Noel paused to take a breath. There was so much to tell her!
“That’s what your snow leopard did after you visited that day, by the way.”
Lori was staring at him as though he had gone certifiably insane. “What on earth do you mean?”
“I didn’t know you’d been there at the zoo that day – I was away. But Jeret was there – he saw you interacting with one of the leopards. He told me about it later. And then the next day, Min – that’s the leopard’s name – practically pounced on me. ‘Go after her!’ she was screaming at me. ‘You need to find her!’ I didn’t even know where to start...and then somebody visiting the zoo said they’d seen a cougar out this way. I didn’t put the two of you together, but I thought maybe the cougar was going to identify somebody else, so I came looking for that person.”
He paused again to catch his breath and calm down. “When I was putting up the sign in town and I saw you...that’s when I started to wonder if maybe the cougar and you were connected in some way.” He looked up at her and swallowed. “And you were.”
He was startled to see tears well up in her eyes, but then realized what he’d been saying. To her ears, he was talking about her recently-killed husband – not a cougar.
“We are connected,” she whispered. She swallowed thickly and brushed a hand across her eyes, stilling the tears from overflowing. “Is – Is the cougar going to be ok, Noel?”
He felt a small twinge in his heart for her, but squashed his pity – she didn’t need that.
“Oh, Lori,” he said with a profound gentleness, “he’s going to be fine. I think he just wanted to make sure I found you, you see. He’s perfectly safe.”
It was a surprise to both of them when she suddenly began weeping uncontrollably. She looked at him in shock when the first sob wracked her body and tried to turn away, but Noel grabbed her by the shoulders and steered her towards him instead. She collapsed against his chest and surrendered to the mixture of sorrow and relief then; her arms wrapped tightly around his middle as she let go of the sadness at last.
He was dimly aware that one of his hands was cupping her cheek as the tears flowed over them both and the other was stroking her soft hair where it ended on her shoulders but he had no other conscious thought after that other than to provide her comfort. He waited, feeling his heart swell with love not only for her but also for Cody and for all the little “coincidences” that had fallen into place to make this moment possible. She had been so lonely and so worried about Cody – he knew that now – and with a few little words, Noel had been able to reassure her and help her start anew. He was truly blessed to know her...and to be a part of this.
A long, long time later, she finally pulled away from him and scrubbed her face with her shirtsleeve. “Sorry,” she said, her voice muffled against the fabric.
“Hey,” he said rather sharply, causing her to look at him in surprise. “Don’t you ever apologize for that again, okay? I mean it. That was necessary and beautiful – you honour him and the love you two had by doing it.”
She nodded mutely then looked out over the dark driveway. “It’s late,” she said, her voice raspy with tears.
“It is,” he confirmed. “Is there more that needs to be said, though?”
“It’s a lot to take in,” she confided.
“I know. And there will undoubtedly be some denial when you wake up tomorrow and the harsh light of day makes you doubt this conversation even took place.”
Noel leaned in towards her and smiled. “Just for the record, it did.”
She laughed shakily. “Okay.”
There was another pause and Noel listened to the last few crickets, stubbornly clinging to the end of summer as they chirped under the porch.
“Noel, are you afraid?” she asked in the darkness.
“Afraid? No, not really.” He thought about how he’d felt since the black panther had come to visit the first time, trying to give her the full scope of his emotions. “With me, I had been dreaming of cats since I was a child – especially black panthers. From the first time I saw the Jungle Book, I’d imagined my very own Bagheera at my beck and call – I used to pretend that he would come and save the day whenever I got into imaginary dangers. And at night I used to pretend he’d jump up on my bed – he came in through the open window – and would lie at my feet, protecting me.”
Noel smiled into the darkness, remembering.
“So when the panther came to me a few months ago and told me to ‘wake up’...well, I didn’t really think too much about it. When I heard Jeret and Lynta were experiencing similar things, it did make my skin crawl a bit. But not really in fear – just in wonder.”
He looked at her speculatively. “Are you afraid of it, Lori?”
She smiled in self-deprecation. “Well, you have accused me of being afraid all the time.”
He smiled back at her, but remained silent.
“I’ll admit I’ve been afraid of a lot since Cody died – it’s scary being all alone. And not knowing when someone else you love is going to be taken away. That petrifies me sometimes. I was really afraid of that cougar when I thought it was trying to kill me. Now, I wish it would come back so I could say good-bye.”
Her voice cracked and she bit her lip to regain control. “But do you feel something big is going to happen?” she asked plaintively.
Noel looked down at his legs, trying in vain to see into the future. “Yes,” he stated. “I do.”
Lori nodded next to him. “I do, too. Doesn’t that frighten you, even a little?”
He turned to look at her again and ran his hands through his now-black hair. “The greatest choice we have, Lori, is to decide every moment what we’re going to do, who we’re going to be. I am not going to be afraid.”
He wondered, afterwards, whether those words would come back to haunt him in the end.
**********
Lori watched, bemused, as Noel made notations in a small journal he had brought with him to the house; he had the most beautiful, elegant handwriting she had ever seen a man use. He was seated on the couch in her living room, one leg tucked up underneath him, while she sat forward on the love seat at a 90-degree angle to him, having her brains picked over.
