Beast chuffed and gathered body close. Leaped from ground up high. Landed inside Lear-door, on Lear-floor.
Human male at plane-door made mouse-squeak as Beast landed beside him. Smelled of fear and sweat and a little of urine.
Beast chuffed. Was good that human understood Beast was best hunter. Walked inside belly of plane, long thick tail swaying. Found and lapped at large water bowl. Smelled at small refrigerator. Ed and Jane’s Learjet-machine smelled of Jane and dead cow skin on chairs and fresh cow roast. Was good Learjet-machine. Beast padded to big chairs and climbed into dead-cow-skin-chair smelling of Jane. Put head down. Closed eyes. Yawned. Smelled Edmund and Eli and Alex come into plane. Smelled irritation of Ed and laughter of Eli. Was good smells. Went to sleep.
Edmund
Their hunting group landed at the San Antonio International Airport after dark had fallen. They were escorted through back hallways so no one would panic seeing a cougar walking uncaged and free and “start a stampede.” Those were the words used by the airport low-level flunky of security when Edmund greased the way forward with a single large bill. Hehad brought a goodly number of them for just such purposes. Mesmerism was easier, but also illegal.
The cat paced beside him through the back hallways, her head at his right knee, her curious, golden eyes taking in everything. Her nose also taking in everything, including the crotch of the man who led them through the back hallways. The horrible cat chuffed in amusement as the man leaped away, squeaking. That required another large bill.
The driver of the luxury, topless Hummer with its elevated rows of seats had also been less than sanguine at the sight of Beast’s fangs, and had nearly swallowed his wad of tobacco. It had taken a much smaller bill and only a slight pull with his vampire abilities to calm the man and implant a suggestion that the puma was actually a large dog, for him to become agreeable. And talkative. Some humans, including “Bronco Sam,” were easy to sway. And there were no cameras to suggest that he had used his gifts on a human.
Bronco Sam was a grizzled older cowboy who walked with a limp from an injury, and who was likely hired for his good-ol’-boy attitude, his Western cowboy attire, the “chaw” as Alex called it, and his stories. They secured their luggage to the back of the flat bed of the Hummer and took places inside. The cat raced to the top seat and sat, the queen of her world, seeing everything, excited and delighted and her pelt hairs standing up high. Ed took the second row of seats, Alex beside him. Eli claimed the shotgun seat, Bronco having no idea that real weapons were involved with “shotgun” seat and secreted upon Eli’s person.
Chattering at the top of his lungs to be heard over the engine and the wind noise, Bronco drove them out of town, into the countryside. Edmund had forgotten how stunning the night sky was when city lights fell behind them, the stars a wash of brilliance above, the bloated orb of the moon on the horizon. He breathed in the night air of desert country. It was spicy with trees and plants he couldn’t identify and rich with the scent of life—rattlesnakes, rats, lizards by the hundreds, insects, rabbits, and farther away, the scent of larger prey, animals he had no name for except bovine, goat, pig, and, more faint, predator cat, perhaps bobcat or lynx. Though he had traveled far, he had never been to this part of the States, preferring the cities and their well-stocked hunting grounds, human culture, museums and music and theater.
But this... this was a sensory overload of a different sort. He felt his body relaxing as all the tension of war plans, travel plans to Europe, the pressure of schedules and conflict and meetings and duels began to slip away. He lounged back in his seat, and he didn’t even worry when the cat rested her chin on his shoulder, purring, getting cat hair all over his suit coat. Her whiskers tickled his neck, just over his carotid, the exact place where his first master had bitten and turned him. She couldn’t know that that spot, electric and tender, would stir old memories, old joy and old pain. She chuffed out a sighing sound and made a soft mewl.
Almost unwilling, he reached back and up and... scratched the space between the cat’s ears. Her purring increased in volume. Her scent reached his nose despite the wind. Her purrs fell silent and he realized she had fallen asleep, her head on his shoulder.
