Six

Warm sunshine tingling Nate King’s face returned him to the land of the living. He sat up with a start and immediately regretted doing so when a tremendous bolt of anguish shot through him. Groaning, he placed a hand on his temple and felt his palm grow sticky with half-dried blood. He flinched as he probed gently with his fingertips, tracing the outline of a ragged gash.

Propping a hand under him, Nate pushed to his feet, swayed at an onslaught of dizziness, and would have fallen had he not reached out and leaned against a tree. By the height of the sun he guessed he’d been unconscious for four or five hours. He scanned the woods for the stallion but saw only chipmunks.

“Damn,” Nate muttered. For all he knew, the black was halfway to Shoshone country. He would have to rely on one of the mares. At the thought he stiffened. Then he shuffled toward the camp, drawing both pistols when the thicket came in sight. He feared the worst, and his fears were realized.

Part of the brush barrier had been destroyed, barreled aside by a terrified pack animal. Drops of blood showed the mare had been hurt, and also showed she had fled eastward. The second horse hadn’t been so lucky.

Satan had brought the animal down by severing the tendons on her rear legs. Once the mare had been hamstrung, the panther had finished her off at his leisure, clawing great chunks from her body, slicing her neck to ribbons, and taking bites from various spots. The horse had died awash in a thick bath of her blood, and what remained was coated with crimson.

Not content with slaying the pack animal, Satan had turned his wrath on Nate’s belongings. The saddle bore a dozen claw cuts. The blankets had been frayed. A parfleche had been reduced to scrap leather. Not a single item was worth being salvaged.

Where was the Hawken? Nate wondered in dismay. He needed the rifle if he was to have any hope of escaping the valley alive. A search of the bloody area inside the barrier was fruitless. He expanded his search to the clearing with the same result. Pulse quickening, he hunted among the spruce trees. Persistence kept him at it for half an hour, at which point thirst took him to the stream. He was kneeling to dip his hands in the crystal clear water when he saw his rifle lying nearby. Grinning, he dashed over and scooped it up. Other than teeth marks on the stock, the rifle was undamaged.

Renewed confidence invigorated Nate. He drank heartily, then washed his wound, gritting his teeth against the torment. Going to the depression, he removed some of the brush and withdrew a parfleche containing jerky and pemmican. This went over his left shoulder.

He rummaged in a pack for an old blanket he kept on hand as a spare. From this he cut a wide strip, dabbed the strip in the stream, and wrapped it once about his head, securing it with a knot at the back.

Nate was almost ready. The rest of the bales were safe in the trees. The rest of his provisions were hidden in the depression. The traps he placed deep in a thicket where the rain couldn’t get at them. Then Nate hiked eastward, staying close to the stream where the going was easy. He chewed on jerky and kept alert for sign of Old Satan. All he wanted was one good shot, one chance to pay the monster back for the pain and all he had lost. Remaining in the valley would be foolish. Nate planned to head south and find McNair. The two of them would come back for his things, get in and out in a single day in order to avoid the panther. It was the best he could do under the circumstances. He should be thankful that he had enough pelts left to bring in a tidy sum at the rendezvous.

Nate recalled how his heart had leaped into his throat when the panther leaped at him the night before, and he marveled yet once more at the cat’s actions. Such relentless conduct was so extraordinary he doubted anyone would believe him when he told the tale. If he told the story. It embarrassed him to think he had been beaten by a wild beast. He’d long believed that with a little hard work and discipline a person could surmount any problem, could overcome any hardship. Yet here he’d been put to the test and found wanting.

Hours later Nate came abreast of the hill he had descended to enter the valley. Scaling it on foot was an arduous labor. He often had to pause to rest. On reaching the crest he turned and gazed down on Satan’s shaded valley, and in an act of sheer spite he cupped a hand to his mouth and voiced a series of Shoshone war whoops. They echoed off the mountains, rolling out across the valley in both directions. Wherever Satan was, he was bound to hear them.

Chuckling, Nate squared his shoulders and resumed trekking southward. Despite the nightmare, he was in fine spirits. He had food, he had ammunition. He had his rifle, pistols, knife, and tomahawk. He could live off the land almost as well as any Indian. In short, he was supremely confident he would reach his friend within a few days and his ordeal would be over.

The wildlife afforded ample entertainment. Whether it was squirrels scampering in the trees or ravens winging overhead or deer spooked from cover, there was always something happening. Once Nate spied moving brown spots on steep cliffs to the west. Bighorns, they were, bounding along the cliff face with unmatched ease, as unaffected by the dizzying heights below as if they were on solid ground.

