Track Of The Cat

by Nevada Barr

  It had been too damned hard the first time.

  She forced her mind clear. "Primary survey," she whispered. "I'm breathing. I'm conscious. I'm bleeding." There was a dark stain on her shoulder and her braid painted thin red lines on the pale rock. Her left arm wasn't working too well. The shoulder joint felt as if it was full of broken glass, but it did function. Collarbone cracked, she thought; tissues damaged from the dislocation.

  Moving as little as possible, she looked around her. She had fallen to the bottom of the slope. No more than a yard, two at the most, separated her from the two-hundred-foot drop. She lay at a forty-five-degree angle on a natural lip, a meager flaring of stone, that marked the cliff's edge. A rock or root- something protruding from the limestone-had kept her from sliding over the edge when her heavy leather service belt caught on it. It felt as if the protrusion had pierced and ripped her abdomen, but she wasn't sure.

  Pain and fatigue were calling her back into darkness but she refused to go. Focusing on the ant, making bets-if he reaches that shadow, I'll live; if he goes around that blade of grass I'll wake and find it was all a dream-Anna stayed conscious.

  The ant went around the blade of grass and she didn't wake. A blade of grass. Grass had to have something to grow from: soil, a ledge, a crack. As her mind focused on that, she began to see more clearly.

  The blade of grass was growing on a little flat space three or four feet wide. This step had been cut into the cliff when the rock above had fallen away. A crack ran upward from it forming a chimney of stone several feet deep and as many across.

  The platform at the bottom of the chimney was less than a yard from where Anna hung. If she could reach it she could rest, safe on the floor of this tiny, three-sided, ceilingless room.

  She stretched her right arm out. Her fingers just curled around the sharp edge of the broken rock, but it was a solid grip. The toe of her right boot reached to the crevice floor. Gingerly, she tried dragging herself toward safety but the belt that had saved her life now held her fast and the pain in her gut threatened to overwhelm her.

  She lay still wanting to cry but unable to focus even on self-pity. Giving up was seductive: a moment of fear, then an end to fighting. Fleetingly, she wondered if death were a narcotic, if inside her death and adrenaline waged a small-scale chemical war, fighting for her will.

  Involuntarily her left foot twitched and several pieces of gravel were sent down the mountain. An instant of sound; an eternity of silence. Anna was not yet ready for the eternal silence.

  Adrenaline won.

  Twisting her injured arm, almost welcoming the clean ache of grating bone, she crawled her fingers along the stone until she had worked her hand underneath her belly. She could feel the smooth metal of her belt buckle. It was hung up on what felt like a post. Once free of it, she would have one chance to jerk her body the two feet to the crack. If she slipped or her strength failed or her clothing snagged, she would slide off the edge.

  Two hundred feet.

  A cold rush of fear froze her as surely as an arctic wind and for a moment Anna could neither see nor breathe. When it passed, it left her weakened.

  Now or never, she thought. Bucking away from the stone, she pushed at the buckle with cramped fingers. For an instant it remained caught. Then with awful suddenness she was free and slipping. Strength born of desperation, she dragged the weight of her body across the limestone. When her face cleared the vertical lip, she saw an upright slab within, a powerful hand hold. Seizing it, she tumbled into the crack in the rock.

  "Oh God, oh God, oh God," she heard herself saying when she became cognizant and she laughed. "Oh God for a chamber pot." The inevitable adrenaline reaction was setting in.

  Nausea was next, then trembling weakness. Then pain reasserted its dominion. Anna took stock of her situation. Looking out, back across the smooth limestone she could see the protrusion that had broken her slide: a knob of iron ore an inch and a half high. The natural ore, harder than limestone, remained like an upthrust thumb when the rock had eroded away. Anna's NPS belt had snagged on it.

  Delicately, she unbuckled her belt and unzipped her hiking shorts. The iron had not broken the skin but a dark red welt ran up her abdomen. Where the iron had caught under the buckle her flesh was already turning dark purple. With torn fingers, she palpated her belly. There was pain but no rigidity. A good sign there was no internal bleeding. Training started to take over, Anna falling into the secondary survey pattern she'd been taught to use to assess for injury.

