Claws

by Ozzie Cheek

  “That’s alright, Bobby. I was expecting the mayor. Just close the door and keep everyone out,” Jackson said.

  As the door shut, Iris yelled, “Stay home! That’s your advice to hunters? You want me to fire you, Jackson?”

  “How many licenses you sold so far?”

  “Close to four hundred. Two hundred or so tomorrow.”

  “Then whatever I say doesn’t matter.” Jackson handed Iris an eight-by-ten color photograph.

  “What’s this?” She looked at the photo. “It’s disgusting.”

  Jackson slid four more color photographs across the desk. “It’s Wade Placett.”

  “That’s not funny.”

  “What the liger left of him,” said Jackson. “You can use them for your next TV interview. Show and tell.”

  Iris looked at another photo and then threw the batch of them at Jackson. “This isn’t my fault.”

  “Whose fault is it, Iris? The lions and tigers?”

  “I don’t know, Jackson. Maybe it just happened. Like Ed Stevens dying. Or do you blame me for that too?”

  “No, I blame myself.”

  “Well, at least guilt is something you’re good at,” snapped Iris.

  Jackson watched her dark eyes spark and her nostrils flare. He saw her fighting for control. Maybe he wanted her to go ballistic? Maybe he wanted to hurt her? Maybe hell! He knew he did. He removed his shield from his belt and laid it on the desk. “You want to fire me, go ahead.”

  “We both know this isn’t just about Wade or Ed or even Ted and Dolly Cheney,” Iris told him. “It never is with you, Jackson. It’s always about little Nancy Larsen and how you got her killed.”

  “You always told me it wasn’t my fault.”

  “I lied. I lied to keep you from sinking any deeper in self-pity. And you know what? It was a waste of time. The man I married was gone by then and not coming back.”

  “Good to know what you think of me, Iris.”

  “You know the difference between you and me? I can live with my mistakes. But you need to be so goddamn perfect, Jackson, you can’t handle being human.”

  For a moment Jackson said nothing. Then he picked up the photos and returned them to the manila envelope. “I’m not doing so well at protecting people, Iris. You’d be doing me a favor by finding another chief of police.”

  “Oh, I get it now. You want out,” Iris said. Her anger made her voice shrill. “That’s what you do, isn’t it? You quit when things get hard.”

  “Do I?” Jackson stood up. Iris was shorter than him by six inches. “Is that why you tell yourself you left? That why you started fucking Dell the day we hit town? You tell yourself it was me that quit on the marriage?”

  Iris laughed. “Jackson, I was fucking Dell before we ever moved here. Haven’t you figured that out yet?”

  Iris was blind with anger as she ripped through town. She was driving too fast, and the Cadillac CTS fought each turn. She missed the BMW she had driven in Colorado.

  Minutes later, she ran a stop sign and was blasted out of her stupor by a car horn customized to sound like a big rig. A black Hummer came straight at her. She swerved, narrowly missing a roadside mailbox, and fishtailed down the street.

  Dell heard the car horn and the screech of rubber. While sipping two-inches of Glenfiddich in a cut crystal glass, he moved away from the crackling fire in his den peered out the curtains, and saw the Cadillac CTS pull up.

  Iris once described Dell’s den as a British club for cowboys: trophy heads lit by green glass lampshades, Native American rugs beneath leather chairs, and a floor-to-ceiling bookcase where numerous family photographs nestled against books. Opposite that wall stood a large fieldstone fireplace. Earlier Dell had been wondering where in the den he would put the liger head or maybe even the whole animal. Now, he knew there would be no liger trophy for the den. The den was his favorite room too.

  Dell released the curtain. The phone on his desk rang, and he let it go to voice mail. Then his cell phone rang. His brother again, he figured. Dan was frantic about the potential fallout from Wade’s death. How can a man be governor and have no balls? John Tapping, now he had balls, Dell thought, as he examined a tintype photo of his great-grandfather, a robber baron when Idaho was a territory. Next to it were black and white photos of grandfather Daniel, founder of the town bank, and color photos of daddy Abel, also a banker. Other photos featured Dell posing with game he killed or hobnobbing with the rich or powerful; some followed Shane from infant to teenage football player; there also were photos to chronicle Dan’s political career, photos of their African safari six years ago; as well as a couple of photos of Iris.