Later, Nate spotted a small herd of shaggy mountain buffalo. He stopped, lifted the Hawken, then changed his mind. It had been ages since he ate a juicy steak, and merely looking at the grazing brutes made his mouth water, his stomach rumble. But he couldn’t eat a whole buffalo at one sitting and he didn’t have the means of packing the excess out. So rather than waste so much meat, he continued walking.

The sun arced westward, lengthening the shadows. Nate nibbled on jerky and looked for a spot to camp for the night. His head was torturing him. He’d turn in early, enjoy a decent sleep, and be full of vigor and vim come daylight.

A hare provided Nate’s supper. Lacking a pot to cook stew, he chopped the meat into square bits, then skewered them on a sharpened stick and held them over the fire until they were done. He ate with relish, wiping his greasy fingers on his leggings. For a bed he spread pine needles and grass to form a mat an inch thick.

That night Nate slept better than he had in days. Leftover hare was his breakfast. As the sun peeked above the horizon, he adjusted his possibles bag and ammunition pouch, shouldered the spare parfleche, and headed out.

Nate whistled as he walked, his rifle balanced across his left shoulder. The more distance he put between himself and the valley, the happier he felt. His previous worries seemed downright silly, and he convinced himself that he had let his imagination get the better of him by exaggerating Satan’s prowess. Toward the end there he had regarded the panther as if it had been a demon instead of just another oversized cat. True, it had an incredibly savage temperament. But Satan was a run-of-the-mill panther, nothing more.

Noon found Nate at a creek. Upon slaking his thirst he removed his bandage and washed the wound. It was healing nicely and gave no indication of being infected. He stripped off his buckskins and sat in a small pool splashing cool water on his chest and back. Refreshed, he followed the creek for over a mile, until it angled eastward and he had to journey on to the south.

Nate had hoped he would reach Shakespeare’s valley before the second day was up, but since he was making a beeline for the valley instead of taking the easiest route as he had on the stallion, the exceptionally rugged terrain slowed him down. Deadfalls, ravines, and cliffs all had to be skirted or negotiated with extreme caution. Consequently he was several miles from his destination when twilight claimed the mountains.

Nate’s sleep was even more restful than it had been the first night. He had chosen a sheltered spot close to the bottom of a towering cliff, as he had once before. At dawn he was up, eager to go on. Taking a piece of pemmican from the parfleche, he bit down and started walking, absently gazing at the cliff above. A patch of brown against the background of solid rock arrested his attention and he stared at it to see if it would move, certain it was another bighorn. Seconds later the creature rose off its haunches and walked a few yards, and when it did, Nate’s mouth went slack and the pemmican fell to the grass.

The animal wasn’t a bighorn at all.

It was Satan.

~*~

Long ago. Far away.

The boy was growing drowsy again. To keep from falling asleep and arousing his father’s anger, he stared out the kitchen window at the big oak tree in the back yard. A robin sat on a branch chirping its little heart out. The boy smiled, envying the bird its lust for life. And its freedom. The robin could go where it wanted, when it wanted. It never had anyone telling it what to do or how to live its life. How the boy wished he might have the same sort of freedom!

Motion registered at the corner of the boy’s eye and he swung his head around. Although he should have expected to see what he saw, he was nonetheless stunned to behold a mouse nibbling on the cheese. A tiny, harmless rodent with big, appealing eyes, its whiskers twitching as its mouth worked in a hungry frenzy.

The boy was mesmerized. He gawked in fascination, completely forgetting about the club in his hands. Never had he seen mice close up before. He hadn’t realized how very teeny they were, how delicate they appeared. The thought of crushing this one to a pulp caused his tummy to flutter.

A distant sound made the mouse suddenly stop eating and raise its head high to sniff the air. When assured there was no threat, it bit into the cheese with renewed enthusiasm.

Reluctantly the boy firmed his grip on the club. He had a job to do, whether he liked doing it or not. As his parents had pointed out, where there was one mouse, there were always more, and if left to breed uncontrolled they could infest a house from cellar to attic. Worse, they sometimes carried diseases. So the rodent had to be exterminated for the good of his family.

But the boy hesitated, unable to bring himself to perform the deed. The mouse was so fragile looking, so innocent. How could he kill it?

Over a minute went by and the dainty creature polished off most of the cheese. The boy had to do something soon or it would scurry into the hole. Girding himself, he raised the wood over his head, but he did so slowly, not with the speed required to strike in time to stop the mouse from escaping. The rodent predictably whirled and scurried into its sanctuary. Rather than being upset, the boy grinned.

“What do you think you are doing?”

