The Last Panther

by Todd Mitchell

  “I considered it, but he’s skinnier than he looks,” joked Paulo. “Besides, he had no other place to go, which makes him a fugee like me. And fugees always look out for each other.”

  Another shiver coursed through Kiri, only this time it didn’t come from Snowflake’s tickling paws. “What did you say?” she asked, getting the first flicker of an idea.

  “Just that fugees always look out for each other. It’s what we do. That’s why I went to your place to search for him.”

  “Paulo, that’s it! You’re brilliant!”

  “Well, yeah. I mean, duh…” He paused. “What did I say that’s brilliant?”

  “We have to hurry. I don’t have much time. Will you help me?”

  “Sure. As long as you’re not dead.”

  Kiri checked to make sure no one else in the village had seen her talking with Paulo. Fortunately, the house they stood beneath was set back from most of the village and sheltered by a dune. “I need you to gather everyone. Tell them to meet in the mending tent. Say one of the elders called a gathering.”

  “What are you going to do?” asked Paulo.

  “I’m going to remind them of what it means to be a fugee.”

  Paulo looked skeptical. “People don’t want to see you, Kiri. They’re already angry, and you’re not supposed to be here—”

  “I know. But I have a plan. Now go! Get everyone.”

  After Paulo left, Kiri ran to another stilt house at the edge of the village, near the sea-grape tunnels.

  The house of the Witch Woman.

  Paulo must have come up with a good lie, because an hour later almost all of the village had gathered at the mending tent. It was no small feat to get so many fugees to come out during the hottest hours of the day.

  “Who called this meeting?” demanded Elder Tomas. His bald head glistened with sweat as he settled into his high-backed seat in the center of the tent.

  “You did,” said a few council members.

  “I did no such thing. What’s going on here?”

  “I called the gathering,” announced Kiri. She’d been sitting in the shadows at the edge of the tent with her hood pulled low over her face and Snowflake curled in her lap.

  People seemed shocked to see her. They stepped back, giving her plenty of space. Kiri had hoped for as much. If others thought she was a ghost, like Paulo had, they wouldn’t get in her way. She strode toward the center of the gathering with Snowflake on her shoulder.

  Elder Tomas leaned forward in his chair and steadied himself with the golden python staff. Charro, Tarun, Senek, and Rifat sat in a semicircle on each side of him.

  “Waller Girl,” Charro grumbled from his spot closest to Elder Tomas. “I thought we were rid of you.”

  “I’m no waller,” said Kiri, doing her best to keep the tremble in her chest from showing in her voice.

  “You’re no fugee, either,” replied Charro. “You’re not welcome here.”

  “You can’t kick out a ghost,” said Kiri.

  Several people murmured, but Charro merely scowled. “You’re no ghost. Any fool with eyes can see you’re just a greedy waller child who keeps causing trouble.”

  “You said the fever would kill me, Charro. Maybe it did.”

  “Someone shut her up before I do,” muttered Charro. “This child has no right to speak here.”

  “She has every right,” said the Witch Woman. Heads turned to watch as the elderly woman made her way to the center of the tent and stood next to Kiri. “She’s been marked by three devi. They chose her to be their messenger, so we’d best listen to what she has to say.”

  “Devi? What devi?” asked Charro.

  “You know what devi. That’s the mark of a water devi on her cheek,” said the Witch Woman, pointing to the scar on Kiri’s cheek from where the leatherback bone had scratched her. “And a devi of the land marked her shoulder.” The Witch Woman tugged Kiri’s hood aside and directed her to turn so everyone could see the raised lines of the panther scratches on her shoulder.

  The devi marks warmed as people stared at them, as if rays of sunlight were shining on her cheek and shoulder. The scars she bore weren’t simply wounds from the sea turtle and the panther. They were reminders of her connection to the water and the land.

  “You said three devi. Where’s the third mark?” asked Tarun.

  Kiri looked to the Witch Woman. The elder woman urged her on. She lifted her arm and turned it so everyone could see the black lines tattooed there.

