Claws Read online

  “How much money we talking about?”

  “I’d say a few thousand. Maybe as much as ten.”

  The amount surprised Jackson. “Tell me about Ted.”

  “Turns out he’s not the backwoods crazy dreamer everybody thought. He has a degree in genetics and worked for Monsanto. High earner, married, successful. Then the IRS got after him. He beat them twice, but the third time, they nailed him for tax fraud. Did a year in federal minimum security. Wife left him, took the money and kids, and he came out of prison a different man.”

  “Prison can do that,” Jackson said. “And Dolly?”

  “Squeaky clean except for some traffic violations. Ted’s her third husband. She was a Grier until she married a man named Ryder, and then she married a Yow, and then Ted Cheney. No kids. That’s about it except … did you know Pamela Yow and Dolly, did you know they’re cousins?”

  “Seems like Sadie told me that once.”

  “But Pamela Yow, she’s always going on about Safari Land being a godless abomination and stuff.”

  “You like all your relatives, Angie?”

  Angie laughed.

  “You say Dolly was married to a Yow?” asked Jackson.

  Angie searched her notes. “Eddie Yow.”

  “What’s the name of Pamela’s ex-husband?”

  “Got me,” she said. “Want me to ask Sadie?”

  “Naw. Forget it. We’ll talk to Ted and Dolly.”

  Angie laid her report on the desk. “Anything else?”

  Jackson leaned back in his chair and said, “Well, I’m going to need a new Deputy Chief of Police.”

  “You asking me if I’d want it?”

  “Only if you don’t let out a war cry.”

  Five

  It was mid-afternoon when Jackson got to the Split-Rail Café. He had not eaten since breakfast. He was anticipating a cup of coffee, a turkey sandwich, and time to think. Once he saw Iris and Dell seated in a rear booth, and Iris motioning for him to join them, he knew that the coffee and sandwich were the most he would get. Jackson greeted a few unemployed or retired local men, nodded to a pair of tourists poring over a map, and went to the counter. He gave Suzy Beans, a chubby Korean girl of nineteen, his order for the sandwich and coffee. He ordered turkey breast on dark rye toast, with mayonnaise, lettuce, tomato, and bread and butter pickles.

  “You want espresso, cappuccino, latte, Americano …?” Suzy asked with a bored voice. A year ago, Iris had convinced Jay and Janice Beans to add an espresso machine.

  “Half-decaf, half-high octane. Black.” Suzy, who had been adopted at birth by the café owners, went off to get his non-espresso machine coffee order, while Jackson moved to the booth and sat beside Iris. “Guess you’ve heard?”

  They both said they had.

  “I still don’t believe it,” Iris said. “It feels so, so creepy. What we were talking about this morning.”

  Jackson resisted any of a dozen comments that came instantly to mind. They weren’t easy to resist.

  “I know mountain lions have attacked kids and small women,” Dell said, “but not a man with a gun.”

  “I can’t say for sure what killed Ed.” When Suzy Beans brought Jackson’s coffee, he told her thanks.

  “Sandwich’ll be right up,” Suzy said and then left.

  “I hear it was one of Ted’s big cats,” Iris said.

  Jackson didn’t say anything.

  “I’ve hunted lions before, real lions,” Dell said. “When me and Dan went to Africa.” Jackson had seen the trophy heads and heard the stories of the safari that Dell and his younger brother, Dan, had gone on six years ago. Dan Tapper was now the lieutenant governor of Idaho. After November, he would most likely be governor. “If a lion or a tiger got loose from the Cheney place, I can kill it,” Dell added. “Go on safari right here in Idaho.”

  Jackson sipped his coffee and then said, “Let’s hold off on a hunting party until I talk to Ted and Dolly.”

  “What if it kills somebody else first?” Dell asked.

  Iris grabbed Jackson’s hand, causing his coffee to slosh onto the table. “Jesse’s out riding that damn horse today.” Her voice was suddenly shrill. “We gotta find her. Stop her. She could be out in the woods with –”

  Jackson was on his way out the door, cell phone in hand, before Iris could even finish saying, “– with that killer cat.” His daughter was at the top of his speed dial list. Her cell phone rang, and then a message said the call could not be completed due to … He hung up.

