Cry of the Panther

by Jeff Gulvin

  Connla smiled, but still he did not make any move to touch them. He was watching Mellencamp. She had made a lair for her young in a burrow below the tree stump where she lay. Cougars had no natural predators and they were only vulnerable as cubs. Mellencamp would have sought the safest location possible for them while she went hunting, and the yard was as safe as it got. This was where she had recuperated when she was hurt and she had clearly not forgotten. Still Connla was cautious: she weighed more than 150 pounds and could kill him with one blow from her paw.

  She yawned and got up, stretched flat on her stomach, her hind legs arched, tongue curling between her teeth, and then she wandered over to him and stood there, sniffing her babies. Gently, Connla stroked the head of the female, who scrabbled now at his thigh. Mellencamp watched him for a moment, then she bent and, with infinite care, lifted the cub in jaws that could snap the neck of an elk. She walked back to the tree stump and set her down in the lair. Then she walked round Connla, picked up her son and took him to join his sister. She came over to him then, yawned and rubbed herself against his shoulder like a domestic cat. He lifted his hand to her ears. ‘Good to see you, girl,’ he whispered.

  Over the next few weeks he stayed home and let his leg heal. Then he took his truck into Rapid City and got the plaster cast removed. After that he was more mobile, and he went up into the hills and took pictures of Mellencamp teaching the cubs to eat meat. She killed a couple of young deer and hid them in the scrub, dragging them out for the youngsters to practise on. She cut through the hide with her incisors and showed them how to tear the flesh away from the bones.

  The new school term started and Imogen returned with a heavy heart. There seemed to be nothing to look forward to now, save chill nights and the oncoming snow of winter. She got back into it, though, and had to rebuff Colin Patterson’s advances even harder. He was very concerned about her, he told her, after what she had been through during the summer. She kept him at arm’s length, however, and confided in Jean.

  ‘You’ve not been yourself since he went back to America,’ Jean told her as they shared playground duty one lunchtime. ‘You really miss him, don’t you.’

  Imogen was watching two boys preparing to kick lumps out of one another. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I do.’ And she did. She would see his face sometimes in her mind’s eye—his smile, the way his hair fell over those green eyes when his conversation grew animated. She had even finished the painting of him. She hadn’t intended to; she had meant to throw it away, but couldn’t quite bring herself to do it. In the middle of the night a week or two ago she had got out of bed and finished it. His eyes had stared out of the canvas at her, as if he could guess her thoughts, and in the morning, when the paint was dry, she’d found herself brushing his cheek with her fingertips.

  ‘Can you get in touch with him?’ Jean asked.

  ‘Why would I want to do that?’

  Jean smiled then. Imogen had told her the whole story over a bottle of wine one night, just before the term started. ‘Because you had a crush on him when you were a kid. Because he pretty much treated you right. And because I think you’ve loved him all your life.’

  Imogen made a face. ‘He lied to me, Jean.’

  ‘He did, aye. But I imagine he’s paying the price.’

  Imogen glanced sideways at her then. ‘Even if I did want to contact him, I don’t know where he lives.’

  One Saturday morning at the beginning of October she took Keira and rode into the hills that formed the Five Sisters of Kintail. The day was cold, and it was colder still in the mountains, but the sky was clear. The cloud was high and the breeze barely caressed the grass. She rode between the first and second sister and heard the roar of a stag. A thrill took her as she recognized Redynvre, and for a moment her pain was forgotten. Keira snorted and pranced and Imogen kicked her into a gallop. They raced between the slopes and diagonally across the hillside, heather and bracken splintered by black and shining rock. At the top of the second rise she pulled the horse up short and held her on a tight rein. Below her, head dipped to meet those who pretended to his throne, she saw Redynvre in the rut.

  Slipping from the saddle, Imogen sat down on a rock and reached for her sketch pad. But then, all at once, she hesitated. This was his moment, not hers to capture on canvas. Suffice enough that she was privileged to witness it.

  She sat there all day and watched as he wallowed in a mud hole and urinated over his belly to make his odour strong and pungent for the females. He would stand on the hillside and roar out his lungs, longer and louder than any other stag. His antlers were full and hard; he scored the ground, frayed bushes and branches and dipped his head to fight any male that outgrew his station. By the end of the day he had a harem of ten hinds to himself and the rut was just beginning. He nuzzled them, he cleaned their flanks and kissed them and, when they were ready, he mounted them and mated.