  “A feather,” said Nessa. “It’s the mark of a sky devi.”

  “That’s three marks,” continued the Witch Woman. “Three devi chose her to be their messenger.”

  A few people in the crowd nodded, appearing to accept what the Witch Woman said. Then Charro stood and grabbed Kiri’s wrist. He took a closer look at the black mark there. “That’s no feather. That’s a waller mark, and the wallers aren’t devi.”

  People jostled each other to see. Kiri’s face burned as fugees stared at the waller mark and whispered. She wanted to lower her arm and hide the black lines, but then the mark on her arm began to tingle, the same as the marks on her cheek and shoulder did.

  With that tingling came a new awareness. The wallers were part of this too, along with the panthers and the fugees. Perhaps she’d been marked by each so she could serve as a bridge between them, connecting the wallers in their distant cities to the land, water, and people here.

  “I told you before, Charro, devi take many forms,” said the Witch Woman. “You saw it yourself—Kiri was on death’s shore when the wallers came down from the sky and took her. And now she lives. A miracle like that seems the work of a devi to me.”

  Fugees murmured in awe, but Charro merely scoffed. “I see no miracle,” he said. “All I see is a waller trick.” He pointed at the tridrone up the beach. “The wallers stole the panther that was ours. They stole the cubs, too. We could have fed the village for a year off what they were worth, but the wallers took them and left us nothing except a fence that divides our land. And now they’ve returned with soldiers to take more from us?” He glared at the soldiers standing guard around the tridrone. “We starve because they’ve poisoned the water and taken all the fish away, and once again they threaten us.”

  Several netters muttered in agreement. Charro was winning them over, getting them to see things his way. Others began to complain about things the wallers had done. She was losing them.

  “You’re right to be angry,” said Kiri, struggling to be heard over the complaints. “The wallers have taken a lot from you, but if you listen to me there’s a way to get back some of what’s been lost—”

  “We’re done listening to wallers,” interrupted Senek.

  More angry voices followed his, drowning out Kiri’s.

  “Let her speak!” commanded Elder Tomas. He raised the golden python staff until the crowd grew quiet. “The girl is trouble, I’ll grant you that. I’d prefer to be rid of her and the wallers. Nevertheless, the wallers are here and so is she. She’s spent time with them, so she might know something of use.”

  Kiri stepped forward to address the council, but the pressure of so many angry faces made her throat clench. What am I doing here? she thought. I’m just a kid. I’m not even welcome here anymore.

  Her gaze settled on the wrinkled face of the Witch Woman. The elder woman nodded, encouraging her. She’d gone to the Witch Woman for help, and the Witch Woman had done all that she could to get the fugees to listen to her. Now she had to speak. Kiri swallowed and took strength from the tingling marks on her cheek, shoulder, and arm. Whether she’d truly been chosen by devi to be a messenger she couldn’t say. But if she didn’t speak, far more than her place in the village would be lost.

  “I can get the wallers to bring the panther cubs back,” she said. Her voice shook. “I’ll get them to bring you food and medicine, too. They’ll help you stay here and protect you from scav raiders.”

  “Why would they do that?” asked Elder Tomas.
“They never cared about us before. Never lifted a hand to help us, not even when we begged them to.”

  “They’ll do it because they need you to protect the panther cubs,” said Kiri. “And the panthers need to live here.” She took a deep breath, gaining confidence as she spoke. “The panthers have no place left in the world to go, which means they’re refugees, like you. And fugees always look out for each other, right?”

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Paulo nod.

  Kiri explained that the wallers wanted to breed the panthers and release them in the wild, but panthers needed a huge habitat to live in—too big an area for the wallers to watch over. The fugees who lived here could watch over them, though, because they knew this land best. Kiri promised the villagers that if they swore to protect the panthers, the wallers would help them. She spoke in a way she never had before, weaving a delicate web of what could be.

  “It has to be everyone,” she said. “Everyone needs to agree to protect them.”

