by Stephen Laws
“What is it?”
“I don’t believe it . . .”
“What?”
Drew pointed ahead and up, beyond Cath’s line of vision—and when she rounded the ridge, blinking at the sunlight, she followed his pointing finger.
On the other side of the ridge was a shale incline, leading to what amounted to a ragged chimney of rock, leading up and away from the cave. Loose stone and clumps of grass and earth were scattered on that slope and at the top of that chimney-incline, thirty feet from where they stood, more daylight was shining down on them from a small aperture fringed by grass.
“That wasn’t here last time,” Drew said wearily.
Cath looked at the unbroken net in the main entrance, still secured.
“It got out up there,” she said.
Drew yanked the flashlight from his belt again, shining it cursorily around the cave, checking the darkened corners. The space was too small to hide any animal lying in the debris of rock, shale and earth.
“Yep.” He sounded deeply crestfallen. “It scrabbled up there, and clawed its way out. See all the loose rock and those fresh clods of earth and grass. They came from ground level on the hillside up there. Must have sensed a draft of air coming down. Damn it! These things manage to stay one step ahead of me every time.”
Cath moved to put a hand on his shoulder, also feeling his keen sense of disappointment—and stepped on something soft in the darkness.
Something shrieked and hissed—filling the cave with a sound of terror and rage.
And Cath screamed as that something attached to her leg and she staggered back at Drew. He clutched at her, dropping the torch, and the thing adjusted its grip on the fabric of Cath’s jeans—a razor claw slashing at her boot, slicing the leather clean through to her ankle. They fell against the dark side of the ridge, Cath frantically kicking out at the weight on her left. Drew snatched at her in the darkness, suddenly had two handfuls of fur and yanked hard. The shrieking and spitting reached a new edge of ferocity as Drew yanked again.
The thing came free of Cath’s boot, taking strips of leather with it. Something wickedly sharp had snagged in the seam of her jeans and when Drew dragged the weight of it from her, the seam snagged and tore—ripping the denim away in a clean slice ten inches long. Cath heard Drew’s grunt of exertion as he flung whatever it was away from them into the cave, and as they both staggered involuntarily into the light cast by the main entrance, they saw the thing bolt out of the darkness across the lightened cave floor in a flurry of fur and manic rage, the strip of denim tangled in it.
The thing—too small to be a Big Cat—raced lopsided in a hissing tangle of fury away from them, moving too rapidly to be seen properly. In a blur of motion, it ran for the light—and straight into the net across the cave entrance. Instantly entangled, it thrashed and struck and hissed—each strike, each slashing blow entangling it further. Claws locked and knotted in the rope. A long, loud hiss—like a release of steam, but with an edge of fury that was chilling—and when that hissing had been fully expressed, there was another sound: a yowl that began low and threatening and now was rising in pitch to a caterwaul of pure hate that filled the cave.
Cath and Drew stood in the light and watched as the animal ceased to struggle; now hanging in the net above the ground, as if caught in some web.
It watched them with gleaming opal eyes. Utterly motionless, those eyes shone with what seemed to be a mixture of calculating awareness, fear and hate—waiting for their next move.
“Christ,” said Drew.
“That’s your Big Cat?” Cath asked incredulously. The black cat was about two feet long and a foot high, with a jet black, shiny coat—and with features that were clearly those of a panther, but not The Hound of the Baskervilles creature that she had been led to expect. There were two small streaks of white fur above each of the cub’s eyes.
“Sort of,” Drew said.
“Your net didn’t spring.”
“No.” Drew couldn’t take his eyes off the cub.
Cath looked at him, then down at her leg. Miraculously, despite her ripped denim jeans and the chunk sliced from her boot, she was uninjured. Drew dropped to his haunches and quickly checked her out when he saw the damage.
“It’s fine,” Cath said. “It didn’t get the skin. What do you mean—sort of?”