“So go over it with me again,” he requested in his warm, low voice. “Your dream about the snow leopard...you were panning for gold, you said? And then a volcano erupted?”
She nodded, watching as he snapped the rubber band that he had removed from the journal when they started; he had wrapped it around his wrist to keep the kittens from eating it and it sat snug enough that it was leaving a mark.
“Yes, I remember the gold and the volcano very distinctly. It was almost as though the leopard caused the volcano to happen.”
Noel wrote that down, too, and pursed his lips in thought. “And you don’t know where this took place?”
She shook her head. “No, I’ve never seen the place in my life. It was very foreign to me – nothing looked familiar.”
Luke jumped up next to Noel and began pawing at the rubber band; Noel stopped drawing attention to the “toy” and watched the kitten gently insinuate his teeth and claws between Noel’s skin and the elastic.
“If you had to guess, where would you say it happened?” he asked, then rested a burnished brown hand on the kitten’s head. “Gentle there, little man,” he cautioned.
Lori shrugged. “I don’t know...it felt Asian for some reason but I don’t know my geography well enough to say what volcano it might have been.”
Leia had jumped up next to Lori and she gathered the little grey tabby in against her hip, gently stroking her as she thought.
“Be careful about taking things too literally, Lori. Dreams are usually full of as much symbolism as they are reality. Volcanoes can be a symbol of awakening energy...creative fire, if you like. It wasn’t necessarily a literal volcano in Asia.”
He made a few more notation
s and then continued. “I think that’s probably what the volcano was doing there. The snow leopard entered your dream and suddenly your world was rocked, for lack of a better metaphor,” he said with a lopsided smile.
She smiled back at him and nodded. “Fair enough. What about the panning for gold?”
“Looking for treasure, seeking something...but what are you seeking? Wealth? Power? Maybe just answers to what’s going on? That’s a fairly classic symbol of a quest.”
Lori sat back slightly and gave Leia a reassuring glance after disturbing her rest. The kitten yawned and stretched out a paw, hooking her claws in Lori’s jeans, claiming her. “If you say so,” Lori told Noel. “I’ve never heard of anyone dreaming of panning for gold before.”
He smiled up at her and winked. “Trust me. Anything else?”
“Mm-hm. The leopard wanted me to follow it – it was almost like she said ‘come’ and then she turned around and started walking away...and I went after it. I remember following the tip of her tail like it was a beacon as the sun set – it felt like we walked for hours and then it was night and it went completely dark. That’s when I woke up.”
Noel finished writing a bit more and looked up at her again. “So you walked into the darkness?”
Lori felt a trickle of premonition run down her spine. “Yeah. That doesn’t sound good, does it?”
Noel cocked an ironic eyebrow at her. “You sound afraid again.”
She rolled her eyes and stuck her tongue out at him. “Oh, shut up.”
She was rewarded with one of his heart-warming laughs and felt the worry ease a bit in her own heart.
“Anything else?” he asked.
“No, that was it, I think. It was a beautiful cat,” she added then felt ridiculous for saying so.
But Noel looked up at her and held her eyes with the light shining from his coal-black ones. “Snow leopards are.”
**********
Noel took one final look around the loft, ensuring there was nothing left behind he had brought. Leave no trace, he ironically thought as he drew the curtain and shut the door behind him.
Bear bid him a farewell from the bottom of the barn stairs and Noel picked him up and gave him a gentle squeeze. “I’ll be back, buddy,” he whispered above the cat’s head. “You take good care of her in the meantime.”
The brown tabby butted heads with Noel and he laughed at the gesture. Setting Bear down, Noel then made his way to Ebony and Piper, giving them a final pat, too. Both were getting restless, waiting for their breakfast.
“She’s coming – don’t worry,” he told them. “Thanks for letting me room with you for awhile.”
After walking to his truck and setting his backpack on the seat, he turned around to find Lori coming down the front porch stairs.
“You’re leaving early,” she said, pulling the sleeves of her sweater down as far as they would go around her hands. The morning was brisk with a hint of frost on the blades of grass.
He took a few steps towards her but let her come the majority of the way until they were a couple of feet from each other.
He nodded. “I am, yeah. I’m driving to Toronto today – I told Jeret I’d be there by mid-morning to get situated at the apartment before he had to go to work.”
She looked down at the gravel driveway, not certain what to say. Finally, she looked up at him. “Noel, are you sure you won’t take any money? I feel like I should at least cover what you spent in groceries, or –”
“No, I told you – it’s not necessary. Besides which, we’re not done – we’re going to see each other again. I’m sure of it. There will be plenty of opportunities for us to look after each other, I think.”
She squinted slightly as she looked at him, trying to figure him out. Noel, why must you always be so obtuse? he chastised himself. Just because you’ve always been reserved and held things back doesn’t mean you have to be that way now.
“Lori, I –” he blurted then stopped again, trying to think of a brilliant way to say this. “I’ve enjoyed being here. I want you to know...well...”
What, he thought. That I love you? That you made my heart sing the first moment I saw you? That you’re a part of my soul?
