fill our hydrators.
Hyalite Canyon is a beautiful drive south of Bozeman in the Gallatin Mountain Range. It encompasses a number of camping and fishing areas, lots of hiking trails, and Hyalite Reservoir. The trailhead to Grotto Falls is above the reservoir, about a twenty mile drive from campus, most of it on gravel and dirt road. The only other time we’ve been here was on a field trip with the Physical Geography class in the middle of April.
The drive up is traffic-free, and the parking lot is empty. Fine with me. I’d prefer we hiked without running into anyone. We hiked up to the big M a couple of weeks ago and it was like we needed a traffic cop.
Mandi visits the outhouse, and I pull out my backpack. It’s not the one that carries my laptop, but a daypack with a hydrator. I put the energy bars in a convenient pocket, slip the pack on and maneuver the hydrator tube into place. The cold water tastes good. Mandi returns and puts on her daypack.
“I’m glad you suggested this,” she says. “This feels real good.
“Yeah. Me too.”
We head out at a brisk pace. My breathing quickly settles into a rhythm. It feels wonderful.
In twenty minutes we’re standing below Grotto Falls. I have a nice layer of sweat worked up under my sweatshirt. We explore for a while until I start getting a chill. I need to get moving again. Besides, I wanted a long hike, not a stroll. “Let’s keep going,” I say.
Mandi says, “I read that there are more falls on the way to Hyalite Lake. It’s like four miles farther up the trail. You want to do that?”
&
nbsp; “Sure!” That’s the Mandi I know. We cut back to the main trail and start heading up, literally. What before was a gentle climb to Grotto, is now rather serious. Thirty minutes into it, and after numerous breathtaking falls and rapids, my legs are burning and I’m sucking for air. I remember the hike with Matt a year ago when I was trying to prove something; I got sick and threw up. Altitude sickness he had told me. “I need to slow a little,” I say. “This is killing me.”
Mandi bends over at the waist. “Killing you! Why are you setting such a fast pace? We in a race?”
“I didn’t set the pace. You did.”
“No, I didn’t. You did!”
“No, you did!”
“No, you did!”
We both drop our backpacks and fall on the ground laughing. We lie there for a while, getting cold, and then Mandi says, “You never answered my question.”
“What question? If we don’t get moving again I’m going to freeze to death.” We get up and start walking.
“When you came into my room and stopped me from . . .”
“From pulling the trigger.”
“Yeah. You never told me how you knew. I heard you screaming from clean down the hall, and my door was closed. How did you know what I was going to do?”
We walk for a long time, breathing easy now. I don’t want to answer her, but I know she’ll pursue it. She’ll bug me until I tell her something. “You’re wrong. I did tell you.”
“No you didn’t.”
“I told you I was psychic.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“Can you think of any other way I would have known?”
We cross over a bridge and come to a sign that says, Silken Skein Falls. We turn left toward the sound. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”
“I’m psychic. I saved your life. Can we leave it at that?” I move away from her to get closer to the raging water. That and the roar eliminate further conversation. Silken Skein is the perfect pair of words for this waterfall. I kick myself for the umpteenth time for leaving my new camera in the car. I squat down and try to think of what more I’m going to tell Mandi. She’s not going to let it go. What’s wrong with just, ‘I’m psychic’? I stand and we reverse back to the main trail. For the next few minutes nothing more is said. Good. Maybe that’s the end of it.
I’m in love with this trail, the falls, and the constant rush of the Hyalite Creek down the canyon, until suddenly we start seeing patches of snow, and then a few minutes later it is everywhere. “This is Spring!” I scream to the sky. “Isn’t all the snow supposed to be gone?”
“We’re in the mountains, my dear,” Mandi says. “There are some places where the snow never goes away. I’m surprised we got this far, actually.”
We’re not going any farther. We stand and look up the trail and at the water blasting down the mountain. “What is Snow Science,” I ask, “and what the heck are you going to do with it?”
“Avalanche planning; snow run off, like hydrology; water resource planning; the effect of snow on plants and animals, spatial distribution, weight distribution. There’s a lot more but I don’t know enough about it yet. All kinds of engineering, biology, and geographic stuff.”
“Really!”
“Yep. Don’t know what I’m going to do with it, or with anything for that matter.”
I analyze small animal tracks in the snow and wonder what the animal is. “I know I want to be a paleontologist. I just don’t want to wait three more years for the degree.”
“Or more if you end up doing graduate study. Have you gotten into the Museum of the Rockies?”
“Yeah. You and I went together. Remember?”
“Oh, yeah.”
We both take pulls on our hydrators and then start back down the trail.
“What kind of psychic?” Mandi suddenly asks. “I mean how did you know? Did you have a feeling or something? Did you get a picture? What?”
“I can’t tell you.”
Mandi stops. “Why?” I keep walking. “Rebecca!” That stops me. I turn around. “You know everything there is to know about me,” she says. “You’re my best friend, like my sister, but you won’t let me in.”
“I can’t tell you,” I say again and turn down the trail.
