Call of the Cougar

  "No. I want to take a look around from that vantage point."

  She nodded and followed him up. He was as surefooted as when he was climbing around as a cougar. So was she. He was making good time when he suddenly stopped, crouched low against the cliff face, and she nearly ran into him. She waited, listening like he was, and then she heard someone talking in a hushed voice down below, more in the direction of a mine shaft. Up above, someone was smoking a cigarette. She smelled the smoke as it curled about her, and saw the light from the sparks flicked against the darkness. Ass. He could start a fire in the dry brush up there.

  Someone began ripping a board off one of the mines below, tossing the boards to the ground, and banging some tool against the next one.

  "Hurry it up, damn it. We don't have all night," Mooney growled.

  Her heartbeat quickened as she realized he was in on the job. They’d finally catch him in the act of handling the illegally gotten ivory—if that’s what they had stored in the mine.

  She was both delighted that they’d catch these men red-handed and apprehensive that something bad would go down. They could wait for Dan and the men he was gathering to watch their backs, or chance losing the whole thing if the men moved the goods now, and they weren't able to stop them. She heard three distinct male voices and saw four lights, looked to be headlamps, casting some illumination about down below.

  The man on the cliff was still smoking up on the cliff. How many of these men were cougars though?

  Hal motioned that he was going after the lookout and for her to stay put.

  She did and watched as he began to crawl up the cliff really slow, trying to keep from making a sound, or from sending any loose rocks tumbling, and alerting the man above or the ones below. She had enough of a rock shelf to balance on that she was able to pull out her gun and ready it for a firefight—just in case.

  Then disaster struck. The men were still making a racket with the boards, but Hal slammed into the man above, and he cried out. Not loud or long, but enough that it made the guys down below stop what they were doing. One of them called out, "Jessup?"

  No response.

  She couldn't see Hal or Jessup from her vantage point now. They both had to be lying down on the rock shelf.

  "Go check it out. And you, hurry with the damn boards!" Mooney said.

  The one man began ripping at the boards again while another headed up the cliff with his headlamp on so he could see where he was going. Not good. As soon as he reached a certain vantage point, he was sure to see Hal and Jessup. And then the shooting would begin.

  "See anything?" the man called out from down below.

  "No. He must have taken a stroll. No sign of him."

  Tracey was barely breathing, keeping close to the rock face so he couldn't shine his light down in her direction and catch sight of her.

  "I'll take care of it," another man said. "Why don't you come down here and help out below?"

  Benny? Tracey thought she recognized his voice.

  "Don't take long, Benny. You know your way around the silver mine the best of any of us."

  Benny. Stan. The cougar. He would track Hal and Jessup, wherever they'd gone to. He'd track her. Damn it. Would he shift?

  She needed to shoot him before he shot at her. He had to die. As a cougar shifter, there was no going to jail for him. She readied herself as she heard him make his way up the cliff and the other man made his way down. But Benny wasn't wearing a headlamp. She could see him though, with her cat's night vision. Just like he would be able to see her if he moved just far enough to the cliff’s edge once he was on top. He was moving like a cat in human form, carefully, smelling the air, trying to detect their scents.

  "How in the hell can you see what you're doing without using any light?" someone shouted from below.

  Benny was on the hunt and he wasn't saying anything, just moving quietly, cautiously, searching for his prey.

  To her surprise, Benny began to strip. He was going to shift. Had he seen her? Was he going to leap down and kill her? If she didn't get a shot off at just the right angle, he could kill her.

  She didn't want to alert the men below by firing off a shot. If they heard her, she could just imagine them all firing a barrage of rounds at her, or attempting to get away. But she was certain they’d want to grab their booty before they took off. And they probably didn’t think they had a big police force here to deal with because no one had identified themselves. She really didn’t want to scare them off, if they decided to run and didn’t take the merchandise. Law enforcement would find the evidence, but she wanted all the men responsible to be caught with the goods. She didn't want any of them to get away this time.

