Track Of The Cat

4

"ANNA, you saying The lion didn't do it' is like Jimmy Hoffa saying the Teamsters didn't do it."

"Paul, there were no saw grass cuts on Sheila. None. Lions wrestle their prey around, drag it. Even if it just chased her into the saw grass and killed her clean, she'd've had to get cut up some."

Paul sighed-a small one, barely audible. The sound of a patient man summoning up his reserves. Tilting back in his chair, he steepled his fingers. "Okay, let's go over this."

A

They were in the Ranger Division's headquarters, the old Frijole ranch house. It was a two-story home built near a spring just after the turn of the century. Even in the heat of June it was cool. The native stone walls were nearly two feet thick and pecan trees, brought from St. Louis in tins and carefully tended, were now fifty feet high. The shaded oasis was a haven for snakes, scorpions, mice, and rangers. But for an ongoing battle between the District Ranger and the mice, they all managed to live together in relative accord.

"Okay," Paul said again, looking like a man getting his ducks all in a row. "You saw lion tracks."

"Yes," A

"Claw marks, puncture wounds, no sign of any other form of trauma."

"Right."

"Then what are you suggesting?" Paul looked across the fingertips he'd used to tap out each one of his points. The pale blue eyes were so open, so willing to hear what she had to say, that A

There wasn't much she could say. Like a three-year-old, she'd run to Paul Decker half-cocked, no hard facts. Just one anomaly and a gut feeling.

"I'm not sure. Maybe she had a heart attack, or a stroke, or something and the lion came later. I don't know." A

A

"You've made some good points, A

"It's not my problem," she said with more vehemence than the situation called for and rose to her feet. "Just thoughts." A

"Sit down," Paul returned reasonably. "Obviously it's bothering you. That makes it important."

A

"Maybe Sheila was hiking up from Pratt instead of down from Dog Canyon -on a day hike," Paul suggested.

Pratt Cabin was an historic stone house built at the confluence of North McKittrick and McKittrick creeks about two and a half miles in from the Visitors Center. It was a favored stop of visitors to the park and a logical jumping off place for backcountry hikers.

A

Paul looked a little pained. "I don't know why she didn't have any cuts, A

She believed him. He'd like to answer her questions, not because they were important or even particularly valid, but because she felt strongly about them and, to Paul, feelings needed to be dealt with.

Shaking off his kindness with a shrugging motion, she tried another tack. "There've been no incidents of lions attacking humans in West Texas for the last one hundred years. Not one. Zilch. Nada."

"Statistics," Paul said.

Lies, damn lies, and statistics, A

"A

"Can I see the autopsy report?" A

There was a silence. There'd never been a death-accidental or otherwise-in the park's twenty-year history. Nobody knew precisely what to do or who should do it. As crime in the parks had grown, law enforcement had become increasingly important. Enforcement rangers were sent to ten weeks of training, were fingerprinted, drug tested, and had to carry handcuffs and side arms. But in the smaller, more remote parks there was little in the way of hardcore crime.

Paul jotted something down in the little yellow notebook he carried in his shirt pocket. "I'll ask about the autopsy. I can't see why there'd be a problem since you were the first officer on the scene, but you never know."

"It's governmental," A

Paul tucked the notebook back in his pocket and A

Paul Decker cared that his people were happy.

Unfortunately there usually wasn't a damn thing he could do to ensure that they were.

"Be fair," A

Mind racing too fast for her feet to follow, she found herself stopped under the pecan trees on the flagstone walk outside the ranch house. Overhead, the leaves made a pleasant clacking. Beyond the stone fence, where the overflow from the spring spilled out into the field, was a line of bright green. Grass following the moisture till it disappeared into the earth a hundred yards out. To the right were the small hay barn and roofed shed for the stock animals. Two big brown rumps were visible near the manger.

On impulse, A

Karl Johnson, a currycomb lost in his enormous hand, was grooming Gideon, a big chocolate-colored quarter horse with one white foot. Karl looked like an almost classic ogre from out of a children's fairy tale. Six-foot-six inches tall, he weighed nearly two hundred and fifty pounds. Wiry reddish-brown hair curled out from nose, ears, the top of his uniform shirt, and sprang from his massive skull. His nose was pug to the point of absurdity, as if a button had been sewn on the square lumpy face when the real nose had been lost.

A