Track Of The Cat

'Will you come shoot anyone who tries?' Christina teased.

'No problem.'

'Why, Anna Pigeon!' Christina said lightly. 'I do believe you care. Say you'll come visit me in prison after you put me away for killing my lover.'

'It's a promise. I'll bake you a cake with a file in it every year on your birthday.'

Then they talked of baking, both glad to change the subject.

Christina and Alison stayed another hour, an hour that passed quickly for Anna. She was sorry to see them leave.

When she was again alone, she looked at the mail that Christina had brought. Too tired to read but not sleepy, she flipped through bills and credit card offers. Near the bottom of the tidy bundle was a phone message from the police lab in Roswell, New Mexico, where she'd sent the samples scraped from Karl's truck. All the note said was Tim Dayton had called and the number.

The next item was a blue, sealed, For Your Eyes Only envelope. Inside Anna found a copy of the four-page autopsy report on Sheila Drury. Paul had finally come through. She set the report aside to be read when her mind was sharper.

Last in the pile was a packet of photos. The pictures Anna had sent in a mailer to Kodak from Ranger Drury's camera. She opened the package. There was nothing of interest: photos of cholla in bloom, several shots of Gabe- the Dog Canyon horse-being shod by Karl, and four pictures of lightning over the hills north of Dog Canyon all taken from funky, artsy angles.

Rogelio didn't come and Anna began to feel depressed. Merely the drugs wearing off, she told herself. Partly, at least, that was true. From the crown of her head to the soles of her feet, she hurt.

Irritably, she rang the nurse and demanded more painkillers. She was given two Advils.

Simply to spite consciousness, Anna tried to sleep. She had almost attained her goal of temporary oblivion when she was pulled from the confused dreams of half-sleep by a tap on the door. Optimism kept her eyes closed for a second, in her drowsiness she hoped Zach would be standing at the foot of her bed.

Reality came with its usual quick brutality. Zach vanished. Anna opened her eyes, fully awake.

Harland Roberts stood in the doorway. He leaned against the doorframe. The setting sun, slanting through the hospital windows, dyed the white streaks at his temples a rich gold and glowed on his sunburnt skin.

Surprise cleansed Anna's mind of the lingering cobwebs of dreams. Two emotions filled her. Neither of which was particularly welcome: an annoyingly girlish pleasure at the sight of the hothouse flowers held negligently down by his thigh, and a sudden rushing love of Christina Walters for dressing her hair and giving her cologne.

'A bribe,' Harland said. When he smiled the resemblance to Stewart Granger was startling. He held up the flowers. Yellow roses. 'Can I buy your silence?'

'I'm easy,' Anna said.

'I doubt that,' he returned and there was that in his voice that would've made Anna blush if she'd been the blushing kind. He confiscated her water pitcher and began arranging the flowers with an expert domesticity that seemed natural to him. 'My wife is a decorator-was a decorator,' he amended and ducked his head to his work so Anna couldn't read his face.

'Yellow rose of Texas,' Anna said. She could see the smile wrinkle the skin high on his cheekbone. 'What am I to keep quiet about?'

He stopped his deft fiddling and looked straight at her, his gray eyes unwavering. 'That stretch of trail above Turtle Rock should've been brushed and leveled. I've been meaning to send someone up to do it. I put it off. You could've been killed. It's fixed now. Nothing like shutting the barn door after the cows get out.'

Anna was touched, tears again threatening. Damn the drugs, she thought, choosing to blame chemistry rather than psychology. 'I've been around the block, as they say. If I haven't learned to watch my step by now it's nobody's fault but my own.'

'Anyway,' he drew the word out like a man anxious to change the subject. 'I was in town and, I must confess, I couldn't resist the temptation to have conversation with someone who, politically speaking, is somewhat to the left of Yippi Ti Yi Yo.'

Anna smiled. It still hurt. 'A Texas liberal. I thought that was a contradiction in terms.'

Harland sank down on the foot of the bed. Even that small jolt sent an ache reverberating through Anna's bruised innards. Still she hoped the nurse wouldn't come and shoo him into the red plastic chair.

'I'm not from Texas,' Harland said.

Anna was surprised. 'You drawl,' she accused, raising a speculative eyebrow. That hurt, too.

' Pensacola, Florida. Navy brat.'

'You've been around the block and around the world?'

He laughed, a rich male noise that warmed Anna's cracked bones like good brandy. 'I've done this and that,' he admitted.

'Tell me,' Anna said. 'I could use a good bedtime story.'

He obliged with tales of 'wrassling 'gators' and serving as general dogsbody at a roadside SEE OUR DEADLY POISON SNAKES attraction in Florida to work his way through college; of going to Vietnam to fight for democracy and spending three years procuring Japanese kimonos and Russian vodka for officers and their wives; of kicking around the States trying his hand at leading canoe trips, hunting expeditions, working for the YMCA; of finally finding a home with the Park Service.

Harland stayed nearly an hour. Anna was sorry when, shortly before supper, the nurse shooed him out.

Mechanically Anna ate a color-coordinated meal consisting of the four basic food groups, all of which tasted pretty much the same. She asked the LVN-a high school girl with over-processed hair and a sweet, slightly vacant face-if the food was vacu-formed by Mattel. For her attempt at levity, Anna got an empty smile. However, the girl was willing to smuggle in a cup of coffee with honest-to-God caffeine so Anna forgave her, her shortcomings.

Fortified by food and stimulants, she opened the autopsy report on Ranger Drury. Much of it was chemical analyses that meant little to her. After a cursory look through, she turned to the summation and comments on the last page.

Ranger Drury had died between seven p.m. and midnight on Friday, June 17. The cause of death was perforation of the spinal cord between the fourth and fifth cervical vertebrae. The puncture wound, one and a half inches deep, was found to have traces of animal fur at the opening and, one inch down, a fragment of a tooth from a large carnivore. There were three other puncture wounds three-quarters to one inch deep in a pattern consistent with the size of an adult lion's bite. Several animal hairs were found in the scrapes along the shoulder. There were no broken bones or other signs of trauma. Stomach contents included an incompletely digested pear and salami and cheese.

The only other item of interest was a trace of a hallucinogen which had been found in Sheila's blood. Possibly LSD.

In college Anna had dropped some Window Pane acid at Avila Beach. The world became a totally different place. Backpacking without water, in a closed area-all could become logical seen through that distorted glass. There was no knowing what rainbow the Dog Canyon Ranger had been chasing or what demons she had been running from.

Paul had underlined the final sentence: 'Death accidental: killed by a mountain lion (Felis concolor).'

Anna laid the papers on her lap and leaned back into her pillows. No plaster casts to make prints, no garden tools masquerading as lion's claws, no wilderness Moriarity planning the perfect murder; just one lady ranger with an overheated imagination and an affinity for cats.

'Killed by a mountain lion (Felis concolor).' Anna read the words again, then let the papers slip to the floor. She hurt. She was a fool. Her collarbone was broken. She was skinned up from neck to knees. She was old and alone.

'Goddamn, but I'm tired,' Anna whispered. Though it was only seven thirty-five, she switched off the bedside lamp and closed her eyes.