Chapter 25
The Winchester bucked and roared in Catfish’s Thands.
The first bullet hadn’t exploded from the chamber, however, before both glowing orbs disappeared in the darkness.
Catfish slid the Yellowboy slightly to the right and sent two more rounds caroming into the darkness, feeling deeply frustrated when he heard no grieving cry that would have told him at least one of his rounds had hit its target. He jacked another round into the rifle’s breech, moved forward across the arroyo, and slowly climbed the bank. He moved through the prickly brush and swung to his right, the direction he thought the cat had retreated to, almost as though it had known Catfish had been about to start firing at it.
The cat couldn’t have known that.
Could it?
Some cats were savvy. Especially if they’d had run-ins with other men before. An old hunter for the Rangers had once told Catfish he’d believed panthers—the old frontiersmen’s name for wildcats—knew the smell of gun oil and took precautions accordingly.
Catfish stole along the curving bank of the arroyo, right index finger curled against the trigger, right thumb worriedly caressing the cocked hammer. His pulse drummed in his ears, aggravating the ache in his head. He could smell the blame thing. It was the sickly sweet stench of something wild. Wildcats carried that stench like no other animal Catfish had ever encountered, save grizzlies, which he’d tangled with a couple of times in his past, ruining a couple pairs of good drawers before he’d finally gotten the better of the beasts. This had been down around the border country, before the Anglo ranchers and hacendados had hunted most of them out of that country along the Rio Grande.
There was a snapping sound ahead and to his left.
It was followed by a low, guttural moaning.
Catfish turned sharply and fired into the darkness.
Again, no sign his round, too hastily fired, had hit its mark.
Dang, Catfish thought as he moved slowly in the direction from which the last two sounds had issued, it’s almost like the consarned beast is luring me toward it. As though it was hunting me!
He moved slowly through scattered oaks, mesquites, cedars, and cacti of all shapes and sizes. The rocks were smaller here, but they’d still offer cover to a skulking puma. As he moved up and over a low knoll, he pivoted each way on his hips, making sure the beast hadn’t worked around behind him. At the bottom of the knoll, he stopped suddenly.
That sickly sweet odor—sort of like the stench of an overfilled thunder mug.
Catfish tightened his finger on the trigger, looking around wildly, heart tattooing a war rhythm against his aged ticker.
Where in blue blazes . . . ?
Then he saw those two spherical yellow glows again. Up high on his right. Then he saw the rest of the big beast outlined against the starry night—the big head with triangular ears and long, rangy, muscular body lounging on a stout branch of a big post oak. The two yellow glows flickered as the beast blinked. Then its mouth opened, and the ensuing, enraged roar filled Catfish’s head as he took two stumbling steps backward and fired once, twice, three times.
He heard the grieved snarl and closed his eyes, waiting for the big beast to land on top of him as the last one had done. Because, regarding wildcats, at least, that was how his luck was going.
But there was only a very loud, ground-jarring thump, one more groan, and silence.
Catfish opened his eyes.
The big cat lay at his feet, sort of curled up on its side.
It opened and closed its powerful jaws, as though with a yawn. Then its mouth closed, the cat gave a deep chuff, rested its head down between its front paws, and lay still, both half-open, glowing eyes staring at the tips of Catfish’s worn boots.
Catfish sighed.
“I’ll be hanged,” he said.
A woman’s scream sounded from back in the direction from which he’d come.
Catfish wheeled. “What in the love of Sam—”
Julia screamed again, shrilly, then screamed: “Catfish! Help!”
“Lawdie, Catfish said as another cat’s roar cut through the night. He broke into a heavy-footed run, the jarring making his head ache miserably. “There . . . there must be . . . two cats!” he muttered, wheezing, sucking air into his lungs as he urged his overweight old self into more speed, holding the rifle up high across his lumpy chest.
He ran hard, weaving through the rocks and brush. His lungs felt on the verge of exploding as he ran up the slope. Ahead and above him, he could see the fire’s pulsating glow.
“Law . . . law . . . law!” he repeated, exasperated at his bad luck with wildcats.
Again, the lady screamed.
The cat lifted a growling, snarling wail.
Catfish’s heart leaped into his throat. Rising higher on the slope, bringing his and Julia’s camp in the nest of rocks into view ahead of him, he saw between the boulders, silhouetted against the fire beyond them, the lady standing beside the fire, holding a burning branch in each hand. She was fending off the sidestepping, feinting cat with the branches. The cat was maybe eight feet away from her, swatting at her with each paw in turn, curling the end of its upraised tail.
“Hey!” Catfish called, breathless as he continued climbing the rise. “Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey, there, you mangy critter—come an’ get me!”
He couldn’t take a shot from where he was, lest he should hit the woman, instead of the panther.
As he’d wanted, the cat wheeled and stood gazing at him with its own eyes resembling miniature torches in the fire’s flickering red-orange glow.
“Here, kitty-kitty!” Catfish shouted, dropping to one knee. “Come an’ get it, kitty-kitty! A treat just for you!”
The cat sat up on its rear feet, lifted its head, and gave a deep-throated, snarling roar. Then it dropped down to all fours, sprang off its rear feet, and broke into a lunging run toward Catfish, who grinned as he pumped another round into his Winchester’s breech.
Or tried to.
He ejected his last, spent cartridge and there wasn’t another one in the magazine to slide into the breech. He’d snapped off all his caps!