Drew looked back, took a step forward toward the net—and then stopped again when the animal began another furious struggling. It writhed and twisted, yowling with a sound that was both fear and threat. When it ceased again, exhausted, Drew said:
“It’s a cub—a Big Cat cub. Maybe three months old. They’re breeding out here—just like I always said.”
“What are we going to do?”
Drew edged closer to the net, prompting the cub into another frenzied struggle—fangs bared and hissing.
“Let me have the camera.”
Cath passed it, and Drew took off the casing—adjusting the lens and flash.
“Well, Mum and/or Dad is somewhere sleeping off the tranquiliser. The other parent isn’t around, but could be due back. So I guess we have to free Junior—keep out of his way, and then find somewhere to wait for the big’uns coming back. But first . . .”
Drew began snapping off shots of the cub, the interior of the cave seeming to leap and dance in the flash. The light sent the cub into new paroxysms of frenzy as it lunged and thrashed in the net that still, despite Drew’s confident description of its effectiveness, had not ‘sprung.’ Cath supposed that even wannabe big game hunters got it wrong sometimes, and watched in fascination. There was a new gleam in Drew’s eyes that she hadn’t seen before. This was the evidence he had been so desperately seeking for so many years and—not for the first time—she wondered what the search itself was actually all about, and whether there were other reasons for his obsession in finding these Big Cats.
“That’s it,” Drew said at last. “That’ll have to do. I don’t want it getting any more stressed than it is now. It might hurt itself.”
“Best untangle it from the other side of the net,” Cath said. “Once it’s loose again, we might want to have that net between us and it.” She gestured to her ripped jeans leg and boot. “Next time mightn’t be so lucky.”
Drew smiled. “You’ve got a hunter’s instincts.”
“When it comes to avoiding personal damage or injury—I’m an expert.”
Drew saw something else when she spoke, something that made her wince at her own words. “Come on,” he said, guiding her toward the rear entrance of the cave. “I’ll need some heavy-duty gloves from the Land Rover, and something to cut the net. It’s got those claws well and truly stuck.”
Half expecting one or other of the Big Cats to be waiting for them there, Cath allowed herself to be led back into the sunlight. Drew quickly jammed the boarding into the aperture, kicking down hard on it and jamming it into the fissure. He staggered back; momentarily off-balance—and Cath proffered a steadying hand. Drew took it, smiled—
And in the next moment, Cath had reached to touch his face.
“I guess my improvised net just doesn’t work,” he said, smiling. “Thanks for not saying anything.”
“Maybe you’re trying to catch the wrong thing.”
Cath hadn’t meant to say anything, hadn’t meant to use those words that seemed clumsy to her ears but which she’d expressed instinctively in a way that now startled her in their meaning.
Drew’s arm was suddenly and gently around her waist.
Their embrace was urgent, their kisses hungry.
When Cath pulled away, she was breathless and unsteady.
“I’m sorry,” Drew said, now not knowing where to look.
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“I didn’t know how much I wanted to do that,” she said.
“Cath. I shouldn’t . . .”
When she looked into his eyes again, there was pain. He seemed about to say something else; something t
hat he’d hidden deep inside himself for a long time, but had been unable to release.
“It’s all right, Drew.”
“I wanted . . .”
“Drew, it’s okay . . .”
“The cub,” he said at last. “We can’t leave it like that. It’ll get hurt.”
And now Drew was striding off, around the ridge toward the main cave entrance. Cath followed, watching as he hurried down the slope toward the Land Rover. She watched him go, and wondered at what had just happened. Part of her wondered whether it had really happened at all. Somehow, that wintry morning in New York and that terrible blood-stained sidewalk seemed a long, long way away. Part of her wanted to cling to it; part of her never wanted it to go away, but an equal part lived in mourning and in fear of it. The contradiction was crushing. Cath knew that she had never properly mourned for her husband; knew she was still clinging to the memory of him. This was the reason why she couldn’t work and why the new novel just wouldn’t come. She was frozen; still rooted to that cold and dreadful morning when the man in the woollen cap had demanded their money.