  The photo he picked up was none of them. It was a wedding photograph. In it Tilda looked beautiful and fragile, tall for a woman and model thin. Aristocratic, he thought. Iris still believed he had been forced to marry Tilda, but he had married her to elevate the family genes the way wealth had elevated the family stature. Dell wiped an imaginary speck of dust off the glass and returned the photo to the shelf when he heard the front door open.

  “Some bastard almost killed me,” Iris said as she entered the den. “Some goddamn black Hummer.”

  Dell grunted. If Iris cursed, she was really pissed. He wondered if she had noticed the license plate. He doubted it. Anyway, nobody could see inside the Hummer, not through the dark glass. “Lots of assholes and idiots.”

  “I thought maybe the Hummer came from here.”

  Dell gestured toward a bottle of wine and a wine glass. “I opened an Oregon Pinot for you. The one you like.” He moved toward the wine bottle, his face hidden from Iris. “So tell me, did you straighten out Jackson?”

  Twenty-Two

  Dawn was breaching the horizon as Jackson reached town. Hunters already were out in full force, some herding live animals into truck beds, while others loaded slabs of beef and cartons of grocery store chickens. Not all of the hunters planned to lure the cats with bait. Some hunters intended to track them. Some simply hoped to stroll around, stir up a lion or tiger, and shoot them. Rural people were advised not to venture outside without wearing a highly visible orange or fluorescent vest, coat, or cap. Even so, farmers and ranchers that posted ‘No Hunting’ and ‘No Trespassing’ signs had covered them over, figuring that lion hunters posed a lesser danger to their animals, and families too, than did the lions and tigers.

  Jackson imagined towns during gold rush days had looked the way Buckhorn looked today. Buckhorn even had a tent city now, at least a modern version of one. On the drive to town Jackson had passed the RV’s and campers crammed into tiny Green State Park. Larger, more distant campgrounds were filling up too, according to the radio.

  Jackson left downtown and zigzagged his way to the Sportsman Motel. His red Ford was parked outside Katy’s room. Last night, after Iris had left his office, he stopped off at the motel but didn’t talk to Katy. Instead, he sat alone in the Jeep wondering if the Sportsman Motel was where Iris and Dell had met for sex or if they had gone to Dell’s house or out of town somewhere or even used the farmhouse. Afterwards, he had driven home and tossed and turned before finally falling into a restless sleep.

  Jackson didn’t want to knock on her door this early, so he called Katy from his cell phone. They talked while he drove to the police station. He parked, checked in with Skip Tibbits, and then walked over to the busy town square.

  The Split-Rail Café had been open since four-thirty. It was still packed when Jackson arrived. Katy showed up ten minutes later. Janice Beans cleared two places at the counter and motioned for Jackson and Katy to take them. It wasn’t their turn, but they took the seats anyway. They had coffee and ordered breakfast.

  While they waited, Katy talked about her life in Africa. At one point, she said, “I sometimes help the Maun police when someone goes missing in the bush. Alligators, hyenas, lions, leopards – if I don’t find people fast, when I do, it’s usually not very pretty.” She stopped and sipped her café au lait. “You think you can get used t
o it, but I never do.”

  Jackson nodded. “If you ever do, quit the job.”

  “I found cat tracks in the dryer pools of blood. Large tracks. Too large for a lion or a tiger.”

  “You didn’t mention it last night.”

  “I’m going after her today, after Kali.”

  It took Jackson a moment to remember who Kali was. “After what happened, you want to go liger hunting?”

  “It’s not a matter of wanting to,” Katy said, “I have to. Look, we know a liger probably killed your friend Ed, and Kali certainly killed Wade Placett. The longer she’s out there, the more dangerous she is, especially –” she lowered her voice “– once she has cubs.”

  “All the more reason not to go after her alone.”

  “You offering to join me?”

