Markwildyr.com, Post #223
Image courtesy of freeimages.com:
Got a lot of hits on last week’s post about my emerging novel Ides, but no comments. Really wanted to know what you thought about it.
This week, I’m
offering a short story. I’m interested in your reaction to it.
* * * *
Buck Wingfield, who’d found the carcass of
the puma’s last victim when he drove up to unfreeze the pump on the windmill,
showed them where it happened. There were still prints, so Wolf decided to
track the lion a distance.
Rusty Blade sat in the Capucha foothills in
the middle of the Edge of Mountain Indian Reservation, and this disorganized
party had been commissioned by the reservation’s cattlemen’s organization to
track and kill a cat that was taking a toll on the tribe’s herd. All were of
the blood.
Snow, splotchy down on the desert, was a
couple of inches deep here, and Wolf encountered deeper drifts as he climbed.
Following faint scratches in the snow and occasional bare patches of earth, he
found four perfect paw prints, the rear right badly mangled.
His breath caught in his throat. Lyle Hunter had
a mangled right foot. The only imperfection in his otherwise perfect body. It
was not easy to look at, but didn’t put a limp in his lover’s gait. In fact,
Lyle moved with a grace that was sorta catlike.
But for this cougar, it was bad news. “Gotta
get you,” he said half to himself, “or it’s a steady diet of beef from now on.”
Wolf gave up the chase in a small box canyon
where the cat had gone up a steep rock wall. Darkness was falling, and pulling
himself up that shelf hand-over-hand wasn’t a good idea.
Beaver handed him a steaming cup of coffee
when he walked back into camp. Between sips, he reported what he’d discovered.
All agreed the mangled paw was the cat’s death sentence.
There were two small groups of cattle in the
immediate area, so they decided to split up and try to deny the beast another
meal. If they could get him hungry enough, the lion might get careless.
Clarence and Buck headed off to Sloping Hills a mile or so northwest to keep
watch over the second herd. Wolf and Beaver remained at Rusty Blade.
The cat tried three times over the next six
days to get at the cattle in one or the other of the locations, but they
managed to keep him from a kill.
****
Beaver nursed a tin of coffee beside the
campfire. “We’ve been out here a week. That cat’s gotta be starving.”
Wolf took a sip from his cup. “I figure he’ll
come tonight. And he won’t be so easy to chase off this time. Hope Clarence and
Buck are figuring the same way.”
“They’ll be on the lookout. I’ll take first
watch, okay?”
Wolf kicked out of his boots, loosened his
clothing, and slipped into a sleeping bag even though he knew he wouldn’t
sleep. Thirteen days ago—even though it seemed more like a year—his world had
shattered, and facing tonight was no easier than facing last night. When the
bag was warm from his body heat, he pulled his cold rifle in beside him and lay
back to deal with whatever ghosts came in the dark. He must have slept because
the next thing he knew Beaver was shaking his shoulder.
“He’s here. Cattle are jumpy.”
Wolf stepped into his boots and buttoned up
his sheepskin. Shivering slightly, he clamped his cold hat onto his head and
scooped his rifle from the fading warmth of his sleeping bag before moving
cautiously after Beaver. The cattle stirred nervously around the tank, shying
away from the mountains. The moon hid behind a bank of clouds.
“Damn, it’s a black night!” Beaver whispered.
“Hey! Couple of heifers broke away.”
“Stay with them!”
Suddenly, the two strays set up a loud
bawling. A vague shape took form in front of them. Both men raised rifles but
held fire. A frightened cow, the whites of her eyes glowing like foxfire,
lumbered past. The second heifer, her bawling now almost a squeal, was still in
ahead of them. There was a quick clatter of hoof beats, a thud, and then
silence.
“Hot damn!” Beaver yelled. “He got one.”
“Don’t let him get away!” Wolf veered toward
the mountain. The moon reappeared suddenly, and he saw it. The cat, weighed
down by the dead yearling, seemed to be running in slow motion. Wolf pulled off
a round. The cat kept moving. On the second shot, the cougar dropped the
carcass and bounded away.
“Get him?” Beaver puffed noisily.
“Naw. But I made him give up a good meal.”
“Wanna drag it back down to the camp?”
“No. I’ll hunker down by that rock and see if
he comes back for it.”
“He won’t.”
Beaver was right. By daybreak the cat hadn’t
returned, and Wolf was almost frozen. They gulped a hurried breakfast and
saddled up. The cat’s trail turned into the same box canyon. They searched the
floor of the balsam. Tracks led in, but none came out. The cat went down the
mountain by one route and came back up through this canyon. They sat down in an
out-of-the-way place and scanned the high stone walls while a plan percolated
in Wolf’s head.