  “You reach her?” Iris said, coming up behind him.

  “Call Deborah. Have her go find Jesse, and tell her to stay put. Not go off riding. I’m on my way.”

  “I’m going with you.”

  “No,” Jackson said. “I’ll be faster by myself.” He didn’t stop to argue, hurrying to the Jeep.

  “How could you let her do this?” Iris called out.

  “Call Deborah now!” Jackson yelled. He jumped in, started the Jeep, eased into light traffic, and headed toward the Double-D Stables. On the edge of town he hit the lights and siren and floored the accelerator.

  Jesse tugged at the Chukars’ cap she usually wore while working at the stables. A thick ponytail dangled out of the back of the baseball cap. When she wore a riding helmet, her hair swung loose beneath it. Although her complexion was lighter than her mom’s, her shoulder length hair was the same deep, dark brown. Today, in her hurry to get out of Shane’s truck, she had forgotten the helmet. If her mom discovered her on horseback without it, she would ground her. Forever. She knew her mom would like that.

  Forgetting the helmet was bad, but breaking her iPhone was a zillion times worse, Jesse thought. If her cell phone hadn’t fallen in wet horseshit and then been stomped on by a skittish pinto, she would call her mom now and delay her. Instead, she mapped a new route that went over evergreen and aspen hills, along the crop fields that lay beyond them, and then along the curling, willow-lined Big Tooth River. This route should assure her of reaching her dad’s farm before her mom came to get her.

  Jesse gently scratched Touie along the crest and wiggled in the saddle. She hadn’t been riding enough since school started, and the specialized saddle felt unfamiliar. A variation of the English saddle, it was lightweight and designed so both horse and rider could endure long hours. The saddle even had metal rings for attaching the equipment she would need to compete in the Tevis Cup. The endurance race from the Lake Tahoe area across the Sierra Nevada range lasts a full day and covers one hundred miles of high, hot terrain. Her goal was to enter next year’s race. No, she thought, correcting herself, her goal was to win it.

  Although Arabian horses generally dominated the top endurance races, Jesse was sure her Arabian-Appaloosa mix would be better. Touie’s Arabian bloodline gave him size and stamina; his Appaloosa genes meant good sprint speeds and agility. Appaloosas also were loyal and unafraid to tackle trails, cows, or whatever. Jesse had never encountered whatever. If she did, she would trust Touie.

  Somewhere in the distance Jesse heard the whip-whip-whip of a siren. She turned the horse away from the sound and headed toward a timbered hill. On the other side of it the land would flatten out and skirt the Placett farm.

  Jackson killed the siren when he turned off the blacktop. He barreled through the Double-D Stables archway and down a gravel road that crooked for a half-mile before reaching the ranch house. Deborah Dawson was on her front porch when he pulled up. He had slowed the SUV and eased it to a stop to keep from covering her in dust.

  Deborah was a tall, raw-boned woman with a mass of red curls atop a high forehead. Jackson didn’t know much about her other than she had moved from New York after a divorce and bought the riding stable. He knew Jesse liked her and trusted her and he suspected confided in her. As soon as he saw Deborah shaking her head, he knew Jesse was gone.

  “Your wife called. I mean your ex,” Deborah said, as Jackson hurried toward her. “I would have gone after Jesse, but Iris thought I should wait
for you.”

  “How long ago did she leave?”

  “Maybe thirty minutes.”

  “On Touie?” Jackson stopped at the porch steps.

  Deborah nodded and said, “Uh-huh. Iris said there’s a monster cat loose and that Ed Stevens was … is it true?”

  Jackson hurriedly told her about Ed.

  Deborah’s tanned face turned ash-gray as she listened. “That poor man,” she murmured.

  “I need to find Jesse. Any idea where she went?”

  Deborah shook her head. “Home is all she said.”

  “And there’s no real trail she’ll take?”

  “No. Just through the hills and backroads.”

  “Damn!” Jackson looked off toward the hills. Finally, he said, “You any good at tracking?”

  Deborah frowned. “I was raised to score cheap theater tickets and elbow my way to the counter at Zabar’s. I can read a GPS and a compass. That’s it. But Armando’s not bad at tracking,” she said, referring to her Mexican ranch hand. “I’ll call him.” Deborah picked up a Motorola portable two-way radio. “I got ATVs. Hate the things but guests love them. Or we can ride the pintos.” Deborah spoke into the radio. “Armando, you read me?”

