The air was clear and very cold, but it was a dry, sun-speckled cold, and the net result was that special kind of euphoria that comes when a man alone slips between Nature's thighs. I moved easily with the horse beneath me, taking deep gulps of the frigid air, trying to flush the accumulated filth of city living out of my lungs.
In the distance, smoke from the loggers' camp plumed, then drifted west with the wind currents. The hoofprints of Hayes' horse veered sharply to the east, running a straight parallel to the tree line. It was reasonable for Hayes to assume that Sam would get as far away from the camp, and the people in it, as possible. He wouldn't know any better.
I did. Sam was a circus animal, and had spent most of his life around people. He had come to depend upon them for food and shelter, and I was convinced he would be somewhere in the vicinity of the camp, waiting.
That was good, and that was bad. If worse came to worse, he would kill and eat a logger. If that happened, there was no way Sam was going to get out of this alive. And he would be getting close to the edge; bewildered, wounded, cold and hungry, Sam had spent more than three days in the forest.
Working in his favor was the fact that he had always been one of the best and most reliable cats in the show, a strong and stabilizing influence on the other animals. On the other hand, he was-above all else-a tiger, a killing machine in his prime.
The horse, with his collective, primeval memory, would know that, too, and there would be hell to pay if he got a whiff of Sam's spoor. I thought I had that problem solved.
I headed the horse in a direct line toward the smoke, then opened one of the saddle bags that was draped over the saddle horn. I opened the plastic bag there, and immediately the air was filled with the strong, ripe odor of bloody meat. Mixed in with the meat was a large dose of red pepper.
The horse whinnied and shied, but steadied again under a tug at the reins. This particular bag of meat had a dual purpose; to overwhelm the horse's sense of smell and, hopefully, also act as a powerful magnet to a very hungry tiger. In the second bag, among other things, was a second batch of meat, unadulterated, a suitable tiger snack. I hoped Sam would prefer it to me.
I was past the tree line, on the lip of the forest. It was immensely serene and peaceful. The vast canopy of brown and green overhead had cut down on the snowfall, and the floor of the forest was carpeted with a thick bed of pine needles.
In a few minutes we emerged into an open glen. To my left, high up on a mountain, I caught the glint of sunlight off metal. It could have been a rifle. Or binoculars. I hoped it was a rifle; if it was binoculars, it probably meant Hayes had already spotted me.
I veered back into the protective gloom of the forest, heading the horse on a path that would, if my sense of direction was correct, take us in ever-shrinking concentric circles around the camp's perimeter.
I ran through an inventory of my equipment for what must have been the tenth time. But I felt it was justified; when something happened, it was likely to happen fast, and I didn't want to be groping around for some needed piece of equipment.
I had the tranquilizer gun in a sheath on the right side of the saddle, just in front of my leg. I had a large supply of extra darts in one of the bags, but the gun would only take one dart at a time. I would have to make the first shot count. If it didn't, there was the high-powered hunting rifle on my other side.
I broke the chamber and checked to make sure it was fully loaded, took off the safety and replaced it lightly in its oiled scabbard. I was as ready as I would ever be.
Finally, of course, there were the dog biscuits crammed into the pockets of my wool parka. The ultimate weapon.
That brought me a laugh, and I relaxed in the saddle, putting myself on automatic pilot and letting my senses guide me.
Curious: It had been years since I'd last seen Phil Statler, and yet all the old feelings had come back, a love-hate ambivalence that would live with me to the day I died, like an extra limb that could not be amputated.
The reaction was not to Phil himself, but to what he represented-the circus, where I'd constantly struggled to show the world that the performer with the stunted body was a man with unique skills and capabilities.
Phil Statler was the man who had given me his faith, his trust, the man who had spoken to my mind rather than my body.
And there had been Sam. Always I had loved the animals, and had used their company to while away the lonely hours between cities and performances. And Sam had been my favorite, my friend, and we had spent many hours together, staring at one another from behind the bars of our respective cages.
But that had been many years before, and I would have been a fool to suppose that our friendship represented anything more than a small paper boat adrift on the raging river of Sam's natural savagery.
And now I was hunting him with a dart gun, a situation that suddenly seemed even more ludicrous when you considered the fact that Sam was hurt. I leaned forward and spurred the horse, trying to push the rising fear out of my mind.
I completed the first circuit of the camp, then reined the horse in and began another, tighter circle. It was growing dark, and I knew that soon I would have to stop and camp.
I opened a quart container of chicken blood and began dripping it in the snow behind me. I didn't like the idea of Sam coming up from behind, but it couldn't be helped; I had to find a way to lure him to me before Hayes got him.
A half mile into the second circuit I found something that made the blood pound in my skull; two sets of prints, crisscrossing each other. One set belonged to Hayes' horse, and the other belonged to Sam.
That told me two things, neither of which gave me any great measure of comfort; Hayes had spotted me and was staying close. And Sam was near, somewhere out in the darkening forest.
Sam's tracks were heading northwest. I swung the horse in that direction and bent forward in the saddle, reaching down for the tranquilizer gun.
The boom of the gun's report shattered the stillness, and a shower of splinters ripped at my face as the slug tore into the tree directly behind me. It was followed by a second shot, but I was already huddled down over the horse's neck, urging him on at full speed through the brush. Suddenly the trees were gone and we were floundering in the deep snow at the edge of a clearing.
My head down, I had no warning save for an intense, electrical sensation along my spine a split second before the horse screamed and reared. The reins were jerked out of my hands and I made a grab at the horse's mane, but it was useless; I flew off his back, landing on my side in the snow, half stunned.
I was still gripping the tranquilizer gun, and the bag of bloody meat had fallen off with me, but the rest of my supplies, including the rifle, were still on the horse that was galloping off through the snow.
I sat up and let loose a selected string of obscenities, vowing that I would never again go to see another Western.
I felt his presence before I actually saw him. That presence was very real, yet somehow out of place, like a half-remembered nightmare from childhood. I turned my head slowly, straining to pierce the gathering dusk. Finally I saw him, about thirty yards away, his tawny shape almost hidden by the shadow of the forest.
"Sam," I whispered. "Easy, Sam."
He seemed bigger than I remembered, magnified rather than diminished by the vastness of his surroundings. Thousands of miles away from his native India, crouched in alien snow, he was still, in a very real sense, home, freed from the smells of men and popcorn.
Sam flowed, rather than moved; his belly slid across the snow, and his eyes glittered. I was being stalked.
The snow around me was spattered red from the contents of the broken bag; I was the piece de resistance, sitting in the middle of a pool of beef and chicken blood.