“Will he eat me?”
Ben figured a dash of humor couldn’t hurt. “Not until he goes in the house and gets his dentures.” Reaching out to coax the cougar closer, Ben peeled back one of the cat’s lips. “See? Hardly any teeth.”
Jeremy smiled faintly. Apparently still shaky in the legs, he let Ben support more of his weight. “Is he a real cougar?”
What had worked once might work twice. “Nah,” Ben said, “he’s stuffed. There’s a winder behind his right ear. When I want him to move, I crank him up.”
Jeremy rewarded him with a grin that dimpled his cheek. “That’s silly.”
“Got you to smile, didn’t it?”
Jeremy shrugged. Taking stock of his small face, Ben noted that some color had returned to his cheeks and that his lips no longer looked blue.
“He isn’t stuffed,” the child observed. “I see him breathing.”
“No, he isn’t stuffed.” Ben gave Methuselah a scratch behind the ear, which earned him a wet nuzzle on the wrist. “He’s just a poor old toothless cougar who’s missing a front foot and almost blind.”
“I’ve never seen a real cougar before. Only on TV, and they were scary.”
In that moment, Ben knew he was a goner. Something about this child touched his heart. Maybe it was the unlikely mixture of timidity and courage that had so quickly melted his resistance. Or maybe it was just those big brown eyes that appealed to him in a way that defied explanation.
“Most cougars are pretty scary animals,” Ben said. “And they’re dangerous, as a rule. But Methuselah is an exception.” He allowed the cougar to sniff the child’s shirt. “He’s just saying hello. Can you say hello back?”
“Hi, ’Thuselah.” Jeremy touched a fingertip to the cat’s nose, then jerked his hand away. “What happened to his foot?”
“He got it caught in a trap.” Judging by the confusion in the child’s expression, Ben decided that he’d never heard of an animal trap. “A trap’s a gadget made of steel that resembles the jaws of an animal with very large teeth.”
Withdrawing his arm from around Jeremy, he lifted his hands to approximate the size. Startled by his sudden movement, Jeremy hunched his shoulders and threw up a frail arm to shield his face.
Ben felt as if a horse had kicked him in the guts. A child didn’t flinch that way without good reason, and he had a very bad feeling he knew what it was. He remained stock-still, a dozen different reassurances circling through his mind—first and foremost being that he would never hit a child—but the words wouldn’t come. Not that it mattered. Words were pitifully inadequate weapons against fear.
Jeremy slowly inched down his hand to peek at Ben over his wrist. When he finally determined that it was safe, he lowered his arm. The high color that flagged his cheeks told Ben that he was embarrassed. Ben remembered how he’d felt thirty years ago in a similar situation.
His voice grated like a rusty hinge as he continued his spiel, explaining how a trap worked. He watched Jeremy closely as he talked about springs and releases, and described how the jaws of a trap snapped closed.
Jeremy slowly relaxed. Ben doubted the boy was registering much of what he said, but again, it wasn’t words that mattered.
“The trapper lays the trap on a well-traveled path and hides it with brush and grass. When an animal happens along and steps on it, the spring mechanism snaps the jaws closed.”
“What happens then?” Jeremy asked.
“The teeth bite into the animal’s foot, sometimes to the bone, and it can’t get away because the trap is anchored.”
“Does it hurt?” Jeremy asked solemnly.
Ben looked deeply into Jeremy’s eyes, and he knew this child had experienced pain. “Yes,” he replied, his voice going thick. “It hurts a lot.”
The boy glanced at Methuselah. “How come do people set traps, then?”
“People just do it because—actually I have no idea why. They just do, is all.”
“What happens to the animals?”
“All they can do is lie there until the trapper comes or they die of thirst. Sadly, most trappers don’t check their lines daily, so it’s often a long, painful death for the animal.”
“That’s mean.”
“Yes, it is mean. That’s why traps like that have been outlawed in Oregon. Unfortunately, some people ignore the law and set traps anyway, and poor old Methuselah stepped in one.”
“How did he get away?”
