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Despite the pink gloves, September’s hands hurt with the effort to hang on to the tracking line as Shadow eagerly led them to the source of the scent. Her hope took a hit when he stopped to investigate Sly’s car. She didn’t see the man anywhere, or his cat. She debated aborting the hunt. But Macy could have made it this far, perhaps even investigated Sly’s abandoned car on his way to explore the great outdoors. That could be Macy’s scent near the car.
No, she couldn’t stop now. She couldn’t take the chance. It wasn’t the dog’s fault if she’d given mixed signals. Besides, it was Shadow’s job to track, and it was her job to believe the dog. She needed to reward him if he found any cat.
The field across the road from her renovated Victorian house offered a maze of Johnson grass hummocks, and cedar trees sprouted everywhere, an unwanted green plague ranchers fought to eradicate. She nearly turned her ankle in a pig wallow, thankfully dry, where a sounder—feral pig herd—must have recently camped and uprooted turf seeking food. Between the hogs and the armadillos, the field offered ample opportunity for injury.
Shadow tugged her steadily toward the center of the field where a gigantic bois d’arc tree held court. Spiny branches scratched the sky. As kids, she and Mark had called them “witch trees.” Like most cats, Macy wanted to claim the highest perch possible. It made sense Macy had headed for the tallest tree around.
Parts of the old tree split, exposing the gnarly orange wood inside. Shadow slowed, sniffed and pawed the trunk and stared up into the tree branches. He jumped up, placing front paws against the rough bark, and whined before dropping off. He lay down and stared at her with a happy grin, his signal of a find.
“Good-dog, Shadow. Good boy.” She offered the praise and stroked his throat and he wriggled with delight. She stared into the dark, bare branches overhead, trying to see Macy through the twisty jigsaw. “Macy? Macy-cat, come.” She waited. Nothing happened. She’d expected at least a meow response. “Macy? I’ve got treats.” A shadow on one of the branches shifted, revealing the silhouette of a large fluffy cat. “Thank God!” She dropped the tracking line, and searched for a way to climb into the boughs. Cats often acted like it was too undignified to come down once they managed to climb aloft.
“Shadow, wait.” She found a scraggly branch so heavy it drooped nearly to the ground, and pulled herself up onto the broad wood. Careful with hand placement to avoid the spikes, September tight-roped toward the trunk of the tree until she was able to use smaller ladder-like limbs. “Macy, I’m here. Hang on, kitty.” She realized Shadow had wandered some distance from the base of the tree, probably enamored of some critter scent now that he’d nailed the hide-and-seek game.
She climbed twenty feet into the tree on the opposite side of the cat’s perch. September inched around the girth of the trunk, finally at eye level with the furry miscreant. The cat hissed—not Macy, but a strange longhaired tabby cat with a bright pink nose and crusty eyes—and leaped from the tree to the ground. Crap. This must be the cat Aaron had nearly hit, probably Sly’s sick cat, Pinkerton.
September grappled to maintain her balance, and bear-hugged the trunk. Below, Shadow’s head jerked to follow the cat’s flight, and without a backward glance, he leaped after the cat in a joyous chase.
“Dammit, Shadow, no!” She struggled to dismount the tree, her descent less graceful than the climb up, and jumped the last five feet in her hurry to stop the dog. Not only was Macy gone, now Shadow had disappeared.
“Shadow, come.” He knew the command, but wasn’t particularly reliable. She should have tied the line, she knew better.
He yelped—a sound of frustration, not pain or fear—and September dodged through the cedars and burr oak stands, eager to catch up. Vining brambles festooned cedar elms like overdone Christmas garland, smothering and bending saplings double. She ducked beneath swags of the prickles, and tore through green drifts that clawed her pants and scored her ankles. Shadow’s tracking line must have snagged. That was good and bad; good that she’d be able to catch him, but bad if she hadn’t been around. A caught line could trap the pup and make him easy pickings for coyotes. “Shadow, where are you, boy?”
He barked an answer, then twice more, and barks morphed to yodels of distress.
“What the hell?” September redoubled her effort, leaving torn fabric and skin behind, and broke through into a grassy opening.
Shadow barked and cried, leaped forward and back. His tail thrashed with conflicted emotions, his hackles erect. She bent to gather the long line of the lead that trailed in the grass at her feet. Three strides closer and she saw her wooden baseball bat creasing the tall grass. Puzzled, she retrieved the bat, and then dropped it with revulsion at the sight of the dark stains and clotted matter covering the business end of the wood.
The big tabby and white cat hissed from its perch. Shadow had cornered the feline against a downed barbed wire fence, the deadfall offering shelter but no easy escape. “Shadow, come.” The dog turned his head, and backed up to press his shoulder against her thigh. She could feel him trembling.
The strange cat hissed again, and shifted to face them. Its enormous paws worked rhythmically, treading in the universal feline kneading behavior against the soft yellow fabric upon which it rested, perhaps in an effort to self-calm.
“Pinkerton? Hush, kitty, I’m here to help.” She cautiously drew near, her boots crunching on dry vegetation, not wanting to spook Sly’s cat. Finding Macy would have to wait until she caught this stray cat. She couldn’t let her dislike of the reporter keep her from saving a needy animal.
September nearly tripped on a hummock of Johnson grass, and caught her balance on Shadow’s broad back. He whined, and licked where her fingertips poked out of the gloves. The breeze died for a moment, and a smell smacked her in the face, the stink so thick she gagged. She stopped, heart hammering. She’d know that smell anywhere. Blood.
The cat’s bright pink nose tested the air, but its eyes never stopped scanning, scanning, head turning first left and then right with a vague unfocussed expression as though blind and unable to see. A low keening sound, more growl than purr, made her scalp itch and mouth go dry. She gagged when Pinkerton’s furry toes squished, and red liquid pooled beneath its paws steaming in the cold air and soaking into the yellow cloth. September prayed the cat was crouched on a still-warm deer carcass. Cats were heat-seekers, and sometimes a hunter’s aim failed to drop prey in its tracks, and it ran for miles before collapsing.
But deer don’t wear yellow. Or have spiky red hair.
Pinkerton cheek-rubbed and head-butted the figure until a gloved hand fell sideways in the brittle thatch. He stared into the bloody mess where a buck-toothed smile had been, and yowled a feline lament for Sylvester “Sly” Sanger.
