Wild Spirits

by Rosa Jordan

  “Lesson number one,” Wendy warned. “Never let any wild cat get that close to your face. You’re lucky it was an ear and not an eye!”

  Just then the phone rang. Wendy went to answer it, knowing it would be Kyle.

  “Wendy! You okay?”

  “More or less. How about you?”

  “Everything’s under control. I’m going back to town to book these guys. Can you handle being alone?”

  “I’m not alone. Danny’s here. And Radar and Santiago. We’re fine. But Kyle?”

  “What is it?”

  “Do come home as soon as you can, will you?”

  “Be there by the time you finish feeding your animals,” he said, and added, in a gruff, teasing voice, “No point in coming home any sooner, since you always feed me last.”

  With Radar draped around her neck, Wendy fixed Santiago’s bottle. Then she went into the living room where Danny sat, letting the ocelot kitten gnaw on his fingers.

  “Rule number two,” Wendy said. “Body parts are not toys. It doesn’t hurt for him to chew on your fingers now, but soon he’ll be able to bite hard enough to break the skin. That can cause a serious infection.”

  “Uh, yeah,” Danny said. “But how do I stop him?”

  “Give him one of Radar’s chew toys, or a sock or something. Right now, though, we’ll give him a bottle. I expect that chewing means he’s hungry.”

  Wendy passed Radar to Danny and took Santiago. Radar immediately squirmed out of Danny’s arms and plopped himself in Wendy’s lap, trying to crowd the smaller kitten out. As Wendy juggled the two kittens and the bottle, Santiago slid off her lap and wobbled across the sofa to Danny.

  “All right,” Wendy said. “If that’s the way you two want it. Danny, can you feed him?”

  Danny beamed, and grasped Santiago in the firm way Wendy had taught him when they had a baby bobcat to feed. Pressing the ocelot kitten close to his side with arm and elbow, he held the bottle in his other hand. But where they’d had to force Lucky to take a bottle that looked and felt nothing like the teat she was used to getting milk from, Santiago didn’t even wait for it to be offered. He grabbed the bottle with two paws and brought the nipple to his mouth.

  “Goodness!” Wendy exclaimed. “He’s almost as aggressive as Buzzsaw Bob!”

  Danny sighed happily. “This is the most special thing I’ve ever done,”

  “I thought releasing the junkyard bobcat was the most special thing,” Wendy teased. “Or getting accepted as a volunteer at Red River Ranch.”

  “Yeah,” Danny said. “But this is better. This is my true dream.”

  Wendy watched Danny’s enraptured face hovering over the ocelot kitten as it guzzled milk, and felt Radar’s soft warmth in her lap.

  She closed her eyes, trying to get things straight in her head. Not even half an hour ago, two horrible men had almost grabbed her. Were they real or something out of a nightmare? Or was she dreaming now, dreaming that she was safe in her own living room with her best friend and favourite pet nearby, watching one of the rarest animals in the world slurp milk? It didn’t seem possible that both those things could be true, especially not the way they had happened, one tumbling in on top of the other the way dreams sometimes do, with no warning to let you know when a nice dream is going to turn scary, or vice versa. If it was real, it was certainly the most unreal day of her life!

  “How could the police have got here so fast?” she asked aloud. “And how did you get in, Danny? Did Kyle give you the key?”

  The delight on Danny’s face faded. In a voice that sounded as if he was sure he was in big trouble, he stammered, “I — I broke a window.”

  “Oh?” To Wendy that was just one more thing that didn’t make sense. “Why?”

  “I was scared to go back.”

  “Go back?”

  “When I was coming out here on the bike. There was a car by the road. It must’ve been there quite a while because the guys in it had tossed a lot of beer cans out the window. I didn’t really look at them. I just stopped to pick up the cans.”

  Wendy could see Danny in her mind’s eye the way she had seen him around town so many times, head down, scanning the ground for aluminum cans. When he saw one he’d pick it up, drop it in a bag, and scurry on, avoiding eye contact with people who might be staring or laughing at him. Only this time he would have been on his bike, stopping near the car, getting off to pick up the cans, and dropping them in a pannier before riding on.

