She doesn’t move. Her eyes are as big as saucers.
“Mandi!” Her eyes leave Roma and go to me. “Do as I say. Put your head between your knees before you pass out . . . now!”
She does what I say. I walk up closer to her, bringing Roma with me. “Keep your head down. Don’t bring it up until I tell you. Are you feeling better?”
She gives me a nod.
“Okay. What we are going to do is convince you that you are not in danger. My friends are your friends. Do you understand that?”
She nods again.
“That means that this sabre-toothed cat is your friend. That means he will not hurt you. That also means he will protect you. You have absolutely no reason to fear him or any of his family. Do you understand that?”
She shakes her head.
“You’re going to have to believe it anyway.”
She nods her head.
“Raise your head.”
Her head comes up and her eyes are still huge, but her color is beginning to return. I’ve made Roma settle down five feet from her. She doesn’t look convinced.
“Come closer.” She gives me the, are you crazy? look. I hold my hand out to her. Long seconds tick by before she raises her arm and accepts my hand. I give her a pull and she comes forward to her knees. Roma turns his massive head toward her and she nearly falls over backwards. I hold on to her. She settles. “Roma. This is Mandi. She is my friend.” I don’t know if I’m sending all the right pictures to him, but I figure my action is enough. He appears to have already accepted her.
I place Mandi’s hand on his shoulder. She doesn’t resist. “Friends,” I say. “Friends.”
“Wow!” Mandi says with a whisper as though to say anything louder would startle the huge cat into biting off her arm.
There are others close. I can feel them. I stand and look around. I call to them. Roma makes a hissing noise as though to pass the word that to come is safe. Mandi jumps to her feet and grabs my hand again. “What’s happening?” she stammers.
“The others are coming.”
“Others? How many?”
“Don’t know. There were seven. There may be a few more now. Some may have died.”
“Died?”
“Getting old.” And then I see them. I point. “There they are.”
I can’t believe how happy I am to see them; long lost friends. Mandi is trembling. I can’t blame her. I feel only joy. I let loose of her and point. “There are Yulya and Gosha.” I look to the trees; up and down the trail. “I wonder where the others are. Nadia was about to give birth when I last saw her.”
Nadia! I call with my mind. I feel nothing, sense nothing. Tricia! “Tricia was the oldest. Maybe she didn’t make it through the winter.” I feel nothing. “Maybe they’re far away, in a cave somewhere, holding up with the kittens. They’d be no more than ten months old. I need to find them.”
Mandi grabs my hand again. “Why?”
“I have to know. I’m kind of . . . responsible for them.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ll tell you later. I’ll tell you everything later, even how I knew you were going to kill yourself. Come on.” Not much choice now. She knows this. She might as well know about all my weirdness. I can only pray I don’t lose my best friend again. I pull her with me and we head off trail, toward the area where they all came from. Gosha moves ahead as though leading us. They know where I want to go.
The lead shifts between Gosha and Yulya; Roma remains directly behind us.
We’re going up, steep at times, hit the snow line again and keep on going. We’re not dressed for snow, but neither of us thinks about that. Thirty minutes later we’re both breathing hard, soaking wet from the knees down, even though the cats have made a trail for us. We level out into a thick forest, so thick that there is little snow to tramp through. And it is quiet.
“Wow,” Mandi says.
Dead quiet.
We keep on until suddenly there are rocks, and then a towering barrier of a mountain. We stop. Roma passes by us and slips between a group of trees and the barrier, and disappears. The other two lie down. I grab Mandi’s hand. “Come on.”
“Where?”
“In there. They’ve got a den.” Reluctantly, she goes with me.
It is nothing more than a hollowed out area in the side of the mountain, surrounded and protected by a huge thick stand of old growth trees. It could hardly even be called a cave. But it is shelter. Still blinded by the light of the outdoors, I can’t see anything, though I know others are in here. I can feel them, and then I can make out their shapes. “Get out your light stick,” I tell Mandi.
