"To do what?"
"Capture them."
Lieutenant Mindar was silent for a moment. "Professor Grand, I can't give you my word about how this is going to be handled. Now that the situation has entered greater Los Angeles I won't be in charge of the operation. I'll talk to the police chief about sedating the creatures but it would help if you gave me some good-faith information to work with."
"All right," Grand said. "Tell him I may be able to figure out the exact route the saber-tooths are taking through the mountains. When I do, I should be able to get ahead of them and lure them to wherever they want."
"How will you do that? If they've already eaten, food won't-"
"I won't be using food," Grand said.
"What, then?"
"I'll be using tar."
"The La Brea Tar Pits," Mindar said. "Of course. That's where the animals are headed."
"Yes, but there are many ways they can get there and you can't cover them all. Look, I've fought these cats close-up. I think I can get near enough to bait them and get out again."
"You'd risk that to save them?"
"Absolutely."
"Fair enough," Mindar said. "I'll do what I can. Please put Sheriff Gearhart back on."
Grand handed the headset to Gearhart and they switched places again. The lieutenant had sounded like a reasonable enough man. Perhaps this wouldn't be as bad as he'd thought. But as he stood beside the sling-seat and looked back at the dead cat, curiosity, concern, and fear moved his mind in countless directions. He picked one.
Maybe he'd asked the wrong question before.
If a cat is slain, how many lives does its spirit demand in exchange?
Grand didn't believe that, yet he couldn't help but wonder if he was doing the right thing. Of course it was right to try to save the cats. At least on an emotional and scientific level, and certainly on an ecological one. But what about on a spiritual level? Even if the cats could survive in captivity, was it fair to take away their predatory imperative? The world was different from the one they'd known. They couldn't roam free.
Not that it mattered. It wasn't his decision to make. Providence had kept these cats alive. And not for science but for that fact, he would do everything possible to keep them alive.
Grand remained standing where he was as the scuffed floor vibrated and tilted beneath him. He had to call Hannah with this new information, get her to narrow her search. As he reached for the phone, his mind moved somewhere else. The scientist had devoted his life to studying the hunting techniques of ancient peoples. He wondered if they'd ever attempted what he was about to try.
Most likely, he decided. Pleistocene hunters were pretty resourceful. Grand wondered then, with a flash of concern, if it had actually been tried on these very cats-and if so, whether the saber-tooths had fallen for it.
Probably. So far they seemed to.
But primitive humans almost certainly never had to deal with the other questions that nagged at Grand. They had relied on one another to make weapons, shoes, and water pouches that wouldn't break. They had needed each other to guard their backs during a hunt, to watch campsites while they slept, and to protect the mates and children of men who were out searching for prey.
As his mind took yet another path the question that bothered Grand was whether he could do the same.
Chapter Sixty-Eight
Save for Hannah, the Wall-who was finishing up in the photo lab-and the night editor, Charlie Wong, the newspaper office was empty.
Hannah had written up the Monte Arido attack and collected the information Grand had requested. She called the cell phone. She hoped Grand had some ideas: What she had to tell him did not leave her optimistic.
Grand answered. The connection was weak and Hannah had to cover one ear to hear.
"Hello, Jim?"
"Hannah-I was just about to call. There's been another encounter, up on Coldwater Canyon in the Hollywood Hills."
"What happened?"
"The cats attacked an outdoor party," he said. "I don't know much more than that."
"Coldwater," she said. "That's right on your southeast beeline."
"I know. Have you got anything?"
"At least fourteen possible exits all around the Miracle Mile," she said. She looked at the geological charts. "But the route from Coldwater shouldn't be as difficult to trace. I can't read these things too well-but it looks like five or six trenches and faults lead in that direction."
"I'll look around the site and see what I can find in the way of sinkholes or tunnels," Grand said. "Thanks, Hannah. Would you be able to gather up the maps and meet me at the Page Museum?"
"The one right at the tar pits?"
"Yes."
"I can be there in about ninety minutes," Hannah said.
"Great See you there."
Hannah hung up. She immediately called her Los Angeles stringer to send him up to Coldwater; he said he'd just gotten a call from one of his sources at the fire department and was on his way. Hannah then rushed to the small photo lab where the Wall was surrounded by hi-tech processing gear and computer monitors for the digital work. He was examining his color prints.
"All this bloodshed. These are heartbreaking," he said.
Hannah glanced at them. "Completely."
The Wall looked at her. "Is that the best you can do?"
"What do you mean?"
"'Completely.' This is tragic."
"I know, Wall," she said. "But it's like my dad said about war. Fight now, mourn later. Give the best shots to Charlie and then get your stuff."
"What's happening?"
"We're going to meet Jim at the George Page Museum in Los Angeles," Hannah said.
The photographer shook his head. "Can't you leave me here?"
"Leave you? Hell, no. Wall. You're my photographer, remember?"
"For The Coastal Freeway," he said, "Covering greater Santa Barbara County."
"Which is where this story started, which makes it ours. Now let's go."
He didn't move.
"Come on Walter. I don't have time for this."
"Time," he said. "You know what happens to reporters who don't take the time to sleep, eat, and reflect on life a little?"
"They get scoops," she replied impatiently.
"No," the Wall said. "They lose perspective. They get desensitized."
"Wall, what the hell are you talking about? What brought this on? The photos?"
"Partly. I've been standing here looking at these photos and thinking that we may be part of the problem. Gearhart wants to save human lives. Grand wants to save prehistoric monsters. Gearhart doesn't want people to know what's going on, you want people to know everything." The photographer shook his head. "We're fighting each other over creatures that are fighting each other. Somewhere, sometime, someone has to say, 'No more fighting.'"
"Wall, we're fighting to keep people informed, to try and improve the quality of human life."
"Not to prove something? Maybe to a father or to ourselves?"
"Hey, I want respect," Hannah said. "But that's not the reason I'm doing this and you know it."
"No, to do good."
"That's right!"
"But you're never the one who gets seriously knocked around," the Wall said. "Remember our last year at Brown when we did the series about mobsters and jocks making book on college sports?"
"Of course I remember. We were nominated for the Anna Prize."
"You were nominated for the prize. When we showed up at one of the bars where they did their betting, I was the one who got hit with a blackjack. A year ago when we did that Lone Rangering about Caltrans and the right-of-way land they bought cheap up here then sold at a big-bucks auction, who got roughed up trying to get into the public meetings? The guy without the lucky dog tags hanging from his neck."
"You survived," she said, "and I was able to be there when upper management voted themselves big pay increases using that money. A week after our article appeared they got voted out. We won."