The Ridge (14 page)

The deputy, Shipley, had gone on ahead of her, expanding his lead with long-legged strides. She saw that the young man was tapping his gun with his fingers. Every second step, there he went—
tap, tap, tap.
He seemed to be humming softly, too, the sound trapped in his throat. It was the sort of thing people did to convince themselves they weren’t scared when in fact they were terrified. After David’s death, Audrey had found herself doing the same sort of thing:
I’m scared of what my future holds, alone in this house, so I’ll hum a song and that casualness will somehow prove my confidence.

Shipley was scared, she realized, and then, recalling the moment of Ira’s escape, she didn’t blame him, not one bit. Many visitors—
most
visitors, maybe—were scared of the cats at first, no matter how indifferent they tried to seem. The animals were incredible predators; there was no denying that. When people came out to see them for the first time, they were dazzled, impressed, and often afraid. Because no human stood a chance against those cats. Not without a gun in hand, at least.

Tap, tap, tap,
went Shipley’s fingers against his weapon.

He had seen a cat in pure, wild aggression, too. In a way
Audrey herself had never seen one before. The tigers had fights, the lions would roar with killer’s rage, but never in her time on the preserve had she seen anything like
that
. And the leap that he’d made… it was impossible to believe, even after watching it happen. He hadn’t laid his paws on the fence and scrambled to get over, he’d just cleared it with room to spare. Fourteen feet high, and he’d not even required a running start.

“He’s never been aggressive before,” she said. “What you saw back there… I don’t know how to explain it, but it was an anomaly.”

“I’m sure that it was,” Shipley said, and his voice was steady, but his head was shifting rapidly from side to side, tracking every shadow, his hand never drifting from his gun. She had the sudden, perverse urge to tell him that Ira could climb trees, could be poised on a branch right now, ready to spring down from above. She could tell him that the cat’s field of vision overlapped like a pair of binoculars, and that he could see six times better in the dark than a human could. David had named him well—Ira was Hebrew for
watcher,
and the black cat was the definitive watcher, the perfect predator. Fast and strong and blessed with extraordinary vision and sense of smell.

“This is what you do?” the deputy said.

She looked up. “Huh?”

“This is… your life. This is what you do.” He waved a hand back at the tall fences, from which the occasional roar echoed through the trees.

“That’s right.”

“Why?” he said, and he sounded genuinely curious. “Why those cats?”

“Because I love them,” she said, but she suspected she knew what he was thinking about—the way she’d reacted when Ira jumped versus the way Wes had reacted. Wes had been poised; Audrey had been terrified. So was she lying right now? She cared for the cats, certainly, believed in the importance of the
rescue center’s mission, but did she
love
them? Could you possibly have love in a relationship before you had trust? She didn’t think so. Then different words—infatuation, obsession, enchantment—might apply, but without trust? No, love was a long step to take ahead of faith.

“They’re good with people,” she said hollowly. “Really.”

The deputy stopped walking, looked at her uneasily, ran a hand over his mouth, and then said, “Maybe we should go back now.”

“We just started—”

“Let’s go back while there’s still daylight,” he said, and then he turned and led the way again. This time, those long strides were even faster. Audrey stumbled along trying to keep up, thinking,
First Wes, and now even the police? Am I the only one who’s not scared of the dark out here?

Blade Ridge Road died out in abrupt fashion, no circular dead end that would allow wayward drivers to turn around with ease, just a narrowing of the gravel track until it came right up to the line of shagbark hickories that ran along the top of the ridge. They were tall trees now, seeming to belong to the rest of the forest, but Wesley knew that they’d been cleared once. Probably there wasn’t a tree between this lane and the trestle that was more than eighty years old. That was a good age for most trees, but not out here in the forested hills of eastern Kentucky. With the exception of that small stretch that had been cleared to make way for mining operations that never produced a fruitful yield, the trees at Blade Ridge went back centuries. They’d provided shelter for many cougars in their time, and then white men with guns came along, and though the trees still stood, the cats did not.

Or so it had been thought. Then Ira arrived, slinking out of the hills with nothing attached to him but legends and myths,
and now there was Ira back in the woods again, exiting the very way he’d come in, heavy with the feel of magic.

Wesley was trying to remember if he’d ever heard a story that even resembled the one which people would now be telling about his own cat. He gave up early, knowing that he wouldn’t find solace in shared sorrow. This escape was unique. What the cat did was almost preternatural. If Ira had somehow
climbed
the fence, Wesley would be stunned but able to fathom it. If Ira had somehow leaped from the top of the perch, Wesley might have been able to blame his angles, chastise himself for not creating a wider perimeter out from the top platform. Or if the son of a bitch had at least taken a running start…

But he hadn’t. No, he just leaped out, and Wesley knew in that moment that he could have done so at any time. He’d come to the preserve of his own accord, and now he’d left it. He was not likely to return.

Wesley and Kimble left the road and pushed through the hickories and walnut trees and began working their way down the slope to the water’s edge. There was a narrow trail of sorts here, and they made the walk in silence, stepping carefully, their footing often lost to shadow as the sun faded.

“You don’t think he’s coming back,” Kimble said finally. They had reached the riverbank and stood with guns in hand, looking into the darkening woods.

Wesley was silent.

“Tell me the truth,” Kimble said. “I’ve got to deal with this, and I want to do it right. For you guys, too. Not just to cover my own ass. I realize this might cause you problems, but I’ve got to deal with it right. Tell me what you think.”

Wesley looked at him, this tall, broad-shouldered cop who walked with bad posture, canting a little to the left at all times, as though something pained him, and said, “I don’t think he’s coming back, no. Not so long as we’re here.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I don’t think he likes the place.”

