“Wha?” I say around my mouthful of meat.
Sharon smiles. “Nothing. I’ve got an idea on how to save the two cats.”
I swallow what I’m chewing, gulp down some water, and look at Matt. “Do you want that ham sandwich?”
He looks at Mandi and then back at me. “I already ate it.”
“Why?” Damn! Neither the orange nor the licorice appeals to me. I turn to Mandi. “Do you have any trail bars left?”
She gives me a strange look and then digs two out of her pack and throws them directly at my head. I dodge and snap them both out of the air at the same time and then have them open before the dust settles. I wash them down with a couple of pulls on my water and then relax. For the moment I seem to have satisfied my lust for food. I bite off another chunk of jerky. “So, what’s your idea?” I say to Sharon.
“Are you through?”
“Through with what?”
“Eating. Are you finished with your meal?”
I look down at the trail bar wrappers lying around me. I pick them up and stuff them in my pack. “Yeah, for now.”
She starts to roll her eyes and then lifts her face up to the sky. Her chin comes back down. “Okay then. It’s not so much an idea as just some thoughts from which we might be able to build something. These two guys don’t know Matt and I exist. If we were to walk onto their operation we’d be nothing more than a couple of day hikers chancing by. I’m figuring we could maybe get an opportunity to inject them at that time.”
“Roma and Vadik or Lester and Sarge?” I ask.
She gives me a long look, and then glances over at Matt. The eye ball to eye ball exchange tells me that they hadn’t thought of Lester and Sarge as possibly becoming pin cushions for Doctor Sharon’s needles. Matt shakes his head. “If you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking, no. Too risky.”
She ignores him. “I have two hypos with me and enough drug to put down a half dozen horses. If we drop two guys we can let the cats wake up naturally. By the time the men wake up, we’ll be long gone.”
“No, Mom! First of all they carry guns, and second, it doesn’t work that way. What do you think will happen when they feel the needle? You won’t have a chance. They’ll beat you up, or worse yet, kill you. It’s crazy and stupid.”
“I’m not talking about walking up and injecting them when they turn their backs. Of course that’s stupid. They’ll be unsuspecting of a couple of curious hikers, though. We oh and ah over the cats, and their guns; especially their guns. We act really stupid, salivate over them, and then ask to hold one. That would probably be you since your dad taught you how to shoot just about anything. In old movie terms, we get the drop on them. After that it’s easy.”
“Third of all,” Matt continues, “Lester would know me.”
“Maybe. Maybe not.”
“I agree with your mom on that point, Matt,” I say. “By the time you two met, both of you were in a pretty bad way. Lester was in intense pain, probably not into studying you. Additionally, your face was distorted from the pain you were in, not to mention unshaven and covered with mud and blood, and it’s been almost a year. I don’t think he’ll recognize you at all. Hell, I didn’t recognize you at first when I found you.”
He can’t disagree with me so he tries a fourth of all. “There’s probably more than two of them now. More were probably dropped off to help with the crating.”
I shake my head. “It never landed. I watched. It released the crates and left. It’s still just Lester and Sarge. I don’t think Lester wants to split his money with any more people than he has to.”
“How are just two guys going to get them into the crates?”
“I’ve been wondering that myself.”
“Whatever it is,” Sharon says, “it’s going to take them some time, which gives us a little time. Let’s at least go and look.”
No one disagrees, though it appears to me that Mandi would like too. She’s the go along with the crowd type, which is why she doesn’t like crowds. They always want to go somewhere she doesn’t. Sometimes she and I were a crowd. She went where I went, like through Lester’s camp to see my mom’s plaque. Go figure.
We all go about the business of closing and mounting our packs, and then head out, setting a course directly to Roma and Vadik. I can feel them . . . something like a feline homing device pointing me directly at the sleeping cats. Even if they were, somehow, to be moved someplace else in this forest, I could find them. I wonder how far my homing talent will reach?
“Slow down,” Sharon says.
I stop and wait for them to catch up. Roma found me in Bozeman from over two hundred miles away. I cannot fathom the power of what I now possess, and within the last hour it has been growing by the minute.
They catch up and my stomach growls.
Chapter 28
Roma and Vadik are covered with tarps.
“Why did they cover them up?” Mandi asks. “Who’s going to see?”
“The helicopter crew,” I say. “Lester is protecting his find. I’ll bet he has an eighteen wheeler standing by to load them into, and the driver won’t know what he is hauling.”
They are working on one crate, an unbelievable monstrosity of steel, cables and hydraulics on wheels. One end appears to be a mechanics dream of hydraulic pumps and controls. Lester and Sarge are doing something there, their backs to us.
“We should approach from the North,” Sharon says.
“I don’t think we should do this,” Matt says.
“You don’t have to, then. I’ll do it by myself.” She turns away and starts heading around the meadow, staying well in the trees.
“Shit!” Matt goes after her.
“What’s happening to you?” Mandi says after we’ve stood in the shadow of a group of trees for a minute or so.
“What do you mean?”
She rolls her eyes, and then her head. “Give me a break!”