Shocked, the boy looked up to find his father framed in the doorway. “I tried to kill the mouse,” he blurted even though he knew better.

“If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s a liar,” the father said gruffly, advancing and cuffing the boy on the head so hard the boy was knocked onto his backside. “I just stood there and saw you deliberately let that mouse get away. Why? What in the world were you thinking of?”

The boy rubbed his ear and clenched his teeth.

“Two days now you’ve been at this and you haven’t killed a single mouse,” the father criticized. “When I was your age, I would have had six or seven squashed by now. What excuse do you have?”

“None,” the boy confessed.

“No, you don’t. And frankly, I’m tired of this nonsense.” The father went to the cupboard and obtained another small piece of cheese. “Listen to me, young man,” he declared. “You’re going to do as I want whether you like it or not. I won’t have a shirker in my family. When there’s work to be done, we do it.”

“Yes, sir.”

The father deposited the cheese at the same place on the floor. “I want you to know that if it was up to me, I’d use poison. But your mother is afraid her darling dog would get hold of some. So we have to do this the hard way.” He glanced at the mouse hole. “You might be wondering why I don’t go out and buy one of the traps available. Why should I waste the money when you can do the job just as well or better?”

“You have always taught us to be thrifty, Father.”

“Take my advice. The sooner you get this done, the sooner you can go waste your time reading.” The father walked to the door, then looked over his shoulder. “Sometimes we have to do things we don’t like doing, son. We have to take the bad with the good, as it were.”

“I know.”

“Do you? I wonder.” The father frowned. “If you learn nothing else from this experience, learn this. The bad things in our life just don’t up and vanish because we want them to go away. We have to face problems head on and overcome them or they’ll keep coming back to haunt us later.”

~*~

Nate King gaped at the monster cat in disbelief. A wave of apprehension washed over him and there was a sinking sensation in his gut. It couldn’t be! And yet there the panther sat, gazing down at him from its lofty roost! The damn beast had trailed him all the way from the valley, had no doubt been shadowing him all along. Why? What did it have in mind?

The answer was obvious. Satan had no intention of allowing him to get away. The panther was stalking him, biding its time until it could take him unawares. The hunter had become the hunted.

But the very notion was preposterous! Nate reflected. Panthers didn’t track down people as they would other game. Quite the contrary. Panthers went out of their way to avoid human beings. Or most did, anyway, because there was no denying the testimony of his own eyes.

Nate raised the Hawken, realized he would be wasting the lead ball, and jerked the rifle down again. What should he do? Go up after the cat? No. Attempting to climb the cliff would be certain suicide.

Cradling the rifle in the crook of an elbow, Nate marched southward. Perhaps he was becoming overwrought for no reason. The panther hadn’t attacked him since he left the valley, had it? And before nightfall he would be back with Shakespeare, wouldn’t he? If the cat showed itself then, the two of them would ride it down, and whoever shot it would have a glorious trophy to mount on the wall of his cabin.

At the edge of the pines Nate glanced up. The mountain lion was gone. He raised a hand to shield his eyes from the bright sunlight reflected off the cliff face and scanned the rim to where it sloped down into the forest a quarter of a mile ahead. There was a chance he could ambush the panther if he could get there before the cat did.

Nate ran for all he was worth. Satan had outsmarted himself by taking to the high ground. There was just the one way down, since not even a mountain lion could descend a sheer rock wall. Nate would soon have the predator right in his sights!

Only someone with iron sinews and superbly conditioned to the high altitude could have reached the side of the cliff in so short a time. Crouching behind a boulder, Nate scoured the slope. Satan was bound to appear at any moment. He cocked the Hawken, rested the barrel on top of the boulder, and smirked. I’m ready for you, you hoodoo killer! he thought. Come and be rubbed out!

By all rights the panther should have appeared. Minutes dragged by and it didn’t. Perplexed, Nate climbed on top of the boulder to see if he could spot the tawny shape somewhere above. Either Satan was hiding or the cat had gone the other way.

On a spur of the moment decision, Nate ran up the slope to the rim. He couldn’t let this golden opportunity pass. The panther wouldn’t be expecting him to go after it, so he’d have an edge. Stealthily working his way along the narrow shelf that crowned the cliff, he held his finger lightly on the trigger.

To say Nate was upset when he had gone over fifty yards and not found his quarry was an understatement. He stopped, ascended a jumbled pile of boulders to the uppermost slab, and surveyed the shelf before him. It was as if the ground had opened up and swallowed the panther whole.

Just then, in the forest at the bottom of the south slope, a mountain lion coughed.

Nate swung around and glowered in exasperation.