  “If Jesse cuts through the woods, she’ll come out at the Placett farm,” Jackson said. “Close to it anyway.”

  Deborah nodded in agreement as her radio crackled and a man’s voice said, “Deborah, I was jus’ gonna call you.”

  She pushed the transmit button. “Where are you?”

  “Where the sheeps are grazing. Deborah, one of the sheeps, I think a ewe, I found it in the bushes. Muerto.”

  “Somebody killed one of my ewes?”

  “Some thing, not somebody,” Armando told her. “Killed and ate her.”

  As Jesse came down off the last hill, she felt the gelding grow nervous and figured it was due to the hot dry wind that was blowing. Horses hate strong winds. Wind overloads their sense of smell. Ahead of her, a field of ripe barley slanted to the south, like thick golden hair combed to one side, while in a field farther away, someone was driving a combine. Suddenly, Touie balked.

  “What’s wrong boy?” Jesse rubbed his neck.

  Touie’s ears were pinned back flat. His nostrils flared, taking in scents. The horse backed up a couple of steps and gave a sharp snort. Jesse spoke softly, trying to reassure him, but the gelding snorted again and fought to turn around. It wasn’t wind or farm machinery spooking him, she realized. It was the scent of something scary, and Touie didn’t scare easily. Jesse attempted to look ahead, to search for the source, but Touie kept turning and backing up. Jesse considered wolves, bears, snakes, and mountain lions as a possible threat. Whatever it was, she didn’t want to battle wills with a gelding standing sixteen hands and weighing over nine hundred pounds. Neither could she afford to waste time, not if she was going to reach the farm before her mom did. She had to convince Touie he was safe. But safe from what, Jesse wondered again?

  Although Kali needed to consume twenty to thirty pounds of meat per day, and could gorge on twice that amount, she had not set out to hunt that afternoon. She had set out to search for her mate, a male liger, when she heard the prey approaching. Kali had heard the prey long before she saw them since a cat’s hearing is five times greater than humans at the upper range. Now, as she lay in a thatch of common sagewort and cheatgrass beside the trail, Kali felt not only hunger but also the excitement of the chase and kill. In captivity she had eaten a variety of roadkill animals, as well as poached deer and elk and wolves, even cattle and hogs deemed unfit for human consumption, but horsemeat had been her favorite food. Kali licked her muzzle and watched the nervous prey.

  A lion seldom begins a chase from more than fifty yards. A tiger, using stealth, often attacks from even closer. Despite not having hunted before yesterday, Kali had the instincts of both animals in her genes. These instincts informed her that the prey was aware of her presence and frightened and that she should retreat.

  A moment later, Kali slipped off into a thick growth of yarrow. Once she was out of sight, she began to circle behind the prey, all the while keeping upwind.

  Although he no longer smelled the cat, Touie backtracked a hundred feet before he finally stopped. Jesse dismounted and spent minutes rubbing his forehead while murmuring softly in his ear. She continued until Touie’s ears were relaxed and slightly tipped to the side and his neck was in a soft, lowered position. Only then did she mount the gelding again. Only then, having assured Touie that they were safe, did she nudge him with her heels and say, “Walk on.” Touie hesitantly headed toward home.

  Six

  Kali watched the prey move farther away, but she still did not attack. Nor did she growl or flash her deadly teeth. A big cat’s most ferocious face – snarling, teeth displayed – often is a warning shown to other predators. Since the horse and the human posed no threat, Kali simply remained crouched in tall, thick weeds, watching the neck of the larger prey. By locking her jaws on the horse’s neck, while her front legs wrapped around it and her claws dug deeply into the flesh, she would make the kill.

  When the prey was forty yards ahead, Kali leapt onto the narrow trail. Her lion father could reach thirty-five miles per hour in four seconds and sixty at top speed. Her tiger mother was nearly as fast and also adept at climbing trees and swimming rivers. Kali ran equally as swift as lions and tigers, and she had far more power in her stride, so much so that Touie heard Kali’s paws thump the ground.

