Wanted: Sharpshooter

CHAPTER 18

  He heaved himself up, held out a hand and hauled me up also. "I'm going to get that cat." This was the Max of the Rangers, a professional whose dossier included killing if such was part of the job.

  "Where do we start?"

  "Whoa! Not 'we.' You stay here and take care of the horses. I'm going after that SOB."

  "You said yourself that the horses will be fine inside the barn as long as the doors and windows are shut."

  "You are not going."

  I spread my legs and folded my arms. "Yes I am."

  "I want to move fast. No telling how far it's got to. You'll slow me down. And you're scared. No telling what that'll do to you if we find the cougar."

  "I won't slow you down." We stared at each other. "If I do, you can go ahead, and if I panic you can ignore me. But neither will happen because I can keep up with you any day of the week and I want that cougar dead more than anyone."

  He took a step towards me until we were eyeball to eyeball. "You can't go."

  I didn't back down. "I'm your boss and I decide who is and who is not going."

  "Then I quit."

  "Quit. See if I care. If you do, I'll simply go after that cougar myself." No need to mention I couldn't hit the broad side of a barn. I had a shotgun, if I pointed it in the right general direction, possibly I'd kill it.

  But I didn't have to head into the forest with a shotgun because Max caved. His shoulders dropped and his head tilted slightly as he realized that I meant what I said. "Okay. You're the boss. But I swear, if you slow me down, I'll leave you to fend for yourself in the middle of the woods."

  "Fair enough." We each took a weapon and, grabbing a couple bottles of water because we could be gone many hours, he led the way to the beginning of the blood trail he'd discovered during the night.

  He pointed. "Here's where he was when you hit him." My eyes measured the distance between the low-hanging branch he'd waited and the spot where I'd stood. The inner stability I'd achieved that morning almost disappeared. But, as I felt the first swirling of fear return, something blocked it. Anger.

  How dare that big cat threaten me and the horses under my care! How dare he scare me! Max, watching, under his breath, said, "That's my girl." Then he stepped over the blood spots and led the way into the forest. I followed his ground-eating stride over roots and around branches without pausing.

  It was all I could do to keep up but I plunged after Max determined not to show weakness. Deep in the woods, too far to know where or how long it took to get there, Max suddenly stopped. Put a hand behind him to stop me. Indicated I shouldn't speak. Then he stepped aside and pointed downward.

  A smear of blood covered an area of a couple feet in diameter, and then there was a short blood trail that ended beneath the branches of a low-lying bush. A deer's leg stuck out. A dead deer.

  Before approaching, Max turned around slowly, searching in the surrounding trees for any evidence of a cougar. He spent a good five minutes looking before deciding the big cat wasn't nearby. Then he crept close to the deer carcass and knelt down to inspect it closely.

  He didn't touch it but pointed to the savage marks on the neck. "Cougar killed it. No doubt about it."

  I breathed a sigh of relief. "So the horses are safe." Because the puma had other food.

  Max shook his head. "The cougar killed it but didn't eat it." He pulled back a bit. "It's hungry but didn't take time for more than a couple bites. Then it hid the carcass."

  "It's gone, that's all that matters."

  "The only reason for a hungry animal to leave a fresh kill is because it knows it's being followed. It hid the deer because it hopes to return later and finish the carcass but it won't if it senses our presence. Or if it knows we followed its trail."

  "So?"

  "So the cougar knows we are after it." He put a hand on the deer carcass. "Still warm. It left because it heard us coming."

  Minutes ago or less. My breath stopped for a second. "Is it nearby?"

  "Don't know." His eyes inspected the trees again and he shook his head. "It's not here now." He held up one hand. "You can hear the forest animals and the birds. It would be quiet if a dangerous predator was close."

  "So it's gone."

  Something inside of me that I hadn't known was tense relaxed until his next words. "What we need to know now is where it went." He rocked back on his haunches and stared at the deer carcass as if it could provide answers.

  "Does it matter where as long as it's away from here?"

  He rose in one smooth motion, thigh muscles outlined against the fabric of his jeans. Long-sleeved shirt buttoned against the mosquitoes but fitting tightly along his shoulders. "A couple bites of a deer carcass won't sustain it for long. And it's injured, which means it'll need even more food to aid the healing process. It'll go where it knows there's food."

  "Where's that?"

  "We follow it and hope it finds another deer." He gathered the thirty-ought-six he'd set to one side and hefted it. "It's still bleeding enough to leave a blood trail. Maybe we can catch up to it." He didn't sound like that was likely. "And end it."

  He bent slightly to find the discoloration in the dirt that was blood and we set off. Max's head was bent and we moved slower than before because the cougar was bleeding less and less, leaving a more difficult trail to follow. But, though the going was slow, he was confident of the direction. Through the trees, skirting a swamp, over a hill where the blood was thicker. "Because it bled while it stopped here for a look-see. It's thinking. Figuring. Deciding what to do next."

  We stopped too, and looked around. We could see for miles from the hilltop. Back towards where we'd been, and then farther back than that to the stable, a tiny speck of a cleared area in the solid green of the north woods, and then ahead to where the cougar's tracks led. I tried to breathe and couldn't. "It's making a circle."

  "It's returning to Green Forest. Because it needs food and the horses are an easy meal."

  "Oh my God!"