“Hey! Don’t leave me!” His scream is pitiful, more like that of a child. “Come back . . . please!”
I close my ears to him and continue on my quest for food. I dig for the second energy bar and after ensuring the wrapper is properly stowed deep in a pocket, relish each and every bite.
Two bad guys down, four to go.
Chapter 54
Long before reaching the cave where I expect there might be someone waiting, I replace the bright light of the flashlight with the softer glow of the GPS screen, and then kill the GPS later when it is overcome by the benefit of daylight coming in from the outside. With both stowed in pockets, I squat and peek into the cave. There are no bad guys. The pile of empty canned ham tins sit where I left them. My pack lies on the ground not far away, the contents spread about the cave floor. I see no food. My stomach is so far past the point of growling that it aches. I ease forward until I’m looking down at the flattened pack. A pair of my panties lies in a disgusting pile of dirt and something that looks like the jell-like goopy stuff from the canned hams. If it’s not I don’t want to know what it is. The clothes that I left lying neatly on rocks to dry are thrown about with absolutely no regard. I dig through my pack. Not even an energy bar remains, though the hydro bottle is half full. I clean off the tube and suck down a quarter of the remaining water. Wow! Does that feel good! The gut-rush of cold water energizes me.
I look over the mess and realize that this is what Mandi means when she talks about men, past boyfriends of her mother’s and the last straw with her stepfather, the one out of the herd that her mother chose to marry, who for a while Mandi actually liked. Makes me really appreciate my dad . . . and maybe Matt. He doesn’t seem to be that way.
Sharon said that he was in love with me, trying to be strong for Mandi. A mother knows, right, or is Sharon blinded by rose-colored mommy glasses?
Stop it Reba! Stay focused on the mission. Find food. Find the cats. Disable the bad guys. Call in a rescue. Simple, right?
Get things in order. I’m only hungry so I should be able to put my mind over food and reorder the mission parts. To take care of the bad guys I need the cats, so finding the cats is first. Then disable the bad guys. Call for a rescue with their phone. Eat their food while waiting. Cats, bad guys, rescue, food. In front of that, though, is to get warmer. I need more clothes.
I recover everything I can find, except the gross underwear. The pile includes a pair of fur-lined gloves. The sweatshirt I was wearing during my first swim is almost dry. I pull off the still partly wet sweatshirt I am wearing, which covers a wet t-shirt, and put on the dryer sweatshirt, then put the wet sweatshirt on over the top of that. Layered is good. I drag the sweatpants on over my jeans. Despite the wetness here and there, it doesn’t feel too bad. Before putting my boots back on I remove the soaked socks and put on two pair of dry socks. After lacing up the boots I knock the dirt off the knit cap and put that on, and then slip my hands into the gloves. I feel pretty good; I’m hungry but I’m warm.
I put the pack on my back and then walk out the entrance through the blind of trees, and step out into the snow. Even after an entire winter in Bozeman, I’m still awed by huge downfalls of snow, and this is a huge one. It is coming down even harder than when I first saw it a couple of hours ago, already piling up a foot or more. I’m so glad I came the way I did instead of over the top, through the snow.
There are no tracks, cat or man. I step back under the cover of the trees and brush the snow from my head. Cover of trees is probably misleading. It is not like standing under the cover of a carport where you are completely protected from the snowfall. Cover of trees means that a lesser percentage of the snow gets through. It also means that the part that doesn’t builds up in heavy piles on the bows of the trees until its weight overcomes the strength of the trees and it slips away. One who happens to be standing in the path becomes the unfortunate victim. I think of this and look up. No, I don’t get a shovel-size dump of snow in the face. Instead I am mesmerized by the steady splay of snowflakes that break through the openings. There is just the background of white sky, and then, suddenly, there is snow, as though it materializes right in the trees, four or five feet from my face. I remember a video from high school showing it raining inside a rainforest.
A snowforest! I wonder what Mandi could tell me about that, she with a major in snow science? Will I get a chance to ask her? Certainly won’t if I continue to stand here like an idiot with my face pointing straight up.