Something old and half-forgotten turned over in his chest. Sad. Broken. And human.
Beast
Beast leaned against Edmund. Scent of Ed was all over Beast. Scent of Beast was all over Ed. Beast loved Ed. Beast did not love Bronco Sam. Bronco talked. Bronco talked all time. Beast was not sure that Bronco took breaths between words. Bronco was stringy and hard and smelled of chemicals and tobacco and alcohol that Eli called whiskey. Bronco would not taste good, but Beast might hunt Bronco anyway to make Bronco stop talking.
Ed lifted hand. He touched Beast.
Beast went still.
Ed fingers groomed Beast head between ears like mate. Scratched deep. Beast felt... strange feelings. What Jane called peace. Beast was safe, like kit at the teat. Like Beast in den in high rock face. Beast closed eyes. Beast slept.
Edmund
“The Circle III Hunting Ranch outside San Antonio is family owned by the current generation of Iverses,” Bronco Sam said, “but it was founded by Charles Ivers. He was a well-educated man, good-lookin’, charmin’, traveling from Maine to see the Wild West and make his fortune. He stopped in San Antonio where he met the exotic, beautiful, beloved, only child of Hector Casillas, a wealthy Mexican businessman, who specialized in banking, acquiring gold, and selling weapons to the Mexicans and the Americans both.” Bronco idled the Hummer in the middle of the road so they could stare through the iron fence down the long straight drive to the white-painted two-story home illuminated with landscaping lights. There were several outbuildings and log cabins just beyond the house, and horses in the pastures to either side of the drive.
The smells of hay, feed, manure, and horse came to Ed’s nose, awakening a forgotten longing in him. The smell of bovines and other, less familiar creatures were carried on the night air. Beast woke and sat up tall, sniffing and curious, quivering with interest. Ed put up a hand to touch the cat’s paw in restraint. “Not now,” he murmured. “Not yet.”
The cat chuffed and made ayawrllllsound. Somehow, he understood the noise to be both discontent and agreement.
“Charles Ivers, that city slicker, fell in love and promptly married Olivia Casillas, who bore him three sons,” Bronco said, “giving the older Casillas a happy, joy-filled later life watching his grandsons grow. When Olivia’s father passed and the two Iverses inherited her father’s fortune, they purchased this land. And in 1849, not long after Texas became a state, the Circle III cattle brand and ranch were born. TheOstands forOlivia, and theIs in the center of the circle stand for the three Ivers sons. A love story to last the generations.”
“Mmmm,” Ed said. He understood the tale to be about a charismatic and beguiling young man who had found a way to acquire a fortune with nothing but charm. Ed had known many such men over the centuries. He had even been such a man from time to time and wealthy woman to wealthy woman. The scent of horse increased on a swirling wind and the sound of horse hooves on the air. Soft equine snorts followed as theycaught his scent and the scent of the predator cat at his shoulder. He asked, “Would you inquire of your employer about the possibility of a moonlight ride?”
Eli tilted his head in surprise at Edmund, who merely smiled. It had been decades since Edmund had ridden, but why not? He had forty-eight hours here before he was neck-deep in duels and the arcane rules and politesse of his own kind. Why not enjoy this mess Jane Yellowrock had gotten them into? Money talked and he had paid an unreasonable fortune for five-star service.
“Make that two of us,” Eli said. Then he grinned. “Prissy boy here will need a prissy English saddle, Bronco, and a prissy flashy horse. I’d like a good, sturdy, neck-reining cow pony.”
“You ride?” Edmund asked, surprised.
“I ride. I spent six months on horseback in-country once upon a time, tracking down a gang of bad hombres.” Eli chuckled and the sound was cold and harsh. “Uncle Sam’s finest know all sorts of things, Prissy Boy.”
“Are you challenging me for some reason,” Ed asked mildly, “or just for fun?”
Eli grinned, a sudden wild light in his eyes. “We can call it fun. For starters.”
The gate opened with the touch of a button and the Hummer turned down the drive.