  "Go in. Hurry," one of the men said. And she assumed they'd cleared the boards away from the mine shaft finally.

  She couldn't see Benny any longer and assumed he'd shifted and was on all four paws. Suddenly, he peered down over the cliff edge and looked straight at her. He must have smelled her. She readied her gun, but another cougar slammed into the cat and sent him flying in another direction. Cougar snarls and growls filled the night air.

  One of the men below said, "Damn, a cougar must have gotten Jessup."

  "What about Benny?"

  "Sounds like two cats fighting over a meal. Benny and Jessup? Come on, let's get the stuff out of the mine. Fewer of us to divvy up the money to."

  Mooney. Greedy bastard.

  “Go on. Get down there. I’ll follow you in.”

  She was glad the men didn't believe it was anything to do with agents on the case though.

  She wanted to help Hal, but she couldn't. Not as a human. She had to keep watch on the other men, but if they were going into the mine, she wanted to be where she could see the entrance. Right now, she couldn't. One headlamp was still shining, the light angling up toward the cliffs, and she assumed the man was trying to see what he could of the cats. But Hal and Benny were well away from the cliff edge that dropped off to the town below.

  She needed to take the man out, who was looking up at the cliffs. Then there'd only be two or three left, she thought. Unless some were hiding someplace else, which seemed unlikely.

  At this point, it would be safer for her to go back down and come around with the man's attention on the cats up above. She began the climb down, cautiously, watching her foot and handholds, careful of not stepping on loose rocks and sending them flying because it would be coming from a different direction than the two cats and might alert the lookout.

  ***

  Hal knocked out Jessup, who had been smoking while standing guard. Hal hauled him off to a ledge below that area that he'd been standing on and waited while another guard appeared at the same place. Though Hal couldn't see him, only heard him walking around on top of the rock. The man's headlamp had been casting a light over the area, but the overhang prevented the new man from seeing Hal or an unconscious Jessup.

  As long as Tracey was quiet and he assumed she was fine, Hal kept still. But he was ready to take out the second man to even up the odds a bit when another man said he'd take a look instead. Hal recognized the man's voice as that of Benny's, and his heart rate picked up its pace by several beats. Benny could smell his and Tracey's scents. Hal had to take him out before he spotted Tracey.

  Climbing around the rocks, Hal made his way up to the point where he could see the man, Except Benny had shifted and now was searching for Jessup in his cougar form. He was smelling the air, and then raced across the rock ledge and peered over the edge. Hal raced across the rock to reach him. Hal slammed into Benny and sent the startled cat flying, both of them snarling and hissing in anger.

  The cat growls made for great cover for Hal and Tracey, to disguise that they were here if the men below feared law enforcement had taken out their other friend.

  For a second, it was a standoff between the two big cats—their ears flattened, their teeth bared, and noses wrinkled in a menacing threat. Hal lunged and bit at Benny's neck, but the big cat scrambled
and literally fell off the rock and jumped down to a lower ledge to recover. Hal leapt from his higher perch, not giving Benny the chance to steel himself, and attacked again. But the cat jumped to an even lower rock shelf and saw Jessup unconscious on another and growled.

  Hal jumped down and attacked again, growling as Benny hissed back. Benny was more of a runner rather than a fighter, yet he knew he had to kill Hal or be killed.

  Claws extended, Benny halfway stood, his teeth bared, trying for a head on bite. Hal jumped away and sent rocks flying over the edge. Then he leapt toward the cougar and bit Benny's neck again, but the cougar fell backward off the cliff and landed on his feet on a rock down below.

  Hell. Damn cowardly cougar. Movement up on the rocks stole Hal's attention for a moment as he worried Tracey was coming to help him.

  As if he knew he had to finally make a stand, Benny leapt at Hal and this time managed to bite Hal's flank. Distractions could be deadly. Hal shook loose but the rock was too small for the two of them, and both fell off. He landed on a lower rock ledge, while Benny was up above.