I drop my chin, wipe my face, and reach for a cat.
I get nothing. Any optimism I had fades. I step away from the cover and push through the snow to the sitting rock, which now is nothing more than a bump in a vast field of white, and try again. There is something, but not what I have become accustomed to. I listen, tweaking my feline ears to the max. The sound I pick up is to the north. Not far, it seems, maybe a hundred yards. I return to the cover of trees where the walking is easier and then turn toward the sound. As I close the distance it becomes like a growl, then a whine, or a combination of both. I reach my mind and get nothing, and then, as though the reaction is slow, the sound stops and there is something. The something is weak, meaning at the edge of my range, or . . . a kitten! But I haven’t been able to communicate with the kittens thus far. Still, it is there, an identity I have yet to discover . . . cat-like.
I maintain my stealth and move forward.
Visibility in the blinding snow is limited so I maintain visual connection with the slope of the rising mountain to my left and a mental connection with the images directly ahead. I hear nothing. The kittens, if in fact that is what I am picking up, have themselves gone into a stealth mode, knowing that something is coming toward them, not yet knowing what it is. Will they recognize me as friend or foe? They must be alone because I pick up nothing else.
I say they because I’m accustomed to seeing the two of them together; however, I actually only sense one, which I now know for sure is a kitten. He, or she, seems to be alone. But he, or she, was growling at something . . . what? I continue to move forward, guided only by my mental antenna, a radar-like blip on my mental screen.
Suddenly there is something else, a flash of shadow to my left, high on the slope, more visual than mental. No sound. For a full minute I look, listen, sense. Nothing more. I shuck it off as my imagination and return to my track, in route to the kitten still on my radar, now less than twenty yards ahead. I begin sending images and instructions to the sabre-toothed kitten, not knowing if he, she, whatever, understands or obeys. I am friend is the essence of my message. Do not attack is the central theme of my orders.
I am five yards away, when I see him. He stands defensively, between me and a broken mound of snow that is, I assume, Nadia. Her head and upper shoulders are visible, brushed clear by her concerned and frantic kitten. Drugged or dead? Where is the kitten’s sibling?
Just as that question comes to me, so does the answer. She is behind me, the flash I sensed earlier, the hunting instinct of these young sabre-toothed cats already rising in defense of their lives. Yes, they are just kittens, but the size and weight of large dogs with killer capability.
Praying that my instructions to the facing kitten hit home, I whip around to confront the attacking kitten. She is already on the move, coming at me in huge bounds. I drop to one knee and let out a hiss, splaying my arms and hands over my head. She leaps and I drop flat into the snow as she passes over me. We both recover in our defensive/offensive stances, she, surprised and disappointed that she didn’t touch me; me, surprised and elated for the same reason. I am fine now, as I know I can face her down. If I can get a mental connection, I’m sure I can take control.
We are eye-to-eye for less than ten seconds before she starts backing down. Soon she is standing next to her sibling, a pair of protectors of their mother. I slowly shuffle forward, sending pictures, not sure if they are both receiving, though neither are looking overly aggressive toward me. It is like they are now recognizing me and
are ready to trust.
Trust is good.
I trust them and make a circle to the right to come around to where I can touch Nadia and determine her condition. The kittens don’t object, watching as I place my hand on their mother’s neck. She is cold and hard.
She is dead.
I catch a scream rising from deep in my gut, a hot fury I’ve never felt before, reduce it to a growl and then yell into the falling snow. “Damn you, Sheriff Dan!” The kittens jump back from my angry utterance. “Sorry. It’s okay. You’ll be okay.” A lie, I’m sure, but what else am I to tell them? How did they avoid the sheriff’s gun? Did Nadia give her life after sending them to safety? Did they witness her death?
Now what? Leave them to protect their dead mother, or take them with me? Where am I going? That’s the big question, isn’t it? I’m going to find the kittens’ father and uncles with whom I will hunt down Sheriff Dan and the remainder of his company. What if all the cats are dead? It would be just me, with a couple of sabre-toothed kittens, against four men with guns. Suicide for sure.