“Rebecca!” I keep walking. I won’t tell her, simple as that. She’ll get angry, but she’ll get over it. “Reba,” she pleads. There are fast footfalls and she runs past me, slides to a stop and turns to face me. “Why? Just give me a good reason.”
Damn it! She’s going to cry.
“Just any stupid reason. I don’t care. I just need one and I’ll let it go.”
“No you won’t.”
“Yes, I will.”
I make a face at her.
“Pug-nozzle!”
I stop making the face. Pug-nozzle is one of her fancy words. It’s not in my computer dictionary. She says it means making a face like a pug dog. I think she made it up. “No you won’t.”
“Well, maybe not. But you can get me off your back for right now.”
I look up at the treetops and empty my lungs of air. “Fine! Here’s an excuse, and this is the truth.”
“Okay.”
“I don’t want to lose you.”
“Oh!”
I start to walk past. She stops me. “Wait! That’s not fair.”
“Sorry.” I continue on.
“I promise. We’ll always be friends. I promise.”
I keep on going. I will not . . . I will not tell her. For several seconds she says nothing, following behind about twenty feet. I will not tell her.
“Reba!”
I’m not stopping this time.
“Reba!”
The tone in her voice has changed. There is an edge of fear. I turn around. She is off the edge of the trail looking down at something in a patch of snow.
“Come here!”
Whatever it is, it has nothing to do with our argument. I rush back to her. “What?”
She points down. In the snow are several perfect tracks of a cat; a very large cat. “I’ve seen cat tracks before,” she says. “I’ve never seen any this big.” She’s suddenly super alert, looking all around. “Jesus, Reba! We’ve got to get out of here.”
I bend down and touch one of the tracks. A flash of a sabre-toothed face flashes across my inner eye. I catch my breath. Could it be? Could they have come here, three hundred miles?
“Reba?”
Why? Why would they come here?
Mandi grabs my arm and pulls me to my feet. “Reba! We’ve got to get out of here!”
They were safer there; more wilderness to hide in. How could they travel that distance without being seen?
Mandi starts rushing down the trail.
At night, of course. They’d travel at night and find a place to layup during the day. Probably took cattle to feed on. How many are there left?
“Rebecca!”
There were seven a year ago. Nadia was with kitten, so there are now as many as eight, or more depending on how many kittens were born. Would they all have migrated? They stay together. They survive together as a family. Of course they’d travel together. But why come here? There was plenty of game there. They’ve already survived there nine years.
“Damn it, Reba! Come on.”
Are they here because of me? I look down at Mandi. “Holy shit to hell!”
“What?”
I don’t know what else to say, what to do. My God! “Yeah. Let’s go.” Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe it is a huge mountain lion and we really are in big danger. I catch up to Mandi and we start running down the trail, slipping and sliding in places. I’m looking everywhere, trying to get a glimpse of one of them, or of the mountain lion if that is what it is. We pass the sign to Silken Skein Falls. All the snow is behind us now. We clamor across a bridge that crosses over the creek that comes from the falls and I stop and look behind us. If it’s them and they have come because of me, why hasn’t one of them shown itself? Where are they
?
“Reba!” Mandi suddenly screams.
I whip around, but I don’t see her.
“Reba! Reba! Oh God!”
She is around a bend, just beyond a stand of trees and bushes. I take off. She is now screaming without words. I turn the bend and almost run right over her. She is trying to scramble back on her hands and butt. Twenty-five feet down the trail is a huge cat.
“It’s okay,” I say, considerably relieved. It is not a mountain lion. It is a Smilodon, just as I feared; not fear for us but for them. They are much too close to civilization here to survive. They’ll be found out. “It’s okay,” I say again to Mandi and step forward putting myself between the cat and her. I reach into the hidden chambers of my mind and pull up the talent I stuffed away nearly a year ago.
My mind touches that of the sabre-toothed cat. He dips his head, his long sabre teeth nearly touch the ground. It is Roma. We were the closest. He helped me drag Matt out on the stretcher. We sort of bonded. I walk up closer.
“Reba!”
I turn and look at Mandi. She has backed into a stand of bushes. I smile at her. “Everything is okay,” I say. “They won’t hurt you.”
“They?” Her voice is shaky, raspy.
“I don’t see them, but I’m sure there are more nearby. Maybe all of them.”
“All?”
I turn my back to her and walk up to Roma. I think about when I saw my first sabre-toothed cat while rushing down the trail with Matt. Suddenly, just like now, there he was. I think I peed my pants. This time, though, I walk up and place my hand on his head. “Hi, Roma,” I say softly. He pushes against me, like a domestic cat would rub against your leg. I stumble back and laugh. “Easy big guy.”
Mandi is still on her butt, but she has stopped babbling. Her mouth is hanging open. She looks white. “Are you all right?” I ask.
She looks side to side and then back at me.
“This is Roma. He is my friend. He will not hurt us. None of them will. I won’t let them.”
“H . . . h . . . how?”
“You’re not looking good. Put your head between your knees. Everything will be fine.”
Sabre-Toothed Cat Trilogy Page 91