Ben reached over to stroke the cougar’s fur. “Well, now, I wasn’t there, and Methuselah’s not talking, but judging by the damage to his paw, I think he fought his way free.” In truth, it had appeared to Ben that the cat had chewed off his foot to escape, but that wasn’t something to share with a child. “By the time he made it into my yard, he was half-dead with infection. I gave him a shot to make him sleep, amputated what was left of his foot, and got him on antibiotics to clear up the infection. By the time he was well, we’d become good friends. It took several weeks for him to heal.”
“So now he lives with you?”
Ben nodded. “Being blind, lame, and toothless, he can’t hunt anymore. Out in the forest, he’d starve. Here on the ridge, he gets fed.” He grinned as he ran a hand over the cougar’s well-padded ribs. “More than he needs, truth told. He’s getting a little fat. I guess he figures it’s pretty fine pickings.”
The child moved away from Ben to stand by the bicycle. Placing a protective hand over his puppy, he asked, “Does ’Thuselah eat little dogs?”
Ben smiled. “He has to have his meat cut up for him. The pup is safe.”
“No, not safe,” Jeremy said, his voice still hoarse from wheezing. “He’s dying. The vet in town says he’s got parvo. It costs a lot to cure. My mom went to Pineville to hock her grandma’s brooch, but it’s so old and ugly, I don’t think the pawnshop man will give her three hundred dollars for it.”
“Three hundred?”
“That’s how much we gotta pay before the vet’ll give Rowdy medicine. It’ll cost lots more to make him all the way well.”
Ben could scarcely believe his ears. “The vet in Jack Pine refused to treat your puppy until your mother came up with three hundred bucks?”
Jeremy nodded. “We only got ninety-eight.”
Neil Fenderbottom, the vet, always had been a mercenary bastard. Ben’s impression of the kid’s mother underwent a favorable change. Not many people would consider hocking a family heirloom to save a mixed-breed pup.
Ben pushed erect and moseyed closer. Once again, the child acted nervous. Ben recalled the gossip in town, the most obvious explanation for the child’s distrust of him. Yesterday at the store, he’d looked no deeper than that. Now, he wondered if he hadn’t jumped to the wrong conclusion. In his experience, flinching that way was a learned behavior. He would have wagered his last dollar that someone had been knocking the boy around.
The thought made Ben angry. He couldn’t figure the child’s mother as the culprit. She’d had a wary look in her eyes like Jeremy’s. Yesterday Ben had figured she was merely shy with strangers. But what if there was more to it than that?
Ben knew firsthand what it was like to live in terror of your dad. Home became a prison, and there was no escape until you turned eighteen. Jeremy had a long way to go.
He made fast work of giving the puppy a preliminary examination. The poor little mite was burning up with fever, and a pinch test told Ben that he was dangerously dehydrated. He needed to get the dog on intravenous fluids and antibiotics immediately, or he’d be a goner.
“Okay, here’s the deal. There’s only one thing I’ll accept in payment for treating your puppy. Silence.” Ben hooked a thumb at the old cougar. “If anyone, including your mom, finds out about Methuselah, I’ll go to jail, and he’ll be taken away. Considering all his physical problems, it’s unlikely the state will relocate him. They’ll probably just put him down. You know what that means?”
Jeremy nodded. “That they’ll put him to sleep?”
“Exactly. His life depends on you keeping your mouth shut.”
“How come they couldn’t just put him in a zoo?”
“Most times, people want to see healthy animals at a zoo. There are people trained to care for cougars, and if Methuselah got lucky, someone like that might take him. But what if he didn’t get lucky?”
Jeremy rubbed his hands on his jeans. “It’s just—” He broke off and swallowed. “I’m not s’posed to keep secrets from my mom.”
“And I don’t like encouraging you to.”
“My mom wouldn’t tell anyone.”
“All it would take is one slip. If anyone in town finds out for certain I’ve got a cougar, the sheriff’s department will be on me like bears after honey.”
Jeremy’s eyes went huge. “The sheriff’s ’ partment?”
“What?” Ben asked. He had a bad feeling, a really bad feeling, that Lady Luck had just thrown him another curveball. “Your mom’s not a deputy, is she?”
“Nope.”
“What, then?”
“She’s a ’patcher.”
“A what?”
“A ’patcher. She answers phones and calls deputies on the radio to tell them where they gotta go.”