Cath watched Drew yank open the Land Rover door, saw him rummaging in the tool kit on the backseat, watched him sprinting back up the slope. She realised how vulnerable he was too, dealing with his own grief. Was that why she was so attracted to him? Was that a good reason for what she realised now was such a strong attraction? Could two fractured people make themselves whole, or was this a foolish and dangerous situation in which to become embroiled?
She moved to meet him as he came, watched as he pulled on the heavy-duty gloves. There were pliers in his back pocket, for the netting, and now it seemed as if he couldn’t bring himself to look her in the eyes. Was he really trying to pretend that what had just happened had never taken place at all? Unsure, vulnerable and struggling to come to terms with these conflicting feelings, Cath followed him around the ridge to the main cave entrance.
The cub was still entangled in the netting, and it began a renewed and frenzied attempt to free itself when it saw them approaching through the bushes.
“Cath.” When Drew spoke, it seemed as if he was still trying to avoid her eyes. “If I get it by the scruff of the neck and force its head down—show you where to cut—do you think you could manage the pliers?” He fumbled the pliers from his back pocket and handed them to her as they drew level with the cave entrance and the struggling cat. She took the proffered hand and held it with both of hers—not allowing him to pull away. This time he looked her full in the eyes.
“It’s all right, Drew,” she said.
“It is?”
“Yes.”
He placed his free hand on hers and squeezed. “It’s just—it’s been such a long time, that’s all.”
“I understand.”
When he smiled, it was as if a shadow had come and passed—and Cath knew that there would be time later to understand what had just happened between them.
“Come on then, kitty!” Cath knelt down before the netting. “Let’s get you sorted out.”
Drew crouched beside her, pulling the gloves on tighter. Slowly he reached out his left hand toward the animal. It saw the hand coming, thrashed and squirmed. When it hissed, Cath felt a fine mist of spray from the animal’s mouth, winced at the foetid animal smell. When it arched its body away from that approaching hand, Cath almost cried out in surprise when Drew’s right hand suddenly flashed out and caught the cub by the scruff of the neck, forcing its head and jaws down toward the ground. One if its rear legs was free now, raking soil from the ground as Drew maintained the pressure.
“Okay, Cath! There—and there!” Cath quickly changed position, moving the pliers to the spot where Drew indicated with the pointing finger of his other hand.
Hand trembling, Cath snipped at the netting as the cub thrashed and squirmed. Drew shifted position as part of the net tore and came away, now seizing the cub near the base of its tail; trying to ensure that as its claws came free of the net that it wouldn’t be able to slice chunks out of them.
“Okay, I think that’s going to be enough. Back off to those shrubs behind us, Cath. I’m going to chuck it back into the cave and then come to you. It’s scared, and it’ll head back there into the dark rather than come at us.”
“Sounds like a good theory. Why don’t I believe it’s going to happen that way?”
Drew looked up at her and smiled. The shadows seemed to have gone.
She smiled back—
And saw that expression suddenly change; saw a wild, unfathomable look of anger or hate or fear or alarm transform his face; saw his eyes wide and staring—and shrank back from him in a moment that had suddenly transformed beyond understanding. She cried out as he roughly seized her shoulder and pulled her close; so close that she had a sudden crazy glimpse of her face in the iris of his eye, as he yelled:
“Christ! Look out, Cath!”
