Black Hills (29 page)

It took time, and some finesse, but they transferred the cat to the cart, drove it into the enclosure. The first streaks of dawn bloomed as they lowered the tiger to the mouth of his den.

“His respiration’s good, and his pupils are reactive,” she stated as she crouched to do another quick exam. “I want Matt to run a full diagnostic on him. The bait might have been doctored.”

“You need a new lock, Lil.”

“I got one out of the equipment shed. I’ve got one in my pocket. It’ll do for now.”

“Let’s go.”

“Yeah. Yeah.” She stroked a hand over the cat’s head, down its flank, then rose. Outside, she snapped a new lock on the chain securing the cage door. “The interns and staff are going to be coming along soon. So will the police. I need, really need, coffee. Coffee and a minute to breathe.”

He said nothing while she drove the cart back to the shed. As he started toward the cabin with her, he lifted his chin toward the headlights far down her road. “You’re not going to get that chance to breathe.”

“I still want the coffee, which is smarter than the three fingers of whiskey I really want. Did you relock the gate?”

“No, it wasn’t at the top of my to-do list this morning.”

“I guess not. I think it’s the law.” She nearly managed a smile with it. “One more favor? Will you wait for him while I get that coffee? I’ll get you one, too.”

“Make it quick.”

Funny, she thought, as she paused inside her own kitchen, her hands were shaking again. She took a moment to splash cold water on her face in the kitchen sink before filling two insulated mugs with black coffee.

When she went back out Coop was standing with Willy and two deputies.

“You doing all right, Lil?” Willy asked her.

“Better now. But Jesus, Willy, this son of a bitch has to be crazy. If that cat had gotten away from here, away from me . . . God knows.”

“I need to take a look at things. What time did the alarm go off?”

“About a quarter after five. I’d just glanced at the clock before I left my cabin, and I’d only gotten as far as the porch when it sounded.” She walked with them, leading the way. “Tansy and Farley left pretty much on the dot of five, maybe a minute or two after. Tansy was anxious to get started.”

“You’re sure on that? It was about five-thirty when you called me, and that was after you’d put the tiger down.”

“I’m sure. I knew where to find him. I’d switched on the computer, the cameras when I went in for the drug gun. I saw the cage open, I saw the cat, so I knew where to go. It didn’t take long, only seemed like a year or two.”

“Did you maybe give a passing thought to calling me first?” Willy demanded.

“I had to move fast. I couldn’t wait, risk losing the cat. If he’d left the compound . . . They can move damn fast when they want, and by the time you’d have gotten here . . . He needed to be contained as quickly as possible.”

“All the same, Lil, any more trouble, I want you to call me before you do anything else. And I’d think you’d know better than to go walking all over a crime scene, Coop.”

“You’re right.”

Willy puffed out his cheeks. “It’d be more satisfying if you’d argue a little.” Willy paused before they hit the blood trail. “Get some pictures,” he told one of the deputies. “Of the broken lock over there, too.”

“I left it where I found it,” Lil said. “And kept out of the tracks as much as I could. We didn’t touch the bait. The tiger’d only had ten minutes or so on it when I got to him, but he’d torn in pretty good from what I could see. It was a small elk.”

“You’ll do me a favor and stay here.” He signaled to his men and moved into the brush in the tracks of the cart.

“He’s a little bit pissed.” Lil sighed. “I guess you are, too.”

“Good guess.”

“I did exactly what I thought had to be done, what I still think had to be done. Know had to be. But . . . The interns are coming,” she said as she heard the trucks. “I need to go deal with them. I appreciate you coming so fast, Coop. Appreciate everything you did.”

“Save it, and see how grateful you are once you and I are finished with this. I’ll wait for Willy here.”

“Okay.” She’d handled an escaped tiger, Lil thought, as she headed back. She could handle an angry man.

 

 

 

BY SEVEN-THIRTY in the morning, Lil felt as though she’d put in a full and brutal day. The emergency staff meeting left her with a headache and a clutch of uneasy interns. She had no doubt that if turnover hadn’t been only days away, some would have quit and walked away. Though she wanted to assist Matt with his exam of Boris, and the tests, she assigned interns. The work would keep them busy and focused. And reinforce the fact that everything was under control. Others she put to work on the temporary enclosure, and had no doubt there would be several pairs of eyes tracking warily over habitats throughout the day.