  The gelding bolted, and Jesse nearly fell off. After she righted herself and glanced behind, she was stunned and horrified by what she saw. Jesse had seen a Bengal tiger in the San Francisco Zoo, while once vacationing with her parents, but the animal chasing them was far larger than a Bengal tiger, and it was less than a hundred feet behind.

  Jesse faced forward again, settling more securely in the small saddle. She urged Touie to go even faster, and the gelding strained to respond. The ground was soft. Divots of grass and earth flew by. After a second peek back, Jesse realized the giant cat was gaining on them.

  If they were going to escape, Jesse had to do something soon. Seconds later, she noticed the culvert ahead. On the far side was a dirt road used for moving farm machinery between fields. Jesse didn’t know that big cats are soft-footed and prefer sandy trails or damp earth to rocky, hard ground, but she knew Touie had new shoes to protect her hooves. She knew that the gelding could run faster on firm ground. She turned Touie toward the culvert and did not slow him as they closed on it. Touie jumped the six-foot ditch and landed with a clatter of hooves.

  Kali also easily cleared the ditch, stumbling when one paw landed hard on a rock, but she came out of the misstep with the nimbleness of an acrobat and continued the chase.

  Wade Placett liked seeing the world from the seat of big farm machinery. The combine was like sitting on a moving hill or, according to Tammy, after seeing Jurassic Park for the umpteenth time, a dinosaur. Tammy? Wade was not overly worried about her despite the bout of wetting herself. Josh was another matter. Like his mother, Josh was highly sensitive. Nothing rolled easily off his son.

  Wade was looking behind him while thinking about his family. When he turned back toward the blades and peered out of the cab, he said, “What the hell?” He knew Touie; he had seen the horse often enough on the dirt roads. He knew Jesse too, even without the usual black helmet, but he had never seen anything like the cat.

  He shut down the operation and steered the lumbering combine toward his pickup, parked beneath a towering trash locust. While he was watching the monster cat chase Jesse and her horse, he ran into the old picnic table Mandy had placed in the shade of the tree. Wade cursed as he killed the engine, grabbed his rifle, climbed down, and ran.

  The next time Jesse looked back, she expected to see the giant cat far behind. She was wrong. The hard ground had allowed Touie to put only another ten feet of distance between them. They would never outrun the predator.

  Just ahead, Jesse spotted a tra
il that led to the willows, cottonwoods, and maples lining the Big Tooth River. The trail was rarely used and overgrown. Still, Jesse knew the riverbank was shallow here and the water deep, and she recalled reading or hearing somewhere that cats do not like water. She leaned forward and, using her knees and the reins, turned the gelding toward the river.

  Kali was tiring rapidly but did not want to give up on the prey, not after expending so much energy. Even so, she was about to stop, for big cats do not have great running stamina, when the prey veered from the paw-pounding road onto softer ground. When the prey made a sharp ninety-degree turn, Kali did not follow. She used her leaping stride to thrash through some fireweed and musk thistle at an angle, shortening the distance to the prey.

  Jesse heard the monster mauling the weeds and knew it might cut them off. She also knew the Big Tooth River was no more than a hundred feet ahead. She kicked Touie’s flanks with her boot heels, something she seldom did. A sudden spurt by the horse in response to her nudge proved barely enough, for when Kali bounded out of the thistle and onto the river path, she was only twenty feet behind them.

  Seconds later, Touie jumped the riverbank and landed on soft, moist ground. His front legs buckled slightly. Jesse fell forward across the horse’s neck. At that same moment, Kali soared high over the horse’s rear and swatted at Jesse with extended razor claws. Her right front claws raked the back of Jesse’s vest and shredded it. Her left claws ripped through Touie’s hide and snagged in his flesh, causing Kali to lose her balance for an instant. When one of Touie’s rear hooves struck her chest, Kali was knocked off. The liger hit the ground with a thud.

  Those few seconds allowed Touie to slog into the river, where he kept running until his four legs were churning nothing but water. Jesse slid out of the saddle and over the croup. She shoved against Touie’s rear to get clear. She then held onto Touie’s tail with both hands while she kicked her feet. The current pushed them downstream, but with Jesse’s kicks and Touie’s powerful legs, they still were able to swim toward the other shore.