Track Of The Cat

by Nevada Barr

  Anna was not forgiven.

  The silence stretched, grew less strained, mellowed into the night.

  "Christina?" Anna asked of the shadow in the chair next to hers.

  "Yes?"

  "I don't think you killed anybody. I'm just tired, thinking out loud. Not very considerate of other people's feelings."

  "Thank you, Anna."

  "And if you did, I would drop it."

  "Even if the ranchers kept pushing to kill the mountain lions in the park?"

  "Sure," she said. It rang hollow.

  Christina laughed, touched Anna's arm in the dark. "It's okay. Your lions need you. Alison and I don't. So. You'll go away for a while?" Christina harked back to their conversation before Anna had telephoned her sister.

  "I guess," Anna said, feeling lost.

  "I'll feed Piedmont."

  "Ah-ah."

  "I'll lift down the sack and Alison will feed Piedmont," Christina corrected herself.

  Anna laughed but it hurt, pulled sore muscles in her chest and shoulder. "I'd appreciate it." Somewhere a cow lowed. The porch roof creaked with cooling. Soon Anna should go. She wished she could stay, sleep over like in junior high.

  Grown-up suppers were nice but grown-up nights were long.

  15

  SOUTH of Ajo, Arizona, fifteen miles south of the Mexican/American border, Anna sat in the shade of a ramada built from the weathered branches of an ironwood. It was attached to the three-room adobe and wood house Rogelio called home. There was hand-pumped water in the kitchen and an outdoor shower rigged from a wooden barrel raised up on stilts. A pit toilet made of cedar stood twenty yards out back.

  Rogelio, it seemed, had talents Anna'd never taken the time to notice. The rustic comforts were ingeniously crafted. The house was clean and well kept. Inside the thick cooling walls, cheap Mexican blankets, beautiful and raw and smelling of wool, brightened the bed. Rugs were scattered over the whitewashed floors. Straw matting woven in intricate patterns was rolled above the windows. Bits of bleached animal skeletons-desert sculptures Rogelio called them-intermixed with brightly painted wooden fishes and birds decorated the rough wooden tables. Coarse handwoven cottons in brilliant hues of red and orange, the kind Anna had seen glowing in a dozen street markets in border towns, hung over the doorways.

  It was a home. Anna'd never pictured Rogelio with a home. Since Zachary, she'd never given any thought to making a home for herself, let alone for anyone else. Rogelio had made a home, he said, for her.

  Desert rolled away in four directions. Small mountains, sharp and scattered like broken teeth, bit into the blue horizon. Everywhere the mysterious and, to Anna, miraculous life of the Sonoran Desert made itself felt.

  Under an unrelenting sun, temperatures one hundred and ten to one hundred and fifteen during the heat of the day, the landscape was still: a green and gray graveyard with fantastically shaped tombstones stretching away over the desert pavement-the flat rocky, lifeless soil. But in the cool of the evening and under night skies, life crept out from beneath every stone, from the boles of trees and cacti.

  In this harsh and fertile cradle Anna slept and healed, drank beer and made love, worked on her Spanish and wondered if she could live in this gentle rendition of "Margaritaville."

  She'd been there ten days when Rogelio asked if she would marry him and she knew it was time to leave.

  He leaned on the door of her Rambler. In the light of the setting sun he was impossibly beautiful. The wide-set hazel eyes reflecting the afternoon sun were nearly amber, his cheekbones high, hollowed by shadows.

  "Can I come back?" Anna asked. "Drink your beer, make love with you in the desert?"

  "I want to be more to you than that, Anna. More than just a good time." He smiled, teeth white in the dark-skinned face. "I'm not that kind of boy. You can't save me for later. I want to share my desert, my life, with a woman. With you if I can. With someone else if I can't. Two choices, Anna: take me or leave me." He laughed, a mix of self-mockery and hope.

  "Can I come back?" Anna asked again. Rogelio thought so long she began to be afraid.

  "You can come back," he said finally. "But I don't know for how long. Or how many times."