“A couple of them are going to be calling in sick tomorrow,” Lucius said when he and Lil were alone.

“Yeah. And the ones who do will never make it in the field. In research, labs, classrooms, but not fieldwork.”

With a sheepish smile, Lucius raised his hand.

“You’re planning to be sick tomorrow?”

“No, but I spend most of my time right in here. I can guarantee I wouldn’t have gone out armed with a drug gun to hunt me down a Siberian tiger. You had to be scared fully shitless, Lil. I know you relayed all this at the meeting as if it was almost routine, but this is me.”

“Fully shitless,” she acknowledged. “But more scared I wouldn’t get him tranquilized and contained. My God, Lucius, the damage he might have done if he’d gotten away from us. I’d never be able to live with it.”

“You weren’t the one who let him out, Lil.”

Didn’t matter, she thought as she went back outside. She’d learned a lesson, a vital one. Whatever the cost, she’d have the very best security available, and as quickly as it could be arranged.

She met Willy and Coop on their way back from what she supposed they considered a crime scene.

“We’ve got what’s left of that carcass bagged, and we’ll test it, in case it was doctored,” Willy said. “I’ve sent the men to follow the tracks. I’ll be calling in more.”

“Good.”

“I’m going to need a full statement from you, both of you,” he added to Coop. “Why don’t we talk in your place, Lil?”

“All right.”

At her kitchen table, over more mugs of coffee, she went over every detail.

“Who knew you were going to be here alone once Farley left this morning?”

“I don’t know, Will. I’d guess word got out that he was driving with Tansy to Montana this morning. I had arrangements to make, and I didn’t make them on the down low. But I don’t know if that’s relevant. If Farley had been here, everything would’ve gone about the same way it did. Except I wouldn’t have had to call Coop to help me get Boris back in his enclosure.”

“The fact is the cage door opened a few minutes after they left, and almost two hours before any of your people were scheduled to get here. Now, maybe that was just luck, or maybe somebody’s keeping track.”

She’d thought of that, of exactly that. “He’d have to know we have alarm signals on the cages we keep activated unless we’re working in them. Otherwise, it would be getting the tiger out, baiting him out that was the goal here. It could’ve been another two hours, easily, before anyone noticed the door was open, and by that time, Boris might have roamed off, or just as easily gone back inside, to his den. His home. If I can’t be sure, and this is an animal I’ve worked with—this is what I
know—
whoever’s doing this couldn’t know.”

“You’ve been here for about five years now,” Willy said. “I’ve never had a report from you on anyone trying to get one of your animals out.”

“No. It’s never happened before. I’m not saying it’s a coincidence, just that the purpose might have been to get one of the big cats out and cause havoc.”

Willy nodded, assured she understood him. “I’m going to coordinate a manhunt with the park service. I can’t tell you what to do, as sheriff, Lil, but I’m telling you as your friend I don’t want you here alone. Not even for an hour.”

“She won’t be,” Coop put in.

“I won’t argue that. I don’t intend for anyone, including me, to be alone here until this man’s found and put away. I’m going to contact a security company this morning and arrange for the best system I can manage. Willy, my parents live less than a mile from here. Believe me when I say I’m not taking any chances, any, on this ever happening again.”

“I do believe you. But you’re a lot closer than a mile to those enclosures, and I’ve got a fondness for you. I had a painful crush on her when I was sixteen,” he said to Coop. “If you tell my wife I said that I’ll say you’re a dirty liar.”

He pushed to his feet. “I went around, took a good look. All your enclosures are secure. I’m not going to shut you down. I could,” he added when Lil made a strangled sound in her throat. “And you could try to get that overturned, and we’d end up on opposite sides here. I want you to make that call about the new security, and I want you to keep me updated on it. I got a fondness for you, Lil, but I’ve also got people to protect.”

“Understood. We haven’t violated a single ordinance or safety measure since we brought in the first cat.”