“Keep your voice down!” I look out at the activity and hold my breath. They didn’t hear. I let the breath out. “My abilities are just getting stronger, that’s all.”
“Really! I thought you were just eating your spinach.”
“Huh?”
“You know, eating spinach makes you stronger.”
“It does?”
“Forget it. It’s just a saying that was going around when I was a kid.”
“Weird.”
“Yeah. Now that I think about it, it is. Have no idea how it ever got started.” She pushes a strand of hair back from her face. “It’s just that you’re different, and it’s more than being able to tell these cats what to do. You can’t deny it.”
I scan the tree line on the other side of the meadow, watching for Sharon and Matt to appear, then look at Mandi. “No. I can’t. You’re right.”
“Your metabolism has gone crazy. I’ll bet you’re hungry right now.”
“I’m starving.”
“Doesn’t that seem a little strange?”
“Strange to be hungry?”
“If this was a science fiction movie I’d say you are turning into a sabre-toothed cat, that at any moment you’re going to start growing claws, fur and long teeth.”
“Ha! That’s so ridiculous it’s not even funny. My senses have become more acute, that’s all.”
“More acute! Jesus, Reba! You’ve already told us what you can do. Doesn’t that seem a little strange to you?”
“Well, yeah; but not to the extent you’re talking. I’m not becoming a cat. I’m a human with some special ability.”
“You can see like a cat. You can hear like a cat. You move like a cat. I watched you climb that hillside back there. It was both beautiful and scary at the same time. It’s more than just some psychic power. You’re metamorphosing into a feline.”
“I am not!” A robin appears from a tree twenty feet away. My head and eyes snap to it and I follow it to where it lands on the branch of another tree. It just sits there singing its little song, or calling to
its mate, or whatever it’s making noise about. I consider running over there and climbing the tree to get to it.
“Look at your appetite, Reba. You’re burning calories faster than you can take them in. Don’t you think that’s a little odd?”
The robin takes off again, heading at an oblique angle and then suddenly turns toward us.
“Reba?”
She is on a direct line, my calculations telling me she will pass about five feet overhead. I crouch, wait, and then . . .
“Rebecca?”
. . . leap. The bird’s reaction is not fast enough. I snatch her from flight and drop to the ground in a three point landing. She screeches at me and tries to peck me, but I get her held around the wings. She stops struggling. I know her ploy. She hopes that I will relax, ease my grip, and then she’ll make her escape. Maybe I’ll let her escape and then I can catch her again. Sounds fun.
“Rebecca!”
I look at Mandi. She is crouched in front of me, looking directly at my eyes.
“Don’t Rebecca.”
“I told you not to call me Rebecca,” I growl at her.
“I know. I’m sorry; but . . . please don’t hurt the bird.”
I look at the animal in my hand. Holy shit to hell! What did I just do?
“Let it go.”
The robin’s heart is racing about a million miles a second. I can feel her fear in my head, her trembling in my hand.
“Please let the bird go,” Mandi pleads.
I open my hand and send her into the air. She recovers her orientation quickly and takes off toward a far tree. When she lands I return my eyes to Mandi. “I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, well, I think you’re going to have to get a handle on this thing.”
No shit! “Okay.”
“You scare me.”
I scare me. I scare me a lot.
Chapter 29
Nothing more is said for a long time. We stay crouched in the trees, watching Lester and Sarge doing whatever it is they’re doing, waiting for Matt and his mother to appear on the far edge of the meadow. My internal forecaster of death is quiet, much to my relief. That doesn’t mean that it isn’t going to go wrong, though, that they aren’t going to be captured and then disposed of later. It just means that, maybe, no one is going to get killed in the next five or ten minutes.
Another robin, or maybe the same one, flits into the corner of my vision. I fight the sudden impulse to turn my head. It flits away and I take a breath.
“Hold this.” Lester’s voice is followed by banging, like he’s hammering on something, metal against metal. It is strident in my ears.
Sharon appears. She walks out about twenty feet and looks back. I know what is going on. Matt is reluctant, probably fought with her all the way around, tried to talk her out of it. She’s waiting for him to relent and go with her. I’m sort of with Matt. I still can’t decide if this is a good idea or not, but I don’t know of a different way.
He steps out and joins her, and together they walk toward Lester and Sarge who are intent on their task, their sight of Sharon and Matt blocked by the machine they’re working on. I wait for Sharon to say something, to announce their presence, not surprise them. They just keep on walking, coming wide around the machine.
Lester stops banging, exchanges the hammering device with whatever Sarge is holding and then turns his attention back to the task.
Within a dozen yards, Sharon and Matt stop. Something seems to have her attention. She points. Matt looks at where she is pointing, then back at the men. She jesters, almost frantically. He nods and goes to where she is pointing.
“What are they doing?” Mandi asks.
“I don’t know.”
“I don’t like this. They’re going to get killed.”
“No,” I say. “I’d feel it if they were.”
She turns her head to me. “Huh?”