  “But you did sort of see them?” Wendy prompted.

  “One threw a can at me,” Danny said. “It hit me in the butt. It didn’t hurt, but it made me jump, which made him laugh. The way Butch laughs when he’s drunk. The other guy said, ‘Get the hell out of here, kid, or you’re dead meat.’ And I did, because I was really scared. I’m not a coward, Wendy. It’s just, I recognized the voice. From the phone call.”

  He glanced over at her with that look, the look of a boy who felt that no matter what he did, it was bound to have been the wrong thing, and he hoped she won’t be too mad at him. “I wanted to go to the police station and tell Kyle. But I didn’t dare ride back past them. So I came on here. Only I couldn’t get in. I had to break a window. Just a little one,” he said in a small voice. “In the back porch door.”

  “Don’t worry about the window,” Wendy said. “It can be fixed.”

  “I knew Kyle’s number was programmed in on number one,” Danny continued, “because that’s the one you use when you want to phone him at work.”

  “So you called?

  “Yeah. Just a few minutes before you got here.”

  “That call,” Wendy said softly, “probably saved my life. And Santiago’s.”

  Danny said nothing, just focused his attention on Santiago as if the kitten slurping milk was the most amazing thing he had ever seen.

  Radar leaped off Wendy’s lap, found his stuffed leopard, and brought it to her to make it sing. For several minutes the room was quiet except for Santiago’s greedy sucking sound, with “Wild Thing” as background music.

  “Empty,” Danny said, holding up the bottle.

  “Do you know how to burp him?” Wendy asked. Without waiting for an answer, she took Santiago and put him on Danny’s knee, stomach down. “You can do it on your shoulder the way they do human babies, but this is better, in case he burps up some of the formula. A kitten that eats as fast as this one will swallow a lot of air. Just pat him on the back for a minute.”

  Danny gently patted the kitten’s back. “I just love the way he’s marked. Ocelots have always been my favourites.”

  Wendy smiled. “How can they be your favorites when this is the first one you’ve ever seen and you’ve only known him for half an hour?”

  “I’ve been reading about them for a long time, though. Tigrillos is what they call them in Mexico and South America. Ocelots and two smaller species, margays and oncillas, they call them all tigrillos. They’re all this colour, goldy-brown with black spots. And they’re all endangered.”

  “Yes,” Wendy said. “I think there are thirty-eight species of wild cats in the world, and most of them are endangered.”

  “But tigrillos are especially endangered,” Danny insisted. “Because the rainforest where they live is being destroyed. By the time I grow up there might not be any left. In the wild, I mean. There’ll still be a few in zoos.”

  Wendy sighed. “I suppose that’s a reason to let people keep them in captivity. At least they’re protected there, whereas it’s just about impossible to protect them in the wild.”

  “It’s not impossible!” Danny said in a sudden, self-assured way that Wendy had not heard from him before. “That’s what I’m going to do!”

  She almost smiled, the way people do when a kid announces some grand plan. But something about Danny’s confidence k
ept her from laughing. Besides, she was curious to know exactly what he had in mind.

  “There are places in the rainforest where tigrillos live naturally, and hunting’s not allowed. Like the national park where we let the junkyard bobcat go. The problem is that those special places have to be guarded, or poachers come and shoot them for their fur. I’d go work in one of those places right now except you have to be eighteen to volunteer, and have experience.” Danny flashed a confident smile. “I’ll have plenty of experience by then from working at Red River Ranch and helping take care of Santiago. Plus, you get priority if you speak Spanish. So I’m taking that in school. It’s my best subject.”

  Wendy was amazed. “You found out about this on the Internet?” she asked.

  “Yeah.”

  She laughed. “Don’t your teachers ever get on your case about spending so much time on the computer?”