  “Can’t,” Jackson told her, shaking his head. “First day of the public hunt and all, I should stick around. Tomorrow maybe I could go. Or I can set up my rotation so that Skip or John can go with you. They’re both hunters. But Skip just came on duty, and John’s scheduled to work later today.” Their food arrived, and the conversation stopped for a few minutes. It continued when Jackson said, “So where do you plan to go?”

  “Back to Safari Land, if that’s allowed?”

  “As long as you don’t go in the house.”

  “I don’t expect the cats to be hiding inside.”

  “Neither did I.”

  Katy had heard about the Bengal tiger attacking one of Jackson’s officers but forgotten it. “Sorry,” she said.

  “Angie’s off today. She might go with you.”

  “She’s the one who was attacked, wasn’t she?”

  Jackson nodded, his mouth full of dark rye toast. Once he swallowed, he said, “That’s why she’ll go.”

  Katy was wrong in thinking that Kali would return to Safari Land. Following her attack on one of the predators that had killed Shaka, Kali returned to Jackson’s two-acre plot of prairie. As she crept through Great Basin Wild Rye grass, much of it four to six feet tall and turning yellow and brown and brittle, Kali sensed that her birthing time was near. The female liger heard occasional gunfire, but it was not close enough to concern her. Safe from any immediate danger, Kali settled in.

  Later that morning, Kali gave birth to three cubs. The two females and one male were the size of large house cats. They resembled Shaka more than Kali: their orangey-brown skin had black stripes, and their faces were dark-spotted. Even at birth the liger cubs’ sturdy legs and large feet signaled the size they would one day reach. But for now, they were helpless infants, dependent upon Kali. She licked them clean, and they crawled around blindly to find her teats. A young liger can increase its size by a half-pound per day, and to produce the milk to feed them, Kali needed to eat and to eat often. But before she could hunt, she had to find a safer home for the cubs.

  Katy loaded the .375 and was examining the Remington 389 pneumatic dart rifle when Angie pulled in. She parked her Outback next to Jackson’s pickup outside the Cheney house. It was midmorning now and hot for mid-September. The women exchanged hellos and chatted while Angie removed a backpack and a Browning A-Bolt II Medallion rifle, a .243 caliber. It had a long, 22-inch barrel and was powerful enough to stop deer, elk, or bear.

  Upon seeing the weapon, Katy nodded appreciatively. “Jackson said you knew what you’re doing.”

  Angie smiled. “My dad, he wanted a boy.”

  “Don’t they all,” Katy said. The pack she slipped on was smaller than Angie’s.

  “So where we going?” asked Angie.

  “The topo map shows water a half-mile south,” Katy told her. “We’ll head for it. All the animals will.”

  Angie nodded agreement. “It’s near the gravel pits. Fred Bulcher’s mined sand and gravel there for years.”

  They set off, heading south.

  “Maybe somebody there spotted Kali?”

  “Nobody there now. Ted Cheney booted Fred and his crew off the land a few months ago.”

  “Why?” said Katy.

  Before Angie could respond, they heard a noise that sounded like a door closing. Both women stopped and looked back. Katy quietly moved twenty feet to the left, separating them, and moments later they crept to the house.

  Despite the sound that might or might not have been a door, Katy expected to find a lion or tiger or wolf or even scavenger dogs behind the Cheney house. The last thing she expected was a chubby man with a thick, white beard and a flushed, round face shaded by a Tilley hat.

  The man carried a daypack and a deer rifle. He wore jeans hooked to red suspenders. His flannel shirt was so new it had folds in it. The moment he saw a pair of rifles pointed at him, he said, “Don’t shoot. Don’t shoot.” He tried to raise his hands above his shoulders, but he was holding the rifle. His belly shook when he moved.

  “Nobody’s going to shoot you,” Angie told him. “Just stay calm. Now what are you doing here?”

  “Looking.” His eyes bounced from Angie to Katy and back again. “Just looking. I didn’t do nothing wrong.”

  “You mind laying that rifle on the ground while we talk?” Angie said. “Do it real gentle like.”

  “Okay, sure.” The man squatted and laid the deer rifle in the dust. It took effort for him to get back up.

