P Deutermann - The Cat Dancers

Where the big cat had just come out of the grove and was bounding up the hill, right toward him, eyes flashing in the bright moonlight.

Propelled by a sudden blast of adrenaline, he crouched down into the snow and then leaped straight up, high enough that he could grab a small branch, which broke, dropping him into a heap in the snow. Peering out of the corner of his eye, he could see that the cat was halfway up the hill, coming strong, right for him.

He jumped again and grabbed the stub of the broken branch. This time, it held and he did a one-armed pull-up into the first branch junction. With a second handhold, he was up, off the ground, and scrambling higher.

The cat screamed at him from beneath the tree, causing him to lose his footing and almost fall. He scrabbled around the trunk, looking for more branches, discarding his gloves to get a better hold, while the panther growled at him as it circled the tree, looking up at him-and at the branches.

Oh shit, Cam thought as he pulled himself up into the third tier of branches, some twenty feet above the ground now. Cats can jump. And climb.

He kept circling the trunk now, not trying for any more height but, like a squirrel, attempting to keep the trunk between him and the cat’s sight line. The panther circled below, more patiently now, watching him, silent as it concentrated on its prey, its breath making little puffs of vapor.

Fucking thing’s working it out, Cam thought. Picking which branch. That bastard’s coming up here.

He found as secure a position as he could and put his back to the huge old trunk and his legs out on two separate wide branches. He drew the. 45. The walnut grips were cold in his bare hands, and he knew better than to touch the metal.

The cat circled one more time, came around to the side where it had a clear view of Cam, and sat down on its haunches. For an instant Cam thought it had decided to give up. And then it came straight up in one graceful leap to grab onto the trunk with all fours at the same branch intersection Cam had first grabbed. It hung there for no more than a split second, then pulled itself onto the branch stub, never taking its eyes off Cam, not even looking where it was placing its enormous feet, its claws tearing off bits of bark that rained down on the snow.

With another effort, she climbed into the second tier, eyes blazing in triumph as she came up, her breath steaming in the moonlight, total certainty in her eyes. Got you now, human. Chow time. He could smell her wet fur and urgent breath. Got you now.

He braced his back against the tree as she maneuvered underneath him, no more than eight feet away, balancing like it was nothing, with all four feet on a single branch, looking, evaluating. She was huge.

He lined up the gun sight between her eyes and then his training took over. No fancy shooting here, center of mass. The chest. Go for the chest.

The cat gathered herself again, crouching down on the branch, rumbling in her throat as she prepared to make the final leap up to where he was, and he thumbed back the hammer.

All the muscles on her front and shoulders quivered as she got ready. She stared right at him, daring him to move, to run, to even try to escape. The words aim and shoot thundered through his head, and he fired.

The shot boomed out over the meadow and the panther transfixed the mountain air with her death shriek. She tumbled down onto the snow at the base of the tree in a rain of bark. Cam felt the thump of her body hitting the ground. He instinctively cocked the hammer back for another shot, but it wasn’t necessary. The huge cat was crumpled in a heap at the base of the tree, its lungs clearly blowing red spray out onto the snow. Cam heard another sound then, yelling and shouting. He turned and saw White Eye reeling through the snow, heading across the open ground between the pine grove and the tree line. He was shouting, “No, no,” his arms flailing as he tried to run through the snow like a wild drunk, still yelling. Cam pointed the gun at him as he came up, but the man wasn’t even looking at him. He was running to the cat, which was trying to get up but couldn’t. There was an awful wet roaring noise rising in its red maw.

White Eye stumbled to a stop, glared up at Cam, and then dropped to his knees next to the cat. Cam expected the cat to try to crawl to its master, but that wasn’t what happened. The panther rolled sideways and then back in its death agony, focused its eyes on White Eye, and, in a move too quick for Cam to see, lunged at Mitchell with its front paws, hooking viciously, smashing White Eye’s head repeatedly like a boxer working a speed bag before collapsing in the snow with a great groan and a final spray of bright red blood from its gaping mouth.

Cam stared down at the bloody spectacle below him. The cat was now on its back, obviously dead, even though the large muscles in its legs and haunches were still jerking. White Eye was sprawled on his back, his staring eyes wide, the sides of his head not really there anymore, hands clenching and unclenching in the spotted snow.

With shaking legs and with his heart still pounding, Cam began to climb down. It took him longer than expected, and he checked the cat once more to make sure it was finished before making the final drop on all fours onto the ground. He extracted the gun and stayed down for a moment, gathering his wits and making sure that thing didn’t get up again. He finally came around the tree trunk and stopped. The cat’s body was no longer twitching, but White Eye was. Cam knelt down beside him, trying to ignore the mess the cat had made of the old man’s skull, which looked like a broken crock of Jell-O. There’s no way he’s going to survive this, Cam thought. He looked into Mitchell’s eyes, which, after a moment, focused on his. White Eye opened his mouth to speak, but then he choked on fluids rising in his throat. He turned his head sideways for a moment, coughed wetly, and then looked back at Cam.

“God damn you,” he gasped.

“You killed her, not me,” Cam said.

White Eye blinked, as if he didn’t understand.

“When you sent her after me,” Cam said

“Had your rounds,” he gasped. More blood welled out of his shattered head every time he spoke.

“Picked your pocket,” Cam said. “Don’t talk anymore.”

Mitchell tried to reach up and touch his head, but his arm wouldn’t work.

“How bad…” he whispered.

Cam shook his head. “Will you tell me who the cat dancers are?”

White Eye made another gargling noise in his throat, which was when Cam realized the cat had opened that up, too. Then he was looking back at Cam. One of his strange eyes rolled away for a second before it came back into focus. His right leg had begun to twitch uncontrollably. Brain shutting down, Cam thought.

“Don’t know,” he said, and Cam had to bend closer to hear him. “They’s all cops. Same as you. God damn your eyes.”

Then his eyes lost focus as he choked once and stopped breathing.

Cam sat back on his haunches and swallowed hard. The cat dancers were all cops. Finally, he thought he knew what was going on.

He tramped over a mile of hard-packed snow to find the Bronco, which started just fine, he discovered. He drove the vehicle back up to the edge of the oak grove and loaded Mitchell’s body. He’d tried to move the cat, but it was simply too heavy, so he found a hatchet in the Bronco, hacked off the cat’s head, and put that next to Mitchell’s body, covering the whole mess with a tarp as best he could for the trip back. Ordinarily, he’d have left the entire scene alone and called for the authorities, but nothing would be left once the scavengers found it, and there wasn’t exactly good cell-phone service up in these mountains. He drove back the way they’d come, getting stuck only once, which cost him a half hour of digging and shoving.