“I know that, honey. I do. And I bring my kids here two or three times a year. I want to keep bringing them.” The gesture both casual and affectionate, he reached out to pat her head. “I’m going to go. I want you to remember I’m the first call you make from here on out.”

She sat where she was, stewing. “I suppose you have plenty to say now,” she suggested when she and Coop were alone.

“You should’ve stayed inside and waited for help. Two people with drug guns are better than one. And you’re going to say there wasn’t time for that.”

“There wasn’t. How much do you know about tigers as a species, and Siberians as a subspecies?”

“They’re big, have stripes, and I’d have to assume come from Siberia.”

“Actually, the correct name for the subspecies is Amur—Siberian’s the name commonly used, and it’s misleading, as they live in the far east of Russia.”

“Well, now that we’ve cleared that up.”

“I’m just trying to make you see it. It’s fiercely territorial. It stalks and ambushes, and can reach a speed of thirty-five miles an hour, maybe forty.”

She took a breath, easy in and out as the idea still made her belly quake. “Even an old guy like Boris can book when he wants. It’s strong, and can carry a prey of, say, a hundred pounds and still leap a six-foot fence. Man isn’t its usual prey, but according to most accepted records, tigers have killed more humans than any other cat.”

“You seem to be making my point for me, Lil.”

“No. No. Listen.” She dragged at her hair. “Most man-eaters are older—which Boris is—often going for a man because they’re easier to take down than larger prey. It’s solitary and secretive, like most cats, and if interested in man meat would hunt in sparsely populated areas. Its size and its strength mean it can kill smaller prey instantly.”

Desperate to make him understand, she squeezed her hand on his on the table. “If I’d waited, that cat could’ve been miles away, or it could’ve wandered into my parents’ backyard. Your grandparents’ front pasture. It could’ve roamed to where the Silverson kids catch the bus for school. All while I was sitting inside, waiting for someone to help.”

“You wouldn’t have had to wait if you hadn’t been alone.”

“Do you want me to admit I underestimated this bastard? I did.” Both passion and apology shone in her eyes. “I was wrong. Horribly wrong, and that mistake could’ve cost lives. I never expected anything like this, never anticipated it. Damn it, Coop, did you? You know damn well I was taking precautions, because I made a point of telling you about the security systems I’d looked at.”

“That’s right, when you came by to make sure I knew you’d have Farley here, so I wasn’t needed.”

As her head started to pound, she dropped her gaze. “It made sense for Farley to be here, since they were leaving from here this morning. That’s all there was to it.”

“Bullshit. For Christsake, Lil, do you think I’d put wanting you in bed above wanting you safe?”

“No. Of course I don’t.” She looked at him again. “I don’t. Coop, I called you. I called you even before I called Willy.”

“Because I was closer, handier, and you didn’t want your parents scared.”

She heard the bitterness, and couldn’t blame him for it. “That’s all true, but also because I knew I could count on you. I knew, without any question, I could count on you to help me.”

“You can, and to make sure you don’t forget it, sex is now off the table.”

“Sorry?”

“
You’re
sorry?” Some of the temper—at least its sharp, leading edge—seemed to have dulled when he shook his head at her.

“Yes. No. I mean I don’t know what
you
mean.”

“Simple. Sex is out of the equation. I won’t touch you. I won’t ask you. And I’ll be here from dusk to dawn, every day. If I can’t be, someone else will be. I’ve got to go get caught up,” he said as he rose. “You’d better talk to your parents about this before someone else does.”

15

He could’ve taken her out as easily as he had the elk calf, just aim and down she’d go. The tiger would’ve gone for her then, oh, yeah. A shot in the leg, he mused, playing it out in his head. Not a kill shot, just something to take her down. Would the tiger have traded elk for woman?

He’d put money on it.

And wouldn’t
that
have been something to see?

But it wasn’t the game of choice. Plus it had been so interesting and entertaining to watch her. She’d surprised him, he had to admit it, even with what he knew of her. What he’d observed. He hadn’t expected her to act so quickly, so decisively, or to stalk the cat so expertly.