  Angie and Katy lowered their rifles but kept them where they could be raised again quickly. Angie then introduced herself as a police officer and told the man to show some identification. When he hesitated, the guns started up again. The trespasser finally took out his driver’s license and gave it to Angie. She read it aloud. “Ted Sands from Boise, Idaho.” She studied the man for a moment. “How’d you get here?”

  “Car.” Neither Katy nor Angie had seen a car when they drove up, and they pointed it out to Sands. “Well, I parked a ways back on a side road, off in the woods. Worked my way up here looking for lions and tigers.”

  “Find any?” Katy asked. She hadn’t spoken until now.

  Sands shook his head.

  “Watch him,” Angie said to Katy. She had no radio to use to check his driver’s license, so she instead checked the house. After examining the crime scene tape across the back door, she said, “It’s been cut and re-taped.”

  “That could be Jackson,” Katy said. “From Monday.”

  A second later, Angie returned to face Sands. “Did you go inside the house, Mr. Sands?”

  “Not me. I looked through the windows, just being curious but … that’s it. No reason to go inside.” Sands removed his hat and scratched his head. His hair was white and cut short. “You a police officer too?” he asked Katy.

  “Professional hunter.”

  “Oh! Well, how ’bout that. Two girls with guns.”

  “Women,” Angie said. “Where’s your hunting license?”

  “Hunting license? Didn’t know I need one to look.”

  “I bet you didn’t. I should arrest you for corrupting a crime scene, but I’m kind of busy here so … guess it’s your lucky day, mister Sands.”

  “Well, I appreciate that. That mean I can go now?”

  “Yes, I guess it does.” Sands reached for his deer rifle, but Angie stopped him. She picked up the gun, a Kimber Classic, and unloaded it before giving the hunting rifle and the bullets to the older man and saying, “Don’t load it again until you clear the barnyard.”

  Sands nodded and walked away without looking back.

  “He was lying,” Angie said.

  “About being in the house?” Katy asked.

  “About that and maybe more. That tape on the door is brand new. Now why would Sands have police tape?”

  It was a question not meant for Katy to answer so she didn’t. They watched Sands disappear from sight. Then they cut across a field behind the house, drawn by the stench of decomposition.

  About three hundred feet from the empty animal cages they found a ditch that had been used as a trash dump. Bones were mixed in with household garbage. The bones were mostly large and mostly dis
connected from other bones, but a few were clearly identifiable as a horse or cow or even a large cat. Most of the bones had been picked clean.

  Katy squatted to examine some tracks near the edge of the trash dump. “Lions,” she said. “Most people don’t realize it, but lions are scavengers. They’d rather steal food than hunt for it. Lot of wolf tracks here too.”

  Angie watched Katy’s butt, shapely in taut pants, and then caught herself and looked away at the scat. “Some of the wolf scat’s fresh. Sands probably scared them off.”

  “Him or some big cat.”

  “How exactly are we going to find this liger?”

  “Big cats are territorial. I think Kali will return here, especially since she’s pregnant.” Katy explained about the rarity of ligers mating and the added need to capture Kali quickly now that the male was dead. With nothing further to see at the dump, they soon walked on, and for a while neither of them said anything more. The silence wasn’t due to feeling awkward; it came instead from each woman’s comfort with not speaking. It was broken when Katy, who had been thinking about Jackson, suddenly said, “You must know Jackson pretty well.”

  “He’s my boss,” Angie said with a shrug.

  “That scar on his neck, you know how he got it?”

  “Did you ask the Chief?”

  Katy shook her head no.

  “Colorado,” Angie said. “A house fire. He doesn’t talk about it much.” She snorted. “Actually, he’s never really talked about it with me. But you hear things.”

  Katy was watching the ground as they walked. “Stop,” she said. She dropped down to look at some tracks.

  “These liger tracks?”

  “No,” Katy said. “Too small. A tiger. A big one.”

  “Chief Hobbs saved me from a Bengal tiger back there in the house,” Angie said. “I’d be dead if it wasn’t for him.”

  “Meaning don’t ask anything else about him?”

  Angie didn’t respond right away. She studied the land as though she was expecting someone to arrive. When she finally did look at Katy again, she said, “Go online and look up the name Nancy Larsen in Fort Collins, Colorado.”