Nevada Barr: Track Of The Cat

"Hey, Manny, Harland," she greeted them as she climbed out of the Rambler.

Manny just nodded and kept looking out across the mesquite toward the escarpment.

Harland let his glasses fall down around his neck on their strap. They weren't government issue. They were finely crafted, expensive, birding binoculars. Many things about Harland Roberts were a little classier than the run-of-the-mill. In his early fifties, he had Stewart Granger gray streaks at his temples and aquiline good looks.

Anna'd worked for him on a couple of projects. Harland got things done. In government service that was saying something.

"I didn't recognize you with your hair down," Harland said as he leaned against her car and folded his arms.

Anna pushed the cloud of hair back from her face. Thinking of Zach, feeling sorry for herself, she'd blown it dry and curled it, wearing it as she had when she was younger.

"It looks good," Harland said.

The compliment both pleased and made her feel self-conscious. "What's happening?" She jerked her chin to where Manny still surveyed the countryside.

"This is where the injured fawn was reported," Roberts said. "There's hair and blood on the barbed wire, but it looks like the little guy got himself untangled and crawled off somewhere. We've walked this area for a quarter of a mile in every direction but no luck."

"Maybe he's okay," Anna said.

"Let's hope so."

They stood a moment watching Manny watching the brush.

"I don't see how you can do it, Harland. I wouldn't have your job for all the tea in China," Anna said suddenly.

He looked at her, mild reproach in his eyes. "I don't like destroying an animal. But I'd rather that than have them suffer."

Anna was sorry but she didn't say so. Letting her eyes wander, she hoped to fix on a new topic. In the rack across the six pac's rear window was a seven millimeter Browning hunting rifle. "That your own?" she asked.

"Yes."

"I figured. A bit too fine for government work. Do you hunt big game?"

"I used to," Harland answered and Anna could tell he was uncomfortable with the subject. "I bought that line about it being a 'challenge.' When I found out a bull elk had an intelligence level equivalent to that of an eighteen-month-old toddler, I kind of lost my taste for it."

Anna smiled. Then remembered. "How's the hunt for the lion going?" she asked.

"No luck. We'll go up again today. I called old Jerimiah D. and he said he will lend us his dogs."

"Jerimiah D.?"

"Paulsen," Harland said. "He keeps hunting dogs."

"I bet," Anna said bitterly. "What does he get? The head? The pelt? Or just to be in on the kill?" Paulsen owned twenty-five thousand acres that bordered the park's northern boundary. He'd fought against every environmental issue in New Mexico and North Texas for thirty years. Usually he won.

"The animal will be salvaged for the display in the new Visitors Center," Harland said, overlooking her rudeness. "They can freeze-dry them so they look life-like now. They're going to use it in an educational display. Corinne was glad to get it, in a way. That VC's her baby. If people are better informed, maybe this won't happen next time."

Anna doubted they could freeze-dry a "specimen" that large but she didn't say so. Instead, wanting suddenly to escape Harland and the conversation, she excused herself: "I better leave you to it."

"Wait." Harland laid a hand on her arm. "You didn't hear the big news." He was smiling, a boyish smile with a lot of charm. Making amends for her churlishness, it seemed. Letting her know there were no hard feelings.

Anna waited.

"We've got exotics on the West Side."

Resource Management spent countless hours and dollars eradicating exotic plant species that endangered native vegetation. "What?" Anna asked. "It's awful dry over there for tamarisk."

"Worse than tamarisk," Harland said, a twinkle in his gray eyes. "Martians. Tell her, Manny."

Manny looked their way a moment, the thin, pockmarked face showing a trace of humor but no inclination to join in the conversation. "You tell her, Harland."

"Craig Eastern was camped over there a couple nights back working on his snake studies and he saw a UFO. A greenish halo that danced over the ground and made noise like cosmic footsteps. A putt-putt. Sort of a celestial Model T. Manny said he was all shook up. Thought they'd come to take him home, I guess."

"Craig is a strange man," Anna said.

Harland moved slightly so he was between her and Manny. When he spoke, his voice was low, pitched for her ears only. "Craig Eastern is crazy," he said. "Seriously. He's mentally ill. This is not for public consumption. You're out alone a lot. You take care of yourself."

Before Anna could respond one way or another, he had turned away, was calling to Manny, giving up the hunt for the fawn.

As they climbed into his truck, Roberts looked back over his shoulder. "I like the hair, Anna."

Anna spent the next twenty miles thinking about Harland Roberts.

He had a talent for knocking her a little off balance. Talking with him she felt younger, more vulnerable, less sure of herself. Harland was of an age where men seldom looked at women as peers, co-workers. Always, however well concealed behind training or good manners, was the pervasive concept of women as the Weaker Sex.

The damned thing of it was, Anna thought, it made her behave like a "flawed vessel." She wasn't sure if it was knee-jerk, a nerve touched from early socialization or-and this was the creepy thought-because she liked it.

"Not bloody likely!" Anna said aloud and moved her thoughts on to other things.

Roberts had said Craig Eastern was crazy. Everybody said Eastern was crazy, but Harland meant it. "He's mentally ill." He'd used those words. And: "Take care of yourself."

Anna knew Craig was fanatic about keeping the park undeveloped. It was more than just the inescapable animosity one felt when forced to see what the human race was doing to the planet. With Craig it was personal, a betrayal of him as well as Texas and the world.

Craig had been one of the most outspoken opponents of Drury's proposal to develop recreational vehicle sites in Dog Canyon. In a way, his very vehemence undermined his cause. His rhetoric was so heated that none of the brass wanted to align themselves with him.

"You're out alone a lot. Take care of yourself."

Did Harland Roberts think Craig was crazy enough to hurt somebody? To hurt her? Craig talked a lot about shooting visitors. But all naturalists talked about shooting visitors. It was a way of letting off steam.

Was it different with Eastern? Looking at his nervous rantings through the curtain of suspicion Harland had dropped he did seem a little insane.

Anna's mind jumped to the nearest conclusion: Sheila Drury was dead. If the lion didn't do it…

It was absurd. She was clutching at straws, and melodramatic straws at that.

The autopsy would show something: congenital heart failure, brain aneurysm. Something that would prove Sheila was dead before the lion tasted her. But by the time the report came-if it ever did and wasn't simply lost in some FBI file- it would be too late. Not many days would pass before Paulsen's dogs would tree a cougar. It would be dubbed, after the required five minutes of deliberation, to be the cougar, and it would be shot.

"Damn! Damn! Damn!" Anna pounded the Rambler's steering wheel with the flat of her hand. The car swerved into the oncoming lane and a subcompact with Ohio plates honked, the driver mouthing obscenities.

"Think of something else, it's your day off," Anna ordered herself.

For twelve hours she managed to school her mind. Distract it, was more accurate: a Schwarzenegger movie, a couple of Tecates, a "new" Patsy Cline tape.