Two Knives stopped in consternation. The tracks were plainly those of one of the big cats—but he had never in his life seen or heard of cat tracks as big as these. The tracks were almost as big as young brown bear tracks. Sinking onto a knee, he tried to cover one with his outspread hand and couldn’t. He was more than a little afraid. “Fox Tail, no,” he said. His son should know better than to follow a cat that big.
He hurried on into thick woods where it was harder to find sign. He had to go slow and stay bent low to the ground. Only once did he come across a complete set of the cat’s prints, all four paws in a row; they confirmed something he had noticed. The cat was limping. He attributed the cause to the fact that one of the front paws was smaller than the other three.
Shadows dappled the greenery. Silence reigned saved for the buzz of a fly that flew around Two Knives’s head and then winged off. He stepped over a log and skirted several spruce. Ahead was a boulder larger than his lodge. He went around it, as the tracks did, and on the far side drew up short. His chest seemed to burst outward and his breath caught in his lungs. “No!” he said.
Fox Tail lay on his back. Most of his throat was gone. A gaping cavity and puncture marks showed where the cat had ripped it out with its teeth. Fox Tail’s stomach had also been torn open and his intestines strewn about as if the cat were in a frenzy of vicious glee. Fox Tail’s glazed eyes were locked wide in surprise.
The tracks told Two Knives the story. His son had come around the boulder and the cat had been waiting, crouched on a niche well above Two Knives’s head, a niche that only the sinuous cat could reach. Two Knives figured that Fox Tail had been so intent on the tracks that he had not noticed the cat until it was too late. Fox Tail’s broken bow was next to him. His quiver had been torn apart and the arrows scattered and bit in half.
Two Knives bowed his head. His eyes misted and he had a lump in his throat. He put a hand on his dead son and said tenderly, “I loved you with all that I am.” He did not want to leave the body there, but he could not take it back either; he would spare Dove Sings the horrible sight. Accordingly, he gathered fallen limbs and dry brush and rocks and covered his son so that scavengers could not get at the remains.
Two Knives had a decision to make: go after the cat or go back. He turned and headed down. Too many obstacles and too many thickets delayed him. It seemed to take forever to descend to the valley floor. He came out of the pines and broke into a run. The high grass swished about his legs and he startled a rabbit that bounded off in fright. He was still a long distance from the lodge when he noticed the grass to his right about twenty steps away swaying as if with the wind—only there was no wind. He stopped, and the grass stopped moving.
For the second time that day Two Knives shivered, but not from cold. He raised his bow and strained his ears but heard only the hammering of his heart. Time crawled. Finally he made bold to move on, and with his first step the grass bent. He stopped moving again and so did the grass. A tingle ran down his spine.
There could be no doubt.
The cat was stalking him.
Chapter Five
Two Knives stood rooted in dismay. He had never had anything like this happen. He raised his bow and sighted down the arrow at the moving grass. He didn’t see the cat. It must be crouched low. He waited for it to show itself, but it didn’t.
Should he stay there and wait the beast out or try and make it to his lodge? He liked the second idea best, but the cat might follow him, imperiling those he loved most in the world.
A low snarl warned him the cat hadn’t gone anywhere. He backed toward the forest, and the grass moved as if to invisible hands, bending in the direction he was going. In frustration he almost let loose his shaft.
Two Knives slid one foot behind him and then the other. The grass caught at his ankles, and he was careful not to stumble. The bow string dug into his fingers, but he didn’t relax it.
In his wake stalked the cat.
Two Knives did not sweat often, but he sweated now. Drops beaded his brow, and his buckskin shirt became so wet it clung to him. He risked a glance behind him and saw he had a long way to go to the trees. With the cat shadowing his every step, it would be a wonder if he made it.
Two Knives thought of Fox Tail. A great sadness gripped him. He had loved his firstborn with all the love a father could have for a son. He loved his other children, too. In order to spare them and Dove Sings, he decided to provoke the cat into attacking him and then to try and slay it with an arrow. He came to the forest. Farther in, the undergrowth was thick, but here at the edge there was little. He would see the cat if it came at him. He backed up a dozen shrot steps and raised his bow. He saw the tips of the grass move, but they stopped moving well out from the woods. He aimed at the spot where he thought the cat must be and let fly. The shaft flew true and hit exactly where he wanted, but nothing happened. There was no screech or yowl, no rush of a tawny form with fangs bared. He had missed and wasted an arrow.
Two Knives nocked another. Acting on an idea, he sidestepped to a tall pine. Without taking his eyes off the grass, he jumped high into the air and wrapped his arm around one of the lowest branches. In another moment he was straddling it and had the bow string drawn. He could see more of the grass—but he still couldn’t see the cat.
Two Knives climbed higher. He went as high as the limbs would bear his weight and still couldn’t spot his stalker. He could see his lodge, though. Dove Sings and Bright Rainbow were moving about outside it. He went to cup a hand to his mouth to shout a warning to them to go inside but thought better of it. Dove Sings might do the opposite and come to see what was wrong. She was strong willed, that woman.
Two Knives turned his attention to the grass again, and his blood turned to ice in his veins. The grass had parted, framing the head and forequarters of the meat-eater. He could not quite believe what he was seeing. It wasn’t a tawny mountain cat; it was a
Two Knives had never heard of such a thing. Or had he? He remembered a tale told among his people, a tale he’d heard when he was a small boy, about a black mountain cat like this one that wreaked havoc with the Tukaduka. The Devil Cat, they called it. Not in the white sense, which Two Knives had learned from one of the trappers. The trapper said that all the good in the world came from God and all the bad in the world came from what the trapper called the Devil. Apparently the white Devil lived far under the earth in an inferno of fire and caused suffering to human souls after death.
The Tukaduka meaning was different. To them a devil was a thing of evil, whether it be man or animal. The Devil Cat of their legend was a beast of unrivaled bloodlust that thirsted to kill, kill, kill. When it died, its spirit lived on to continue killing, and to this day Tukaduka mothers sometimes warned their children not to be out after dark or the Devil Cat would get them.
Two Knives had not taken the legend seriously, until now. He hoped for another glimpse, but the creature had disappeared. It had been looking right at him, so he saw no point in trying to hide. Instead, he descended to the lowest limb, hung by an arm, and dropped.
The cat didn’t show itself.
Two Knives put his back to the trunk. He would have a clear target in front, and the cat could not get at him from the rear. But as more time passed and the shadows lengthened and nothing happened, it occurred to him that the Devil Cat might be waiting for dark to fall. At night it would be hard to see it, if not impossible. He would be at the beast’s mercy.
Two Knives glanced down the valley. Should he fall prey to the cat’s claws, his family would be next. If he was to make a stand, why not make it where it mattered most? His feet acquired wings. He flew along the tree line, and off in the grass there was movement. He didn’t understand why the Devil Cat didn’t attack, but he was glad it didn’t. He ran and ran. His legs hurt and his chest ached, but he didn’t stop. He ran farther than he had since he was a young man of twenty winters.
Dove Sings and Bright Rainbow were not in sight, but Elk Running was behind the lodge pleating a grass rope.
“Go inside!” Two Knives shouted. “Go inside quick!”
Elk Running did not ask why. Two Knives had taught his children from an early age the importance of doing as he told them in times of danger, and Elk Running obeyed.
