He’s scent-marking me.
He’s claiming me.
Like a house cat. Or like a kill.
I tightened in fear reaction. Occam stopped. Eased back. Stared at me. Chuffed into my face. Again nose to nose, he breathed my breath. His chest rose and fell over mine, his weight held off me. Near us, the fighting had stopped, and I heard footsteps sprinting into the woods. Then there was only silence, broken by the creak of the windmill.
Trying for irritation and nonchalance, I said, “Occam. Get offa me, you big ol’ dang cat.”
He chuffed again and lifted away first one leg, then another, and stepped away from me. But he lay down, belly to the ground, so close I could feel each breath he took. Could feel the heat of his body at my side.
Cold mountain air drifted over me, and I shivered. “If I sit up, you ain’t gonna eat me, are you?”
Occam shifted his head left and right, in a human gesture forno. It looked odd on his cat body.
“I’m holding you to your word.” Which was useless, since he had claws and teeth and fangs and I had two bare hands and Pea was gone. I got my elbows up under me and asked, “I reckon Rick lost his music when he lost his clothes?”
Occam dipped his head and raised it, nodding. The moonlight caught the shaded pelt colorations, lines from eyes to nose, along his jaw. Dark-as-night ear tips and eyelids. Still moving slowly, I sat up straight. “You sure are a pretty thang, ain’t ya.”
Occam chuffed and butted my side with his head, just like a house cat demanding to be petted. I obliged. He rested his head on my thigh and sighed out a long breath. And he startedpurring. The vibration was so strong my bones were shaking. I smoothed the hair of his ears and along the back of his skull. I pulled on his ears gently, soothing them. Occam closed his eyes.
“I ain’t doing this to your human self, you know,” I said. Occam chuffed again and rolled over, exposing his belly to me, like a dog. Or like a cat—testing. “Un-uh. Nope. I ain’t rubbing your belly.” I stood and looked for my gun, finding it immediately, only feet away. Occam watched me from his upside-down position as I ejected the mag and removed the round from the chamber. “I coulda shot you by accident,” I said. Occam said nothing, but he rolled back upright, stretched out in the grass like some ancient god the Egyptians mighta worshiped. He was beautiful, and I had a feeling he knew it.
Suddenly I realized something was missing. “Your gobag. It’s gone.”
Occam nodded.
“Paka’s was gone too. Along with Rick’s music.”
Occam nodded again and this time he stood, looking into the trees.
I put together the missing gobags, Rick’s missing music, his comments about the bloody tree, and the direction of Occam’s gaze. “Oh. I have problems, don’t I?”
Occam nodded once.
“And my problems contributed to your problems?”
Occam nodded again.
“Is this the classic ‘disturbance in the force’?” The Star Wars marathon weekend at Spook School had provided me with a lot of cultural references.
Occam snorted and tilted his big head back at me.
“Lemme get some warm clothes on. And some gardening gear.” I dashed to the house, making it about ten feet before I realized I was acting like a rabbit. I stopped dead and looked back. Occam’s golden eyes were latched on me. But despite my prey action, Occam didn’t pounce on me. I held perfectly still until the wereleopard looked away. I let a held breath go and moved very slowly to the house. I’d been stupid. I had been taught better in Spook School. Rule number one in were-creature class was“Never run near, around, or from a were-creature. That will get you eaten.”Thank goodness Occam had better control than some weres.
Inside, I pulled on warm outer clothes over my pajamas, added a pair of Farmer John overalls, and tied on sturdy work boots. I put my personal .32 in the bib and made sure the tab was buttoned. The mouser cats were still nowhere to be seen. Little cowards. I tucked my faded pink blanket under my arm and selected two boxes from the kitchen pantry before I left the house for the screened porch. There I piled my load and set the limb lopper on top. I went to the truck for my electronic tablet and the P 2.0. It was getting colder, and the security light illuminated my breath in small clouds.
Carrying the supplies around the rear of the house to the concrete-floored shed beside the porch, I unlocked the door. In the dim light, I set down my load and studied the stored tools, all neatly hung on sixteen-penny nails or resting tidily on shelves. I shook frozen spiders and several years’ worth of dirt and filth out of John’s old heavy-duty canvas rucksack, tucked the tools I had already gathered into the pockets, and set aside a strong flashlight that turned night to day.
I hefted my husband’s old chain saw. It was bulky and heavy, and it was probably unwise to use the thing in the middle of the night in the dark of the woods. I replaced it and picked up the battery-powered chain saw I had bought for myself with part of my consultation check from PsyLED. The teal-and-black, ten-pound, thirty-six-volt, lithium-ion Makita saw would have made John bust a gut laughing, but I had thought it would be fine for most of the things I did around the garden and in the woods. I removed it from the charging block and checked the chain oil reservoir, which was full. I pushed the button to turn it on. The whiny roar split the night exactly like I thought it might. Like a thousand ghosts screeching from the grave. I punched the button off and felt something move behind me. I whirled and found a spotted leopard standing in the doorway, his ears flattened and nose wrinkled in disgust. “Sorry ’bout the noise,” I said. Occam tilted his head at me and chuffed, as if he found me amusing. I placed the chain saw in the biggest pocket of the rucksack and cut the overhead light.
I swung the rucksack to my back and palmed the flashlight. Locked the door. In the night, I stopped, feeling the wind in the trees. Hearing the call of a far-off owl. Wood smoke laced through the air, a comforting scent of home. I looked at themoon, hard and cold and bright overhead. I’d get little use of its light in the woods. Even with the trees denuded of leaves, even with the flashlight and its four thousand lumens of raw light power, it would be dark.
Occam butted the back of my knee, as if he could smell me hesitating. Procrastinating. Being silly. Scared of the night. I firmed my resolve and sent my intent into the ground through the leather soles of my work boots. This wasmywoods. Whatever was out there was a trespasser. I would take back what was mine. I felt the land shift, as if my thoughts were dreams that stirred through it.
“Okay,” I said to Occam. “Lead the way to whatever made Rick so spooked that he took off his music and his clothes.” Glancing up at me once, the spotted wereleopard paced just ahead of me. Walking sedately into the woods, I turned on the flash and followed my guide along an unfamiliar path into the woods.
Trees big around as small houses broke the land into deep shadows and silvered leaf fall. The distant owl fell quiet. The woods were silent in that time of night after the nocturnal predators had killed and eaten their fill and before the diurnal predators had woken. Through the leather soles of my old boots, I felt a small herd of deer over toward the Peay property. Another, slightly larger, group was over toward the Vaughns’ place. Rabbits and squirrels were huddling. Rats and mice still raced and trundled along looking for foodstuffs. Two coyotes or coywolves trotted along the border of the land near the Stubbins farm.