Do I have any choice? Give up now and Matt is dead, maybe Mandi and Sharon as well. For sure Sheriff Dan has called Mick again and reordered the hit on my family. Shit to Hell! I forgot about that. Even my dad, Christi and Aunt Suzie could be dead.
I have absolutely no choice.
I rise to my full height and look north into the snow. I reach with my mind and call for Roma, Yulya, Gosha, Vadik, Edik. I get nothing. If they are not dead, where could they possibly be? I look at the kittens and ask them. They do not know, or they don’t understand the question, or they don’t know how to tell me . . . or I don’t know how to communicate with them. It could be one or all.
Turning my back on them, I start heading north to the main entrance to the mountain where I suspect the bad men are waiting out the storm. At my fifth step I stop and glance back. They are watching me, not sure what to do. I can’t leave them. They will die mourning over their mother. Better to leave her and forget her, learn to survive alone. Come with me, I tell them. One raises and turns his head.
Come with me, I tell them again. They don’t make a move. I can’t waste time talking them into it, so with that I head on my way, reaching for papa and uncles while I struggle to move through the snow at something greater than glacier speed. I wish I had the snowshoes. They are in the cave. I could go back for them. The snow is so soft they probably wouldn’t do any good.
I suddenly remember hiking up Hyalite Canyon with Mandi. When was that? Last Friday, our last day of classes. That was only four days ago. How can that be? We’ve gone from enjoying a beautiful Spring afternoon, to rubbing shoulders with Sabre-toothed cats and battling for our lives in a snow storm against a bunch of gun-toting men, some of whom helped kill my mother last summer. Life has gone crazy.
I don’t need to look back to know that I have sabre-toothed kitten escorts. It appears that come life or death, they are with me.
Chapter 55
Cats . . . bad guys . . . rescue . . . food.
I have two small sabre-toothed cats and not a big cat to be found. I’m crouched at the edge of the meadow where I know the helicopter and cages sit. I can see only their shadow through the falling snow. What do I do now? I could turn on the helicopter lights again, but even if Sheriff Dan could see them in the daylight through the snow, he would not make the same mistake as before. All I would be doing is saying, “Hey! Here I am. I dare you to come out and play.” With my luck he’d have a bazooka and blow the helicopter up with me in it. Or he or one of his men could be sitting in the helicopter watching for me. Unlike Stinky, the Sheriff would have no problem blowing me away at first sight . . . ask questions later, or just bury me where I fall . . . no questions. I’ve used up my nine lives at showing myself without getting killed. Can’t push my luck any further.
Roma!
He suddenly enters my mind. He is weak, but he is alive! I start to focus on locating his position when the kittens take off straight east, disappearing out of sight in a flash. I fall into their tracks and chase after them.
By the time I catch up to them I am in tears, as I know already what they probably don’t yet understand. They are frantically butting their heads against Roma where he lies nearly unconscious, blood staining and melting the snow around him. A mighty cat, but no match against men with guns. I drop to my knees and brush my hand over his brow. I reach in but he is past communications. The kittens butt in, nearly knocking me over. First their mother, and now their father. They are about to become orphans. I want to tell them that it will be all right, but it won’t be all right.
Don’t lie to sabre-toothed cats, even little ones.
I sit back on my heels and turn my face up to the snow. Damned be the men who have done all this! Damned be they who threaten me, my family, my friends . . . my cats!
Damned be you, Sheriff Dan!
The fury returns, a rapidly growing, burning pressure deep in my gut. It lifts me to my feet where I reach wide with my hands and arms, and release an animal howl that rises high above the trees, to the mountain tops, a calling of all to gather with me, against the damned. For nearly a half minute it goes on; the kittens, and my human self, cower in fear and awe. When it ends, dying without echo in the falling snow, I remain standing, my feet and arms spread, my human self looking at my feline self, recalling last summer when Sam did the same thing. I remember my mother and me walking in on Sam and my dad as Sam was referring to me as a fuckn’ brat bitch. We bolted for the car, Mom intent on driving away, me intent on going with her. Before we could get far Sam stopped us and tried to reason with my mother, who refused to listen. Sam then stepped aside and sent an earsplitting howl into the sky, a call to her cats. Her purpose was to form a guard around us to keep us from leaving until she could explain. My purpose now is to bring in any cats that are still alive, and then to wreak havoc upon Sheriff Dan, to put an end to this madness, a madness he and the late Victor Vandermill started a year ago.