  Through the cool of the night, she drove. The roads were nearly empty and the desert glowed with a moon two days past full. By the time the sun began to heat up the day she was out of the hottest part of the country, heading into the tangle of freeways that cut the heart out of El Paso. Her mind had churned the night away mixing Zachary and Rogelio, Harland and Murder, Christina and Lions into a great aching lump of thought that, by sunrise, had settled at the base of her skull.

  More than once, since she'd fled New York, Anna had feared for her sanity. Often she saw things others did not. Maybe because she was more clear-sighted than most. Or had less to lose by seeing the truth. Maybe because those things were not there.

  Had there been a murder? Had mysterious clues appeared? There was such a thing as coincidence. Once Anna's car had broken down outside Wichita, Kansas. She'd stuck out her thumb. The woman who stopped to give her a lift was her old third-grade teacher from Janesville, California. Everyone had stories like that. The lion, the acid, the ranger, no water: it could be coincidence. Even the paw prints. Some freakish nature of the mud-soft in one place, hard and dry two feet away. There could be some explanation: underground seeps, shadows.

  Why did she see such evil when no one else could? Sheila was dead. No one had cared desperately about her. Not even Christina. People wanted to go on with their lives and jobs and plans. To see a murder would interfere. Anna understood that. And the lions that might yet die in reaction? Even people who cared about animals thought of them basically as things: things to eat or wear, own, take pictures of. Things for people to use and enjoy. Sad to lose one, certainly, but nothing to lose sleep over. That was the attitude that prevailed and Anna had learned to live with it.

  People wanted the "disruption" to be over.

  As Anna drove across the broad salt flats to the west of the Guadalupe Mountains, the bold gray prow of El Capitan cutting into the morning, she knew that she, too, wanted it to be over, wanted to let sleeping dogs lie, wanted to get on with her life. Maybe to find again some of the peace she'd felt in Rogelio's Mexico.

  Just before ten o'clock, she pulled the Rambler into the employee parking lot behind the Administration building. There was only one slot left. Every vehicle in the park was jammed into the usually half-empty lot. Sensing bad news, she tried to rub the grit of nine hundred miles out of her eyes. It crossed her mind to go home, face whatever it was after a bath and some sleep. But she was already here. And she wanted her mail. Taking comfort in the fact that if it were a wildland fire-and the Southwest was ablaze from the drought and dry lightning-her collarbone would prevent Paul from sending her out with one of the crews to fight it, she climbed stiffly from the car.

  Christina was not at her desk. Marta looked up when Anna walked into the office. She was dressed up, almost as if for a special occasion, and she'd had her hair done. A carefully arranged look of tragedy composed her features. Anna guessed she was dying to tell the bad news. Fear dragged her quickly back into the hall. Whatever it was she didn't want to hear it from Marta Freeman.

  "You've got a phone message," Marta called after her. Anna went in, took it, shoved it in her pocket without reading it, and scurried out again without apology.

  Head bent over a sheaf of papers, Christina Walters walked out of the copy room almost into Anna's arms. Relief rocked Anna back on her heels, and she realized she'd been afraid for her friend. "Chris," she croaked.

  Christina looked up. She looked strained, tired around the eyes, but her smile was warm and welcoming.

  "What's happened?" Anna was whispering. Two doors down was the conference room. The door was shut. Most of the staff was probably closeted behind it. "What is going on?"

  "Come on," Christina whispered back. She walked down the carpeted hall. Anna followed into the sma
ll employee lunchroom and closed the door.

  "Welcome home," Christina said.

  Anna sat down at the white Formica table and waited while the other woman poured two cups of coffee, gave her one, and sat down in the chair opposite. "Big safety meeting," Christina said. "There's been another accident, they think."

  "Who?"

  "Maybe Craig."

  Equal parts relief and guilt washed over Anna. "What happened?"

  "Remember that space alien hunt he was going to go on?"

  Anna nodded.

  "Well, he went. The moon had to be full for these creatures to visit or something. He went five days ago-took all his snake stuff with him. He was going to kill two birds with one stone, I guess. Anyway, he never came back. Nobody even knew he was missing till today. Yesterday and the day before were his lieu days. What with the two accidents, Corinne's afraid Region's going to land on her with both feet so she's called a safety meeting. From what Marta and I've been hearing through her office door, we're going to have to wear full body armor to type up purchase orders from now on. Everything's going to be safety first. If something's happened to Craig it'll be the third accident. Three is too many."