  A shot was fired from the direction Hal had left Tracey. Glass shattered. A man cried out. A flashlight hit the rocks on the other side of the cliff from where Hal was now. Then a barrage of rounds struck the rocks where she'd been, pinging, chipping, but nothing that sounded like it had hit a soft target. Still, Hal's heart was racing as he feared for her safety. When he jumped onto the rock where Benny had fallen, Hal found he had already taken off.

  Heart thundering, Hal bounded off after Benny, fearing the worse—he was going to take out smaller prey—Tracey.

  ***

  No matter how carefully Tracey moved, she felt a few rocks slip under her right foot. Her heart beating out of control, she immediately stopped climbing and held her breath.

  Four or five rocks skittered down below her all the way to the bottom and stopped.

  She waited for what seemed like forever. If she was in her cougar form, she'd just leap down from her current perch. Even though she moved quieter in her human form than most, she was still limited by what she could do as a human.

  The man pulling guard duty crunched on the rocky earth as his footfalls headed in her direction. He was holding a gun in one hand and a high-powered flashlight in the other, pointing the beam all over the cliffs, but mostly below where she was. She didn't have a choice. If the light hit her in the eyes and blinded her, she'd be in damn big trouble. She readied her weapon, aimed, and fired a shot. Glass shattered as the round hit the flashlight, knocking out the light. The man cried out, dropping the flashlight with a clunk on the rocks. And then he began firing rounds that struck the rocks all over the cliff with resounding pings and clunks.

  Chips of rock flew everywhere, one skimming her cheek like an arrowhead, and the skin burned from the impact. She moved as quickly as she could, backing away from that side of the cliff. She worried the other men would come running and see what was going on if they had heard the shots fired up above the mine shaft. Or they'd stay put and figure they were trapped. Maybe they'd think the guy standing guard was in a major shootout with the Feds and they wouldn’t budge from the mine.

  She decided to move up the cliff face again. She’d go to the top and come around one of the miner's huts at the same location that the other two men, Benny and the other, had come up.

  She wasn’t sure what was going on when the guard stopped firing, and no one came running from the mine.

  The guard probably figured she had night-vision goggles and was at a better vantage point to see him than he could see her. He had ducked below the cliff, turned off his headlamp, and she suspected he was waiting in the dark. She couldn't see where he was, but only guessed it from when he had turned off his headlamp, and then his footfalls moved back toward the mine. She reached the top of the cliff, then made her way down. This would be even better. Once she was able to reach the bottom, she would be able to see him, but he couldn't see her without using a flashlight or headlamp. She'd take him down without a fight. As long as he wasn't a cougar shifter, she needed to take him alive for prosecuting.

  "What the hell's going on up there?" someone called up from the mine shaft.

  The man on guard duty didn't respond, probably scared witless that a sniper would get him as soon as he let out a peep.

  She continued down, hoping she wouldn't make a sound this time. She guessed he'd be breathing so hard, his heart beating out of control, that he wouldn't hear much of anything unless she sent a bunch of rocks tumbling.

  She reached the ground and saw him half hiding behind a timber to the entrance of the mine.

  "Gesner! What the hell is going on? Answer me!" Whoever was in the mine had climbed near the top of the shaft and his voice, much louder this time, startled her, making her jump a bit.

  She had to take out Gesner. Either the man in the mine would stay down there, or he would come out shooting, but she'd have a better chance at fighting one, than two.

  She shot at Gesner's exposed arm, the one holding the gun. He instantly began firing back in the direction she'd shot him, but she had already jumped away from the location and run off, only this time she had a full view of his body. She fired two rounds, both at his wounded arm and this time heard bone shatter. He cried out and dropped to the ground.

  She moved again away from where she had fired the last rounds. She wished she could get hold of the other man's gun, but she figured he wasn't going to be able to use it anyway. He was sitting now on his butt, holding his arm, groaning.

  "Hold your fire!" the man in the mine called out. "We’re filming a movie and we've got permission to be here."