“You shall become late yourself, Sheriff Dan.”
Wow! That’s where it began. It was when Sam howled for the cats that I became part of it . . . her . . . them. Sam raised her call and I responded through my psychic connection. For the first time I not only connected with her, but with all her sabre-toothed cats. I became like her, the sabre-tooth goddess. I remember thinking that then, and now it is what I am.
Okay. Okay. I’ve known that fact for a while now, but every time I think of it I get chills down my spine. I, Rebecca Price, a month shy of eighteen years old, have total power over a half dozen of the most powerful animals in the world, any one of which could rip me to shreds with one powerful swipe of a claw filled paw.
Less than a minute passes after my call before Gosha appears and begins pacing in a half circle around Roma, the kittens, and me, snarling his anger. Then Yulya arrives and joins Gosha in his snarling and pacing. It is a while before Vadik and Edik show up together. Edik does not look good, his dressing dark red with blood. Vadik joins the pacing while Edik lies down to rest.
This is all that is left, four males and two kittens; the latter’s sex yet to be determined, though I’ve started thinking of them as one of each. If neither are females, the fate of Smilodon is set. Even if they are both females, their fate to extinction may still be set. Maybe they are meant to be extinct. Who are we to be playing God or Mother Nature?
But Vandermill did, and here we are. And here I am.
The three big cats pace; the fourth lies, watching me. The two kittens abandon their concern over Roma and take up pacing with their uncles, the essence of anger and rage flowing and ebbing about all of them, no more than from me, the sabre-tooth goddess.
Bad guys . . . rescue . . . food.
Bad guys! Where are they? I direct the question to the remainder of my feline friends. Where are the men? I send them pictures of Sheriff Dan and the others. What comes back is a confusing array of images. With Roma I usually had a central point of communications.
Now he, the leader is gone, and the rest don’t know how to reorganize, don’t know how to assign a spokesman, or a spokescat.
Hush! They suddenly quiet, stop their pacing, and await my next command. I look at each of them in turn, determine that Vadik should take over in Roma’s wake, and then focus my thoughts upon him.
Where are the men? Show me.
He looks at me, his head up, his eyes questioning.
Men! I send Sheriff Dan’s image.
His head dips and he steps back. Suddenly I get a vignette-like image of the sheriff walking away from me. He is holding his weapon pointed straight up. Beyond him through the falling snow is what looks like Sarge. His weapon is at the ready as though watching the Sheriff’s back. They meet and then disappear through the trees together, into the mountain. Was that after the sheriff shot Roma . . . him and Sarge returning to their camp? Vadik followed them but never got the opportunity to take them down. He knows about the guns, that they can kill at a distance. He and the others know not to be seen. So how did Roma get caught? Was he handicapped by his earlier injuries and not able to move fast enough, or think clear enough? What about Nadia? How did she get caught? Probably protecting her kittens, which do not have the sense or instincts to protect themselves.
The cats begin pacing again, except for Vadik. He remains rooted in place, watching me, waiting for my instructions. What do I tell him? I’ve gotten this far; the next step is to take the bad men down. I can’t say, “Go get’m boys,” though I’d sure like to. I don’t want another cat killed, and the human side of me has no desire to kill more men, though the sabre-tooth goddess does as she wills.
What we need is a plan. I think about the helicopter again. There must be something inside it that can become useful, but I don’t know what. I’m sure the sheriff is not going to fall for the lights again, but I need to get him and his buddies out of the mountain somehow, into the open. What would make them come out? They’d come out if they thought they were more at risk to stay in, or more uncomfortable.
Sabre-Toothed Cat Trilogy Page 117