“You’ll forgive me if I say that sounds a little wild.”

You want to hear something that sounds wild,
Wesley thought.
I could tell you about the ghost light that passed through here.

He just shrugged, though. Kimble sighed and rubbed his face with one large hand, then walked to the north, splashing in puddles as he tried to step from rock to rock.

Not so nimble, Kimble,
Wesley thought, and he wanted to laugh, but had the sense that if he got going he might not stop. Darkness was coming, and Ira was out, and while he didn’t know what those things meant, he had an idea that it wasn’t good.

“I’ll give her the night,” Kimble said finally, stopping and turning back to him. “I can see some logic to what she’s saying, that the cat would come back only if he felt safe. Is someone going to be here all night?”

“Yes. I am.”

“Just you?”

“Just me,” Wesley said, and for the first time in his life that idea unsettled him. He tried to cover it by spitting into the river and scanning the low-hanging trees on the other side as if he were searching for the cat.

“Audrey doesn’t stay with them?”

“No. That’s a good thing, too. Audrey, she’s never quite developed the trust you need with the cats.”

“Seemed pretty comfortable to me.”

“More comfortable than most, of course. She’s great with them so long as there’s a fence between her and the cats. But she won’t go into the cages.”

“Doesn’t seem like a mistake to me.”

“If you run this place,” Wesley said, “there are times when you’re going to
have
to go into the cages. It happens.”

“You’re saying she can’t handle it without her husband?”

“She can handle it,” Wesley said. “She’s got me. If she didn’t? Well, then she’d either need to find some faith with the cats or… or find somebody else who does, I guess. But don’t worry about how she’ll hold up to this. Audrey, she’s got steel in her that you can’t see right off. She doesn’t even see it sometimes. But it’s there.”

“All right. Well, my understanding is that you trapped this cougar once. Can you get him again?”

Wes didn’t tell him that idea was false. Ira had chosen to join them. He had gone into the trap, yes, but he’d never engaged it. Just sat there and waited for Wesley to do it by hand, daring him, challenging his courage as if it were a test that must be passed before he’d allow himself to be confined.

Only you were never really confined, Ira, were you?

“I know what I
don’t
want,” Kimble continued, “and that’s a bunch of people out here in the dark with guns. My people, or, God forbid, civilians. The potential for a good result in that scenario isn’t high, and the potential for a bad one?”

Wesley nodded. The potential for disaster was high indeed if you put jumpy, armed men into these woods in the dark and told them to keep a sharp eye out for a black cat of astonishing speed.

“So I’ll give you the night to try to let him settle down and slip back in,” Kimble said. “See if you can bait him, see if you can trap him, or get him with that tranquilizer rifle. Whatever. But I’m only giving you until tomorrow. If he’s not back by morning, we’re going to
have
to bring other people out here. The state wildlife agency might be able to help.”

Sure,
Wesley thought,
that cat was out here for years and they just laughed at anyone who claimed to have seen him. I bet they’ll be a swell help.

They left the river as night fell and climbed back to the road
and met Audrey and the other deputy, Shipley. Then Kimble explained his decision to them.

“One night, take your best approach, and see what happens,” he said. “I’ll come out here at eight tomorrow. If the cat is still missing, we’re going to have to make an announcement and bring some people in.”

“The more activity, the more—”

“He’s right, Audrey,” Wesley said, interrupting her and earning a scathing look. “You don’t want problems developing. We may need to get some help.”

Behind them, one of the tigers struck at the fencing, a metallic ripple pulsing out from the impact point, and they all turned and stared. It was Kino, and when he saw that he had their attention, he leaned his head back and roared, fierce and furious.

“This is what I’m worried about,” Audrey said. “If strangers are making them act like this, then—”

“It isn’t the strangers,” Wesley said. “You know that. You’ve seen them around people for years now.”

“What is it, then?” the young deputy said.

“They don’t like this spot at night,” he said. “And if you stick around long enough, you might see it get a whole lot worse.”

Audrey threw up her hands in disgust. “Stop,” she said.

“I’d like to hear what he thinks,” the young deputy began, and Audrey shook her head, and then they were all interrupted by a sudden glow of white light. All four of them looked upward instinctively, but Wyatt French’s lighthouse remained dark, and then there was the crunch of gravel and they realized a car was coming down the lane. They watched it approach, a Honda SUV, and when it got all the way up to them, the driver put down the window.

“Hi, Mrs. Clark. Hi, Kimble.” He was a lean older guy with short gray hair and sharp eyes, and though he was speaking to the people gathered by his car, he was watching the cats, who
were making hostile circles around their enclosures, swinging their big heads from side to side. He looked familiar, but Wesley couldn’t place him.

“Why are you back, Darmus?” Kimble said, and then Wesley remembered. This was the reporter. He’d written about the preserve a few times—including the day Wesley got Ira.

Darmus said, “I just wanted to see the place in the dark.”

“You just wanted to see the place in the dark,” Kimble echoed.

“That’s right.”

“Well, hang on a minute, will you?”

He turned back to Audrey and Wesley and said, “One night. Figure out what you want to try to get him back, but you’ve only got one night to do it. Shipley, you willing to stay on and assist?”

The deputy’s brow knitted and his blue eyes drifted from Kimble and down to the road. “All due respect, sir, I’d like to head home.”

This seemed to stun Kimble. He said, “Shipley, I think they could use—”

“We’re fine,” Audrey said. “Between Wes and me, we’ll be fine.”

Kimble gave a slow nod, but Wesley could see he was disappointed in his deputy. “All right. Go on and get some rest, Shipley. I know it’s been a long day and you’re still recovering.”