  Connla followed Mellencamp’s movements till the weather turned at the end of October. She was a good mother and taught her babies well. She allowed him to trail them through the high woods to Sylvan Lake. This was a favourite sunspot of hers in summer. Many times he had seen her lying flat out on a ledge while people swam in the lake, completely unaware of her presence. But now the summer was over, the first leaves were beginning to fall and the cougar had young to feed.

  Connla had not been to Washington to begin preparing for the semesters, and had suffered Holly’s wrath on the telephone. He had burned his bridges as far as the university was concerned, but he just couldn’t face teaching and was thinking about getting a job bartending in Rapid City to get him through the winter.

  He never stopped thinking about Imogen. Every morning he told himself the pain would get easier to deal with, but it didn’t get easier, and as every day passed the fear that he had missed the one and only boat grew and grew in his mind.

  Then one night he woke in the darkness having dreamed of her. They were together in her house by Loch Gael, and in the dream he held her and whispered to her in the night, and they made love until the sheets were a tangle of sweat on the bed. In the morning, he had an ache in his loins and a longing in his chest like a physical pain. Mellencamp had her cubs’ education well in hand, and Connla made a decision. He threw some clothes into a bag, checked the balance on his credit cards and called Paha Ska for a ride to Rapid City.

  It was two forty-five on Friday afternoon and the weekend beckoned in Gaelloch. Imogen had planned to ride into the hills, but the weather forecast was bad and she could see the time ahead yawning empty. Her mind had drifted throughout the day and now she was wondering what story to tell the children. It was only as they settled down, cross-legged in anticipation, that she decided. Connie McKercher, as always, was sitting closest to her. ‘Can we have the one about Olwen again, Miss Munro?’ Imogen smiled at her and thought, Yes, she would’ve liked children of her own.

  ‘Not today, Connie. Today I want to tell you a different story. It’s a very special story and one I haven’t told you before.’ She looked at their faces then, each one in turn, and the rain began to fall against the window, driven in by the wind from Lochalsh.

  She sat there for a quiet moment and gathered her thoughts—images in her head, frayed memories that just wouldn’t flee when she banished them. With eyes closed, she began: ‘Long, long ago, Connla of the Fiery Hair, the only son of Conn of the Hundred Fights, stood with his father on the mountain known as Usna. Side by side they stood, and as they looked across the sea, Connla saw a maiden, fair of face and clad all in white, coming towards them. She walked as if in flight, as if her bare feet didn’t touch the ground at all.

  ‘“Where dost thou come from, maiden?” he asked her.

  ‘Quietly she replied, “I come from the plain of the ever-living, Connla of the Fiery Hair, a place where there is neither death nor sin. Every day is a day of peace, each hour full and free from strife.”

  ‘Connla’s father, and all those gathered with them, stared in wonder. They heard
the maiden’s voice, soft and sweet as honey, but they saw her not.

  ‘“Whom dost thou speak to, my son?” said Conn of the Hundred Fights.

  ‘“He speaks to a fair young maiden,” the maiden answered for him, “whom neither age nor death will beckon. I love him. I have always loved him and I come now to call him away with me to the plain of pleasure, the place called Moy Mell, where Boadag has his throne.”

  ‘She turned to Connla then, one fair hand extended and a love in her eyes the like of which he had never seen, nor would he see again. “O come with me, Connla of the Fiery Hair, ruddy as the dawn and with thy tawny skin. A new crown awaits thee, a crown to grace the beauty in thy face. Come with me this hour and never will thy beauty fade till that day of judgement.”

  ‘But Conn the king, afraid now for his son, called to Coran his druid. “Coran of the many spells,” he said. “I call upon thee now. A maiden unseen has stepped these shores, and she would, by some strange power of form and speech, take my son from me.”

  ‘So Coran the druid came forth and chanted spells, conjuring the rune and rhythm of his magic, and directed his words at the very spot where the faceless voice had risen. And then no more they heard her voice, and under the spell of the great druid she faded from Connla’s sight, but before she was to vanish altogether she threw to him an apple.