  If she wasn’t so anxious about Hal and what a mess she could be in, she would have laughed at the absurdity.

  "Gesner, are you all right?" the man called out, still not venturing out of the shaft.

  "Wounded. Right arm."

  "How many are out there?"

  "Not sure. Maybe a dozen?"

  She smiled. Anything to save his pride. She still heard Hal fighting with the other male cat, and she was praying he'd come out on top.

  There was a lengthy pause and then a gun flew out of the shaft and landed on the ground. "I'm unarmed. Don't shoot. I'm coming up. You're supposed to identify your damned self. That's the law."

  Been there, done that. These guys didn't give officers any chance at survival. Since dozens of officers weren't really here to take these men in, she couldn't chance having them identify her location. Though as soon as the man’s head popped up out of the mine, his headlamp would soon reveal her position.

  Right before he reached that point, he turned off his headlamp.

  He wasn't going to play fair either.

  Chapter 20

  Hal hoped to hell Tracey was okay. He'd half leapt, half fallen to another ledge, when Benny bit him hard in the shoulder. He wasn't going to be an easy cougar to kill. Every time Hal heard shots fired down below, he prayed to God that Tracey's rounds were finding their destination and the traffickers were missing their mark. But they were firing a hell of a lot more rounds than she was.

  When Benny didn't come after him, Hal feared the worst. Benny was going after Tracey.

  Hal leapt back into the rocks above, his shoulder burning like it was on fire. Then he followed Benny’s trail through the rocks, past the miner's house and snarled a warning to Tracey that the cougar was coming after her if she couldn’t smell him in time.

  It was Tracey’s worst nightmare. She didn't have a choice. She had to shoot the cougar with the intent of killing it. But if she killed Benny, he'd shift into a human. And then the other men would see it and have to be eliminated. Benny knew that. Maybe, he thought she wouldn't shoot to kill. That he'd get her first, and take off.

  Tracey fired at the cougar lunging for her, four shots. As soon as she began firing at the big tan cat, a man came out of the shaft and began firing at her. The cat collapsed on her, not dead or he would have shifted. Unable to get Benny off her, sh
e used him as the only cover she could, firing from underneath him.

  The man fell back into the shaft. Tracey hoped he took some others with him if they all had the notion to join the shootout.

  With Benny seriously wounded, Hal knew he couldn't join Tracey as a cat. He had to shift, dress, and get his gun. He hoped she could hold out until he could join her. She was still struggling to push Benny off her when they heard men's running footfalls coming from the direction of the wagon trail.

  "Police! Drop your weapons! Everyone put your hands up!" Dan shouted.

  Thank God for big prayers. Hal hurried down the cliff and raced across the ground to reach Tracey. He jerked Benny off her and tossed the cat aside.

  Hal pulled Tracey into his arms, but she immediately recoiled. "Are you injured?" he asked.

  "No. But I smell your blood. Oh, Hal."

  "Just a small bite."

  "Like hell it is. We need medical attention over here!"

  "How about you?" He touched her cheek that had been cut and was bleeding.

  "It'll be healed up in a flash." She glanced back at the men they were pulling from the mine, disarming them, handcuffing them, and reading them their rights. They brought one man out who had apparently died. The man who had been shooting at her and then fell. She wasn't sure what had killed him. Her round or his fall.

  "Get them the hell out of here, now!" Dan said.

  She knew he wanted to get them out of here before Benny expired and turned into a human.

  "Was Mooney among them?" she asked Dan as he headed for them.

  "I thought he was the dead man in the shaft. But it wasn't."

  "How did the man die?"

  "The fall killed him." Dan glanced down at the cougar. "Is that Benny? We didn't see him with the other men."

  "Benny." She hugged Hal tight and never wanted to let go of him.

  "There's another man up in the cliffs. He's just knocked out, tied up, and not going anywhere, unless a cougar finds him for dinner."

  "We'll get him." Dan headed off to get some of the police officers who joined them to pick up Jessup.