  "Three? Who else?"

  "You."

  "Oh. Yeah." Anna drank the coffee Christina had poured. There was already so much caffeine in her system, she doubted it would keep her awake, just add to her indigestion.

  Christina eyed her narrowly. "What? You don't think he's lost? Hurt by accident?"

  Anna said nothing. Tomorrow, when she'd had some sleep, she'd think about it. The search for Craig wouldn't begin for another twenty-four hours, the usual time allotted for adults to wander back of their own accord.

  "My ex is here," Christina said suddenly. "Erik came five days after you left. He's staying two weeks. Two. Lord!"

  Anna closed her eyes, the light made them hurt. She felt a gentle touch: fingertips on the back of her wrist.

  "I'm so glad you're home."

  For the first time since she'd driven in, Anna was too.

  She let herself out the fire exit. If she tried the front again, she might be seen and roped into the meeting. Corinne Mathers's meetings weren't known for their brevity. With the Regional Office breathing down her neck they could become interminable. Corinne had wanted to keep the Drury case low-key, uncontroversial. Since Craig's disappearance had set the alarm bells off, Anna was willing to bet she'd change tactics, make a noisy show of taking command of the situation. For a while the name of the game at Guadalupe Mountains would be Cover Your Ass.

  Home in her tiny apartment, spread catty-corner on the Murphy bed, Anna relaxed into the waiting darkness of unconsciousness. Piedmont, too warm to sleep on her, was stretched out nearby, his head on the pillow. As she drifted, Anna marveled at how much better she rested when she slept with a cat than when she slept with a man. Cats' purring was a powerful soporific.

  Four hours' sleep and a shower put her back on her feet with a clear head. The afternoon would be spent nesting, settling in. So abruptly had she fled Guadalupe, dishes were still in the sink and garbage in the pail. She'd not even bothered to unpack the cardboard box of ripped and bloody clothes the hospital had sent home with her.

  The hiking shorts were salvageable. The shirt was not. Her name tag was gone. Anna rescued the badge and dropped the rest into the trash. Socks went into the laundry. The boots were scraped nearly white but after a polish would be good as ever. They were tossed in the general direction of the closet.

  A stone from the sole of one of the boots clung to the palm of her hand. Alison's magic rock, Anna thought. Then she remembered the little girl carefully sticking her rock to the footboard of the hospital bed. It was doubtful the Carlsbad Hospital was so meticulous about patients' belongings that they'd restuck a bit of gravel to her boot sole.

  Anna plucked the stone from her palm and looked it over. It was an ordinary pebble, the kind the heavy lug of her boots picked up on most trails in the park. But this one had a whitish mark on one side. Alison had said her magic rock tasted like something. Not blessed with a four-year-old's fearless culinary tastes, Anna licked the stone gingerly.

  Library paste.

  Some things are never forgotten: the smell of Jade East, the feel of a man, the sound of ambulance sirens, the taste of library paste.

  Anna pulled the boots out into the light, dug every particle of rock and sand and thorn out of the soles and uppers. Nothing else was out of the ordinary. Just the two magic rocks.

  Cross-legged on the carpet, Anna tried to recall her fall. She had been walking down the McKittrick Ridge Trail alone. There had been nothing unusual: no sound, no smell, no movement. Suddenly, she'd stepped into mid-air, overbalanced because of her pack, and fallen. She'd managed to break her slide till a stone, dislodged by her fall, had struck her.

  Dislodged by her fall.

  A minute, maybe more, had passed before the rock hit her.

  Stepped into mid-air. Magic rocks. Library paste. Laboriously, Anna fitted the oddments together as she pulled on the boots, threw some cheese and bread and water into a daypack, kissed an ungrateful cat, and left the apartment in as much of a mess as she had found it.

  At Pratt Cabin she liberated a climbing harness and rope from the small Search and Rescue cache kept there. By late afternoon she was above Turtle Rock. Finding where she fell was more difficult than she thought it would be. In memory every foot of rock she'd crawled up was clearly etched. When she'd finally climbed free, she'd evidently relaxed, shut down. The top of the trail was a blur.