“Well, damn it to hell.” Ben pinched the bridge of his nose. A dispatcher? It couldn’t get much worse than that. She probably saw Bobby Lee Schuck on a daily basis. “If that’s not a fine how-do-you-do.”
Jeremy cast a worried look at his puppy. “If you’ll give Rowdy medicine, I won’t tell. Not my mom or anybody. ’Thuselah won’t get put to sleep, I promise.”
Ben doubted the boy would keep his mouth shut. That was a worry for later, though. The damage was done, the puppy desperately needed attention, and Ben had struck a bargain.
It was strange how life turned out, he thought as he lifted the pup from the basket. At eighteen, he’d set out to change the world, determined to get through college and make his mark as a veterinarian. Now, nineteen years later, here he was, back on Cinnamon Ridge, tickled pink because he was about to provide medical treatment for a mixed-breed pup.
So much for setting the world on fire. Why, then, had he never felt more content? Ben guessed it was because he knew things now that he hadn’t then. In the end, when the scores were tallied, all that counted was the knowledge that he’d made a difference. When he released a deer from its cage and watched it walk again, he knew he’d made a difference. When he set a raccoon free and watched it shinny up a tree, he knew he had made a difference. There was suffering and pain everywhere. He’d never needed to leave Cinnamon Ridge to find it. At the ripe old age of thirty-seven, he’d finally come to understand that the most important place to make things happen was right here in his own backyard.
It reminded Ben of something his Shoshone grandfather had been fond of saying, that a young man could travel a great distance and never go anywhere. As a child, Ben hadn’t understood what Grandfather meant. Now he did.
Diablo joined them in the driveway. Ben immediately tensed, for the wolf was a formidable-looking critter. He shifted the puppy to the crook of one arm and grabbed hold of Diablo’s collar.
“This is another friend of mine. Jeremy, meet Diablo.” To the wolf, Ben said, “He’s a friend, you ornery cuss. Mind your manners and shake hands.”
Diablo sat back on his haunches and extended his right front paw, much to Jeremy’s delight. In truth, Ben was pleasantly surprised as well. From one time to the next, he never knew if Diablo would cooperate. The wolf was loyal, and he had a pack mentality, but Ben’s status as the alpha male afforded only certain privileges, which didn’t include absolute obedience.
Fortunately, Diablo was keenly intelligent and perceptive. He seemed to understand that this particular situation called for diplomacy.
“Go ahead, Jeremy. Diablo would like to shake hands with you.”
Jeremy scrunched his shirt in his small fist. “He growled at us yesterday.”
Ben leaned down to give the wolf a scolding look. “Have you been acting cantankerous? He doesn’t mean anything by it. Mostly it’s when people talk to him using baby talk. Diablo finds it insulting.”
“Yup. My mom talked baby talk. She called him a nice doggy.”
“Ah. You see? If you were a big, tough fellow like Diablo, would you want to be called a nice doggy?”
“She didn’t mean to ’sult him. We just didn’t want him to bite us.”
“Diablo doesn’t bite.”
Jeremy turned loose of his T-shirt and gingerly grasped the wolf’s toes. Not much handshaking occurred, but contact was made. Ben promised Jeremy that he’d show him more of Diablo’s tricks later and led his entourage to the back door. Before entering the house, he paused. “What’s your last name, Jeremy?”
“Evans.”
“Well, Jeremy Evans, here’s the story. My mother, Nan, has Alzheimer’s, an illness that makes people confused and forgetful. Sometimes she gets things turned around inside her head. If she comes out of her bedroom while you’re here and says funny things, you shouldn’t feel afraid.”
The child nodded. “My dad gets stuff all turned around inside his head, too. That’s how come me and my mom got a ’vorce.”
Ben was glad to hear that. Suspecting as he did that the child’s father had a mean streak, Ben figured it was better for Jeremy with the man out of the picture. Once again, Ben’s estimation of the child’s mother went up a notch. It wasn’t easy for a woman to leave a marriage and strike out on her own when there was a child to rear. It was even more difficult when that woman had possibly been battered.
Now Ben knew where the kid had gotten his backbone.
Chloe knew something awful had happened the instant she parked in her driveway. Before she could pull the keys from the ignition, Tracy flew out the front door and raced down the rickety porch steps. Her eyes were red and swollen from weeping, and she trembled with agitation.