She was waiting patiently for him to finish, but he couldn’t. Not when she had so recently lost the love of her life.
“Look, I just want you to know that I’m here for you. Anytime you want – or need – to talk, just call me, okay? You’ve got Jeret’s number that I gave you yesterday?”
She nodded. “I do.”
And wonder of wonders, it was she who moved forward then, and placed her hand on his heart. It was she who leaned in and kissed him lightly on the cheek before wrapping her arms around his shoulders and giving him a hug.
His arms went around her waist and he held her for a long moment.
“I feel as though I’ve known you my whole life,” she whispered in his left ear. “Good-bye, Noel. Drive safely.”
He reluctantly let her go, watching her walk between the house and garage – the same place where a mountain lion’s appearance had begun a relationship he fervently hoped would last a lifetime. And maybe thensome.
Noel Tecumseh smoothed out the brim of his black felt hat, placed it on his head, and stepped up into his truck. The last thing he saw when he pulled out of Lori’s driveway was one of her kittens, sitting in the window, watching him go.
**********
Lori heard Noel’s truck rumble to life and a few minutes later, she saw him heading down the road to the main highway. She took a shaky breath, blinked away the mist that had come up in her eyes, and slid the barn door open.
“Good morning, everyone,” she called to the animals inside. She was answered with soft nickers of greeting and the demanding meow of a large tom cat.
“Okay, kids,” she said with forced bravado. “We’ve got some preparations to make – we’ve got two new visitors coming in this afternoon.”
**********
Curtis Fanshaw arrived first with a coming three-year-old chestnut colt. He was a handful of a horse, Curtis had warned her, and then proceeded to offer Lori five times more than what she normally charged to start a horse under saddle. It was an incentive Lori couldn’t refuse but when she saw the red Thoroughbred come barrelling off the trailer like a monster was clinging to its face, Lori saw exactly why she was being offered more money.
It was an ugly, disruptive scene for a few minutes, while Curtis and Lori both tried to get the white-eyed, shaking colt to settle down. Finally, after Lori led the chestnut up and down the lane from indoor arena to barn for about ten minutes, the colt heaved a big sigh and started paying more attention to his surroundings. She turned him loose in the outdoor arena when she knew he was calm enough to go investigating on his own but the raw-boned chestnut simply stood at the fence and whinnied to Ebony and Piper on the other side of the property. Lori flipped a hay net over the railing of the arena and brought out a couple of buckets of water for him and that seemed to finally draw the colt away from his incessant calling.
“Well, my dear,” Curtis said as he made his way back to the truck and now-empty trailer. “He’s all yours. I’ll be back in 90 days to pick him up and I’m hoping you’ll have a few rides on him by that point. I know you’re going to run into issues with him, though, so if you can keep me posted through email, I’d appreciate it.”
“Of course, Curtis. I usually keep a journal for myself and the owner of what I do every day; would you like me to send that to you?”
“Oh, that would be lovely. That way if I have any questions, they can be asked right away before the training gets too far along.”
He left and Lori had just enough time for lunch before Rick Meyer pulled in with his horse – a stunning Grulla mare that Rick had recently imported from the States. The blue dun was the complete opposite of Curtis’ colt – she was a slightly older, been-there, done-that cowhorse that Rick wan
ted to try in reining. Lori was excited about the prospects of teaching a new role to such a beautiful animal and relished the opportunity to work with the mare over the winter.
Before Rick left, Lori asked him to help her move the portable roundpen from the outdoor arena to the indoor. The weather had taken a turn for the colder this morning and it was time she faced facts – winter was coming and that meant not only colder temperatures, but also less daylight. It was best if she moved her training business indoors until spring.
Because Curtis’ horse was still a stallion, she also wanted to keep him separated from the other horses as much as possible. He would be “stabled” in the roundpen inside the indoor arena at night while the two mares and Piper had the barn. Lori was definitely not taking the chance of that half-crazed colt fighting with her horse or getting one of the mares pregnant!
All too soon, Rick was also driving away and Lori felt an immense wave of loss roll over her. She felt Noel’s absence acutely; then to have the activity of Curtis and Rick here abruptly followed by their departures only reinforced the emptiness now. She postponed going back to the house, triple-checking the horses to make sure they were acclimating themselves to the new environment, bedding down Ebony and Piper earlier than usual, attempting to deepen her friendship with Bear for fifteen minutes, and even going up to the loft to tidy up things that didn’t need tidying. She would have admitted to no one that she paused several times while in the room so recently vacated by Noel to breathe deeply of the fragrant sandalwood and sage grass he’d left in his wake.
Finally there was nothing left to do but go back to the house. She dragged her feet up the back porch stairs, entered the quiet abode, and picked up random pieces of mail that she had dropped on the kitchen counter earlier in the day.
When she saw the brochure for McMaster University out of Hamilton amid the envelopes, Lori paused, her fingers skimming over the catalogue of classes. She had always wanted to go on to school, but it hadn’t been a realistic goal right after getting married and trying to set up a business. Lori knew that now was probably an even more unrealistic time to try to take courses, but she picked up the catalogue, anyway, and carried it over to the couch.