  She stopped herself with a snort. No one would find her where she was, halfway down a mountain, hidden in a hole, her pack tumbled into the thickets a couple hundred feet below. Shouts would not carry up the cliff nor down to the canyon floor. What difference did it make if she were badly injured or not? Her belly hurt, her head hurt, her left shoulder was killing her and so what? She must climb.

  Bracing one foot against each wall of the stone chimney, she began working her way up. Ten feet and she was singing "Itsy bitsy spider" to blank the pain from her mind. Fifteen and her legs began to tremble. Fear of falling slowed her inching progress. Thirty feet up there was a narrow shelf she could brace her butt on and, the weight off her legs, she rested.

  Afraid to stop too long lest her strained muscles begin to cramp, Anna pushed herself on before many minutes had passed. Blood was dripping down her neck on the left side but the drip was slow. She had no idea how much was blood and how much sweat. Salt burned deep into the scrapes on her chest.

  "That which does not kill us, makes us strong," she repeated. It was her mother-in-law's favorite aphorism, but she didn't believe it. "That which does not kill us, does not kill us," she amended and squeezed upward foothold by foothold, her body the wedge that kept her from falling back down.

  Forty-five feet and the crevice began to narrow. For a little while the going was easier. Then the chimney was gone. The stone above, weakened from weathering in the cracked surface, had fallen away. A gigantic chip of limestone had broken off leaving ledges, like shelves, tapering away from the chimney's top. A shallow crack several inches wide was all that remained of the chimney. It ran the last three yards to the trail.

  Anna braced herself and let her breathing slow. There was no advantage in going back down, even if she could have. Up then. Eight, maybe nine feet. Close enough she could call for help and be heard. But there was no help and Anna doubted she had the strength to stay braced for more than an hour at most.

  This is probably it, she thought, I will probably die. "I may die," she said aloud to see how it sounded. Absurd but true. "Don't think about it."

  She worked one foot up onto the tiny ledge then drove her hand into the narrow crevice and made a fist. The flesh jammed tight and she pulled herself up till she was standing one foot on the ledge to either side of the chimney.

  Ignoring the pain in her injured shoulder, she drove her left hand into the crack above her right and made a fist, a wedge of finger bones. Pulling herself up, she scrabbled for footholds. The stone, broken here, less weathered, gave better purchase. Hand over hand, skin scraped away by the rock, Anna dragged herself up.

  A snapping sound beneath her left shoulder shot fire up into her brain, but her right hand was on the bole of a small tree at the trail's edge and her feet were solidly placed. With an effort that dragged a grunting cry from her, Anna rolled onto the welcome cradling rocks of McKittrick Ridge Trail.

  It was good to lie still, to hurt in peace, to be alive. Soon, though, the kindly rocks of the trail grew sharp, digging into her back. Flies swarmed around the oozing scrapes on her body. Thirst dragged her back from drifting dreams of rescue.

  Anna shoved her useless arm into her shirt front and buttoned it there with the three remaining buttons. Step by step she stumbled down the familiar trail. Somewhere near the bottom, a round face under the shapeless cloth brim of a fishing hat swam into view. Beneath it, Anna was dimly aware of a woman with pure white curling hair wearing a lime-green T-shirt.
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  "Pardon me," Anna said and was surprised at how human she still sounded, "but could you do me a favor?"

  Evidently she could. When next Anna opened her eyes it was Cheryl Light's face she saw.

  "You're doing good," Cheryl said, her square, seamed face as comforting as some generic mom's. "We're taking you out. We'll be to the first water crossing in a minute. You're doing good."

  "Good," Anna repeated. Tree branches flowed overhead. She was in the Stokes litter being trundled home. Anna was glad it was Cheryl Light. She hadn't anything against Cheryl. As consciousness drifted away again, Anna wondered what it was she had against everyone else.

  13

  WIDESPREAD but not deadly was how the doctor at the Carlsbad Hospital had described Anna's injuries. Her collarbone was cracked, her abdomen badly bruised, she had a slight concussion and severe contusions on her hands, legs, and torso.

