P. Parrish - Claw Back

“I’m useful where I am,” Katy said.

“Then why are you here?” Stanton asked.

“The missing panther is a female,” Katy said. “She has been gone four days now but she wasn’t the only cat involved in whatever is going on. Before she was taken, a male panther turned up wounded. We think whoever took Grace tried to take the male panther but lost him.”

“Capturing two large cats. Not an easy task.”

“You’re right,” Katy said. “He would have to be someone who knows the Glades and is familiar with the panthers.”

“He also has access to animal tranquilizers,” Louis added.

Stanton gave Louis a dismissive glance before his eyes moved back to Katy. “So I ask you again, why are you here?”

“We have a description of a man who has been seen in the hunting camps,” Katy said. “Long dark hair, brown skin, good at eluding the hunters.”

“An Indian,” Stanton said.

“Yes.”

“No Indian would harm the panthers.”

“I’m not sure he’s looking to harm them,” Katy said. “I believe he may be trying to mate them.”

“For what purpose?”

“I don’t know. I can only guess he thinks a cub will somehow bring him something he cannot otherwise obtain. Peace. Happiness. Some kind of special power maybe.”

“He sounds like a crazy man,” Stanton said.

“Most criminals are,” Louis said.

This time Stanton didn’t even look to Louis. His eyes drifted away from Katy to the street. He was quiet for a long time before he looked back to Katy.

“You have not been here to see your great aunt Betty in a long time,” he said.

Katy looked suddenly stricken. She took a step toward Stanton as if trying to cut Louis off from hearing. “Does Betty ask about me?” she asked softly.

“No. She recognizes no one now. Your cousins sit around her bed and sing for her soul.”

Katy pulled the brim of her ball cap lower and looked to the ground.

“The Alzheimer’s is bad,” Stanton said. “Her body is giving up. She is giving up.”

Katy looked up. “Why didn’t someone call me?”

“No one should have to.”

Katy’s face was slick with sweat. Louis could almost feel the heat of shame radiating off her.

“Katy,” he said, “I’ll go wait in the truck.”

“No, wait,” Katy said, grabbing his arm. She turned back to Stanton. “I will go to see Betty today, Moses. But right now, I need to talk about the panther. Please. I need, we need, your help.”

Stanton didn’t move a muscle. Then he looked over Katy to Louis, meeting his eyes. Louis had the weirdest feeling suddenly, like the man could almost read his thoughts. Like he could almost sense that the missing panther wasn’t important to Louis, that it was just a means to an end. Louis forced himself to hold Moses’s Stanton’s eyes.

“Moses,” Katy said, “you know everything that goes on here. I need you to tell me if anyone has been acting strangely. Has anyone moved away and taken a home in the swamps? Have you caught anyone stealing supplies or drugs from the clinic?”

Moses finally broke his stare with Louis and crossed his arms. “I know no one who would interfere with the panthers. And I am not sure I would tell if I did.”

“Moses,” Katy said softly. “You know what they mean to me.”

For the first time Louis detected a crack in the man’s façade.

Stanton looked away toward the knot of kids kicking a soccer ball. “All right, Katy Letka,” he said quietly. “I will help you. I will conduct my own investigation and if I find you are right, I will let you know so you can find the panther and take her back where she belongs.”

He looked back to her. “But I will give you no names and you will not walk through these streets looking behind doors. If I find someone here is involved in this, we will deal with it ourselves.”

Katy said nothing but Louis could tell from the sudden sag of her shoulders that she knew she would get nothing else. She said a brisk goodbye and started back to the Bronco. Louis hurried to catch up with her. Moses Stanton stayed in front of the tribal headquarters doors watching them.

Katy remained silent as she drove around the corner and down a street, pulling up in front of a small stucco house with a concrete porch cluttered with folding chairs. There had once been flowers in the window boxes but they were wilted now, victims of the searing summer sun and neglect.

The front door was open. There were three women on the porch and three men standing in the sparse shade of a tree smoking cigarettes. The women were dressed in cotton blouses and skirts and wore their hair in long braids. The men had lined weathered faces and dusty clothes. But what struck Louis was that another one of his assumptions about Indians was proving wrong. Every man he could see had short hair.

“I won’t be long,” Katy said, eyeing the women on the porch. “I’ll leave the engine going so you can have some air.”

“Thanks.”

Katy started toward Aunt Betty’s house. The few people outside turned their attention from the SUV to Katy herself. Louis watched closely, curious about the reception she’d get.

Katy paused under the tree and spoke briefly to the men. When they didn’t step back to let her on the porch, she steeled herself and slipped between them, disappearing into the house. For a moment, the men looked back at the SUV then went back to talking among themselves.

Louis sank back into the seat. Partly to be less obvious, but mostly because he was groggy. His aching ribs had kept him up most the night and about four in the morning he had finally relented and popped a pain pill. He laid his head against the window and idly watched the parade of people in front of the house.

One woman caught his eye. She wore a bright yellow sun dress and was coming down the street carrying a casserole dish covered with aluminum foil. A second woman followed her, slightly younger, carrying a basket of neatly folded laundry. The men parted to let them inside the house.

Suddenly Louis was somewhere else.

In Bessie’s old boarding house in Blackpool, Mississippi. A stranger in his own town of birth, sitting vigil by the bedside of a dying woman he could barely remember — his mother. Women had come then, too. Black women carrying clean linens for his mother and casseroles and cookies for him.

He remembered none of their names but he remembered their voices. Soft and soothing as they gathered by Lila’s bed, the sound carrying across the hall to his room where he took refuge when he could.

And then, after Lila died, came the sound of their voices raised joyously in song, drifting up from the parlor downstairs. He didn’t understand why they were happy, these strange women, because his mother had lived a short ugly life, given away her children, given him away, and then she had suffered a painful death. It made him angry to hear their voices.

Bessie had been the one to explain it to him.

Death was a relief from agony. Death was a return to Jesus. Death was a going home.

Louis looked back to the house. The men had wandered off and the porch was empty. There was no one on the street but a couple of kids on bicycles.

Then the house screen door slapped open and two young men exited. One was thin and wore a black t-shirt and jeans. The second was shorter and more tightly muscled, like a football running back. He wore a loose fitting plain white shirt with an odd heavy silver necklace, like a scythe blade on a chain. Both men had long black hair pulled back in pony tails.

The men took a long look at the SUV then lit up cigarettes.

Louis sat up straighter. The stocky kid was still staring his way and Louis knew the kid could see his face behind the glass. The kid tapped the other guy on the shoulder, said something in his ear, and both started away from the house.