  Danny grinned sheepishly. “Sometimes I get detention for surfing the web for animal stuff when I’m supposed to be doing something else. But that’s okay. There are computers in the detention room. There they don’t care what you use it for, as long as it’s not games.”

  “Well,” Wendy said admiringly, “you certainly seem to have been thinking hard about your future. But maybe you want to go to college first, then —”

  “I’m not going to college,” Danny interrupted. “At least not at first. As soon as I finish high school I’m going to volunteer at one of the reserves where they’re trying to protect tigrillos in the wild. There’s one in Texas for ocelots. And there’s the Belize Jaguar Preserve. It has ocelots, too. But if I can find one in South America, that’s where I want to go, because that’s where most ocelots and margays are. You have to pay your own way to get there, and pay for your food and all, but I’ve got enough money saved for that already.”

  Wendy lifted an eyebrow, and looked at Radar. “What do you think, Radar? Shouldn’t Danny use his money for college?”

  Radar, who was lying on the sofa between them with the toy between his feet, suddenly bit it on the paw. “Wild Thing!” it sang out.

  “Look!” Wendy exclaimed. “Radar figured out how to make it sing.”

  “Right, Radar!” Danny laughed. “I should go where the wild things are. The real wild ones.” He held up Santiago — this time not so close to his face — and looked into his deep blue kitten eyes. “But I’ll still love you, Santiago. Even if you’re a captive ocelot and can never go wild, you’ve got a brave heart.”

  Wendy reached across Radar and touched Danny’s hand. “So do you, Danny.”

  41

  THINGS SAID AND NOT

  After feeding Santiago they went out and fed the other animals. As they crossed the pasture to the bobcat enclosures, Wendy said, “You see what I see, Danny?”

  He looked from Buzzsaw Bob to Lucky. “I see them standing on the top of their den boxes watching each other.”

  “Like Romeo and Juliet,” Wendy chuckled. “It’s the bobcat version of making eyes at each other from a balcony. Dr. Singh gave BB a vasectomy about ten days ago. As soon as the new enclosure is finished I’ll put them together.”

  “I can help!” Danny offered eagerly.

  “Good. All that’s left to do is to put in a feeding slot and build the new den box. We can drive to town and get the materials tomorrow.” Wendy cast Danny a grateful glance. “What a relief to be able to leave home without worrying about getting grabbed by those awful guys!”

  • • •

  When Kyle got home he told Wendy and Danny that “those awful guys” were locked up, and not likely to get out for a very long time. “They’re being charged with aggravated assault,” Kyle explained at supper. “Besides that, there’s the money from the bank robbery that they tried to spend in Florida, plus some firearms violations. Put it all together and I think we’ll have a solid case against them.”

  “Not to mention the threatening phone calls,” Wendy added.

  Kyle frowned. “They’ve denying that, of course. But we might find someone to testify to the fact that they were asking around for your phone number. Maybe Danny’s parents — Danny, do you know when they’re coming back?”

  Danny stared at his plate. “I think they’re not coming back.”

  “Not coming back?” Wendy echoed.

  “Why do you think that?” Kyle asked a calm way which told Wendy that even though he wanted information, he was trying hard to sound like a friend, not a cop interrogating a suspect.

  “They were fighting about it,” Danny mumbled. “After he got the money. The rent was way behind and my mom wanted to use it for that. He said to hell with the landlord, they should go somewhere new and start over. She said they didn’t have enough money. That’s why they wanted me to take mine out of the bank. He said in Las Vegas we might win big, and could go wherever we wanted after that.”

  Danny pushed the food around on his plate awhile before adding, “But I didn’t want to go with them.” He looked up, meeting Kyle’s gaze squarely. “I’m going to South America to work on ocelot conservation. As soon as I’m old enough.”

  “He’s got a plan,” Wendy said quickly. “For after he finishes high school.”

  “Oh,” Kyle said. “But in the meantime?”

  No one said anything. Radar hopped up on the chair with his toy. Danny squeezed its paw, but nothing happened.

  “Dead battery,” Danny said. “Sorry, Radar, your leopard has sung itself out.”