Matt squats down. When he comes up he is holding the two automatic weapons. He backs up and hands one to his mother. They both bring them to their shoulders. “Howdy!” Sharon calls, her voice non-threatening. I understand her reason. Even from here I can see the holstered pistol hanging off Lester’s belt. I know from my earlier engagement with them that Sarge carries one, too. Don’t want to startle them into a quick draw.
Lester and Sarge’s heads turn simultaneously.
Now Sharon’s voice turns to business. “Step away and out into the open.”
“Who the hell are you?” Lester demands. He shifts the tool he is using into his left and slowly moves his right toward his weapon.
Matt takes a step forward. “Freeze!” The two men turn into statues. “Raise your hands over your heads.” Very slowly, they do so. “Now step out!” I’m suddenly very proud of Matt.
Sarge moves first. He looks down and steps over something. Lester follows, doing the same thing. As though preplanned they begin to separate.
“Freeze!” Matt orders again. He is on to their tactic. “Drop the tools.”
Lester holds a huge screwdriver. Sarge holds a hammer. I hadn’t thought about it, but they both make good throwing weapons. They don’t drop them. As a matter-of-fact, Lester has rotated the screwdriver so that he is holding it by the shaft. I rise to my feet to yell at the same time that Matt swings the gun and fires. The screwdriver flies from Lester’s hand, spinning end over end until it drops away. Matt brings the gun back to Sarge. “Drop it!”
The hammer drops from Sarge’s hand.
“Keep your hands over your heads and lie down on the ground . . . face down.”
“Listen kid, why don’t we discuss . . .”
Matt lowers his aim. “Have you ever seen what a bullet can do to a knee cap?”
They lie down.
“Keep your gun on him,” Matt says to his mom, nodding at Sarge. He walks over to Lester, keeping the gun pointed at him, and reaches down. When he comes up he is holding Lester’s pistol. He does the same with Sarge.
“Okay, do your thing.”
“What the hell is this shit?” Lester demands, pain in his voice. “You don’t know what you’re dealing with.” Two for two on the mangled hands score.
“Shut up! I wasn’t talking to you.” I can’t believe what Matt is doing. He is turning into what I imagine his dad was like. He moves to a position that allows him easy view of both men.
Sharon puts her weapon down, pulls off her pack and starts digging into it. She comes out with a small bottle and a syringe. She loads the syringe.
“Okay, gentlemen,” she says. “You’re going to feel a needle so don’t go getting alarmed and try to jump up.”
“What the hell are you doing?” Lester demands.
“It is a sleep drug,” Sharon says. “When you wake up, you might have a headache for a while.”
“This is bullshit! I don’t know what the hell you’re up to, but you can’t hide. We’ll fuck’n find you. You’re not dealing with just us.”
Matt turns and aims. “No!” Sharon screams, “No!” and then the gun goes off six, seven, eight times in rapid succession. Dust flies and Mandi and I both jump. The echo dies quickly. I hold my breath, not able to believe what he just did. Then my super senses tell me he didn’t. Lester is muttering.
“I have a very strong desire to kill you,” Matt says, his voice shaking. “But that would mean becoming like you. Don’t make me become like you.”
The two of them take steps in different directions. Sharon must be standing directly over Lester. She is holding the needle in the air and looking directly down.
Matt says, “You’re going to feel the needle and you’re not going to move a muscle.” There is a long pause. “Do you hear me?”
“Yeah!” Lester says from his face in the dirt position. “Who the hell are you? I know you from somewhere.”
Sharon kneels down. All I can see are her head and shoulders. It’s at least thirty seconds before she rises. She changes the needle, recharges the syringe, and then she and Matt approach Sarge.
&nb
sp; “You got the picture?” Matt asks. “Not one muscle.”
“Yeah.” Less fight out of Sarge.
Sharon injects the sleep and they step away.
“What now?” Mandi asks.
“We wait.”
Chapter 30
The crates are on wheels. The end of one, where Lester was working, looks like a control center. I’m staring at it when Sharon walks up next to me.
“Electrical generator and hydraulic motors,” she says. “This is an expensive piece of equipment. I’ve seen one once before. A rich Hollywood type with a big spread the other side of the Flathead thought it would be cool to breed Clydesdales and Belgians. What a jerk. One of his big Clydes got himself shot by a hunter. The guy thought it was moose. Should have had idiot stamped across his hunting license. It wasn’t a life threatening wound, and I was able to remove the bullet and treat him right where he fell, but it was going to be a while before he walked out on his own power, and there was no way to get a truck to within a half mile of him, let alone get him loaded onto something and bring him out. He weighed in at just over a ton. Fortunately, there was room to drop one of these boxes reasonably close.” She shakes her head. “I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it. It took six hours, a dozen men, with winches, cables, and chainsaws, to get him into it.”
I stare at it but I can’t see it. “I guess I don’t understand.”
“In the simplest form, which is how it could be used right here, is that it is wheeled into position and the door is dropped. The door also acts as a ramp. It is lowered to ground level and then shoved under the animal. Then it is just a matter of picking the animal up and bringing the ramp back to the level of the crate floor. Inside there are straps that can be worked around the animal so that he can be pulled in. Close the door and it’s ready to be picked up.
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