  ‘From that day forth Connla would take no water; he would take no food, save from that single shiny apple. And as he ate of it so it grew again, and nothing more sustained him. All the time the yearning in him grew, the longing for his maiden, she so pale and fair of face whom only he had seen. A month passed, and on the last day of that month Connla stood again at the side of his father, this time on the plain of Arcomin, and the maiden came to him a second time.

  ‘“Connla,” she called, and her voice was soft as singing, “’tis a glorious place thou holds among the folk of the living. They love thee, yet living thou art and mortal thou remain, and as a mortal, shortlived, awaiting only the day of death. But the folk of life, Connla, those who live for ever, call to you. Come, Connla. Come to the plain of pleasure, for there they have learned to know thee, to love thee and they see thee in thy home among the dear beloved ones.”

  ‘When Conn heard her voice again, he summoned his druid a second time. But the maiden said: “O mighty Conn of the Hundred Fights, there is no love in the druid’s power. Whence the law comes the druid’s power will wane, these magic spells that come from the lips of the demon will be no more.”

  ‘The king had witnessed that since the maiden had come that day upon the height of Usna, Connla, his son, had spoken to none who spoke to him. Wearily, Conn of the Hundred Fights turned to him. “Speak, my son. Tell me what is in thy heart. Is it in thy mind to heed this maiden, only thou can see?”

  ‘“My father,” Connla said. “’Tis hard on my heart. I love my people above all else, but a longing takes me for this maiden that I cannot begin to understand or impart to thee.”

  ‘When the maiden heard these words she spoke with a hew softness. “The oceans of the world will never match the strength of thy longing, Connla of the Fiery Hair. Come with me this day, come in my curragh, my straight gliding crystal canoe, and together we will seek Boadag’s land. See now, the bright sun sinks in the west and yet we can reach that place before the darkness falls. It is a land worthy of the journey, a land joyous to all those who seek its path. If you will come with me this day, we will seek that path together and live there for all the days of life.”’

  Imogen broke off, suddenly irritated. A shadow had fallen across the floor through the reinforced glass of the door. Patterson had developed a habit of interrupting just as she was finishing, hovering in the corridor like some latter-day Uriah Heep. For a moment the spell of the story was broken, her thread lost completely. She stared at the shadow, frowned, then looked straight up into Connla McAdam’s eyes. No crutches now, his beard gone, his hair swept back from his face. In one hand he held a small travel bag and the palm of the other was flat against the glass.

  ‘Miss Munro?’ Connie McKercher was tugging her sleeve. ‘What happened after that?’

  They stared at one another through the glass, Imogen oblivious to Connie’s plaintive voice and the hand on her arm. A lump lifted in her throat and she tried to swallow it. She saw threads of crystal in the back of Connla’s eyes, but he blinked hard and then his face creased into a smile. Imogen sat there looking into his face and let the warmth rush in her veins. After a few moments she looked back at the children once more and took Connie McKercher’s hand.

  ‘When the maiden’s voice was heard no more,’ she said, ‘Connla of the Fiery Hair, looked to his father one last time, then he walked down the beach to join her. Taking him by the hand she led him to the water’s edge, and together they leaped into the curragh. Connla did not look back, and all those on the shore—the king and his court—saw it, too. They stood upon the plain, with the wind in their hair, and watched the two of them glide towards the setting sun. Connla and his fairy maiden sought their path on the sea, and they were no more seen, nor did anyone know where they went.’

  THE END

  About the Author

  Jeff Gulvin is the author of nine novels and is currently producing a new series set in the American West. His previous titles include three books starring maverick detective Aden Vanner and another three featuring FBI agent Harrison, as well as two novels originally published under the pseudonym Adam Armstrong, his great-grandfather’s name. He received acclaim for ghostwriting Long Way Down, the prize-winning account of a motorcycle trip from Scotland to the southern tip of Africa by Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman. The breadth of Gulvin’s fiction is vast, and his style has been described as commercial with just the right amount of literary polish. His stories range from hard-boiled crime to big-picture thriller to sweeping romance.

  Half English and half Scottish, Gulvin has always held a deep affection for the United States. He and his wife spend as much time in America as possible, particularly southern Idaho, their starting point for road-trip research missions to Nevada, Texas, or Louisiana, depending on where the next story takes them.

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2000 by Adam Armstrong

  Cover design by Barbara Brown

  978-1-4804-1839-4

  This edition published in 2013 by Open Road Integrated Media

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