  At first, people were silent. Then a few nodded, as if they could see the future she’d described—one where fugees and wallers worked together to protect the land and the creatures that were part of it. She thought they might actually go along with what she said, until Charro spoke.

  “I’ve heard enough waller lies,” he said. “The panther was already ours by rights, and those cubs were ours, too. The wallers stole them from us. And now they want us to help them? I’d rather kiss a snake than trust them.” He spat at Kiri’s feet and stormed out of the tent.

  Senek and several others turned to leave with him. It was all falling apart. Kiri hadn’t been able to persuade anyone.

  The Witch Woman gave her a mournful look. “You spoke well, child,” she said. “They just weren’t ready to hear.”

  Kiri stood in the center of the tent, watching the crowd disperse. For several seconds she couldn’t move. Her shoulders slumped and her legs felt as if they were sinking into muck. It was all Charro’s fault. People had been willing to listen until he tore down the web she’d woven. He was the key to all this—the one who kept ruining things.

  Her hand went to the knife at her belt and her fingers closed around the well-worn hilt.

  “Charro!” she yelled as she ran through the crowd. “Hey, Charro!”

  Fugees watched, but no one moved to stop her. People shuffled back, fearful of what might happen next.

  Charro continued walking to where his skiff had been dragged up onto the beach. He leaned over the railing to grab something. When he turned to face Kiri, the long gun was in his hands.

  “Leave,” he grumbled. “Go back to your people.”

  “I did. That’s why I’m here.”

  Charro’s eyes twitched. Then he shook his head. “You’re one of them now. You’ve got their mark on your arm, just like your da. Go live in their city and never come back here, Waller Girl.”

  Kiri wanted to be angry at him, but something about Charro’s words made her think of the story the Witch Woman had told her earlier that day, when she’d gone to the elder woman’s house to ask how she’d come to have her mother’s knife. It was a story about her mother’s past that her da had never told her. A story no one in the village had ever shared with her.

  “I know why you hate wallers so much,” said Kiri. “It’s because of my ma, isn’t it?”

  “You don’t know anything,” snapped Charro.

  “I know you loved her.”

  According to the Witch Woman, when Laria went to live in the swamp with Martin, she left her little brother behind in the stilt village. He was just a kid, and since both their parents were dead, he used to follow her around all the time. But when she left, he felt betrayed. He said he’d never talk to her again.

  “She was your sister, and she left you for a waller,” continued Kiri. “Then she got sick and the wallers let her die.”

  Charro clutched the long gun so tight his muscles trembled. “Wallers don’t care what happens to any of us. They don’t even see us as human.”

  “I bet you hate her, too, for leaving you,” said Kiri. “Is that why you hate me?”

  “I don’t hate you,” he muttered, but he didn’t look at her when he said it.

  “Am I like her?”

  Charro seemed taken aback by the question. He didn’t answer right away. Turning, he set the long gun down in the skiff. When next he looked at her, his gaze settled on her hair.

  “Your ma had braids like that,” he said. “And you’re bold and stubborn like her—I’ll give you that. But you’re not like she was.”

  Kiri’s shoulders slumped. She couldn’t help feeling disappointed. “Because of this?” she asked, holding up her arm with the waller mark on it.

  “No.”

  “Then why?”

  “Because you came back,” said Charro. “She never did. After she left with your da, she never once returned.”

  Kiri was surprised to hear Charro’s voice quaver. She looked at him, but instead of seeing the hard, angry netter, she saw the boy the Witch Woman had described—the scared, lost boy who’d been abandoned by both his parents and his sister. The boy who wanted nothing more than to have a family and a place where he belonged. She knew what that was like. She’d felt that way most of her life. Perhaps they weren’t so different after all, except her ma had come back for her, but not for him.

  Maybe now she can, thought Kiri.

  She pulled the knife from the sheath stitched to her belt. “Here.”

  Charro stared at the knife. Slowly, his face softened with recognition.

  He lifted the knife from her hand and studied the etchings in the blade. “This was our father’s knife. It was the only thing Laria took with her when she left.”