  When she did find it, there was not a doubt in her mind that she was at the right place. Training binoculars on the stone below she found traces of blood marring the limestone, the iron deposit that had saved her life, and the crack-chimney she had shinnied up.

  Walking uphill a hundred yards or so, Anna retraced her steps down the trail to where she'd gone over the edge. The path was rocky, but level. Lining up the tree she had been planning to throw a line to just before the rock had hit her, Anna was able to locate exactly where she'd stepped into nothing.

  The trail was flat, well-maintained. Having divested herself of pack and rope, Anna began to dig. Gravel came away easily at first, then she hit a stone. When she'd cleared away all the dirt, she could see a rock about the size of a basketball set in a trough on the trail. Along with smaller rubble, it plugged a ditch a couple feet wide and half the trail deep. Anna worked it loose and rolled it down the cut and over the cliff. It followed the path she had taken on the way down.

  She swept away the sand. Smooth bites of a shovel and the sharp scoring of a pick marked the sides of the hole. A trough a foot deep and canted steeply toward the cliff had been carved out of the trail. Crawling on hands and knees, Anna examined the path for fifteen feet in either direction but found nothing more of interest.

  She buckled on the climbing harness and, using an upslope juniper as anchor and belay, began rappeling slowly down the cliff face searching every ledge and crevice, every tuft of grass that clung to the stone. Against the trunk of a stunted madrona she found what she was looking for: four tangled sticks. Anna tied them carefully in a kerchief, knotted it to her belt, and began the slow and painful task of pulling herself back up to the trail.

  By the time she stood again on level ground she was certain she had unraveled every stitch her collarbone had knit in the two weeks since the accident. For several minutes she rested, drank in the air. Then she examined her find.

  Four sticks, three broken but one over a foot long. Gravel was stuck to the sticks in several places, affixed by the same white paste Anna found on the magic rock. The sticks were woven in and out of one another as if someone had started a basket.

  She laid the longest stick across the trough cut in the trail. It just reached. Someone had built a tiger trap and she had fallen into it. They had dug a ditch on the outside of the trail wide enough it wouldn't be stepped over. A mat of sticks had been woven to cover the hole and pebble
s glued to the mat to make it look like the rest of the trail's surface.

  Anna's radioed itinerary had been heard by the entire park. All anyone had to do was put the camouflage mat over the hole and wait. There was a good view of the trail below and above. If another hiker happened along, all they need do was remove the stone-covered mat. The hiker would see the hole, step over, and continue on.

  That meant someone had watched as she fell. The same someone had rolled a rock down on her when it looked as if she would save herself. Her second slide had taken her so far down they must've trusted to luck-their good and her bad-that she would fall to her death. They wouldn't have wished to remain in the vicinity any longer than necessary. The sticks could've been picked up in minutes, the trail repaired almost as quickly and what few sticks tumbled down would be washed free of library paste with the first good rain. They had planned it well.

  "Not they," Anna said to herself. "The murderer." Someone had tried to kill her. The thought frightened her. And it pissed her off.

  Anna spent the night annoying Piedmont and fretting out lists in her head. Paul, Marta, Christina, Corinne, Harland, Karl, Manny, Craig, and Cheryl all worked with radios. All of them could've heard her radio in her backcountry itinerary. Christina had called in sick: she was free to lay traps. Harland had mentioned he was in Carlsbad buying lumber. Cheryl was in McKittrick Canyon on day patrol. It was she the tourist had reported the accident to. Karl, Paul, and Corinne were unaccounted for. Marta was off the hook. She never left her desk.

  Too many personal calls to make, Anna thought uncharitably. Lord knew where Mrs. Drury-Sheila's mother-was. And Erik Walters was in the park.

  Since sleep was proving elusive, Anna got up and switched on the desk lamp. On a bit of scratch paper she made another list. Craig Eastern was at the top of this one. He knew the policies of the park as well as anyone. The aliens, the backcountry jaunt, lieu days, the grace period: if he were running away it provided a very convenient five-day lead.