The cat, red eyes glowing, grew larger and larger before him. Catfish could hear the thudding of its dinner plate–sized paws on the gravelly ground, the raking of the air in and out of its bellowslike lungs. He froze for just a second. Then his hands opened. The rifle dropped to the ground. Knowing instinctively he had no time to raise and fire a revolver—the cat was only ten feet away and closing fast, both eyes glowing like coals—he left both Russians holstered. It was also instinct that caused him to slide the big bowie from the sheath on his left hip, behind the cross-draw holstered Peacemaker.
As the cat made its final lunge, Catfish held the bowie in both hands, blade pointed straight up. The cat flung itself against him, impaling its thick neck on the razor-edged blade. It snarled loudly, wickedly, and with great agony as it drove Catfish back off his heels onto his back. He winced as he held both his gloved hands fast around the bowie’s handle, feeling the hot blood pour from the open artery onto his own neck and his chest and face. He watched the great jaws open, the long, curved, deadly teeth glinting in the fire’s glow. The jaws closed, a couple of those teeth grazing Catfish’s nose, as he felt the cat go slack on top of him. The flickering eyes held on Catfish’s eyes as, holding the bowie firmly impaled in the beast’s neck, Catfish gave a great, atavistic roar of his own, while using every ounce of strength in his body to heave himself onto his side, rolling the cat off him and onto its back.
Catfish scrambled to his knees, pulled the bowie out of the cat’s neck, raised the knife high, and, with another unbridled roar caroming out of his throat, plunged the blade deep into the beast’s chest, into its heart so deep he could feel through the knife’s handle, through his hands and his arms, the pumping muscle shudder, quiver, buck once, and then fall still.
The cat groaned. Its eyes burned up at Catfish; the light of its wild life dwindled until there was only the reflection of the fire in them. A breath rattled up out of the cat’s throat. It turned its head to one side and lay slack beneath him, part of its broad tongue hanging from its mouth.
Catfish stared down at the great, dead cat beneath him.
He looked at both his gloved hands wrapped around the bowie’s handle as blood washed up around it to soak the beast’s white fur.
The night swirled around him.
He drew a breath, trying to regain his senses. He blinked his eyes. He knew in a vague way he was in shock and needed to pull himself out of it.
Running footsteps sounded to his left. They grew louder until Julia slammed into him from that side, driving him off the cat and onto his back, screaming, “Catfish!” The lady lay on top of him, wrapping her arms around his neck and sobbing into his chest. “Oh, Catfish, I swear, you are the bravest, most capable man I’ve ever known. My God—you’ve saved my life!” Her body spasmed as she sobbed against his neck. “Saved my miserable, wretched life!”
“Ah, hell,” Catfish said, drawing another breath into his lungs, clearing the fog of excitement from his brain, “it weren’t . . . aw, hell—er, I mean heck... it weren’t nothin’.” He chuckled, patting the lady’s back.
He felt her smile against his neck.
She lifted her head and, smiling into his face, jeweled tears dribbling down her cheeks, said, “I suppose you’d like to get up?”
“Ah, well,” he said with another dry chuckle, “only if you want to.” He had to admit he’d been in worse positions. He could probably lie here all night with Miss Julia Claire’s supple body resting atop his own. Then again, while he might know her by her first name, she was a lady clearly well above his station. And even firmly ensconced in his own lowly station, he was a gentleman. Albeit one of lowly and questionable breeding—if such a gentleman exists. “Yeah . . . yeah, I suppose we might.”
She smiled at him again, lowered her head, and planted an affectionate kiss on his mouth. Yes, on his mouth. Not on his cheek or nose, but right on the mouth. He stared up at her, somewhat aghast. Her cheeks dimpled again, beautifully, as she flashed her white teeth in another affectionate smile, then pushed off him, rising.
“Here,” she said, extending one of her hands to him.
“Whoa,” Catfish said, shaking his head to clear it.
What a night. What a day and then a night. His mind rolled over all that had happened. The wild day capped off by Black Taggart, Julia Claire, and yet another wildcat attack.
All that capped off by Julia Claire kissing him smack on the mouth!
He accepted the lady’s hand. She set her boots in the ground and gave a grunt as she helped heave his too many pounds to his feet.
She gave a ragged sigh, used both hands to slide her long, mussed hair back from both cheeks. “What a night, eh?”
Catfish looked down at the great, dead cat. “Yeah,” he said, drawing another deep breath of his own. “What—a—night . . .”
She laughed, then thrust herself against him once more, wrapping her arms around his neck. “Oh, Catfi—”
Her body tensed suddenly.
“Oh!” she cried, just as a rifle roared somewhere in the darkness behind her.
“Julia!” Catfish yelled, looking down at her as he felt her fall slack against him and sliding down his chest. He grabbed her arms, holding her against him, yelling once more, “Julia!”
Hooves thudded behind her.
A man’s voice said, “Oh, hell! NO!”
Another man’s voice said, shrill with incredulity, “What did you . . . what did you do?”
Julia slumped to her knees. Catfish stared down in shock at her, vaguely hearing a man’s hoarse voice yell, “Retreat, you fools! Retreat!”
Galloping hooves thudded off into the night.
“Julia!” Catfish cried, dropping to his own knees as the lady slipped out of his hands and fell over on her side. He stared down at her in renewed shock. A shock that was too much for him now, after everything else that had happened. “Oh, Julia—my God, what have they done to you?”
His voice, shrill with agony, rocketed around the night.