  Two days in the hospital for observation and she could go home. The first day she was called a "lucky girl" and a "brave girl" so often she was ready to punch somebody. When Rogelio appeared, a cold quart of Ballena and two flat loaves of Mexican sweet bread in a paper bag, Anna began to feel a little less vicious. When he kissed her and said: "Jesus, but you're one hell of a strong woman," she began to feel downright cheerful. At least till the tears came. But they were slow and healing. The kind she could laugh through and mean it. She was not utterly alone. Life no longer hung by a fingernail.

  Rogelio pressed her bandaged palm to his lips. Beneath her fingertips she could feel the rough stubble on his cheek. "All the perfume in Arabia couldn't sweeten this little hand," he said and smiled. "See. Not a complete illiterate."

  Anna laughed. "Because, like Lady Macbeth's, it is drenched in blood?"

  "Whatever," he said. He dipped his finger in a tear caught in the corner of her mouth. Delicately, he dabbed it behind his ear and, though she would've liked to cry for another hour-another day-to flush the fear and helplessness from her soul, she found herself smiling.

  Rogelio brought the Ballena and the bread to her table. They looked rustic, real in contrast to the formidable efficiency of the stainless-steel tray. Anna took some of the bread but shook her head when Rogelio passed her the beer. "I'm on drugs."

  "Ah." Rogelio didn't seem displeased to have the beer to himself. "Seen God yet?"

  "Wrong kind of drugs," Anna replied. "But then I don't feel like hell anymore. I'll take that and be happy."

  "You're pretty beat up, Anna. We'll make love like porcupines for a while."

  At present she felt she'd never again want to be touched anywhere on her person with anything more forceful than a feather duster. Even through the painkillers, she knew she hurt. Knowing the feeling would pass, Anna smiled and said nothing.

  "Tell me what happened," Rogelio said.

  Anna pushed her thoughts back to McKittrick Ridge. Her mind's eye was not seeing too clearly. "Not much to tell," she said after a moment. "I got careless. Just stepped into space is what it felt like. With the pack I couldn't recover my balance and fell over. Then a rock busted loose and hit me." She tried to remember the exact sequence of events and failed. "Then Gertrude died and Hamlet died and Laertes died and everybody else lived happily ever after," she finished.

  Rogelio kissed her gently as if she were made of glass. "Whatever they're giving you, save some for me."

  What sounded like the report of an automatic weapon rattled outside the window and Anna started. "Firecrackers," Rogelio explained soothingly. "The kids are gearing up. Tomorrow is the Fourth of July."

  The third of July: Anna's mind turned on the date.

  "What is it, querida?" Rogelio asked. "Why so sad?"

  "Today Zach would have been forty." Usually Anna forbore speaking of Zachary. Not just to Rogelio, but to anyone. The drugs had lowered her defenses.

  For a while Rogelio said nothing. He finished the Ballena, stared out of the second-story window. Beyond, where the low hills north of Carlsbad met the sky, afternoon thunderheads were beginning to build.

  "My birthday was a week ago yesterday," he said finally. "June twenty-fifth."

  "Happy birthday," Anna said and: "I didn't know."

  "You never bothered to ask," he said evenly, his eyes still on the thunderclouds. "I turned thirty-two." Anna hadn't bothered to ask about that, either. "To get your undivided attention, it seems a person has got to die. I'm not willing to go quite that far." He rose, put the empty beer bottle in the front pouch pocket of the Mexican-made cotton pullover he wore. The hospital could not be trusted to recycle the glass.

  "I'm glad you came." Anna felt lost and guilty and tired. "I'll try to pay more attention."

  "Don't knock yourself out." He kissed her and left.

  Anna promised herself she would take better care of him. She would make a plan. First, though, she must sleep. "Happy birthday, Zach," she whispered as the drugs took her back.

  She dreamt of trying to call him, of standing in a phone-booth at the corner of Fifty-second and Ninth, but the street gangs had spray-painted over his number and the holes on the dial phone didn't match up with the digits.

  Anna was awakened to eat a supper not worth being conscious for and again, later, to take a sleeping pill. By the next morning when a nurse, a woman in her fifties who managed by some miracle of personal grooming to make the white polyester nurse's uniform look chic, poked her head in to say: "Want a visitor?" Anna did.

  The drugged sleep had obliterated the memory of much of Rogelio's visit but Anna was left with a vague sense that she needed to make amends.