  “Take it,” said Kiri, remembering something her ma had said in one of her visions—that a knife wasn’t only for cutting but for mending too. Maybe this was what she’d meant. “I think she wanted you to have it.”

  Charro kept staring at the knife in his hand.

  Kiri turned to walk away from the village. Snowflake climbed onto her shoulder and sniffed at her ear as she left. She knew she should take the little rat back to Paulo, only she wasn’t ready to say goodbye to him again.

  “Wait,” called Charro. “Can you really get the wallers to bring back the cubs?”

  Kiri slowed. “I think so. If all the fugees swear to protect them.”

  “I’m not going to let the wallers take any more from us. Understand?”

  She nodded.

  “All right. I’ll do it, then,” said Charro. “I’ll protect them. And I’ll persuade the other netters and council members to do the same, on one condition.”

  “What?”

  “You come out on the skiff with me sometime and help pull in the nets and crab traps,” said Charro. “Fair enough?”

  “Fair enough,” said Kiri, unable to hold back a smile. “Thank you, Uncle.”

  The sun had dipped beneath the tops of the sea-grape dunes when Martin, Sonia, and the two soldiers finally returned carrying packs stuffed with equipment. Kiri had been watching for them. As soon as they got back to the tridrone, she ran down the beach to tell them the good news. Paulo, Tae, and several others trailed after her like the tail of a kite.

  The soldiers tensed at the sight of the oncoming mob. Fortunately, Martin recognized Kiri in the lead and ordered the soldiers not to fire. Still, the waller soldiers kept their guns aimed at the approaching villagers. Seeing this, the fugees stopped a good distance from the tridrone.

  Kiri went the rest of the way alone, crossing the last open stretch of beach between the fugees and wallers.

  “What’s going on?” asked Martin. “Why aren’t you in the tridrone?”

  “They’ll do it!” said Kiri. “Everyone in the village swore to protect the cubs. You can bring them back here now, and we can move back with them.”

  Kiri searched Sonia’s and her father’s faces, eager to see her own happy expression reflected in theirs, but n
either one reacted the way she expected. They both looked tired and gray as the ocean on a day when the sun didn’t peek through the clouds.

  “Sweetie,” said Sonia, “it’s a nice idea, but it’s not possible.”

  “But you said you wanted to reintroduce the cubs to the wild. You said you wished there was a place where you could. Now there is. You can turn this whole area into a wilderness refuge and the fugees will watch over it.”

  “It’s not that simple,” replied Sonia. “Even if an agreement could be made with the villagers, I’d have to take a proposal to the Gen Tech board, and they’d have to discuss all the variables and do a cost-benefit analysis, not to mention accounting for security risks and insurance for such valuable assets—”

  “What are you saying? Are you saying no?”

  “I’m saying, we can’t just get the cubs and release them here.”

  “Why not? We can build an enclosure near the stilt village and take care of them until they’re ready to live on their own.”

  Sonia sighed and shook her head. “That’s not realistic. Gen Tech would never go along with it.”

  Kiri looked from Sonia to her da. “The cubs need to stay here and everyone needs to work together. Even the marks say so.”

  Her da looked confused. “What are you talking about, Kiribati?”

  “The devi marks,” she said. “I understand them now. The first one came from Charro, the second from the panther, and the third from the wallers because they’re all part of this.”

  “Are you feeling all right?” asked her da.

  “Don’t you see? The wallers and fugees need to work together to make this a refuge,” said Kiri. “It’s the only way to stop the unraveling. We have to bring the cubs back here.”

  Martin shook his head. “We can’t, Kiribati.”

  Kiri searched her da’s and Sonia’s faces again, but neither one seemed about to change their minds.

  “It was just a story, wasn’t it? You had no intention of ever releasing the cubs, did you?” A storm of dark, twisting feelings churned within her. She’d been a fool to think wallers and fugees could work together. Charro had been right—wallers couldn’t be trusted. Her own father couldn’t be trusted. He hid behind walls and lied like the rest of them.