  Kyle looked across the table at Wendy. “You know, Wendy, Frank and his wife have a couple of foster kids. I could check with them about —”

  “No!” Danny yelled. He jumped up so fast his chair fell over backwards with a crash that sent Radar scrambling into Wendy’s lap for protection. “NO!”

  And then before anybody could speak, Danny was out of the room and out of the house, slamming the door behind him.

  Wendy ran to the living-room window just in time to see him jump on his bike and pedal away into the darkness. “Oh no!” she exclaimed, and grabbed her keys from the wall hook.

  “What the devil got into him?” Kyle asked. “What did I say?”

  “Foster kid. He thinks you mean to have him put in a foster home.”

  By the time Wendy got the RAV started, Danny was out of sight, but she knew he couldn’t have gotten far. Sure enough, a short distance beyond the end of their driveway she saw him in her headlights, hunched over the handlebars, pedaling like he was training for a triathlon.

  She drove a little way past him, stopped, and got out. He came up on her so fast that for a minute she thought he was going to swerve around her and keep going. But she held out her hand, and he stopped.

  “I am not going to a foster home!” he yelled. “I don’t care what the cops or anybody say!” His eyes flashed angrily. “I’ll run away! Right now! Right this minute!”

  “You got it wrong, Danny! That’s not what Kyle meant. He meant he was going to check and see if you could stay with us.”

  “That’s not what he said!” Danny muttered between clenched teeth.

  “But that’s what he meant,” Wendy insisted. “I know —”

  “How do you know?” Danny demanded.

  Wendy hesitated, wondering how she did know. Then she understood, and also thought of how to explain to Danny in a way he’d understand. “You know how with animals, Danny, the ones you get to know really well, like the llamas? It gets so you can pretty much tell what they’re thinking, right?”

  Danny wasn’t looking at her. She didn’t know if he got it, so, just to be sure, she added, “It’s like that when you’re married to somebody. You have an idea of what’s in their mind without them having to say it.”

  Danny was silent. But she noticed that his hands were not gripping the handlebars of his bike quite so tightly.

&nbs
p; She laid a hand on top of one of his. “If we could get ourselves certified as foster parents, and you wanted to stay with us, you probably could. Especially if your parents don’t come back. Maybe even if they do.” She gave a small laugh. “Of course, I’m not old enough to be your mom. Couldn’t I be your foster sister, though? And Kyle could be your foster brother?”

  Danny kept his head down. For several minutes she could not tell what he might be feeling. When he finally lifted his face, Wendy saw, in the red glow of the RAV’s tail lights, that there were tears on his cheeks. He mounted his bike and began to pedal. Circling slowly, he headed back to the farm.

  42

  A NEW NORMAL

  Danny hoisted a roll of wire off Wendy’s shoulder onto his own. “Hey, Shorty, let me carry that.”

  “Show off!” she teased. “Just because you’re stronger than me.”

  “And taller,” Danny grinned, looking down at her.

  It was the last day of December, and they were back to work on Lucky’s enclosure. They had brought Radar and Santiago into the field with them so they could play around outdoors. The kittens were so entertaining that they kept stopping work to laugh at them.

  Radar, who was a month older than Santiago and whose legs were twice as long, could easily outrun the younger kitten. But when Santiago did catch up him, he’d grab one of Radar’s slender legs and bite until the older kitten gave a meow of pain and boxed his ears. Then it would be Santiago’s turn to yowl in surprise. Radar would leap up and dance away on graceful legs, leaving Santiago waddling along behind.

  “I’ve never seen such an aggressive kitten!” Wendy exclaimed. “If they were the same age we couldn’t put them together, because I’m sure Santiago would hurt Radar. They play the same games, but Santiago is a lot rougher.”

  “He plays rough because he’s meant to be wild,” Danny stated.

  “His species is meant to be wild. Radar’s, too,” Wendy agreed. “But these particular kittens might be ten generations removed from the wild. There’s no way they could live free.”