We each carry a couple of light sticks in our daypacks. We pull the packs off and dig about until we have two sticks glowing. Mandi catches her breath. I step forward and kneel down in front of Tricia. She is old. Even in the colored light the gray of her muzzle is evident. She is thin. “How are you old girl?” I touch her head and reach into her mind. She is tired and weak; she is sick. “She’s dying.”
“Dying?” Mandi says.
“Yes. The journey from the Flathead, through the Bob Marshal and across open country all the way to here was too much for her.” I stroke her forehead. “Why did you come? I wish you could tell me.”
Nadia eyes me wearily. Her kittens are backed up to the wall behind her. They don’t know me, don’t trust me. Nadia doesn’t fully trust me either. “Don’t get near the kittens,” I say.
“You don’t have to worry about that,” Mandi stutters. “This is cool and everything, but I think we need to get back to your car.” She’s cold. I suddenly realize that I am too.
“What do I do about them?” I don’t expect an answer. I say it because it suddenly occurs to me that maybe I should be doing something.
“What do you mean?”
“Just that. What do I do?”
“What’s makes you think you have to do something?”
I give Tricia a final pat and stand up. “Remember when I told you I was afraid I would lose you as a friend?”
“Yes.”
“And you promised that that wouldn’t happen.”
“Yes.”
“Well, here’s the test.” I put my arms straight out from my sides; the light stick dangles from my fingers. “I am their leader. I am their queen. I was passed the reigns from Samantha Sikorski just before she and my mother died. And if you believe me and still remain my friend then you are as crazy and weird as I am. I knew you were going to kill yourself because I’m a blooming psychic. I saw it happen before it happened. I saw your brains spattered against your wall. That’s what I am. I can foresee death, actually see it happen just before it actually does happen so that it then is upon me to try and stop it. I watched my mother die just before it actually happened, and then I watched her blow to pieces because I could not stop it.”
She stares at me with her mouth hanging open.
“And if that is not enough, wait until you get a load of this.” If I’m going to spill it I might as well break the lid off the jug and dump the entire thing at her feet. I look her straight in the eyes and without moving my mouth, without uttering a sound, I say, “I can do mental telepathy. Not only can I talk to you like this, but I can also talk to these cats like this.
“That’s it. I’m done. You can run away screaming now.”
I’m not sure Mandi is breathing. She’s a statue, one hand holding her light stick. The orange light makes a sickly glow on her skin. I drop my arms. “Well?”
She closes her mouth. “Where am I going to run to? You’ve got the keys and it’s a long walk back to town.”
“Oh.”
She turns around and walks out. Was she joking? She’s going to stick with me until we get back to Hapner Hall, and then that’s it? I’ll never see her again? So much for friends. Roma steps up next to me and looks after her as if he is as puzzled as I am as to what she is thinking. I could reach in and find out. Yeah, right! If she isn’t running now,
she would be then.
I look at Roma, this huge animal who on all fours can nearly look me in the eye. “Why are you guys here?” I ask. “Why am I here? Where are the others?” He can’t tell me and it does no good to ask. Do they know they’re dying away and think I can do something to save their species? Did they come here only because they sensed my presence in this part of the country and knew nothing more than to come to me? What if I’d never come up here hiking? Would they have come wandering into town, settling themselves down on my front porch, maybe picking up a passing college student for lunch?
That raises another question. What have they been eating? I haven’t heard any news about missing people, or cattle for that matter, but then how much attention do I pay to the news? Each one of these guys requires a lot of protein, a lot of meat. Maybe there have been strange animal sightings. How could they have crossed the center of Montana without being spotted?
I call to the other two waiting outside. In a few seconds seven sabre-toothed cats are in the shelter, crowding me toward the entrance. I mentally reach out to them and give them pictures of people, portray them as bad, to stay away. I form a picture of Mandi and say that she is good. I make pictures of cars and trucks, helicopters and planes. All bad I tell them. Like I did a year ago I make pictures of all kinds of game—elk, deer, moose, whatever—and make them fine to kill. I bring up cow, horse, dog, sheep, and make them bad to kill. “Stay in the mountains, deep in the mountains,” I tell them. “I’ve got to go. Do not follow me.”