  She was not to have the chance. It was Christina and Alison. Alison had a hand-drawn get well card with a camel on it. She'd wanted to draw Gideon to keep Anna company while she was sick, but she was better at camels so she drew a camel with "Gideon" carefully lettered in a cartoon bubble coming out of its mouth.

  "I fed Piedmont. Your door was unlocked," Christina said.

  "You lifted down the sack. I fed Piedmont," Alison corrected her mother.

  Christina winked at Anna. The gesture seemed rakish on her serene countenance.

  "Credit where credit is due," Anna said. "Thank you both."

  "We stayed and petted him for one half of a hour," Alison added. "I kissed him on his head." That seemed to finish the subject in the child's mind. The top of her head disappeared from Anna's sight below the foot of the bed and sounds of rummaging ensued. Something ordinary being converted into a toy, Anna guessed.

  "Thank you," she repeated, this time for Christina's ear alone.

  Christina had brought a change of clothes, a comb and brush, hand mirror, colored hairbands, and some "Safari" cologne. "It seemed more fitting than 'White Shoulders,'" she explained.

  Again, Anna started to cry. "Damn," she cursed herself and immediately regretted the fist she pounded into the coverlet in accompaniment. Pain shot up her shoulder and neck and into her skull. "I'm turning into a weeping willow," she complained.

  "Heaven forbid!" Christina returned with easy laughter. "We can't have Anna Pigeon The Great And Terrible in tears. What is the world coming to? Here," she arranged Anna's pillows and, standing beside the bed, began to brush out her hair. "Hold this."

  Anna held one pigtail in her hand while Christina French-braided the other side into a neat plait. "Already I'm feeling healthier, more together. The next braid might perform miracles. Where did you learn to do that?"

  "Well, you can either go to beauty school or have a four-year-old daughter who is a little V. A. I. N."

  "Vee, ay, eye, en: vain," Alison chanted by rote from the floor, where she'd dragged Anna's hiking boots from the closet.

  Anna laughed. It hurt.

  "Well, well," Christina said. "We learn something every day. So. Learn me. What happened? I thought you were Ms. Backwoodswoman, able to leap tall trees at a single bound."

  "Fell off the trail," Anna replied. "Heavy gravity area." She was rewarded for the feeble and plagiarized witticism by the warmth of Christin
a's smile. She enjoyed even its reflection in the hand mirror where she watched the other woman's porcelain fingers weave her hair. "Will you come do my hair every morning till my collarbone heals?" Anna teased.

  "Yes," Christina said simply and Anna believed her. "You don't whine half as much as Alison does when I pull too hard."

  "Comb too hard, Momma," came a correction from the floor. "You make groves in people's heads."

  "Grooves," Christina said mildly. "Gee, are, oh, oh, vee, ee, ess: grooves."

  "Grooves," Alison repeated obediently and added: "In people's heads. Look! Magic! Alley shazam!" She stood. Anna could just see her head over the foot of the bed. The little girl held her finger out, a rock balanced on the tip. Slowly, she turned it over. The rock didn't fall off. "A sticky rock," she explained, as if to free her mother and Anna from unbearable suspense. With her other hand she plucked the magic rock from her finger and stuck it on her tongue.

  "Alison!" her mother cried. "Stop that. For heaven's sake! You know better." If she hadn't held three strands of half-plaited hair strung through her fingers, Anna didn't doubt that she would have vaulted the bed and made the little girl spit the rock into her hand.

  Unperturbed, Alison lifted the bit of gravel carefully off her tongue and stuck it on the bed's footboard. "Tastes like the paste in Dottie's toy box," she said.

  Christina wrapped Anna's braids into a graceful figure eight and pinned them in place. As she put away the comb and mirror, Anna dabbed on a little cologne. She hoped Rogelio would come back. But not just now. She looked in the other woman's guileless face. The dark eyes were opaque today. "After the lion-taming episode, I was afraid you wouldn't ever speak to me again," Anna said.

  "I thought about it," Christina admitted. "Sometimes you are such a pain in the pasta fazzouli, Anna!"

  "Why did you come today?"

  "I don't know. To clear my good name?" Christina smiled as she folded herself gracefully into the uncompromising right angles of the red plastic visitors' chair. "You're hurt. I like you. I'm here."