“What is it?” Chloe got out of the Honda, prepared to hear the worst. “Is the puppy dead?”
“He’s gone, Chloe, gone. His little friend from across the street came and told me just a couple of minutes ago. I was about to call Daddy when you pulled in. I thought he was out playing. But he took off.”
“Took off?”
“I’m so sorry. I was watching him. Truly I was. You said he could go pretty much wherever he wanted in the neighborhood because there isn’t much traffic. He said he wanted to play in Boober’s tree fort, and I believed him!”
Chloe grasped the girl’s slender shoulders. “Calm down, sweetie.”
Tracy nodded and gulped. Her eyes welled with fresh tears. “I never thought he’d fib to me. He’s always so good about being where he says he’ll be. Boober says he put the puppy in his bicycle basket and went that way.” She flung her arm to indicate the direction. “After you left this morning, he kept talking about Ben Longtree, that crazy guy up on the ridge. He told me Lucy Gant said he was a vet. I think he took Rowdy up there.”
“Oh, God.” Chloe spun to look up the road. Every awful thing that Lucy Gant had said yesterday about Ben Longtree came back to haunt her. “Oh, God.”
Tracy made a mewling sound. “I really was keeping tabs on him, Chloe. I swear I was. You said it was okay for him to go play wherever he wanted in the general neighborhood, that I didn’t have to have my eye on him every second.”
Chloe tamped down her worry to give the girl a quick hug. In a rural area like this, it was safe for a child to run and play without constant supervision. That was one of the reasons she’d moved here, to give Jeremy that freedom. “Of course you were keeping tabs on him, Tracy. I’m not blaming you.” A picture of the wolf flashed through Chloe’s mind. If Longtree allowed the creature to run loose in a parking lot, he definitely wouldn’t bother to restrain it at home. On a bike, Jeremy would be defenseless against an attack. “Do you know how to get to Longtree’s house?”
The girl nodded. “He lives up on Cinnamon Ridge.” She flung her arm again. “It’s n
ot far from here, a mile, maybe two, to his main gate. You just drive to the end of Ponderosa Lane and turn left on what looks like an old logging road. About a quarter mile farther, you’ll see a big log arch on your right. That’s the road going up to the house.”
Chloe was already racing to her car.
Chapter Three
“So you divorced your dad, did you?” Ben mused aloud as he led the way through the laundry room to the hallway that ran the entire length of the house.
The child’s sneakers made squeaky sounds on the terra-cotta tile as he scampered behind Ben. “Me and my mom—her name’s Chloe—had to get a ’vorce. Then we had to move far away ’cause my dad wouldn’t leave us alone.”
“Ah.” There was a story there, and Ben wanted to hear it. Unfortunately, he valued his own privacy too much not to appreciate the sanctity of someone else’s. “So how do you like Jack Pine now that you’re here?”
“Real good. We’re gonna stay here for always, and when my pappy ’tires, he and my nana are gonna move here, too. I’ll be real glad, ’cause I miss ’em lots, and so does my mom.”
While passing his mother’s bedroom door, Ben touched a finger to his lips. Nan Longtree lay down for a midmorning nap at about this time, and the closed door told Ben she was asleep.
“Wow!” Jeremy exclaimed when they reached the front of the house.
Ben wanted to believe the kid was impressed by the layout of his home, which he’d designed himself. Unfortunately, he doubted a boy Jeremy’s age would appreciate the open floor plan or the wealth of skylights and windows.
“Where’d you get ’em all?” Jeremy asked as they reached the kitchen.
Ben guessed the child was referring to the caged animals that had become an integral part of the kitchen decor. Nerves formed a knot just behind his solar plexus. Until now, no one from town had ever been inside his home and seen all his patients.
Not wishing to consider the possible consequences, Ben barely spared the cages a glance as he skirted the end of the kitchen desk, which housed a computer workstation and was backed by a six-foot-high bookshelf. The U-shaped kitchen, bordered on three sides by cabinetry, included a state-of-the-art work island and a rectangular oak dining table where Ben performed emergency surgery. The wall of windows in the sunroom beyond offered a panoramic view of Newton Crater, showcasing Shoshone Peak and Cinder Butte.