I back out. Roma follows. “No! What do you want?” He looks at me with expectation, or what seems to be expectation, like I should know something.
Mandi is pacing back and forth, rubbing her arms. “Let’s go,” I say. Without a word we head out of the old forest, into the deeper snow, and back down the mountain. We reach the trail together. I look back up through the trees, expecting to see a huge set of eyes and sabre teeth. There are only trees. Roma is not in sight. Mandi doesn’t wait for me. She moves fast down the trail without looking back.
“What do I do now?” I ask the silence, getting only silence in return.
I barely have the car in the lot at Hapner Hall and Mandi is out. She never said a word during the entire drive back. I let the car idle; the hot air blows around my soaked feet and legs. Mandi disappears into the building. The back side of my eyes begins to burn, and tears roll down my face.
“Why did they have to come here? Shit to hell! Why did I have to come here?”
I pound on the steering wheel. “Why? . . . Why? . . . Why?”
Chapter 6
There’s a tapping and then a banging. I reach for my pillow, ready to burrow back down, ignore whoever is knocking. “Go away,” I mutter and wonder where my pillow is, why my bed is so hard. I open my eyes.
I sit up. Some guy is peering at me though my car window. “You all right,” he hollers.
I find the window button and press it. “I’m fine. Just fell asleep.”
“Not a good idea with the engine running. I wasn’t sure. Sorry to wake you.”
“That’s fine. I’m okay. Didn’t mean to. Was thinking and drifted off.”
“Okay. Well . . . you take care.” He straightens up and walks away.
I shake the fuzz from my brain and turn the car off. For a second I wonder if I dreamt the entire thing—the hike and the sabre-toothed cats. I climb out, stretch a few times, lock the car and go into Hapner Hall. I pause at Mandi’s closed door, consider knocking, think better of it, and go on.
My roommate is finishing packing. She is Katrina Murray from Billings, Montana. “Hi,” I say.
“Hi. You staying tonight?”
“Yeah.” I mentioned that Mandi is my only friend. Actually Katrina is a friend, too, but in a different way. She is a nursing student and has zero interest in earth science. I have zero interest in nursing. She runs with a crowd. I run with Mandi, until today.”
“When do you move into your new place?” she asks.
“Tomorrow.” At least I think I’m moving into the new place tomorrow.
“I’ll be out of here within the hour. My sister is coming to pick me up.”
“That’s nice.” Yes, I will move in tomorrow. I just don’t know if Mandi will. “How did finals go?”
She blows air and a piece of her hair billows up. Her cute thing. “Lousy. It’s over and I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Same here.” Lousy to Katrina is an A minus.
“I think I got a B in statistics. I’m going to be a nurse; not a statistician. Why did I have to take that anyway? That’s the first B I’ll have gotten since ninth grade.”
“Maybe it’s not as bad as you’re thinking.” This is one place where she and I are alike, except I’ve gotten two Bs in my life, both in history. I hate history. “I think I did okay.” I know I did okay. My freshman year was a breeze. I give her a hug. “I’m going out for a walk. Have a great summer.”
“You, too.”
I walk past Mandi’s closed door. I really don’t want to go for a walk, would rather lie on my bed and think alone. I’ll come back later when Katrina is gone.
I walk slowly. Without realizing it I find myself standing before the huge Tyrannosaurus Rex in front of the Museum of the Rockies. I love this place. Mandi and I came here together once, but I’ve been here by myself at least a dozen times. It isn’t until I go in that it occurs to me why I’m here. I am immediately drawn to the skull of Smilodon. I get my face so that I am no more than twelve inches from it, separated only by a pane of glass. I look at the way the lower jaw hinges, the copper wire that is now used to hold it all together.
Suddenly there is a reflection in the glass and I jump back.