Now she realised in that split second that he was not staring wildly at her—but at something behind her. Off balance in his grip, she turned as he stumbled and shoved her hard, just as—
Something smashed hard into her back, slamming her against Drew and knocking the breath from both their bodies as they were flung hard into the bushes. Cath fell hands flat; felt the pain shudder through her arms and shoulders and neck in a way that instantly catapulted her back into being six years old again, when she had fallen the same way from a tree. The muscles in her neck and shoulders yanked and jarred, but there was no air in her lungs and she couldn’t even gag. The air was filled with a sound of great rending, like sailcloth ripping and shredding, and the rumbling roar of a great wind. Branches thrashed and tore at her face. Drew was gone from her and she clawed to rise, with that roaring and bellowing sound filling her head and now suddenly an overpowering animal smell that simultaneously terrified her and now did at last make her gag and retch. She spun, still winded and disoriented, the surrounding hillside spinning and tilting as her arms windmilled and she tried to regain her footing. Groping for balance, she heard—
Drew, yelling and kicking and screaming hoarsely at something that flailed and battered and roared on top of him in those bushes. Something that simultaneously threw ragged clumps of grass and bush wildly into the air as it struck and roared and swung savage blows on him. The rolling bodies slammed into her—and Cath’s legs were swept away beneath her. She felt an impossibly hard and powerful back, grabbed for it. She clutched and grabbed and hung on, still trying to find her feet.
And took a clump of what felt like fur in both hands as the rolling bodies tilted again, catapulting her away from that incredibly powerful and lean black blur of whatever-it-was. Drew was still yelling over the sound of that ferocious roaring and bellowing and spitting, and Cath—her eyes filled with whirling images—tried to rise again, and tried to make some sense of what was happening.
She became aware that the struggling cub in the cave net was adding its own caterwaul to the dizzying sounds of fury, saw it thrashing and twisting with insane energy in the netting—and recoiled as a huge, sleek black shape exploded from the gorse bushes past her and flew at the netting. Drew’s clutching hand connected with her ripped boot and she leaned down to help him as he emerged from the bushes. His jacket was shredded; one sleeve and the shirtsleeve beneath was gone completely—and there was blood streaming down his arm.
“Oh God . . .”
Drew clambered to his feet, hair awry and blood on his chin. Both staggering, they looked back at the netting and could only watch in awe as the fearsome black shape reared, swatted and lunged at the web that had ensnared its cub. Lean, but huge—this Big Cat was bigger than any puma or panther in captivity, and the ferocity of its onslaught was paralyzing. One side of the netting, pegged into the rock-fissure, was suddenly torn away. But as that netting sprang free, it flipped over—further wrapping and entangling the cub as it squirmed and thrashed, hissing and caterwauling. Its parent leaped back on its haunches at the sudden movement, landed—and turned its gleaming o
pal eyes on the humans that were threatening it.
The Big Cat was silent now as it stared at them. Now no longer swatting at the netting, it crouched motionless and huge, low to the ground. Tail twitching, the look of hate in those incredible green and gleaming eyes was unmistakable and terrifying. The bared jaws revealed deadly, yellow curved fangs—and the hissing that issued from that cavernous throat was like the hydraulics of some terrible killing machine.
“Back downhill,” Drew said quietly. “Back off with me—slowly—and don’t turn your back on it . . .”
Cath could not move.
Drew pulled at her arm, and suddenly—she was moving with him; unable to take her eyes from this night-black and gleaming creature. The sense of power, of threat and malevolence, was overwhelming.
The cub thrashed and flopped in front of the Big Cat. It flinched, taking its eyes away from them momentarily; now raking one claw into a fold of the net and shredding it; now rearing back and yanking that net as its own claw snagged, dragging the cub with it. A boiling, shuddering roar of anger—impossibly loud—seemed to shake the bushes around them. Drew tugged harder at her arm and now they were back in the cover of those bushes again, branches obscuring their view of the Big Cat and its cub as they retreated down the slope of the hill. The animal’s claw was still snagged, and now it seemed that the force of its fury was directed at the rope as the cub was dragged again—and the Big Cat reared back on its haunches, as big now as a bear.
“Come on!”
Drew dragged Cath with him as they ran down the hillside—the sounds of roaring and hissing still filling the air.
“You mustn’t have hit it,” gasped Cath as they descended. “With the tranquiliser, I mean.”
“I hit it, all right. I saw the dart go in and lodge. I can’t understand it. There was enough of the drug in there to have knocked it out completely by now . . . my God, how could I have been so bloody stupid!”
“Stupid? How?”