“He goes home every night up this canyon. I’m
going to stay up here. As soon as he stirs up things down there, scare him off.
I’ll hear your rifle fire and be watching for him.”
“You ought not tackle this fella alone. He’s
pretty damned hungry. If he don’t go for you, he might get your pinto.”
“You’re right. Let me get my bedroll, and you
take him back down with you. If nothing happens, come get me in the morning.”
After they arranged a series of signals with
rifle fire, Beaver started down with the two horses, tossing a warning to be
careful over his shoulder.
Wolf spent the rest of the day digging out a
hiding place for himself, while keeping half an eye on the ridge. Nothing
moved. He had wanted to stay in the canyon all day rather than come back later
because his spoor along the trail would be fainter. This left him alone with
his thoughts for hours.
Right in the middle of covering his bedroll
with leaves and fallen branches, the recollection of Lyle Hunter lying beneath
him in a motel bed slammed into his head. Then he and Lyle jumped naked into a
stock tank to frolic. He and Lyle climbed Sleeping Turtle Butte, where they’d
made love for the first time. In his fevered mind, they wrestled, played chess,
and slept in the same bed whispering private thoughts and loving the night
away.
Time slowed, his movements slowed, the world
slowed—except for the memories racing through his mind. The car barreling out
of the night. The drunken driver—a white man—walked away while Lyle, beautiful,
handsome Lyle, lay crumpled beneath the broken steering wheel. His lover was
buried before Wolf got out of the hospital to pick up his shattered life. Alone
in the middle of a reservation where cousins and uncles and aunts abounded. But
alone, nonetheless.
He blinked and discovered it was twilight.
How long had he sat like a blind man? What if the cougar had crept up on him?
Would he have seen it? Did he care?
He tried to remain alert until the last of
the light faded. Then he crawled into the sleeping bag, taking his rifle with
him so it wouldn’t freeze. Was what he was doing right? The lion was wild and
free. His blood cried that these were good and proper things. But the cattleman
within him came up with another answer. The cat ceased to be natural when it
turned to killing beef. Cattle were not its natural prey. Wolf fell into a
childhood habit.
“Mountain Lion, forgive me. You are hurt and
cannot live the way the Power intended. This is a kindness I seek to do you.”
For good measure, he added that the white eyes in Washington made him do it.
The cold woke him. It was still dark, but dawn
wasn’t far away. A frigid breeze swept up from the desert. Good! The cat
wouldn’t catch his scent. The faint sound of a gunshot bounced around the narrow
canyon. Moments later, two rapid shots told him Beaver had missed the cat. If
the animal got away with a beef that would slow him down. If he didn’t, he’d
head straight for his lair.
Wolf tried to stay alert, but his world crowded
in on him again. His grandmother came to say she told him nothing good would
come of loving a man. In the old days, that would have been fine, but not
today. Not with white eyes running the show.
The ghostly gray touch of dawn drew him back
to reality. The cat could have come and gone, and he’d never have known. He
shook his head, willing the ghosts of his past to remain in his past. The growing
light gave the canyon an unreal, otherworld appearance. The wind wafted down
the canyon. Damn! The cat would smell him.
He froze. Instinct stilled every muscle. The
lion was here! He almost missed it. A tawny blur bounded toward him before he
could free his rifle from the bedroll. He almost felt relief. Would Lyle be
waiting for him?
At the last moment the cat spotted him and
veered left, knocking a tree limb Wolf had used to camouflage his position into
him. The rifle flew from his fingers. The cat streaked by.
Wolf scrambled for the weapon. The beast was
halfway up the wall of the canyon, climbing with a grace that made Wolf think of
Lyle, when he swung the rifle around. The gun roared. The puma stumbled,
gathered himself, and sped on. Wolf cocked the rifle and got off another shot.
The cat screamed and clawed the air with its forepaws. The tawny form tumbled
end over end in space, falling with a muffled thud into a deep bank of snow. Wolf
walked up, not caring if the lion was wounded and dangerous or dead and
harmless. But the cat was dead. Dead like his lover.
Blind with tears, Wolf raised his rifle and
fired three rapid shots into the air, summoning the others.
Let me know what
you think.
Website and blog: markwildyr.com
Email:
markwildyr@aol.com
Facebook:
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Twitter: @markwildyr
Now my
mantra: Keep on reading. Keep on writing.
You have something to say, so say it!
See you later.
New posts the first and third Thursday of the month at 6:00 a.m., US Mountain time.
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