“Sorry,” a male voice says. “Didn’t mean to startle you.”
I turn to a man at least old enough to be my grandfather. “I’m sorry,” I say. He has a bare forehead the size of a soccer ball, long flyaway hair that falls off the back and sides, and professor-like wire rim glasses. “I was just . . .”
“Rather interested in Smilodon there. Amazing piece of machinery, wouldn’t you say? Tell me Miss . . .”
“Ah . . . Price.”
“Price.” He extends his hand, which I guardedly take. “I’m Jack. Nice to meet you. Tell me Miss Price, do you think Smilodon killed by driving his saber teeth down into his victim, or do you believe that the lower jaw hooked the victim and pulled it up and into the sabers?”
I look around but see no one. I wonder if he is an employee and if this conversation is a prelude to reminding me that it is almost closing time. I hope that is it and he is not some weirdo making a play on me. I do kind of recognize him but I can’t put my finger on where. Maybe he’s a professor I’ve seen around. “Well,” I say, “I believe it would depend on the size of the prey. A buffalo several times bigger than it would not respond too well, I would think, to being managed simply by the lower jaw, though powerful, as it is. He would have to drive the sabers into the beast.”
“That sounds reasonable.”
“A smaller kill, say man for example, is a different story. He would jump on his back, knock him to the ground, then clamp down on his neck. A sabre tooth would virtually severe the man’s head; an instant death.”
“Sounds a bit grisly, if you ask me,” Jack says.
“Believe me, it is.”
Jack looks at me for a long time before I realize my error.
“Was! It was a bit grisly, I’m sure.”
He laughs. “No doubt. Tell me, Miss Price. Are you a student here at the University or are you a high school student?”
“At the university. Just finished my freshman year.”
“What is your major?”
“Paleontology.”
“Really! Well I will probably be seeing you somewhere down the road again.”
I start to ask him what he teaches but someone waving draws his attention away. “She’s pointing to her wrist,” he says. “Seems that it is time to clo
se.” He extends his hand again. “It was nice talking with you, Miss Price.”
I shake his hand and he turns and walks, not toward the entrance, but through a door that says “Staff Only.”
The lady who was waving and pointing to her watch locks the door behind me. I stop briefly to look up at T-Rex and then head off across the empty parking lot. The sun is buried behind dark clouds. It feels like rain, or maybe snow. I hope not on both counts. I walk fast back to Hapner Hall. There are different cars sitting out front being loaded. I hold the door for a dad carrying a box and then go in and up to my floor. Again, I pause at Mandi’s door. I knock. There is no answer. I open it and peek in, not sure whether I’ll be invited or have a shoe thrown at me. The room is empty; completely empty. Mandi’s bed is stripped. The room is ready for the next tenant. Mandi is gone. I don’t understand. Was she that upset?
I go down to the front desk. “Did Mandi Saulminor check out,” I ask.
I know the girl behind the desk. Jamie something or other from Helena, Montana, I think. She looks on a clipboard. “Yeah. Inspected her room about an hour ago. You’re Reba, right?”
“Yes.”
“She asked about you. She looked kind of . . .”
“Upset?”
“Yeah. I guess so. Definitely not happy that classes are out like everybody else. You don’t look all that chipper either. Is everything okay? You want to, like, talk to someone?”
“No. Thanks though. Just end of school blues and stuff.”
“Yeah, stuff. I know about stuff.” She waves her hands in the air. “We all know about stuff.”
I back up. “Stuff. Much too much of it.”
“Yep.” Jamie has a great smile.
“Thanks.” I turn around and head back toward the stairs. I’ve lost my one best friend, and now there are seven prehistoric animals possibly wanting me back as their best friend.
I glance into Mandi’s room as I walk by. I’d left the door open. The room is still empty. I open my door, go in and stop. Mandi is stretched out on Katrina’s bed. She jumps to her feet. “Where’d you go?”
Sabre-Toothed Cat Trilogy Page 92