Somehow, Satan had gotten to the woods before he got to the slope. All the time he had been looking for the cat at the top of the cliff, the cat had been resting in the shade of the evergreens. It was enough to make him want to hit something, so he did, slapping the slab and stinging his palm.

Retracing his steps, Nate was presently among the pines again. He figured Satan was ahead of him, and he searched diligently for tracks. The cat was too clever for him. All he located was a partial print that might or might not be that of a panther.

As Nate straightened he noticed the wildlife had fallen totally silent as it had that day he’d been en route to the dark valley, leading him to speculate on whether Satan had been stalking him far longer than he supposed. It was a disturbing feeling to find oneself the prey of one of the most fierce carnivores inhabiting the Rockies. Now he knew how a deer or an elk felt under similar circumstances.

Except there was an important difference. Unlike a deer or an elk, Nate could easily slay the big cat if he could only get a shot at it. To this end he vigilantly advanced. The eerie stillness rasped on his nerves, and he was almost grateful when a squirrel commenced raising a racket off to the right. Then it occurred to him that the cause of the squirrel’s outrage might be the mountain lion.

Changing direction, Nate went from cover to cover until he spied the chattering denizen of the upper terraces high on the limb of a fir tree. The squirrel was staring at undergrowth a score of yards from the trunk. Flattening, Nate studied the wall of vegetation. He was certain Satan was in there, and equally certain there must a method of luring the cat out.

A rock suggested a means. Nate picked it up, hefted it a few times, then hurled the rock as far as he could to the left. It hit in a tree and clattered off a number of branches before thudding to earth.

A patch of underbrush moved.

Nate sighted on the spot and held the Hawken steady. As soon as the panther showed its hairy face, he’d core its brain with a lead ball. He waited, and waited. The squirrel kept on chattering. The breeze increased, swaying the branches overhead. And the panther failed to materialize.

Again Nate tried to entice the lion into the open by tossing a rock, this time close to the underbrush where Satan was concealed. Not so much as a twig stirred. Puzzled, Nate crawled forward, setting his elbows and knees down gently to muffle the noise.

Every mountain man knew that it was easier to see a moving object when low to the ground. An erect man might miss spying a moving buck in a thicket because the color of the buck’s hide blended so well into the background. The same man, if crouched or lying down, would be more apt to detect the difference because the angle reduced the effect of the background.

So Nate remained flat on his stomach, and when he came to the undergrowth he snaked into its depths rather than stand and walk. A pungent odor stopped him. He didn’t have to look hard for the source, a pile of raccoon droppings by his elbow, droppings so fresh they were runny.

Was that what the squirrel had seen? Nate mused. A raccoon? Avoiding the pile, he wound farther into the recesses of the brushwood. Suddenly, a flurry of activity erupted thirty feet distant. There was some sort of struggle going on. Nate lurched into a run, stooping to pass under scrub trees. He saw a tawny form and another, smaller shape, swirling around one another.

Nate was almost upon them when the tawny creature sped to the northwest. The outline of the panther was unmistakable and he couldn’t resist dropping to one knee, aiming, and firing. Whether his shot was on the mark or not was impossible to tell. Apparently not, since Satan faded into the greenery without slowing the slightest bit.

Reloading on the run, Nate came to where the commotion had been and found a large male raccoon lying on its side, its lifeblood gushing from a ruptured throat, its intestines spilling from a ruptured belly. The panther had attacked it but not bothered to carry it off to eat. Wanton slaughter was all the beast seemed to live for.

The raccoon looked up at Nate and hissed. Its forepaws, uncannily like human hands, twitched and flexed,

“I’ll get him yet, for both of us,” Nate said softly. The coon’s small, dark, appealing eyes reminded him of something but he couldn’t quite pin down the memory.

Shortly the animal broke into violent convulsions. Gasping loudly, the raccoon breathed its last and went limp.

Nate finished tapping the ball and wad down on top of the powder and slid the ramrod into its housing. He trailed the mountain lion a few dozen yards, seeking spoor, and wasn’t overly disgruntled when he didn’t find any.

The panther was as devious as it was bloodthirsty. Satan never made mistakes, never left enough sign for anyone to follow. Experience or an inherent disposition had transformed the mountain lion into a living engine of destruction with an instinct for self-preservation that bordered on the supernatural.

A wry grin curled Nate’s mouth. He’d done it again, ascribed human traits to an animal. He must keep reminding himself that the panther was just that and nothing more. It could be killed just like any other panther. All he’d need was a bit of luck.

No. That wasn’t quite right.

All he’d need was a lot of luck.